Improv: Fostering Connection in Challenging Conversations – Replay – (287)

I feel like our culture and what's happening is we're only taught to tap into rage and to anger. And when I'm in this embodied kind of improvisational place, you can get into so many more layers, right, of like joy, laughter. It feels nice just to laugh with people. I think that's part of what we were all enjoying that day. It was like we're just laughing, but also grief. Like, I think we'd have different conversations if more people had some embodied grief about like climate change. We're just not you can't get there. And I think we need those layers. It's the other exploration that in an improvisational mindset, culture makes room for somebody to go. I'm really sad about what's happening. Welcome to Therapist Uncensored. Building on decades of professional experience, this podcast tackles neurobiology, modern attachment, and more in an honest way that's helpful in healing humans. Your session begins now with Dr. Ann Kelly and Sue Marriott. hey you guys while we know relationships are wonderful they are also really hard many of us believe that they shouldn't be that if we have good connection and good communication things will just go smoothly but it's really that belief that can make us feel stubborn and even more hopeless So relationships take work. It does for Sue and I. We can make it look easy. It's not. And one of the ways is because many of us, we differ. We differ in what activates us, what makes us feel threat, the expectation. And it's these differences that are held in our body, not our thoughts. And they influence how we talk, how we love, how we fight. So holding that belief, if he or she or they could just understand me, if they love me, they do something different, is not really true. and we're talking about relationships with your partner, your teenager, your mother-in-law. So Sue and I have created an online course that can help you understand yourself and those you love in a different way. This is not just for therapists, it's for everyone. Although the good news is if you're a therapist, you can get CEs along the way and all of you can use the visuals and the worksheets individually or you could even use them in your own private practice. So while the course is based on our book, Secure Relating, Holding Your Own in an Insecure World, it is definitely not a replication of the book. We talk directly to you. You learn how to understand more deeply your attachment, those you love, the neuroscience behind it, and how to build secure types of connections right now in your everyday relationships. Rather than changing one another, y'all can shift together in very important ways. It's very powerful. We're getting great reviews. Check it out. It's at therapistuncensored.com slash BAS, therapistuncensored.com slash BAS. The BAS stands for Beyond Attachment Styles, the Science of Growing Secure Adult Relationships. And by the way, the cost of the course is about the amount of one individual therapy session. And yet you get hours and hours and hours of what we think is extremely valuable information. So check it out. Howdy. Right now, we're gearing up for the launch of Season 10 of Therapist Uncensored in January. In the meantime, for the rest of this year, we're going to be re-airing some interviews that we feel could use some fresh years. Enjoy. Hey, everyone. Welcome back to Therapist Uncensored. I am here with Lisa Case, and she is a psychotherapist in Washington, D.C., with a social work background, specializing in adult relational work. Welcome to the show. Thank you. I'm so excited to be here. We've been planning this for a while, haven't we? A while, a long while, since like March, April? Well, and how this got started, just to give our listeners a history, long-term listeners may have heard Sue and I do an episode on our experience at a recent conference. And in that conference, We had a large group meeting talking about some really tough issues related to current events, racial inequities, etc. And it was super painful. And during that episode, I'm pretty sure Sue and I talked about the experience of walking from one seminar that we attended that was amazing. And that we talked about incredibly difficult stuff. but we did it in a way that opened us up. And it was using improv as part of the discussion. And Lisa, you were the leader of this workshop. And I believe the title we were trying to remember is Improvisation for Decolonization. So I asked you, even before I went to the other one, I said, would you come on the podcast? I just really love what I'm learning at a break. And you were super enthusiastic. And that's where it started. And what's funny about that is we had no idea after we had that conversation that we were all going to walk into this other group meeting and become so dysregulated so quickly. You did too, right? Well, I actually remained more regulated than I ever have in such meetings. But yes, it was a painful, hard, I don't wish to be here kind of experience. Exactly. And that's what it was for us. So it even made me more committed to have you on the show because I think the experience that Sue and I had in your workshop was so meaningful and so opening. And there's a lot of reasons why. And that's why I wanted to have you on the show. And then you and I prepared for the show, got to chat behind the scenes of like what it was like to go from that to the other one. So feel free to let, you know, we'll jump in and maybe have a little bit of that discussion. And for listeners, you don't need to have listened to the other episode to follow along on this one, certainly. But if you want to, it might bring you some good insights of the experience of, you know, a little trauma that we all had in that meeting. But I was also interested because I've always recommended, and long-term listeners have also heard me talk about how much I recommend improv as a form of not necessarily therapy, but it is, but a form of learning to get connected to yourself. And so you interweaved improv with these really difficult, tough conversation. And it was just an amazing experience and how much openness in that room that I think the participants had. And I know I'm like, I'm like, given all this history before I even let you jump in, but I'm going to even add one other thing. And I think I mentioned this to you before. What was so funny is that, you know, you have to pick your workshops and everybody's sitting around a room and, you know, like reading titles out loud and everyone reading the word improvisation were like, oh God, I'm not going to that. Oh no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I, that, a bunch of therapists scared to death to relax. And I was one of them, right? I was like, I don't know. This sounds really scary. Not only are we going to do something really scary and get up there and do improv. We're going to do it talking about really tough topics. That sounds so scary. How could I possibly combine the two worst? Let's talk about racism and do improv. Therapists are like, no, no to both of those. Thank you. Exactly. And I decided, well, I'm just going to do it, but I'm going to leave midway. That's just all the, I'll just give it a go, you know, and lo and behold, here we are. So let's start there. Why did you, why did you decide to integrate improv in such an important and powerful conversation on race and oppression? I think the shortest answer sometimes is I was stupid and I was mad. That's often how I get to anything these days. But to answer that, I have to start almost in 2016. So I've been teaching improv, or I had been teaching improv for a decade. And it was so profoundly healing to me personally, for the reasons you probably refer people to improv. But I started teaching, I was learning it and teaching improv as I started my MSW. And I was like, these are related. I don't know how they're related, but they're connected. And I thought I was this genius. I was like, I'm going to pioneer improv therapy. No one has ever heard of it. And in fact, it came out of the settlement houses and social work. Probably if we dug further, it came out of indigenous people's practices. I mean, quite honestly, I haven't found that literature yet, but I'm sure it's there. And people had been writing and publishing and practicing this for a very long time. And so I started giving improv for therapist workshops and integrating. It was harder to get buy-in for the reasons you're naming about. I wanted to do improv for anxiety, but again, that's like the therapist. You're like, oh, anxious people in improv. No, thank you. Recruitment is a challenge. It's a challenging proposition. So I'd done this work for, you