S3 E53: Shulamit Ber Levtov on Curiosity, Self Compassion, and Shared Humanity as Tools for Mental Health
I had a wonderful chat with Shulamit Ber Levtov, the “Entrepreneur’s Therapist”, who has been working in the field of mental health and personal growth for more than 21 years, helping hundreds of people recover their resilience after experiencing stress and trauma. She has also been an entrepreneur for more than 27 years, and in 2017, founded an award-winning holistic stress and trauma clinic in Kemptville, Ontario.
Tune in to hear us talk about why mindset isn’t everything, what psychologically healthy mindset work looks like, curiosity as a key component of self compassion, the feeling of enoughness, sharing as a way that we help other people, and lots of other mental health and creativity-related stuff - this is a lovely conversation that I hope you will love!
TOPICS DISCUSSED IN THIS EPISODE:
The effects of isolation on the nervous system, and shared humanity as the antidote
Overwhelm as an element of trauma
Why mindset isn’t everything, and what psychologically healthy mindset work looks like
Holding positive and negative truths simultaneously
Curiosity as a tool in unhooking from self-blame and shame and facilitating self-compassion
How validating it can be to not feel alone
Shulamit’s advice for working on mindset on your own and for external support
The positive and negative sides of hypervigilance and anxious thoughts
The feeling of enoughness and how that relates to success from an entrepreneurial perspective
Balancing how you portray your brand as successful with transparency and authenticity
Transparency and sharing as a way that we help other people
Shulamit’s Focusing practice - her go-to self care practice
The warmth and spaciousness that comes from the communication between mind and body
RESOURCES MENTIONED
6 factors of mental health vulnerability for women entrepreneurs
Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear by Elizabeth Gilbert
S3 E32 - Magic Monday: My Most Important Ritual for Exploring Creativity
Seek app for identifying plants
MORE FROM REBECCA
Compassionate Creativity Coworking Club
Subscribe to Creative Wellness Letters (my biweekly newsletter, full of motivation and encouragement)
Free Discovery Call - learn more about coaching
Fuel Your Creative Work With Compassionate Productivity workbook
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TRANSCRIPT
Rebecca Hass
Hello, and welcome to episode 53 of Being A Whole Person. Today is finally another interview episode! I talked to Shulamit Ber Levtov about mental health, pandemic trauma and recovery, mindset, resilience, all kinds of good stuff. As I told her afterwards, as an introvert, I often feel depleted after having conversations, even really great ones, and I felt more filled up than drained after talking to her. So I hope it has the same effect on you.
Before I tell you about her, I have just a few announcements. Number one, there are still few spots left for the Support Your Creative Focus Bundle, which is a celebration of Coaching for Creative Wellness’ third birthday in November. It is a bundle of my e-book called Fuel Your Creative Work With Compassionate Productivity, which is a little workbook for creating a humane sustainable to-do list and schedule that will evolve with your energy level, and lets you get things done without burning yourself out. Very important.
Then you'll also get a 45 minute one on one coaching appointment with me. We'll go through the book, we'll actually make a plan to put your goals into action. You know, how many times have you downloaded a workbook or something and it just kind of sits there? So this appointment will make sure that you actually use it, which is awesome.
Then you also get a month of Compassionate Creativity Coworking Club membership, which will help you dedicate actual specific time to get the stuff done.
There are only two dates left for that, which are Monday, November 29, and Tuesday, November 30. But if those don't work, and you're dying to get the bundle, just get in touch with me and we can figure something out. Link is in the show notes for that.
Number two, if you've been curious about Coworking Club, you can now sample a free session any week of the month. I used to have it set up so it was just the last one of the month, so now it's anytime. We meet Tuesdays from 3:30 to 5pm Pacific. So scroll down to the bottom of the coworking club page for signups for the free session.
Number three, I'm very excited to share that the Winter edition of Build Your Seasonal Self Care Survival Kit, my quarterly self care workshop, will be co-presented with the Feely Human Collective again, and that's going to happen on December 2 at 4pm Pacific. Feely Human, if you're not familiar, is a safe online space for healing, learning and connecting that promotes and instills empathy, vulnerability and emotional wayfinding as foundational components of the human experience, which I love. Non Wels, who runs Feely Human and runs the You, Me, Empathy podcast, is a wonderful human, and I'm so excited to partner with him to offer this workshop again.
