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SDS PODCAST
EPISODE 357:
EMOTIONS,
RELATIONSHIPS,
AND BEING KIND
DURING THE
PANDEMIC
Kirill Eremenko: This is episode number 357 with Behavioral
Relationship Expert, Tracy Crossley.
Kirill Eremenko: Welcome to the SuperDataScience podcast. My name
is Kirill Eremenko, Data Science Coach and Lifestyle
Entrepreneur. And each week, we bring you inspiring
people and ideas to help you build your successful
career in data science. Thanks for being here today.
And now, let's make the complex simple.
Kirill Eremenko: Welcome back to the SuperDataScience Podcast,
everybody. Super pumped to have you back here on
the show. Today's going to be a very different and a
very exciting episode. In this particular session, I
invited my personal life coach. So we're definitely are
not going to be talking about data science, we're going
to be talking about emotions, psychology, and lots of
things to do with mental wellbeing. And why is that?
Why did I decide to invite my personal life coach to the
show? Well, this is because of the current situation in
the whole world where approximately one billion
people, it's mind blowing, one billion people all over
the population of the world are under lockdown due to
the Coronavirus.
Kirill Eremenko: And that has its consequences, not just economical,
financial, career consequences, but also emotional
consequences, psychological consequences. People are
in situations that they no normally deal with, we have
to stay indoors, we might be surrounded by people we
love, but we were not used to spending so much time
with them all the time and that can cause conflicts,
that can cause arguments. On the other hand, some
people might be stuck alone and you're used to seeing
friends or used to having a social life, and you can't
right now and you're feeling isolated, you're feeling
lonely, you're feeling down.
Kirill Eremenko: Some people might be starting to feel depression
setting on, some people might be starting to feel
anxiety and all these negative feelings, negative
experiences that some of us may be going through,
many of us may be going through, and that's why I
invited Tracy to talk about this, how we all individually
and collectively can get through this time better and
come out better people on the other side. And that's
exactly what we focused on. So in today's episode,
you'll hear Tracy's professional opinion on the
questions like, what to do if being stuck at home with
your significant other is making you want to break up
or driving you crazy.
Kirill Eremenko: How to change yourself in time of uncertainty while
letting your partner be themselves. How to deal with
anxiety of the unknown and make this time work for
you. Being isolated from others when you're single and
how to make this time a game changer for you. How to
maintain your social life during this time and build
connections, and many, many other burning questions
that everybody is facing right now. I highly recommend
this episode to everybody. I enjoyed it a lot. And even if
you're not in the space of data science or you know
somebody not in the space of data science who needs
this help, after listening to this episode, please send it
to them so that you can help them through this time
as well, through this difficult time, difficult for all of
us.
Kirill Eremenko: And on that note, let's dive straight into it. I bring to
you, behavioral relationship expert, Tracy Crossley.
Welcome to the SuperDataScience podcast, everybody.
Super pumped to have you back here on the show.
Today, I have none other but my personal life mentor,
Tracy Crossley. Tracy, welcome to the show. How are
you?
Tracy Crossley: I am great. Thank you so much for having me, Kirill. I
love being here.
Kirill Eremenko: It's really a great pleasure of mine and an honor really
because you have a podcast of your own, and I
remember before we met, listening to your podcast and
now I feel starstruck that you're on this podcast. It's
really cool. It's really cool to have you here. How long
have we known each other?
Tracy Crossley: I want to say it's been over a year now at least. Yeah.
Kirill Eremenko: Yeah, I would say so as well. I don't know if I told you
this story, but one of my friends in Brisbane, she, a
long time ago, maybe two or three years ago... We
weren't really friends, she was a friend of my brothers
and I met her, I thought she was a great person, but
we didn't really click, and I didn't really understand
her psychology or her behavioral aspects, that didn't
really mesh well with me and I knew we couldn't be
very good friends. But then a few years passed, maybe
two years passed and I met her again and she was
completely transformed, completely different person,
no more victim, no more blaming, guilting other
people, completely full of light and energy and all
herself.
Kirill Eremenko: And I was so shocked and my brother was shocked as
well. We asked her, "What happened, how'd you
change?" And she said, "Well, I've been listening to this
podcast by Tracy Crossley. You should check it out."
And that's how I found out about your podcast, I
listened to it for a few months and I couldn't wait and
reached out to you for a discovery session. That's
where it all started, I guess.
Tracy Crossley: Wow. I did not know that story. I love that story. That's
great.
Kirill Eremenko: Yeah, I'll definitely pass on this episode to her. She'll
be excited. So for the past year or so, we've been
catching up almost weekly, I would say maybe two,
three times a month on average, and discussing my
favorite topic, Kirill, and Kirill's personal issues. How
would you describe the work that you do so that
people who aren't familiar with your work know a bit
better what to expect from this episode?
Tracy Crossley: There's a couple of things. One is, I work with people
to help them break negative beliefs that they have,
which hinder whatever it is they're trying to be
successful at, whether you're trying to be successful at
being an authentic person, whether you're trying to be
successful in a relationship, whether you're trying to
be successful at work, whatever it happens to be, we
get down deep and we really get into the belief system.
So if you're in a dysfunctional relationship or you're
single and you can't seem to stop being single because
you're afraid or you don't even know the reason, I
basically help people to move on from that. And that is
my specialty.
Kirill Eremenko: Got you. And for me personally, as I told you before
the episode, I was a bit hesitant to... It's a bit
vulnerable to invite your personal coach onto your
podcast, but in light of the situation in the world with
the Coronavirus, there's a lot of things I think that you
can help our audience with overcoming that they
might be struggling with right now. A lot of people are
struggling right now sitting at home in isolation or in
lockdowns, so I thought it's definitely a necessary
thing to do. And while we're on this topic, I wanted to
say that personally for me, my biggest experience with
you has been working through my emotions, my
feelings.
Kirill Eremenko: I'm a person who, I don't feel feelings that well and
don't really deal very well with... Not that I don't deal
with my emotions, I don't even experience emotions
properly, experience feelings properly. A lot of the time
I feel like numb to them or I overanalyze instead of
feeling feelings. And so that's a part you've guided me
through, in my view, very successfully and I've learned
a lot about myself and also relationships. Like when
we started, I was seeing one person and that
relationship... I learned through the coaching with you
and understanding myself better and I understood
what I want from a relationship. Now, I'm in a different
relationship and I feel I've progressed and improved a
lot.