know, a decade. And, you know, George Floyd happened, the Trump election happened, everything felt like it blew up. And I became very aware of how white and kind of dumb I was along with the rest of America. I think at that point, I was thinking, should I write a book about improv? And I was like, what, this is silly. Like, who's going to do this? This, we are now in serious times. Like then we were in a pandemic. And so I pushed all the improv away. I was like, we have to get serious about things. And like, there's no time for playing in this nonsense. And nobody has time for this. And when I emerged from the pandemic, in I think a state of like, I would love to hear your description of what our nervous systems were all doing, thinking, I'm fine alone in this box, like not interacting socially for multiple years, and then like coming out of that. But I had this awareness of wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, no, I think these things are combined, that we actually need improvisation more in this work, because I had become too serious with it. I had experienced so much fighting, like what we watched in the I had watched organizations, struggling relationships fall apart, I had watched myself become less playful and very rageful and serious and self-righteous and indignant. And I realized like, well, that's not great. It doesn't seem to be advancing the ball in the way that I might want. And then I think what happened honestly was one of the social work boards would not let me do a workshop for CEs on improv and self-care, which is silly because self-care is in the code of ethics. I won't go into that. So I was like, you know what? Fine. I'll do it on improv and social justice. And to do that, you have to research stuff and you got to figure out a framework. And I was at that point learning about Timo Okun's white supremacy culture. And I was like, wait, white supremacy culture is the opposite of improv culture. And I made a little chart and I did a bunch of research and I found all this stuff again, because I think I'm inventing something. I found all this research. There's a book called The Urgency of Now written about like the intersection of civil rights and improvisation. and I found all this research that linked it together. I did it once and then I kind of, something made me angrier. I can't remember before I got to AGPA and I was like, I'm going to ramp this up. I think what happened was Palestine and Israel, the genocide started everything. And so I went in like, I don't know what I'm walking into. Everybody is going to be in this state of enragement. And I think the communications around it in this organization had felt problematic to me. And I was like, I don't know what I'm walking into, but I'm going to do this. And I realized like, if you're going to do this, Lisa, this needs to be very grounded and centered in like, you are part of the problem. I am part of the problem too. We are all part of this problem. This culture is in all of us. And that was how I came up with this kind of speech I gave with you guys in the beginning and then integrated it into a game that really called us into how the binary lives in all of us. I am a victim and I am an oppressor and I am privileged and I am like, you know, a target. And because we incorporated movement, improvisation, I think that set the stage because I did not know going in like, oh, this is going to be great. I was scared walking into that room. Oh, yeah. It's an intimidating group, right? You're not sitting there. Like that is one intimidating group to be presenting in front of. Yeah. And I didn't, I don't know that organization. I didn't know the list of people. And of course, as I've found improvisation always sort of, if you get to the core of what it is, if I ground myself in what it is, improvisation is a way through very hard things, which is, I think what we all experienced. I mean, we were all scared. You're saying you were scared. I think we were all like, what's going to happen in this room. This is a hard time. Yeah, it was. You're right. It was right in the middle of the highest points of the tension, not that we're through it now. And it was really scary talking about these topics because it's so much passion. There's been so much pain. And we talk about Israel and Palestine. There's so much pain on both sides. I mean, it's like so much pain currently and historically, and people have such deep feelings about it. And we can broaden that from that topic to all sorts of topics, whether somebody is a Democrat or Republican, or we tend to feel things so deeply and expressively and tolerating one another's opinion seems to be becoming harder and harder to do. And one of the things I did love about is that when you started, I am the perpetrator and the victim. I'm both. Like, there was something about getting out of the duality because I walk into that session feeling like the perpetrator. It's very hard to talk about anything having to do with race or oppressiveness, even as a gay woman, without feeling like the perpetrator in the room. And that sets up a sense of shame and hidden self and fear that I'm going to say the wrong thing or do the wrong thing. And And we've come from such a culture lately, too, of the gotcha. You know, you've done that wrong. I'm now going to cut you off and shut out. And so my challenge to going to that group one is if I'm going to keep talking about how important I think improv is and in a therapeutic session, you know, I need to really put my money where my mouth is and show up at that. And I could really feel the fear. But also around that topic was so powerful. Literally, this is a mentioned in this episode before this conference is full of therapists And yet as much as we all train And talk and work with people to be able to stay regulated I'm just like you. I went through 2016 enraged and Judgmental and raising my fists. I was so much part of the problem And shifting that is not easy. I think i've gotten a little better but I think we really need to figure out how to have really tough conversations, but access all parts of our bodies to be able to stay present with one another. And the way that you integrated play, and maybe we should stop for a moment and just talk about improv in and of itself. I mean, we all have seen whose line is it anyway, or, you know, we have this idea what improv is. How would you describe improv? off. One of the ways that you actually when you came up to me and you said, do you want to be on our podcast that I had not conceptualized? Because we all know about like, okay, yes, and I have to agree to things that you know, if you say the sky is green, we're in a world where the sky is green. But when you you know, on the sheet, and I think it is helpful to look at it contrasted, this might be helpful just for everybody to be like, what are they talking about? So like white supremacy culture, just as an example, has this idea of individualism, right? We are individuals, we're tough. Whereas a culture of improvisation is collaborative in its nature. Like you cannot do it by yourself. Before we jump in there, let's talk about the white supremacy culture by itself, because many people hear the word white supremacy culture. And you have this idea of maybe white sheets and the clue, you know, that kind of white supremacy. And when I hear the word white supremacy, I think of myself as far away from that. But when you describe white supremacy, you do it in a way that I feel really connected to and I could really get it. And what we're meaning by that is that a lot of our culture is based very much on the experience of the white Western beliefs, what we value. And where we put our emphasis, it is what is good. What's good. Yes. say more just about the white supremacy culture. So I just wanted to get that idea out of somebody's head if they're sitting here thinking that if you're part of white supremacy, you're this open racist. And that is absolutely not true. Right. And obviously, I'm probably would be the opposite of the KKK. And it's invisible. And so what we talked about in the workshop, right, is that it's this invisible thing that we all kind of are like, well, isn't this how is it? This isn't isn't this just the truth right That what culture does Everybody culture It things you don see And so what Timo Kuhn did was this wonderful framework because what white people love to do is be like oh well there African culture there Ghanaian culture there Palestinian culture there Chinese culture but whiteness is just normal And everything else is kind of this other thing. And what this framework does is say, no, whiteness has a culture. It is no different. We have our own