Lori Gottlieb on How to Rewrite Your Life Story and Radically Transform Your Future

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

Observe, the North American dad, 50s, great polo collection. He enters his vehicle information on Carvana, an offer appears in minutes. Remarkable. He squints, reads it again, smiles and says, dang, that's a good offer. The highest form of approval. No haggling, no hassle, no one called him boss.

He's still on the couch, astonishing. Sell your car today on carvana.com.

Pick up fees may apply.

SPEAKER_2 (0:31)

This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever think about switching insurance companies to see if you could save some cash? Progressive makes it easy to see if you could save when you bundle your home and auto policies. Try it at progressive.com. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states.

Lisa Bilyeu (0:51)

Today on Women of Impact, psychotherapist Dr. Lori Gottlieb unveils the honest truth of what actually holds us back in life.

Lori Gottlieb (1:00)

The biggest thing is that you have to give up the hope of having had a better childhood.

Lisa Bilyeu (1:04)

A New York Times bestselling author of Maybe You Should Talk to Someone, she addresses head on why we can't escape our own emotional jail cells.

Lori Gottlieb (1:14)

When we are in pain, we do something that is going to make us suffer instead of something that is going to help us sit with the pain and move through in a more healing kind of process.

Lisa Bilyeu (1:25)

And shares shocking tips about embracing your envy.

Lori Gottlieb (1:29)

Follow your envy. It tells you what you want. It gives you a sense of your desire. It's like women have so much trouble acknowledging their desires.

Lisa Bilyeu (1:38)

So guys, get ready for a mind-blowing dose of reality. With the no BS, doctor and psychotherapist, Lori Gottlieb. You literally just gave me the chills. Welcome to Women of Impact.

Welcome, Lori, to the show.

Lori Gottlieb (2:02)

Well, thank you.

Lisa Bilyeu (2:03)

I'm so excited to have you here. Got so much to talk about. Where I think I want to start is really, let's talk about the unreliable narrator, because that really sets the stage for where we're going to go in the discussion.

Lori Gottlieb (2:18)

Sure.

My book, maybe you should talk to someone is the story of four of my therapy patients as I help them through their struggles. There's a fifth patient and the fifth patient is me as I go to my own therapist to deal with my own struggle. One of the threads throughout the book is this idea of unreliable narrators, that when people come into therapy, they tell you the story of what is going on. They are 100% certain that their version of the story is the accurate version of the story. Now, it's accurate in terms of their perspective, but it's not necessarily the full story. I think that where people get stuck and why they sometimes feel like they don't know where to go, or they feel like something is not working, is because they're missing entire parts of the story. It's almost like I feel like my job as a therapist is to be an editor and to help people to edit these faulty narratives that they come in with.

Lisa Bilyeu (3:17)

So break that down for me then. What are the things that if I'm listening to you right now, I'm like, okay, yep, I get it. Maybe my story is just one perspective. How do we start to change that? What's that first step look like?

Lori Gottlieb (3:32)

Well, I first think there's this misconception that I think people feel like they're coming to therapy to get to know themselves. I feel like people are coming to therapy to get to unknow themselves. By that, I mean to let go of those limiting stories that they're carrying around that are preventing them from really living their lives. And so people come in with stories like, I'm unlovable or I can't trust anyone.

Nothing will ever work out for me, whatever their story is. And that's a story that they picked up long ago that they're still carrying around and it impacts every choice decision behavior that happens during the day.

And so I think that that's really important is sort of unknowing yourself as part of really editing that narrative. Other times, people have part of a story, like I see couples a lot in therapy and you hear one person in the couple telling one version of the story and another person in the couple telling another version of the story. And they were, it's the exact same incident, but they saw it from completely different perspectives. And I think where people can really grow and change and communicate better is to understand and be curious about the other person's part of the story, the other person's perspective. So many times we make assumptions about why somebody acted a certain way or said something to us or did something, and we're completely wrong.