Kirill Eremenko: So definitely I can attest that sessions with you have
been... You definitely have the expertise to walk people
through. How did you learn all this stuff? That's one
thing I don't think I've ever asked you.
Tracy Crossley: Well, I can tell you. Basically, I not only have a degree
in psychology, but my own personal experience really
led me, and it's kind of a long story, but I'll try and
shorten it. But I was reading a book, I had been
recently laid off, and this was back in 2008 when the
whole economy took a dump here in the United States.
And I was reading this book and I thought, "Wow, this
is really interesting." And the book was called The
Wishing Year. And it was fascinating because this
professor at a college in Northern California had
written it and she had not believed in wishing, she
didn't believe in the law of attraction or anything of
that nature. And her book was really fascinating.
Tracy Crossley: It was a year in her life of her wishing and all these
things started happening. Well, I wrote to her, I tend to
write to authors that I like, so I had written to her. And
in her book she'd also mentioned this other book. And
I tend to, if I read a book, I tend to take down all the
titles of books that these authors, other authors,
mention. So one of them happened to be this book
called Calling In The One. And I thought it was
fascinating because my own love life was completely
dysfunctional. And I had a habit of getting out of a
relationship, but not ever being done emotionally
where I'd be attached still and I could never figure out
why.
Tracy Crossley: And then I had a habit of making it into something
bigger and better like, "Maybe this is my soulmate," or
something like that. Anyways so I ended up contacting
the author of the second book, who happened to be
here in LA, and I scheduled an appointment with her.
And at the time I was unemployed and no money, and
I somehow scraped together $300 to go see her
because I thought, "Okay, maybe if I go see this
woman, she's going to help me." But what ended up
happening instead was the session wasn't really
helpful to me at all. But I met her business partner
and they asked me if I could do sales and marketing
because that was my background, if I could do some
sales and marketing for their programs.
Tracy Crossley: And I said, "Sure, no problem." So then I started doing
that, I want to say it was a couple months and they
had a coach training program and they called me and
they said, "We want you to be in our coach training
program." I said, "I don't want to be a coach. How am I
going to make money being a coach? That's ridiculous.
Who wants to do that?" So long story short, they kept
pushing it and finally I took the coach training
program, and when I took it they were saying, "Oh my
gosh, you're like a natural coach. You're great at this."
And the funny part is, I was trained as a love coach,
which at the time my love life was not doing anything.
Kirill Eremenko: So you needed to coach yourself?
Tracy Crossley: I needed to coach myself, but I was really good, I will
say, this at compartmentalizing back then. So my
whole life was falling apart at the time, but during the
hours that I had to coach people, I could do that. I
could separate out my feelings, which isn't necessarily
a good thing unless you're in the middle of like say an
earthquake or your house is on fire. But when it
comes to living your life, you want to be connected to
your emotions, otherwise that's actually a great cause
of anxiety, and I didn't realize it at the time. I could
have suffered so much less had I known the tools that
I ended up gaining later on because I also hired other
mentors to teach me how to do transformative
coaching because it really is transformative
coaching/ontological coaching.
Tracy Crossley: Ontological coaching actually was developed in
Australia.
Kirill Eremenko: What is ontological?
Tracy Crossley: Ontological coaching is mind, body, spirit coaching.
And so it was a mixture of that. And transformative
coaching is basically along the same lines, it has a
psychological basis to it. In fact, one of my mentors
was a professor at a graduate psychology school here
in California. So I started picking that up, I learned
things in my own life and my own experiences because
I had a lot of growing to do myself, and that's pretty
much how it began and how it went.
Kirill Eremenko: Wow. Fantastic. Fantastic. So you've been doing this
for many years, like 10 years or so?
Tracy Crossley: I've been doing this since 2008, so 12 years.
Kirill Eremenko: 12 years. All right. Well, I guess let's dig in to a couple
of things. The main issue right now, how do you see
this whole situation right now with Coronavirus, of
course it's very important to preserve life and
healthcare systems, that's why everybody's staying at
home to make sure that we flatten this curve. But at
the same time, that has consequences. Of course,
there's economic consequences, we have a huge stock
market crash and businesses are going out of
business, people losing jobs.
Kirill Eremenko: But at the same time it has, what at the start may
have seemed as hidden consequences, now I think is
quite evident to many people that staying at home and
isolation can be very traumatic for such a long period
of time, whether you're by yourself or you are with
your family members. What are your thoughts on that,
and why is it so traumatic?
Tracy Crossley: Well, a couple of reasons it's so traumatic. First of all,
you don't have a choice. Most of us feel the freedom of
choice usually, and when it's taken away from you, it
makes you feel almost like you're a prisoner to the
circumstances. And of course, if you're watching the
news, which makes it far worse because now you're
feeding into, "Okay, what's happening and could this
happen to me?" There's all sorts of mixed emotions
and then of course you have that going on. But the
problem most people have if they're stuck at home,
let's say with another person or their family members,
they're not used to spending this amount of time with
them.
Tracy Crossley: And if you're in the house, what ends up happening is
all sorts of issues are going to crop up, the way you
live, the way you do things. It starts to be where
maybe your partner or family member or whoever it
happens to be can be very nitpicky, so you may want
to escape them because I know at least for me, like I
have a lot of introverted qualities and I'm really good at
entertaining myself, and I have a husband too who's
pretty much the same way. We're great, we're fine. But
those people that are more, let's say extroverted are
going to struggle because you get in your head and
you start thinking all sorts of things.
Tracy Crossley: You can get into the doom and gloom or you can feel
like this is going to go on forever or you're never going
to be outside again with your friends or going out or
doing travel or whatever it is that you enjoy doing, and
so there's a limitation again. And so people tend to
react to limitation rather than being curious and
understanding, "Hey, this is a great time." In plagues
in the past, you have Newton who discovered gravity,
you have all sorts of people who have been able to, I
don't want to say pivot because I think that's an
overused word, but to put their energy into a positive
place or a creative place or a curious place.