culture. And recently I've become like I've been learning about how it's, you know, the flattening of like other cultures like Irish culture, Scottish into whiteness has its own package of problems, which is. But if we do take what they have turned whiteness into, like it's these sort of traits that you can start to see. So this idea of like we are we are rugged individuals that can pull ourselves up by our bootstraps. Well, there are many cultures in the world that know that that is not true. That's not how they live. That's not how they function. That's not how things are organized. We could say they are much healthier, usually, like, you know, emotional places to hang out. And so the improv culture is this collaboration, right? But it lets us question this of like, oh, have I been taught that? What is this idea that individualism is better? Wait, I have been kind of indoctrinated into this idea. and you know I lived in West Africa I lived in Benin for three years like I've seen other ways and what they look like and it's like this isn't worse guys it's different but like we are so ingrained with this idea of our way is better and this framework lets us go like is it like another one is perfectionism there is a right way and there is a wrong way right that everything is binary that it's right and it's wrong and that's what we experienced in that meeting right is we're going to scream at each other about somebody needs to be right and somebody needs to be wrong and improvisation says like there's either or like the sky can be green it's just what we decide and we can play in and it does like kind of help you think like this um like oh that progress this is another part of whiteness. Progress is bigger and more. Always. So part of what we're talking about, right, is the sort of the assumptions in our white culture that we've always grown up with and always live with. And we assume it to be true. And that is perfection, somebody being right and wrong, the idea of a hierarchy that there is better and worse, right and wrong, and the individualism that we think about all the movies that you grew up with. Just think about the movies that say, that really idolize that person who made it from rags to riches all on their own with very little help. And then it's a myth that we begin to believe is the truth. And then we hold ourselves up to that standard without even knowing we're doing it. And one of the ones you brought up that hadn't even crossed my mind is the time efficiency one. Yes. Like, yeah, that we should always be efficient. I'm so guilty of that. Boy, I want the most efficient drive from X to B, but that efficiency should be highly valued. Just the fact that being efficient is a high value and being independent and being rational, high value. Timo Kuhn framed it as a sense of urgency. And the improvisational value is this idea that improv actually values like playing it slow. Like let's slow this down, which is what we do as therapists, right? If we're good therapists in a group is getting activated, we're like, whoa, slow this down, right? Which none of that was happening in that room that we saw. There was no slowing down of anything. But if you think about who does efficiency favor, who usually is going to come out on top of, oh, we need to just do things quickly, guys. You see this right now in the Democratic primary issue. This whole idea about, well, Kamala needs to just become the candidate, guys, because we don't have time and we got to beat Trump. And okay, that's a valid, pragmatic idea. And there's this idea of Yeah, but if we do that, we're like giving up our democratic principles. Like, should we slow this down and like, think about this for a minute? Because often, when you're trying to accelerate, there's often a power interest that can just get what they want, and like sell it really quickly. And a distilling of like different voices not getting heard, like, who's silent in a room where we're just quickly moving through something. You don't have a chance to look at all of that and be like, who's hurt by this? You know, who wins if we do this? If we're rushing and trying to have the meeting be the most efficient, whose voice are we not hearing, right? Who are we talking over? Who are we trying to be? Some of the ones that has the loudest voices get heard fast. And then it's like, no, we need to move on. And just the idea that urgency is a white value that isn't shared by the whole world and just questioning that. I mean, just, it's not even that sometimes urgency isn't important. Like we're not, you're not saying that having urgency isn't important at times if that is important, but the presumption that that's a high value and should always be valued, the most efficient way to go, that to stop and go, wait, that's a cultural norm that I've learned that I can actually stop and question. And to stop and question could give access to so many different parts of ourselves and our teams that we're a part of. And what is being lost? It's very interesting for me to look back like when I was a Peace Corps volunteer with my arrogant 20 year old, like, oh, Americans do it so much better that, you know, we do everything quickly. And we, you know, and you're looking at these processes that are like, take forever. And I'm like, what is going on? This is so inefficient. It's nonsense. We're just wasting time. But when you really look under what's happening, there's a lot of relational work going on. Like there's a lot of like, I'm waiting 10 hours for a taxi to leave, but that's because somebody's got to come from over here with their goats because they need to go with us. And I don't know that. It's like, there are reasons in many cases for this inefficiency that we're just, well, that's just bad. Well, is it? I don't know. Those goats, they need to go where they're going. Right. And the relationships are so valuable and we We undervalue that in our, we undervalue in our white culture, the idea of prioritizing relationships. I mean, think about the work value, how much we are a work ethic, work, work, work, work is what's valued, which then makes us undervalue the relationships that are part of our lives. And then efficiency, they have to move on, which means we might leave people out. That's okay. Cause we have to be effective. And the slowing down of the whole system gives you so much more access to different parts. My colleague, Paula Atkinson, has really made me aware of this. We lose our asking, what are people's experience of this? If we're just getting it done, we're never asking, like, does this feel good for everybody? Are we all? And I watched this with my children. And I've had groups now really naming this, especially neurodivergent folks that get diagnosed late. And you'll hear them talk about, well, everybody just kept telling me, like, it's so great that I won or got an A. But no one ever said to me, what did that cost me? What was that like? And I watch this now with my kids, and I try to say more to them, like, you know, what was the experience of that dive meet like for you? You know, was it worth the stress that you took on? Because if you think about American kids, we don't get asked that. We just get told like you need to get to where you're going and you need to do it. You need to function. And we don't say like, what is your experience of the school day? Like I walk around my kid's school and I'm like, I couldn't hang out here all day. It's loud. It smells. There's too many people. And we're just like, well, these kids are just misbehaving. And we're not saying like, how is this for you? And I think that's a massive loss for our development. Oh, it's so true. And I think about also the pressure that kids and families have. What's your next step? What's your next step? You know, if you happen to be privileged enough to be in a part of the world where college is an expectation or a privilege that you get to do, those kids then are really strangled by this. What's your next step? How are you going to? How is this moment going to add to your future? How is this moment going to add to your future? And without asking, how is this moment? and we start it when they're two and three. What are you going to be when you grow up? What are you going to be when you grow up? Well, I don't know. I'm just playing with some trucks. But it's our anxiety. I think it's our anxiety about like, you got to make money. You got to be okay. You need to convince me that you are a kid who's going to have a job that is going to earn a living because we're in a capitalist reality here, friends. But again, it's like, what is that costing all of us? And that's what I think other cultures, when you really look at it, it's so different and it's like a lot of this stress we carry guys whole societies aren't doing this they're not doing it that is so true when you travel and you see i know that we went to soon i went to liberia and i saw how much slower the culture was there and how many people smiled and connected and spent time relating and i felt so envious it was just really a different experience and I wonder if this is your experience. I think before the pandemic, there was some awareness that we were on a kind of moving train that we didn't really see a way to get out of because everything's set up this way, right? How do you all of a sudden get these insights and say, you know, I think I want to slow down and be me today when your entire culture is speeding by you and you didn't have time to question or think about it. And I think the pandemic really turned that upside down in a way because we stopped and we didn't have relationships. We really felt the loss of those. And then we started realizing, you know, we can slow down. The whole world can shift in a way. And we don't have to be in that autopilot 24 hour seven. You know, people came back and they're like, you know, we had the quiet quitting. But I think part of that was like, oh, wait, I'm kind of rebelling against this culture that is putting pressure on me to perform. And earlier you mentioned something, you said, who is the efficiency benefiting? And it's a really good point to come back to because our efficiency is not necessarily benefiting us. It may benefit our employers or it may benefit all sorts of other systems that need us to hurry or be efficient so that they can get more from us. But that's not taking care of our essence of who we are. And in fact, it's just promoting depression and anxiety in such a huge amount of numbers in this country and beyond. We're also not asking, like, what are the ripple effects? Right. Like if I force everyone to come back to the office, we don't ask, like, how does that affect families? How does that affect kids? How does that affect schools? Like, we don't think systemically in this way that it's like, how is that going to make life easier or harder? or, you know, let's talk to people about maybe you want to come to the office. Maybe this would help you. Like you're like, I live in a small apartment with my partner. I would like to murder them. Please send me to the office. Like we don't create a lot of room. It's just like, well, this is what the office needs. So you will plug in. Right. It's like, this is what we need. You will do it. And what we're talking about here is shifting that to how is that for you? Because when we move to the relational and we see each other and we see those that work for us or work with us or our partners or our kids and our body is felt and seen, not in this, just make it all about me, but I see you and I see me. And like, how do we work together in that? And I think that's what I experienced so much from getting back to the conference with you, the collaboration, like from the very first introduction that you did. And I don't know if you can do that off the top of your head, but I thought the introduction was amazing. And maybe even if you just threw out a few of the examples that you did, but from the onset of that, you set an example of how to be with us. You weren't just teaching, you were with us. And then the use of improv in my experience opened up a different part of me. And I got out of that like performance idea, the thing I've got to prove something. And I felt myself move much more in the moment and to be with you and those people in the room. And those people are the same ones that were in the room, the end of the day, they were the same individuals. But in this room, we had individuals that were from Palestine or supported that. We had many Jewish individuals. We were all the same people in there connecting and talking about hard things, hearing each other and laughing. And those are the same people that went to the evening thing. And so that's what was so powerful to me and so impactful. But it was the use of your, I'm here with you and let's be creative together. Can you talk a little bit about that? Do you remember any of your introduction? I do remember some of it. I have gone from being this really kind of self-righteous, I think, you know, a lot of white women went through the like, self-righteous, okay, I'm now a white savior. I will tell everyone they are racist. Like, I mean, God help us all that I was like that. But it's true. We did that. And so we became the source of resentment out there. Because we weren't, what I realized out over time, is we weren't owning our contribution, our dark side. And so I don't remember what it was, because I was not I had not planned that intro like I literally wrote it the day before something made me just sit down and write that and I think it was something that made me be like I have to model and situate myself in I come from both I can't ask people to come in and be like okay I'm going to own my oppressor so I think I said things like I was taught growing up as I was to be racist and because I wanted to model the and of the improv. I was taught and trained to be a racist person and I am working very hard to undo that. And I think I said something like, I was taught and trained and bullied people about not being in small bodies and my grandmother was killed by a diet drug probably that gave her a heart attack. And now I'm in a big body and it was long. I mean, you guys sat through a long thing, but I think I wanted to really model these complexities of our identity that are both. And I think also I had I was like, they have to move while we do this. So we did the stretch and story game. People said that diffused a lot, that they would have that kind of nervous system activation. I was very touched by people owning like I have this really arrogant side that looks down on like these people, which I I thought was profoundly brave. And then they did the and, you know, and I think we all did. That's what we breathed. And we did the yes, like and and that helped, too. We all stayed really regulated through some very painful admissions of like our own not just what has been done to me. but these are ways that I have been trained and that I have done harm and, you know, maybe didn't know I was doing harm. And I think that set the stage because that was the opposite of what was happening in that room that we were in, where it was like, we are just screaming at each other. Like I am the victim. You are the bad guy. I am the victim. You are the bad guy. And it was just like, well, that's not getting us anywhere. Guys, we all have to come from like, I am doing harm. I'm the victim. I'm the perpetrator. And what was so powerful, the other way is how much we interconnected through some of the examples. You gave us a really good framework. And so we named a lot of our dualities, you know, like I am this and I'm that, right? I am privileged and I came from this. And there was a freedom to really shame to name it. And then across the aisle, we were connecting on all the ways that we had in common, not just the differences. Like when a few of the people of color spoke about how they have been the perpetrators of certain things, there was just like, oh my God, you know, like there was some joining in that. And it left me feeling more open, more, not a desire to defend myself more, the very opposite, the desire to explore and go deeper and deeper, which is what I love about the improv. And like you said, you mentioned, and I want to go a little bit more deeply and unpacking the value of the and. Because when I recommend improv, it's often to individuals that have a really hard time with the open, intimate connection because they protect themselves through but. And it's instinctual. It's part of our defense system that if we grew up that becoming too close was scary, we but everything. We yes, but, yes, but. And we can all be yes butters for sure but certain systems want to yes but more because it's part of that hierarchy and so I was like improv helps you with the and the art of joining the part of connecting to that part of your body that wants to connect rather than that more defended self that does the blocking well and you said something I think this is the piece I wanted to come back to that I had where you said you were like you realize that on your chart the improv side is all the qualities of secure attachment Like, you know, it's it's the open, relaxed, like it's the how I know I'm available, which I had not connected. And I was like, oh, and you were like in the white supremacy culture is the rigid, closed off, you know, and I was like