Tracy Crossley: And what happens instead for people is they can get
into a state of anxiety and worry and feeling like the
world is going to collapse or their world's going to
collapse, and so that obviously has emotional
outcomes with that. And if you're living alone, you can
feel even more alone and you can feel totally
disconnected, and that can make you feel depressed, it
can make you feel heavy, it can make you feel
unmotivated. There's things you can do, but the point
is, it's to even recognize what's going on with yourself
and not avoid it and not distract. It's to go, "Okay, I'm
feeling this way," and to be with that.
Kirill Eremenko: Yeah. I had this thought a few days ago that this virus
as much as it is terrible and destructive on many
levels to societies, economies, people. At the same
time, it's like a reality check for all of us where we've
been using our busy-ness, our occupations, our
external social adventures and lives to distract
ourselves from facing who we truly are internally, and
now that we have to face who we are and there is no
escape, that's when a lot of issues come on. We've got
a couple of questions that, thank you, you helped
prepare and you actually came up with all of these
great topics for discussion.
Kirill Eremenko: So I think let's go through them one by one and see
how people can help themselves in these times, what
tools you can equip them with. Does that sound right?
Tracy Crossley: Yeah, that sounds great.
Kirill Eremenko: Okay. So question number one is, what to do if you're
being stuck at home with your significant other and
this whole process of being stuck together at home is
making you to want to break up or is driving you
insane? I think we're starting to hear stories of that on
the news, we probably all have friends who are going
through this experience or even ourselves. What do
people do in these situations? You love the person in
normal life, everything's great, but being stuck
together is causing a lot of conflict. What should
people do?
Tracy Crossley: So, first of all, like I was saying a few minutes ago, it's
relatable because most people don't recognize what
triggers them until you're in a situation where you're
sharing a home and you're not leaving the home and
so what it is that triggers you about that person, it's
on steroids, it's multiplied. And so, one of the things
you want to pay attention to is your own reactions.
"Why am I having this reaction in the first place?" It's a
great time to try and grow yourself, actually, instead of
going, "Should I break up with this person or let them
drive me crazy?" It's, "Why is this person driving me
crazy? What is it about me that I am feeling completely
triggered by them?"
Tracy Crossley: Because we are all doing the best we can, which
sometimes isn't that great. And so when you're
basically in lockdown with this person, you may tend
to blame them for how you feel, and you have to
recognize you're responsible for your own feelings. And
that's why it's a great opportunity to dig inside and go,
"What's happening inside of me emotionally that's
making me feel this way? Maybe I'm already scared or
maybe I'm already on edge." Or something is
happening emotionally and you want to know what
that is and then what's being triggered on top of it so
that you're blaming your spouse or your significant
other.
Tracy Crossley: And the thing is too, you married them or you're with
them for a reason and you don't want to forget that.
But at the same time, again, it's about taking that
responsibility for yourself and really looking at what
you can do. The other thing to involve them is, you can
have a conversation with them. If you've ever noticed,
asking somebody to stop a certain behavior really
doesn't work because a lot of times people aren't really
aware of their behaviors all the time, especially
something they've been doing their whole life, and so
you can bring it up and say, "When you do A, I have
the reaction of B. I know I can't ask you to stop, but
I'm sharing this with you so that you're aware of it, so
that if you see me reacting or I seem intense or
anxious or on edge, you're going to know that's what's
happening for me."
Tracy Crossley: You can share this, you can communicate, and it
should go both ways.
Kirill Eremenko: Yeah. I love what you said, and that's one of the
biggest things that I've learned from you in our time
together, that you are responsible for your own
feelings. The whole phrase that, "You are making me
feel like this and that because of your actions. I feel
bad, I feel terrible because of you." That phrase doesn't
have any sense to it because feelings... The way I see it
is feelings come, they can come up in our bodies. You
might feel fear or hatred or you might feel curiosity,
you might feel joy, whatever else, in a split second
because you're just triggered by something or
something happens around you, and that's just the
nature of things.
Kirill Eremenko: Do you wallow in it? Do you let it fester? If it's fear, do
you hold onto that fear? If it's hatred, do you harbor
that hatred? If it's joy, do you prolong that joy? Or, do
you let it go? Somebody once to gave me this example
of, it's like if you throw a pebble into water and you see
the ripples, that's what a feelings should be like, the
ripples should appear and then they should go away,
you should let go of them, whereas sometimes people
choose to hold on to feelings. And I've been there, I've
torn through feelings for a day, a week or like a few
hours or longer, and like negative feelings because,
there's many reasons that maybe gives you
significance, that brings attention to you, that makes
you feel important, and other reasons like that.
Kirill Eremenko: So that's probably a great first step, that if
something... And I'm not a psychologist, I'm just trying
to summarize what I've learned from you and what
we're discussing here, is that if somebody is triggering
for instance for me, I'll talk about myself, right now,
I'm in lockdown with my girlfriend. And for us, it's
quite different, we're different personalities. I'm an
introvert, she's an extrovert. So there are triggers
between us occasionally. Maybe I will need some time
alone, and that might trigger her to think that maybe I
don't want to be with her specifically, whereas I just
need time alone.
Kirill Eremenko: Or maybe she'll want a time together and that might
trigger me as if she's overstepping my boundaries. So
whenever I'm triggered, I ask myself the question,
"Why am I feeling this?" And then I make sure or I
prompt myself to take responsibility for those feelings
to definitely not put it on the other person. The other
person has nothing to do with what I'm feeling inside
my body, it's my choice.
Kirill Eremenko: Hey everybody, hope you're enjoying this amazing
episode. This is a quick announcement and we'll get
right back to it. We are hiring at SuperDataScience.
With the recent pandemic and the Coronavirus, we all
know how a lot of people have lost their jobs and their
source of income, so hopefully this will be a breath of
fresh air for some people out there. We are 100 percent
remote team, we all work online, we're continuing to
grow and I just literally just published 10 new
positions at SuperDataScience, which might be
suitable to you, and even if they're not suitable to you,
check them out.
Kirill Eremenko: They're Superdatascience.com/careers. Check them
out and send them to somebody you know who may
have been displaced by this pandemic and all the
lockdowns, who may have lost their job and source of
income, you could change their life. We are creating
opportunities for people to do their best work, to
contribute, to create amazing products and create
amazing experiences for people studying data science.
Here are some of the positions that have just been
released, a VP of marketing, product designer, general
manager, VP of sales, junior media creator, sales
representative, B2B events sales representative, event
marketer, B2B sales representative and marketing
strategist.