that. I mean, that really was helpful. And I do think it's so helpful even to just be like, oh, I'm in like constriction. And improv is like, you can't be in constriction. The whole process is we're getting out of constriction. And, you know, it's not for everyone, I don't think, but I think it's so helpful to practice that and build the neural wiring about stupid stuff that doesn't matter. you can't do it first with your partner where there's stakes it's like just doing it about like oh the sky's green well i'm not gonna argue with you like okay like i'm i don't care so it completely takes out that defensive layer for most people very quickly whereas if you say like okay now argue about like who does the dishes i'm like well i have a stake in that hold on we're not just going to, you know, but you build these neural pathways. And before you know it, after you practice this a few years, you're kind of like, oh, yeah, okay, like you're more flexible. Naturally, I mean, I'm still not a walk in the park, but it creates these much more easeful kind of like, oh, wait, and yeah, and okay, both can be true, maybe. Well, it takes it out of the dichotomy. That was such an enriching, a really fun conversation when when my lights went on with you on that, in that how we describe it in secure relating is through a spectrum. And when we're in the middle in our secure relating position, we're in one frame of mind. But at any part in the day, we can move into a highly dysregulated, more preoccupied red state that becomes rigid, or we go down into what we call the blue, more concrete, yes, no, right, wrong kind of distancing state. And we can all do all of that. And we're always trying to find ways to help people and ourselves build our ability to be in a secure relating place. But if you don't know how it feels, like some of us have had the privilege of a background where we get to hang out in a more secure attachment because we had some privileges in our lives where we were able to develop that kind of connection in our body, whether we were privileged through the support we had or whatever. and then some of us didn't have as much resources and so we actually live a little bit more in our preoccupied or dismissing or maybe even our tie-dye state but trying to figure out ways for any of us to be able to feel what it's like if you really have lived more out on the continuum of the spectrum you don't really know what it's like to be in an open flow state it's foreign it's in it's threatening. And our nervous system goes, what are you talking about? I'm not going to do a yes. And somebody is going to take over and take advantage of me. And yet the play enacted all that secure relating part of my brain and body that helped me want to open up and expose what I'm shameful about and feel my strength. It was kind of an and. I love what you're saying. I hadn't put all this together either. Right. If you take somebody who's been in survival mode their whole life. And this happened to me in the pandemic, I feel like where I didn't even know I was in survival mode, right. And then we start and it was like, Oh, I am not great. Like, you know, because you don't know what's happening, especially if you're somebody who's like, kind of live there. And so how do you get to be like, No, it can feel like this piece. So improv, I think can do that where it starts to be like, Oh, I'm relating to people in this totally new way. because I had been through so many spaces in organizations of the fighting and of the like, there is no way you can talk about race. We cannot talk about oppression. It's hopeless. This is over. I think part of what I wanted from that workshop was like, there has to be a way. And I was like, well, let's try this. I don't know. But when I left with you all, I did have a sense not like a kumbaya that's gonna fix the world sense but a sense of like there is a way i have now had an embodied experience of talking about hard things across different power dynamics and nobody blew up and we actually kind of liked each other and that is an important i think embodied experience of just like okay it can be done because then you walk into that other room And it's like, well, here we are again. It can't be done. If we leave it there, we think, oh, we have to sort of shut down. We can't. We can't have hard conversations. And we need that across the country, across the world. We need to be able to go, oh, wait, we can really do that. And there's a way that we have to access that part of our own self that's willing to look more deeply at the fact that we are both perpetrators and victims, that we are both. And, you know, if we talk specifically about some of the things that happen, the art of play also, right? It was not, you had games that we played, but we played them together and they were always additive. And instead of competition, which is, of course, one of the white culture philosophy basis, right, is competing and we need a winner. Everything was additive. You couldn't go wrong. And I remember one exercise where we were in the middle of the room. I was one of the ones in the middle of the room. And we were trying to do kind of an impossible task, but a fun task. Was it the counting? It was the count. Yeah. so we were trying what seems simple but we it took a lot of like tuning into each other etc but the exercise was you know set up kind of that you were going to have many failures like it was very clear for usually a very long time for very long time and the group around us watching us every time we messed up they applauded us and we laughed and we went on and on and on as a group trying to get it right as a group but instead of getting angry at ourselves or whatever It was like the art of, okay, we messed up. It was questioning that perfectionism and that we were going to be judged. And I remember feeling the effect on my nervous system about having the association with messing up and having the clap. And what a different experience that was. So that's just an example of how our nervous system can be impacted through the art of play and the art of coming together with an improv. Yes, and that experience. a change in culture. I love that game. I mean, I could write a book just about that game. It's such a stupid game. But I do believe that what people experience, there is a frustration, like, ah, we're not winning. Well, tell them the game. Literally, the group is trying to count to 21 or 18, depending on how I set it up, without anyone repeating a number. That's it. And there's no sign. You can't really develop a system. You're not supposed to go around the room. And it's called Zen Count because it is about developing a group rhythm. It kind of requires a little magic, a little group mind. And over time, troops develop the ability, then go up to 100. I mean, you get really high with troops that are in sync. Again, the in sync nervous systems, we kind of got to believe in the woo-woo a little. Well, that's not woo-woo for our NeuroNerd listeners because it's, yeah, That's neuro Wi Fi. It's neurons, right? It's like, yeah, vibes, whatever we want to say. And I think what people react to in the beginning is that Americanized white supremacy culture of like mistakes are bad, we have to do it fast, get it done. I am not going to be the weak link here. That is a trained nervous system response. And what the clapping does in an improv with a lot of games you clap for mistakes and it's literally telling people yay you played you did something that's all like you exist and you did something yay for you that is so antithetical to American culture and noticing that nervous system because really all a group has to do to succeed in that game is just chill out trust the moment not be in a hurry but that takes a lot of practice over time And it is deprogramming from American white capitalistic culture that says you better not mess up and we got to get this done. And that it's up to the individual. We couldn't succeed without the group think together. We couldn't dominate. One person couldn't dominate and like be turned to. It was a group think, which allowed us to open up that part of our right brain and creativity that we have so much access to if we tune in, if we tune out. And what I love about improv is the experience. You have to be in the moment. In some of the games you did, we would all be in a line and we were supposed to, you know, lead something once we got to our turn. Now, historically, I'd be sitting there practicing in my head like, OK, it's going to be my turn. What am I going to do that's going to be funny and creative? Okay. And so I would have hardly been able to pay attention to all the fun activities in the middle of the room