Kirill Eremenko: And those are just some of the initial positions that we
have available right now, more will come soon. So keep
an eye out at Superdatascience.com/careers. Maybe
we'll even post that data scientist position in the near
future, but even if none of these are relevant to you
specifically, if you know somebody who's in marketing
or in sales or who's a great general manager, or who's
great at creating amazing products in education and
learning experiences, or who's great at running events
or somebody who is amazing at creating animated
videos. If you know any of these people, any people
with the right talents and skills, please send them this
link Superdatascience.com/careers. This could change
their life or career, especially in these difficult times.
Thank you very much for your help, and let's get right
back to it.
Kirill Eremenko: So I think that's a very good first step. What else can
people do in situations like that?
Tracy Crossley: Well, they want to recognize that if they are blaming
their partner, that they are a victim and they have no
power, because if you're ever waiting for somebody else
to change or to accommodate your feelings, you are
going to feel bad. But, you also may be used to being a
victim and it may be something that you use as, I don't
want to say a power tool, but a lot of times when
people are feeling sorry for themselves or feeling bad,
or in this instance where you have been, I don't want
to say trapped against your will, but in a sense you're
trapped against your will, you tend to go to the
patterns of behavior. There's something called the
drama triangle that means you have the victim, you
have the rescuer, and you have the persecutor.
Tracy Crossley: And it really does go through our whole society and we
don't realize it's a relationship dynamic. And so people
in a relationship, and this only takes two people,
doesn't mean three just because it's a triangle, but we
tend to switch positions and it's another point of
recognition of, "How do I victimize myself in this
relationship and make the other person the
persecutor?" And then I expect them to rescue me from
my victim position. So we can feel there's some sense
of power in it, but it's really powerless because it
means other people have to do something.
Tracy Crossley: So you never want it, your emotional state, you never
want it to be where you're expecting anybody to do
anything for you because that expectation means that
you're always going to have a focus on what the other
person isn't doing for you or doing right or is doing
wrong. They're impacting you in some way where
you've set yourself up to fail in that way.
Kirill Eremenko: Wow, fantastic. And that's a great segue to a topic
number two, changing yourself in a time of
uncertainty while letting your partner be themselves. I
find it quite a difficult thing to work on yourself while
at the same time not pushing other person to work on
themselves while just leaving them alone and focusing
on yourself. What are your comments on that? How do
you accomplish this growth while letting the other
person be themselves?
Tracy Crossley: I think that it's such a great time because I can use
my own life as an example. So how I decided when this
went down, when first of all we heard about the
COVID-19 and I decided, "Okay, I am not going to
handle this in a way that I would have handled it years
ago where it would have been heavy and I would have
felt victimized myself by it." I don't feel victimized really
by anything at this point, but I noticed that I made a
conscious decision that I was going to use this time to
be curious and to grow myself, meaning, how can I do
that? Well, here's a great example of that. When let's
say I see the news and I don't watch the news, I
stopped watching the news many years ago, I don't
like my emotions manipulated by outside sources and
so I tend to get my information from let's say non news
places usually.
Tracy Crossley: So if I have a reaction to that. Okay. Any reaction I
have to something is an opportunity for growth
because if it's, let's say a negative reaction and I feel
myself, let's say getting angry or I feel myself getting
sad or I feel something that feels like a negative
consequence, I can jump into that feeling and be with
it and go, "Where does this originate from? Why am I
being triggered again in this way? Why is it that this
piece of information is doing that?" And then I can look
at, "Well, maybe I feel a loss of control. I don't feel safe.
I feel bad because maybe I'm a person who's doing
something wrong or I think I'm doing something
wrong." I look for whatever my reaction is and then I
go through that fear because it's a fear-based reaction,
and I go through the fear, the feelings of the fear, and I
make a different choice.
Tracy Crossley: And it's hard to do right off the cuff, but the more you
get connected to your own feelings and understand
your own reactions, you can actually start changing
your reactions, and it allows you to grow as a person.
You can have more compassion for yourself, you can
have more compassion for the person living with you
because now you're not in a state of reaction. A lot of
times we don't realize it, but let's say you listen to the
news and then you go talk to your significant other
and you don't realize your feelings are all amped up
and you're in a reactionary state, and now you're
bringing something from another place into your
relationship and you're both reacting to it because now
you're probably coming across to your partner in a
way, maybe you're being aggressive or maybe you're
upset or whatever you happen to be, and your partner
is going to have a reaction to that.
Tracy Crossley: So it's really about paying attention to that and
understanding that each of you in this situation, both
have choices and you want to be able to honor your
own choices. And I'm talking about inside of the
relationship and your partner to honor their choices.
And it's to be curious, of course, when things happen.
So as things happen outside of us, we hear the news,
"Oh it's spreading," or, "Oh it hasn't peaked," or
whatever about the virus, we can tend to ride that
roller coaster as another example. And so you again
want to have the self-awareness and you want to look
at, another thing you can look at besides your reaction
is your resistance.
Tracy Crossley: So we tend to get into a state of struggle when we don't
like something, every time something happens, "We
need to go fight this." Well, you don't have to fight
yourself, but we tend to fight ourselves by resisting
what is happening in reality. So it is a place of
accepting what is happening rather than struggling
with what's happening. The more you can accept it,
the easier you're going to be to live with. But
acceptance isn't something you can snap your fingers
and go, "Wow, I can accept that this is happening." It's
a feeling exercise. Again, it's a state of, "I'm resisting
the fact that I'm stuck like this." And you may struggle
with this all day long and it comes out in how you
treat your partner. It comes out in how you treat your
life.
Tracy Crossley: And instead of doing that, it's to recognize it, be with
the feelings of resistance, and then accept, "This is
what's happening, this right here. I have no control
over it and I have to accept it." And this is all, again, a
feeling exercise.
Kirill Eremenko: I was talking to our company coach, the person who
coaches our team, and he actually mentioned a very
beautiful thing. He said that the word surrender,
surrender to an experience, to a situation, the
circumstances, that's I guess as a form of accepting
them actually has beautiful meaning when you think
about it. It's just accepting what it is and accepting
whatever comes out of it without struggling and
resisting it. And yeah, I think that's a good... it's on
par with what we're talking about here, so it's great to
hear this from two different sources.