because I'd been preoccupied with my own performance. And is like, am I going to do it well? Am I going to be funny? And there were some rules that, and it was just some part of the game is that you couldn't plan because you couldn't make up anything because it wasn't until the person before you gave you the next lead that you could do anything. So because of that, we just were present with each other and spontaneously able to respond, which of course, you know, is I can't help with the neuro nerd part of me wanting to really also highlight by that presence, leaving me open and sort of not in the pressures in that part of our mind that shuts us down, that I was able to have fun and deeply be in the moment. And I was astounded by the creativity that came out of my mouth and everybody else's without any planning And part of what what I talk to people about and when I start when I kind of do what I call the de indoctrination Is it really is a question of saying like so okay You're noticing that like you're not you know You're planning and you're kind of not able to watch and we're not going to judge that but i'm going to say Is that fun for you? Is that like your maximal fun? And usually people are like, no, my experience of this is actually not great. And it's like and then there's coaching around the like, how do we make this a good experience for you? Which is, again, that this is not about what we think of you. This is not about a performance. And that's where we got into. I think we had a piece around like what accommodations do people need? Like, is there anything we can do to make the room feel like to really think about like what is working about this for you or not? And what do you need to let go of? Usually it's internal. What do you need to let go of so that this will be a good experience? Because even with the Zen count, technically, according to that game, somebody could monopolize it. Somebody could go 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 11, 12. They could do that. But then again, it becomes like, is that fun for everyone? Like you won. Was that enjoyable? And it gives us a chance to reflect on this like, oh, maybe I don't want to be in a system that's valuing this or my nervous system doesn't like this. And it gives us a space to just reflect on it in this way that has no stakes. You know, we don't have to talk about who's the president. We can just look at like what feels good when we want to create a culture in our house or in our school or in our class or in our therapy room, like in our groups. Right. Just asking that question, because there's so often when we play games with one another or we play pickleball or tennis or, you know, there's this thing as if we're not winning. right, that we forget to even ask what's our experience and that we think the outcome is to win, but to stop and go, am I enjoying this? Am I enjoying the competition? And for some of us, maybe that is enjoyable. Maybe we go in and go, that's actually enjoyable, but it's a funny thing to like stop and go, hey, let me just check in. And then the relational part, the accommodations, How is this for you? Like, is this working for you? And so now we're including those individuals in the room and thinking about them and thinking about what is good for them. And not pathologizing anyone. Yes. I learned this recently related to what you were saying that like neurodivergent kids, many neurodivergent people don't like competition. They don't like the experience of it. and we can treat that as like well what's wrong with them we're gonna have to toughen them up and get them out there compete well why like now there's all these like wonderful card games and games that are collaborative games that literally i was never exposed to as a child but like can't we just say like cool you're a collaborator great there's no nobody is going to die without a soccer team i mean no one literally developmentally will like not be okay and we go to this assumption of like, well, you got to learn how to compete if you're going to make it in this place. And it's like, but I don't know, maybe it's kind of wonderful that some people, we need competitors, we need those people. And we need some people that are like, I would like to think about the greatest good here. I would like to work with others. Like, why are we not going great? Wonderful. We're going to cultivate that. Yes, I love that. Because we need the teams, right? We like to root for our high school team or our city team of football or soccer. And that's wonderful, because it's serving something and we're stopping to go, is this serving something? But to go, wait, we can also ask not everybody has to live with that. And that's not everybody needs a trophy culture, right? That's very, it's the opposite of everybody needs a trophy because everybody gets a trophy culture is a little like you won, you won, you won. Like it's almost like not accepting that we don't have to win. This is more about a culture of participation in everybody enjoying it. So we don't always have to have a trophy. We can just really enjoy the journey of the game and the art of playing. And if you don't like competitive things, cool. There's like a thousand things you can do that are not competitive. And that's great too. Those are good skills. So those listeners out there, we've been talking a lot about a workshop and it's, and I was so privileged to get to do that. And I really have gained a lot and have such gratitude to you for that. For the listeners out there, though, that could, in their own everyday life, how can they apply what we're speaking to with their family, their co-workers, their friends? And what are your thoughts about, like, you know, again, I'm a big recommendation, take an improv class, get out there, because it helps you in so many different ways, let go of that perfectionistic side of yourself and loosen up and join and access that part of our brain that moves out of the inner critic. That's part of the research on improv. It helps you move from the inner critic part of your prefrontal cortex to more of the language and creativity. So it's an active way that we move towards a more secure way of engaging. But what would you say? How do we apply this to our everyday lives? Would you recommend a class? And if so, what would you look for in a class? And then how do we apply it? Just family. I would recommend a class if somebody feels again, back to the experience, if you feel ready for that, if that feels like I'm curious about that. OK. Many improv schools offer like a two hour free come check it out kind of thing before you sign up for, you know, an eight week class. great idea. And there are many people who that is too big of a lift. Like that is a nightmare. Wait. And so a lot of people spend time with me in therapy getting ready to go to an improv class. And that is a legitimate goal. And so I think, again, it's like, would that feel renewing to me? And if so, off you go. Wonderful. And there are so many other ways I'm learning about how to kind of access that same thing in a less risky place, like different arts, like saying to yourself, like right now, I just took back up the violin and you got to have a pretty high tolerance for mistakes to play that thing. It's a bit of a nightmare. It's true. I played the viola for years and it is really, I played it as a kid and I was like, I forgot how hard this is. But are you somebody who's thinking, God, I wish I could get back to painting, but I'm just terrible at it. You know, I wish I could do this, but I'll never be good at it. That might be, if improv feels too far, to say like, you know what, I'm going to let myself be bad at something. I am going to let myself be a beginner. I mean, that is the basic principle of improv is like the beginner's mind. That is such a gift to say like, I'm going to let myself be quite average in the American culture, possibly even bad at something. That's revolutionary. Maybe you're going to go do that. Make a garden and everything dies Don tell anyone Forgive yourself That a step You know like we all have to start I think where we are And I think it really is that permission to be in the beginner mind I hear so many people that are like well I always wanted to do that but I never be good at it And I like it for fun Who cares But I was like that That what improv cured me of And that why I so grateful Because it so sad We become so capitalistic and performance based we got to be able to get our hobbies marketable And you know, it's like, we can all just be bad at things. It's really fine. And it's quite liberating. So I think I would also say, with kids, we use like, just right challenges, I've learned, you