Kirill Eremenko: Now, when you were talking, you mentioned a couple
of times that to work with your partner or work with
your significant other, about not reacting to the news
or to these other things, somebody listening to this
podcast might make the conscious decision to follow
the advice you're giving and to actually work on
themselves and use this time to understand their
emotions, understand what's triggering them,
understand how they can be a better person. How
would you recommend for somebody to talk to their
partner, to get them on board as well, to convince
them or to even bring up the idea to, "Hey, let's use
this time to grow together"? Of course, that person can
grow on their own and just leave their significant other
to be themselves, but I think it could be great to grow
together. How would you suggest bringing up this idea
of growing together?
Tracy Crossley: Okay. If you're coming out of, I don't want to say left
field with this, where you don't communicate in a
manner that let's say, is positive in your relationship,
so you have to back it up a bit and you would need to
look at how do I communicate to my partner? Do I
communicate in a loving manner? And this is for
anybody who really doesn't communicate or if you're
already communicating from a loving place, then it's
much easier, but it's really to come from the feeling of
love for that person rather than the feeling of they're
going to be the loser in the argument, you're going to
be the winner or there has to be two different sides.
Tracy Crossley: And a lot of times people tend to, in relationships, not
really be on the same team. So it's really establishing
that first like, "Hey, I really would love for us to be on
the same team as we go through this, be partners in
this. What do you think?" It's always to ask, it's not to
tell. When you tell someone what to do, nobody likes
that. I don't know any person who wants to be told,
"This is what we're going to do." The other thing you
can say besides I'd love to be in partnership doing this
and so let's establish what that looks like. What do
you think that should look like? It's again, asking
questions, being curious, being able to listen.
Tracy Crossley: You cannot convince someone again, by telling them
and you can't convince them even if you do ask these
questions, what if they don't handle it that way? What
if they really are a ball of worry or they really can't
seem to focus on doing anything productive in terms of
connection with you, in terms of growing the
relationship or having a common bond. They may be
so isolating with their emotions that they're shut
down. And so you still can't force them, but you can be
compassionate. And so these are steps by the way that
really do grow you as a person because the more
compassionate you can be for yourself and for them, it
just makes you feel better. And that's really all you
have control of is making you feel better, but if you feel
better, you're going to treat other people better.
Tracy Crossley: So that's really all you can do because again, you don't
want to tell the person that you're with what they're
doing wrong. You don't want to tell them what you
think they need to do to improve or how they should
change or what they should be. All you can do is say
how you feel and what you would love to see happen
between the two of you, but you have to say it also
from that place of not forcing that outcome.
Kirill Eremenko: And if they don't accept it, that's okay as well, you can
always work on yourself.
Tracy Crossley: Exactly. You can never force somebody to change, you
can never force them to get on board with you, it
doesn't work.
Kirill Eremenko: Speaking of being on the same team, my girlfriend and
I started this interesting practice where every time
now, or almost every time we have a meal, we aim not
to sit opposite each other because somebody told me
about this study that sitting opposite each other at a
table, like for instance in negotiations, is the most
adversarial type of positioning of two people that you're
going to come up with. It's better to sit on the corner,
so one person sits on one side of the corner, the other
person sits another side of corner, but the ultimate
best is if you're sitting both on the same side of the
table and you're looking in the same direction.
Kirill Eremenko: So like before the lock downs, we would go to
restaurants, we would specifically look at tables where
we could sit near each other, maybe on a couch or just
on a bench. And now when we're having dinner at
home because we're cooking most of the time, we
make sure to put the place on the same side of the
table, so we're sitting on the same side. And that
promotes the idea that we're not opposite each other,
but that we're on the same side, we're on the same
team.
Tracy Crossley: I like that. I tend to sit next to my husband. It's funny
you say that because it made me think about when we
go out and we're always sitting next to each other,
unless there's no choice, unless there's only one chair
on one side or one on the other, we usually choose a
booth so we can sit next to each other.
Kirill Eremenko: Yeah. And after you do that for a while, it even starts
feeling weird to sit opposite each other.
Tracy Crossley: It does. Yeah, I agree with you. That's an interesting...
I've never heard of that before, so that's pretty
interesting to me. Makes sense.
Kirill Eremenko: Yeah. All right. Let's move on to somebody who is
single, somebody who is by themselves and they're
isolated. And being an introvert, for instance, in
December, I was working on a big project, I was
recording a video course like this past December, and I
spent the whole month by myself out of choice just
because I needed to focus a lot. And I caught up with
my brother occasionally, but predominantly, like 95%
of the time I was all by myself, and I found it
absolutely fine except for by the end of 30 days, I was
starting to go a little bit insane. I was starting to talk
to myself out loud and even as an introvert, I could feel
this is taking a toll.
Kirill Eremenko: I can only imagine how difficult, I probably can't even
imagine how difficult it would be for an extrovert right
now, somebody who's not used to being by themselves
to be in isolation for so many days without any social
experiences. So how can people who are single and
isolated make this time a game changer for them as
well?
Tracy Crossley: There's a few different ways that they can do that, one
is to evaluate if they're happy to begin with. A lot of
times because we can get into the program of life
where we're just doing the same thing every day, and
then now we've had a disruption to that program. And
so it's to really evaluate, "What do I want for myself?
This is such a great opportunity, what do I really want
for myself?" Maybe you really want a relationship or
maybe you are thinking, "Okay, I want to start dating
because I haven't dated in years or months or what
have you." So it's a great time to go, "Okay, I want to
start dating or I want a relationship." So it's an
opportunity to go, "How can I grow myself today?"
Tracy Crossley: Well, it goes back to what I was saying earlier, you
want to look at what resistance do you have to it?
What is your fear if you're single of connecting to
someone else right now? Because you can do it
virtually. You can also do things from a place of social
distancing. I guess it depends on where you live. You
could meet, but you could be six feet away, like I saw a
guy, actually, I thought this is so cute and some
people might think it's creepy, but he saw this woman
on the rooftop, I think it was in New York. and he saw
her on the rooftop and he had his drone deliver his
phone number to her. And it was creative, but what he
did was, they started talking.
Tracy Crossley: And then, I don't know if it was her first date, I think it
was her first date, he sat on his patio and she was on
the rooftop and they had their roommates help them
by being the waiter or waitress, I guess to their dinner.