know, if improv may not be your right challenge, it might be too high, start lower, kill a plant, kill a plant. But the point is, is getting away from the perfection and away from the competition and into your own body and experience and getting into creativity and fun. If painting is fun, it doesn't matter. The performance is just get into the moment of enjoyment of it. And if I love what you're saying, if the improv is too high, I will say that I, I've done a few of those two hour classes and it was so scary to go in and so fun. Just to give you guys an idea, it's not. It takes the fear out of it because nobody's looking at you to perform. You're all doing it together. You're not standing up there performing. And everyone is scared. Everyone is scared. Everyone is scared. Everyone is clueless. And it becomes, the games are so collaborative that you feel light. But I do want to come back before we completely live improv. Would you talk a little bit more? I know we're packing a lot into this one episode, But talk a little bit more about the yes and as opposed to the but. We've referred to it, but what are some of the principles around improv that make it unique? And I know the yes and is a big part of the underlying culture in that. So the yes and is a huge one, right? That when somebody says this is our reality, you say yes. I mean, it's not going to be fun to watch two people argue about it. You and I did not have fun at that meeting. It's way more fun to be like, great, the sky's green. like what else is true is or is the grass blue okay like you know and then you you find a game and you play it well because the yes and if we can come back to that the yes and the sky is green well some people can go but the sky's not green so that makes no sense but when somebody comes and says the sky's green and they toss it to you instead of you looking for the rational it prompts a different part of your brain to be creative to imagine a world where now that the grass is yellow So, you know, whatever, but it's accessing a different part of our brain that's just creative and not held by these rules that we learned to hold to. It's the what if brain. Oh, if if the sky is blue or green, how does that affect what my sunglasses, what sunglasses look like? Right. In a world where the sky is is green. What happens at night if the sky is green during the day at night? does it become yellow? Like, if that is true, what else becomes true? What else changes? So it becomes expansive. Yes, it becomes expansive. There's possibilities. And that's where the fun is. And the beautiful part. So this is the other pieces. One of the foundational premises is all I have to bring, like if we're building a house, if an improv scene or a show is a house, all I have to bring is a brick. Because what we tend to also do is be overly responsible and overly functioning. This is a great one for women. And so it's like, okay, the sky is green. I don't have to build a whole world as your scene partner. All I have to do is go, oh, the sky is green. Huh? I've never seen that before. Well, now we're in a world where yesterday the sky was a different color. So we know that, right? I just added one piece of of information. And it relieves that burden that so many of us walk around with of like, well, I got to do everything. I got to know everything. And again, it's like, well, I wonder what somebody else is going to say next. And it's that trust of somebody else is going to say somebody else will carry the load. I can trust other people. So trust is a huge principle in improv. And it goes with this idea of we make each other look good, which I think is would be a great one to infuse more in many more spaces. It's when I think we need to practice. But this idea of like, nothing that I do is going to be shaming. I you know, it's like, I make my scene partner look like a genius. That is my job. Nobody wants to improvise with somebody who tries to make people look stupid, bad. There are those players and you know, but that is not the value in the culture. It's like I am going to try to the best of my ability to make you look brilliant. And like, who doesn't want to be in a group or, you know, a friendship, a relationship where that is the like the support. So that's the support premise. Right. It's like I am going to do whatever I can to make you look great. Doesn't it make your body just calm down? Like I'm in this group and that's all I want to. Can you imagine if we, in the next six months, if our leaders and politicians were all about trying to help amp each other up in this positive way, how would our world be different rather than the constant source of let's see if we can take them down, take them down. And it's so important to realize that when we're taking each other down, that is a sign of insecure relating. It is not actually a sign of intelligence. It's a sign that I have to take you down because otherwise I don't trust I can stand beside you. and when you have a sense of confidence and security in yourself you want to build people up that's our natural instinct our natural desire is to to build people up and relate and so it's actually bringing us into more of our natural more natural instincts and away from the cultural teachings of competition and win and putting each other down we're being taught systematically i think like you're saying to live in that dysregulated state of like kind of annihilating each other like take you know you take you down before you take me down I mean we're being trained into that binary kind of place we're watching it happen all around us and it's like nobody feels safe and good in that place like you know this idea of like what are we not talking about or what else can I say if I don't have to take you down maybe I can then say like, I'm really afraid of you. Like what you're doing is scaring me or it's hurting me. And yeah, that person might say, I don't care. I'm going to take you down. It's like, okay, well, I mean, it's more complicated than this, but I do think that we're losing a lot in this just, and that's the rule of improv is nobody wants to watch a scene where two people are just having a power struggle over what color the sky is. It's not fun. It's not interesting. Having experiences we were are not in an instinctual power struggle and having our body again why I recommend it for people Having our body experience what it's like to be with people without the power struggle It shifts the way our nervous system functions over time Instead of it being a competition. We see people as a resource It's building the core of trust, which is why I was coming in and to you and saying that is secure relating right there everything you just had. So the idea of being able to do that through play, all of a sudden I was thinking, what would it be like for a family sometimes, you know, when you go through that period where kids are all of a sudden smarter than anybody in the room and their goal is to point out to their parents the mistakes, all the mistakes they're making. You know, we all go through that process in our families and all of a sudden we had a family orientation to have, you know, a Friday night improv game. And there are a lot of games that people can access to be able to find ideas to play and to add that where the game, instead of the brothers tearing each other down, which is so negative for the system, some in humor is fine, but sometimes it's the whole relationship where they have to have the art of playing with one another. Yeah. I'm thinking like, I should do that more in my family because it is, it's like, but yeah, and to, to create this kind of culture of playfulness, I think, which I do do with my son. And it really can change, like he has a list of grievances of my parenting. And, you know, I can argue with him about that. Or I can be like, yeah, like, you know, sure, it's, you know, what's it like to have the absolute worst mother in the world? Like, tell me, do you go to do they give you a trophy at school? Like, I want to know, you can be more playful about it. And then you're going to learn more about each other. Right. And like, what is going on here? Are there some things that maybe I could, you know, work on? And, and he then can learn like, oh, maybe she isn't the worst. Like she kind of took that. Okay. You know, the other thing that I think it does is it, I feel like our culture and what's happening is we're only taught to tap into rage and to anger. And when I'm in this embodied kind of improvisational place, you can get into so many more layers, right, of like joy, laughter, it feels nice just to laugh with people. I think that's part of what we were all enjoying that day was