And then they were on the phone, FaceTiming each
other. They could see each other. So it was quite a
distance, obviously, but that was being creative, and
that was a desire to step out. And this guy had not
dated in a long time and he had just seen her and
something about what she was doing on the rooftop,
she was dancing on the rooftop, I think that's what it
was. Anyways, you want to look for inspiration at the
same time.
Tracy Crossley: Use the internet, use your family, use your friends to
communicate and be authentic and honest, don't hide
your feelings. Part of what we try to do is we try to
sound like we're feeling better than we are or we can
sound like we're completely out of control, but for most
introverts, we're usually trying to sound better than we
are because we usually tend to tamp down our
emotions and not connect to them and really stay in
our heads and do things, read a book or do whatever.
But it's really about connecting to your emotions and
sharing that with another human being because that's
how you establish a bond with people is being
vulnerable and being open and honest in that way.
And even if you go on a dating app or I guess it would
be a dating app at this point, so you go on a dating
app, it's really about connecting in a very vulnerable,
authentic way.
Tracy Crossley: And if somebody rejects you, it isn't any worse than if
they reject you and you're not being vulnerable, when
you're being vulnerable, you can actually recover
quicker. A lot of us have that Impostor syndrome,
going on where we tend to try and portray ourselves as
someone different other than who we are because we
think who we really are is going to be rejected, but it's
actually easier to be rejected for being who you are
than being a caricature of who you are. So it's really
an opportunity to take down those walls and just be
you and understand that, let's say you do start doing
online dating, and it's like the courtship evolve where
you're just communicating with somebody online and
yet you're establishing some communication and
maybe you're being honest and open, and it feels good.
Well, that's connection.
Kirill Eremenko: That was a beautiful story about how they met
through supplying a number through a drone. There's
lots of places where people can connect online, for
instance, like virtual events are becoming more and
more popular because many events had to cancel their
physical events and they had to start virtual events. So
that could be one way of meeting people, and they
have this like networking component in some cases.
And more creative ideas, people are going to start
coming up with more creative ideas, things we haven't
seen before because we hadn't experienced this
situation before. And I'm sure even at the time this
podcast goes out, which is in a few weeks from now,
there's going to be even more opportunities for people
to socialize online.
Kirill Eremenko: So while right now off the top of my head I can't come
up with, apart from virtual events and flying around
with drones, if it's legal of course, I can't come up with
other ideas, I'm sure there's going to be more. So have
a look out on the internet, it's definitely not the end of
the world in the sense of that you can still meet
people. Tracy, do you know any other ways people can
maintain social life during this time of isolation?
Tracy Crossley: Well, there is. You can definitely get in your car and
you could go and be, I don't want to say six feet apart,
but you can go, and I've seen people gathering in
groups like that where they're in a neighborhood as an
example and everybody's on their driveway, they're not
near each other. So you could do something like that. I
believe hiking as long as you could be, again six feet
apart, but I don't want to, again, depending on where
people live, there is different experiences of lock down
right now. So that was one way. Getting on the phone
and talking on the phone is another way. I would also
recommend, again, taking the time though, and this is
something that I did a long time ago and that was
when I decided that I really wanted to have a real
relationship with someone because I was single on and
off for a long time, and I decided, "Okay, I want to have
a relationship."
Tracy Crossley: I realized that I had things standing in the way of that,
mainly fear. And so I really started to work on my fear
and I would challenge myself every day, "What can I do
to get out of my comfort zone?" And that's really what
you have to do because a lot of us are in a comfort
zone and we don't realize it, we're doing the same
patterns of behavior and it's really stepping outside of
that that's uncomfortable. So if you shy away, let's say
from internet dating or you shy away from joining
things online, it's really to step up and do it. There's a
lot of opportunities, like you were saying, and people
are having virtual cocktail parties and if you get
invited to one, maybe you'll meet somebody on there or
at least you're going to have some kind of interaction
with other people.
Tracy Crossley: And it's really to keep stepping out of your own
comfort zone and get uncomfortable, that's the key. If
you get uncomfortable, you know you're changing
something. If it's just easy for you to do, you're not
really changing anything. So I look at it that way,
that's what I do. Right now, I've made choices not
necessarily to do with, because I'm not single, I'm
married, but more to do with my work rather than my
personal relationship because my personal
relationship already have this kind of foundation that
I've been talking about anyways. And so I'm not having
issues with my husband, but when it comes to being a
single person and feeling isolated, you have to take the
steps to get out of your own way.
Kirill Eremenko: Absolutely. Your mention of cocktail parties reminded
me I've been meaning to invite... My girlfriend and I
would discuss that we want to, invite our friends,
actually Vitaly, he's been on this podcast, Vitale and
his wife to a dinner. The only challenge there is that
they're in Australia, we're in the England right now
and the time difference is about like I think nine hours
or so or 10 hours. So if we are going to be having
dinner, they're going to be having breakfast, if they're
going to be having breakfast, we're going to be having
dinner. So it'll be funny. It'll be funny. Okay, great.
Now, moving back to relationships, I think based on
your topics, and I would agree with this, is your belief
that taking responsibility for yourself can change
almost in your relationship. Would you care to
elaborate a bit on that? How does taking responsibility
for yourself change in your relationship?
Tracy Crossley: That goes back to what I was saying earlier about the
Drama Triangle and being a victim, a lot of people go
into a relationship expecting the other person take
care of their feelings. And the problem with that is
nobody at all can take any care of your feelings if
you're not taking care of them to begin with. So it's
almost like going in and saying, "I don't care about my
feelings, but you need to care about my feelings." And
that's how a lot of people go in and it doesn't work, it
really creates a divide between you and the other
person because you have an expectation that's going
to be unfulfilled. Even if, let's say, in the beginning it
seemed like, "Oh my gosh, I was getting all this
attention and this person was acting in ways that
made me happy."
Tracy Crossley: That was still a choice back then to look to the other
person for your happiness or look to the other person
to fulfill the need of your feelings, whatever your
feelings were, instead of looking to yourself because
again, somebody is going to disappoint you that way.
Nobody's going to be able to keep up the level of
attention, and I'm all about when you start dating
people to just be your authentic self and don't go over
the top and don't try to prove or don't try to chase or
don't try to do these things that are really over and
above. It's really to be yourself so that when you're in a
relationship with someone, there's never an
expectation for you to be someone else.
Tracy Crossley: But, going back to the responsibility part, it's really
about a sense of freedom you get from that because
when you realize that you're responsible for how you
feel, you're responsible for what you do, what you
think and what you say, those four things. If you're
responsible for those things, then you get to be in
control of yourself, you get to control your own
emotional state rather than looking at someone else to
control it for you, because that's what we do a lot of
the time, we're looking at our partner and saying, "Oh,
you need to do this for me. You need to do that for
me." We're setting ourselves up to basically put them
in control of us. And that's really, again, a victim
position.
Tracy Crossley: So you want to make sure, what can I take
responsibility for? Well, let me stop complaining to my
partner that they don't pay attention to me. Why don't
I pay attention to me? What can I do to give myself
attention? What is it I need? And sometimes for a lot of
us, especially in a busy world, sometimes it's just to sit
for a few minutes and be still with yourself.
Meditation's great and I'm a big proponent of it, but at
the same time, it's really about what you're doing to
connect to yourself. So the more connected you are to
yourself, the better you're going to feel and the less
you're going to make someone else responsible for your
feelings. And then it goes back to also what you
communicate, and if you're truthful and you're honest
about your feelings, it's all of that.
Tracy Crossley: It's if you say something to your partner and you take
full responsibility for what you say or you do
something, you take full responsibility. You don't go,
"Well, you did this, so I did that." It doesn't work,
because that just creates a dynamic of being on the
battlefield with somebody, then you're not being in
partnership. It's about being that person because what
starts to happen is, the other person will feel less
pressure, they're going to feel something's changed,
they're going to notice they have more freedom. They're
not walking on the egg shells waiting to be criticized,
because that's what we do and we are putting all the
responsibility on someone else for how we feel or what
we think they should do or what we think they should
say.
Tracy Crossley: It's really about taking it back yourself and you start
to feel better, so you're feeling better because now
you're paying attention to yourself, you're giving to
yourself, whether it's attention or you're doing things
in a self-care manner or maybe you stop people
pleasing, you stop trying to be perfect. We do all these
things in relationships because we're trying to hold
onto somebody rather than just being ourselves and
letting go of the things that we do that aren't really us.
And then the expectation of course, that you have of
someone else, when you let go of your own
expectations of yourself, the expectations you have of
someone else, they also change. And so the other
person can feel that there's less pressure, that other
person can feel better.
Tracy Crossley: And even if you guys still don't get along in a great
way, you're both still going to feel better because now
there's not that pressure or that hook that you've got
to do something, you need to make me feel better. It's
not there.
Kirill Eremenko: I really liked what you said about that the other
person, if you do your part, if you improve yourself,
the other person will definitely feel what's going on
and, well, they feel something's going on there. And
they might even become curious, they might ask you
like, "What is going on? How are you working on
yourself?" And they might also start working on
themselves. So that's very cool thing. I wanted to ask
you your opinion on something. At the start we were
talking about the situations where you're like, things
get really tense where people start maybe feeling, "This
might not be the right person for me, I want to break
up," and so on. And a lot of it is to do, of course with
the current situation that we're in, but in these
emotionally heated situations, it can be very difficult to
think rationally and people might say things that they
will later regret or that will cause consequences that
they actually don't want, including breaking up and
divorce and so on.
Kirill Eremenko: Some idea that we had with my girlfriend is, and I
wanted to get your opinion on this, we haven't
discussed this before, so a bit of coaching on the
podcast. So the idea we had was, we sat down and we
talked, maybe we had a bit of some debate about
something, nothing serious to the extent that like, "Oh,
we want to break up." Or, "You're not the right person
for me." Thank God, but we realized that in these
circumstances, things are going to be different. We are
going to be exposed to each other more and we're going
to be exposed to each other's feelings and our own
feelings, we are going to work on this, we are
committed to work on this, but there'll be times when
we will have arguments and we will have
misunderstandings.
Kirill Eremenko: And so when we sat down a few days ago and we
agreed that we're not going to threaten each other to
leave the relationship, we're going to commit to this
relationship for the next 60 days, no questions asked,
fully and entirely, and work on it as much as we're
going to work on ourselves, discuss things and be
brutally honest with each other, but knowing that
we're secure that everything is going to be... We are
committed to work, we're not going to just throw
around these phrases that, "Oh, maybe this is not the
right thing." No, we're going to be committed. And then
after 60 days, we're going to sit down, maybe together,
maybe individually and evaluate for ourselves, "How
do we feel? Is this something that we truly want? Is
this something we want to continue doing?"
Kirill Eremenko: And if indeed the answer is yes for both of us, then
we'll do it again and maybe commit to a longer period
of time, depending on the situation in the world,
depending on what's going on, what circumstances
we're in. So we found this safeguard quite useful for us
because that way, it removes out additional stress,
you're the fear, that you can't say absolute brutal
honesty because other person might misunderstand
you and just explode and leave or whatever else. And
yeah, I just wanted to get your opinion, do you think
that's a good practice or you would suggest something
else?
Tracy Crossley: Well, it depends on if your brutal honesty is an
opinion. So opinions, everybody has them and it comes
from your perception. So if you have an opinion about
something, that's your perception. Does it mean it's
right? No. Doesn't mean it's wrong? No. It's your
perception. So I think when you are being brutally
honest that it's not about, "You know, you should do
this or you should do that." We tend to tell other
people what to do, again, going back to telling people
things like that, and that's not really to me helpful in
the long run. It's better, again, to say what's going on
for you, and maybe that's how you guys are speaking,
I don't know, but it's better to say what's actually
happening for you, "I feel this way." A lot of I
statements, "I feel this way. I don't know why, I'm
trying to figure it out."
Tracy Crossley: And I say things, like if my husband triggers me, I will
say, "Okay. I am triggered." I have the wherewithal to
know that. Does it mean that sometimes we won't have
a spat? No, it doesn't necessarily stop the spat from
happening, it can still happen because when you have
a lot of intense emotions from let's say, the current
situation we're under, you can go and be snappy, but
is that really truly authentic? Is that really truly being
brutally honest? No, that's expressing, you're feeling
intense, but you're not really saying, "I feel intense and
this is what's happening." And a lot of times when
we're in a spat, we're arguing. And so we don't really
argue very much because we catch ourselves and we
go, "Okay. What is going on with me?"