like, we're just laughing. But also grief. Like, I think we'd have different conversations if more people had some embodied grief about like climate change. We're just not, you can't get there. And I think we need those layers. It's the other exploration that in an improvisational mindset, culture, makes room for somebody to go, I'm really sad about what's happening. Oh, and it opens that up. And that's exactly what happened in our thing. I keep talking about the fun we had. But again, I want to return to the deep feelings that we approached of sadness and grief and pain. And yet as we did it, I felt much more embodied in myself and that less in my head and more connected as people spoke. And that was the power of it. And part of it was that we had played and laughed and opened up and shared our shameful sides together. But then we also were there more for each other's pain. So I really, I really love what you're saying, that it opens up all of us. This isn't just about playfulness. This is about deepening and opening ourselves up. Because we all are, within us, are so many ands, right? I'm sad, I'm scared, and I'm, you know, still joyful and living my life, and I feel guilty, and, you know, and it's like we have to be able to hold all of that and see it all. And to be able to, in this world, when it's so hard to be able to also lighten up, and I like, you're talking about doing that with your son where you're, instead of getting deeper in the power struggle, you're not making light of him. You're like, you're really struggling. And then you're kind of going in and opening it up. But you can also sort of shift the lens a little bit from that one moment to a more, it reminds me of a thing I used to do with my nephews that they still tease me about. And I would be with them and they would get into, there's three boys and they'd get into it. and they knew that if I am going to laugh at saying this, but I used to say, okay, you have to play a nice, nice game. And they look and they knew exactly what that meant. So they had to start giving each other compliments, which they would laugh at. Of course, it would shift the game because they like, now I was the common enemy. I'm the eye roll ant making them play the nice, nice game. But what it turned into immediately is they started saying nice things to each other by criticizing each other through humor. But because of that, they were all laughing together because they were putting one over on me. They say, I love the way your body stinks at night and you don't even care. But instead of arguing now, they were unifying through humor. And I'm not necessarily recommending that game. They still tease me. They still love it, but it's kind of funny. But it switched a moment into play. And then they would kind of get into it and they would really kind of work out what it was they were getting in contest about. It sort of switched the gears just a little bit enough and then they would come back and they would try to figure it out and so and and they're more regulated and they're communicating about what they're and that is in many ways what that workshop was right it was like how can we talk about the things that are upsetting us which is what these boys are doing but do it in a way where we can can we do this in a regulated way somehow and still talk about hard things and that's kind of what you were teaching them. I mean, we could talk about being shot to still pick on each other, whatever. I don't know. I mean, I think part of relationships is being able to give each other feedback, right? Well, what was so fun about that is they never actually gave each other serious feedback in that. They were like, it was always really like humorous. Oh yeah. And if it wasn't true, then it totally was. And then they're not even fighting anymore. It was how much your socks stink when you, I mean, it would, and it would be almost, it'd be so quick. And they're the funniest individuals that I know. They're so funny. And they would be so quick with it. And then they would all be laughing. But of course, then I'm not necessarily the kind of an enemy, but I kind of am because they're like putting one over on me. So it was sort of shifted the focus and then they became the team in a way, how they could keep this going. And then when I was sad, okay, you're done with a nice, nice game. It was a silly thing. You can tell them they were using the comedy skill of heightening of heightening effectively. Yeah. Is that right? So we're going to have to wrap up. Sadly, I could talk for hours with you and probably will continue at another time. But are there any other ways of accessing kind of these kind of improv games that are accessible to their families all over the internet? Improv is now like all over the internet there. I am sure I haven't looked a ton, but I know there are people that are doing like classes for kids So I'm sure there are books of like kids improv that I haven't looked. I do more adult stuff. But you can Google like improv games. And I bet there's a PDF somewhere on the Internet. You know, I have game sheets that I created with some of the ways that I use them therapeutically. But there's infinity books. There's the Spolen books. There's infinity books. I love it. So we can access it. And I did want to broaden it beyond you have to go into a class, even though it's a high recommendation for me. I think I've said that a few times. But at the same time, you don't have to walk into a class and you can do it with your own family. You could do it with your co-workers if you're having a hard time. You can do it while you're waiting, waiting for a table at dinner. You can take a friend to an improv class. That makes it a little less scary. Like take a pal, both go terrified. but find joy get another side of your your brain and allow yourself to have the creative sense of self again whether that's art killing a plant and not like you know you're not going to try to kill the plant but being able to try something and getting away from the perfection and the competition and into the experience of the moment yeah there's even something that we do call bad prov so you could even say i'm going to try to do this badly okay maybe then you can take a risk I love it. It's all about taking risks. I wanted to mention that you have started your own podcast. So say a little bit about that. I have a podcast with my friend and colleague, Paula Atkinson, called What If Nothing's Wrong With You, which explores a lot of these themes around this idea of how we are indoctrinated to think there is something wrong with us. I'm not good enough. My body's not the right size. I'm whatever. And so we're just two therapists talking very casually. We use a lot of humor. We tell our own like, you know, stories of how we were stupid, kind of like I did today. And we try to just demystify therapy a little bit and help people know what's a good therapist. What's a not great therapy? What are, you know, some thoughts? How's training for therapy? The questions people want to ask therapists, we kind of try to handle, talk about like, what do you kind of wish your therapist would tell you if they weren't your therapist? Oh, that's so fun. I love it. That's some of our idea when we did Therapist Uncensored. I think we got a little serious, but I kind of love where you're going with that. So yeah, check that out. We'll have that in our show notes. If somebody wanted to reach out to you, how would they find you? My website is lisakays.com, and it has an inquiry form and all that stuff. You have even an online group, right? I have in-person therapy groups. Some of them are hybrid, so it kind of varies. I don't currently have an only online group. And I do trainings and workshops for agencies and groups and I try to shake it up. Shake it up. And I highly recommend if somebody's out there and needs somebody to come into your agency to loosen up difficult conversations, you obviously know that I have high regard for Lisa and I'd highly recommend that. Well, thank you. Thank you for joining us, Lisa. I sure appreciate you coming and hopefully we will talk more. Thanks for having me. This was wonderful. So thank you for joining us. If this content has brought meaning to you, which I hope it has, please rate and review and send it on to somebody that could use it. We're wanting to spread the idea of secure relating far and wide. Another ask that we have of you is if you have access to our book and you feel like it's been helpful, please jump on and give us some Goodreads or Amazon love because that always makes a difference and helps people find our book and our podcast. So, all right. Thanks for listening and we'll see you around the bit.