Tracy Crossley: And so again, the brutal honesty can be like, "Okay,
I'm going to share something," because I'm one of
those people that I can't stand to listen to people chew,
I can't handle it, my brain just loses it. So I married a
man who's like the loudest chewer ever, and so I tend
to use humor. And he knows, I've shared it with him.
And I can't say, "Stop chewing your food." It's not like
he's chewing his food and his mouth is open and food
is falling out or anything like that, it's literally, he just
chews loudly. So I really can't ask him to do anything
different and nor would I?
Kirill Eremenko: Stop eating food, only liquids.
Tracy Crossley: Those are loud too by the way. And so what I do is,
sometimes I'll make funny faces or whatever because
he knows and then he'll do something funny and we
make it funny. And we use a lot of humor in our
relationship because it's not so much that you want to
always be digging deep, it's that you want to be also
human. So I think that what you guys are doing, it can
be great as long as it's not critical and as long as the
other person isn't taking it personally and trying to
walk on eggshells to accommodate your feelings.
Kirill Eremenko: Great advice. Thank you. Thank you, Tracy. I think we
should wrap up here. We are getting to the end and I
wanted to, of course, ask you just some questions
about like, first of all, do you have any final thoughts,
final recommendations for people in this time, maybe
something we haven't covered. What's something that
you could wish to our audience in this difficult time?
Tracy Crossley: I would say the number one thing is to be kind, to be
kind to yourself, and if you are around other people, to
be kind to them. Everybody may feel like their
emotions are hair trigger right now, and so the best
thing you can do when you get up in the morning,
before you even get out of bed is to check in first of all
with your feelings, "How am I feeling?" If you feel fear,
just let yourself feel it in your body, get in your
physical body, feel the fear, let it run its course, which
usually only takes seconds. I rarely have had it last
more than a minute because usually you'll find that
once you start connecting to your feelings, you're able
to let go of them and move on to other things.
Tracy Crossley: And the next thing I do, it's about, what can I do to be
kinder myself today? What would be a kind act for me
today? And you feel better when you're doing uplifting
activities for yourself even if you're stuck in the house,
you feel better. You feel connected to yourself, you feel
good. And I say that that's the basis of self-care, it is
not to do things against yourself. If you get up and
let's say that you've been hanging out in your
refrigerator this whole time, like, "Okay, I'm going to go
and eat the worst foods in the world for me." And then
you're going to feel even worse. So it's really be
mindful, it's not to say, you can't have something that
tastes good, but there's this dealing with your
emotions, but not eating your way through your
emotions, is an example of being kind to yourself.
Tracy Crossley: It's to really try to be aware of what you're doing and
what you're saying and how you're acting. And you
can't be obviously self-aware 24/7, but the more
awareness you can have of your own actions, because
you might automatically be sitting on the couch and
go, "I'm going to go get something to eat," and find
yourself in the refrigerator. And before you know it,
you're gobbling down, I don't know, a cold pizza or
something. And the point is that, you really want to
become aware, "Why am I going to the kitchen? Am I
feeling a sense of emptiness? Maybe I can just sit here
with myself for a few minutes. Maybe I'm trying to fill
up the space and eat my emotions," instead of be with
your emotions. So those are just some things that I
would say, but it's at the basis of being kind or being
compassionate with yourself.
Kirill Eremenko: Fantastic. Thank you. Thank you very much for that
lovely message. Tracy, where can our listeners find you
and interact with your work in case they want to
further learn more about themselves and grow
further?
Tracy Crossley: They can go to tracycrossley, all one word, .com, and
they can go to, there's Work With Me page. And so
there's different levels of working with me and you can
send me a message through there. An easier way to do
it, once you've been to my website and maybe you're
not sure what you want to do, just send me an email
at [email protected], and we can set up a
short time to have a chat and see how I can best help
you.
Kirill Eremenko: Fantastic. So Tracy's spelled, T-R-A-C-Y, and Crossley
has double S, C-R-O-S-S-L-E-Y. And of course, the
Tracy Crossley Podcast also have wonderful resource, I
love your podcast. How long have you been doing that
for?
Tracy Crossley: Five years.
Kirill Eremenko: Five years. Five years of awesome episodes. I just
recently went on there, I checked out one of the ones
on Feeling Your Feelings, definitely a great resource as
well. On that note, Tracy, thank you so much for
coming on the show today and sharing all these lovely
insights, please continue your work. Of course, I'm
looking forward to our sessions every weekend, but I
mean, continue work on the podcast, is helping
thousands of people. Very, very glad that you exist in
this world.
Tracy Crossley: Thank you. Thank you so much, Kirill. And thank you
for having me on your show. This has really been
enjoyable for me.
Kirill Eremenko: So there you have it everybody, thank you so much for
being on this episode today, for listening in. And if you
did enjoy, if you got some valuable takeaways, please
forward this episode to somebody you know. They
don't have to be a data scientist, they don't have to be
in the field of an analytics or machine learning or
Python, please send this episode to help them through
this difficult time. I'm very grateful to Tracy for coming
on this show and sharing her insights and giving us
tips on how to cope, not just cope but thrive and
become better or stronger, people who are much more
in touch with ourselves, how to use this time to our
advantage. So I'm very grateful for that, and if you
know someone who might be struggling or feeling
lonely or maybe not getting along with the people that
they're in isolation with, send them this episode.
Kirill Eremenko: Very easy to share, send them the link,
superdatascience.com/357. That's
superdatascience.com/357. There you will also find all
the materials mentioned on this podcast, things like
the Drama Triangle, there's a great article by Lynne
Forrest, and a short YouTube video explaining the
Karpman's Drama Triangle, very powerful tool in the
world of psychology. Also of course, you'll find a link to
Tracy's Podcast. You can also just look it up on your
podcast app, it's called The Tracy Crossley Podcast,
with double S. And also a link to Tracy's website where
you can sign up for a discovery session if you'd like to
take things up further with Tracy. So there we go, that
was our podcast for today, make sure to share it with
somebody you know who might be needing the support
at this time. And I look forward to seeing you in the
next episode. Untill then, happy analyzing.