It's going to be a 90 minute workshop, we'll explore nine different types of rest and use that as a framework to create your own menu, not an obligatory checklist of bite sized and manageable things that you can do that won't add stress to your life or to your schedule - gotta make it doable when we're overwhelmed, right? So I hope you can join us for the workshop. If you are a coworking club member, you get into these workshops for free. So that's it for announcements.
Let me tell you about Shulamit. Shulamit Ber Levtov is the entrepreneur's therapist. She runs a wonderful sounding women entrepreneurs support community, which, as we talked about in the podcast is not always something that gets talked about - that feelings and mental side of entrepreneurship. I find that a lot of support in this area kind of talks about it a little bit, but mostly is tactical in nature. This sounds like a really special thing.
She also has a psychotherapy practice in Eastern Ontario, Canada, and for more than 21 years she has been working in the field of mental health and personal growth, helping people recover resilience after experiencing stress and trauma. What a great topic for this time, and really anytime. She's been an entrepreneur for almost three decades, and she has her Master's in Counseling and Spirituality, is a registered social worker and is also certified in Focusing, nonviolent communication, Tapas acupressure technique and Kripalu Yoga, what a cool skill set.
We met in an SEO training that we did this summer, and she was kind enough to do a session on pandemic trauma and how we can deal with it. Then we connected about the podcast, and I was so excited to bring her in to talk about these things. This is a great episode for anyone who is making a business from your art, or who wants to, because we talk a lot about the entrepreneurial side of things. But it's also just great for learning about mental health, and how compassion and curiosity all work together to help us in creativity, and really in all things in life. So let's get into the episode. I hope you enjoy it.
Rebecca Hass
So today I'm super excited to have Shulamit Ber Levtov with us on the show. Welcome.
Shulamit Ber Levtov
Hey, Rebecca.
Rebecca Hass
How are you doing today?
Shulamit Ber Levtov
Good. It's a good day.
Rebecca Hass
That's great. I love a good day.
Shulamit Ber Levtov
Yes. I'm happy to be feeling good.
Rebecca Hass
We gotta appreciate that when that happens.
Shulamit Ber Levtov
Yeah!
Rebecca Hass
It's not a given. Yes.
Shulamit Ber Levtov
It's definitely not a given.
Rebecca Hass
So I'm super excited to have you here, and, can you just tell everybody a little bit about yourself and who you are and what you do?
Shulamit Ber Levtov
Sure. I'm the entrepreneur's therapist, and I work with women identifying entrepreneurs who want to uplift their mindset and mental health, and pilot their emotions, so they can overcome the anxiety and isolation of running a business. Because as you and I both know, running a business can really be a shit show. So what I noticed as an entrepreneur, myself, initially, as a therapist, who's also an entrepreneur, how emotionally demanding it is to run a business. I witnessed that in my colleagues, you know, and really felt it was important to offer this support. I'm kind of offering to other people what I wish I'd had for myself.
Rebecca Hass
I think a lot of us end up doing that.
Shulamit Ber Levtov
Right? Yeah.
Rebecca Hass
So that's really wonderful. I also like that you're talking about the isolation of being a business owner, because that sort of factors into something that we collectively have all been experiencing, to some extent, over the last year and a half.
Shulamit Ber Levtov
Yes, well, it's a double, the past year and a half has really been a double whammy, because in my work, I've identified six factors of mental health vulnerability for women entrepreneurs. I'll give you the link and you can put it in the show notes so that people who are curious to know about that can read more. The thing that I hear when I share that information with entrepreneurs, the item most endorsed is isolation, because, first of all, there are very few entrepreneurs, and even fewer women entrepreneurs.
Shulamit Ber Levtov
We have people all around us, when you're running a business. You've got employees, you've got contractors, or you've got clients. So there's people everywhere, but these are not people who are your people to support you. So it's even more difficult to be like people-y, but yet feel lonely and unsupported.
Shulamit Ber Levtov
So we already have all the elements of isolation, and then we got shut down. So that already isolated people, as entrepreneurs, we're even more isolated, because we were stuck at home. That just is a double whammy. And we know from the research on public health and health promotion, that isolation is a social determinant of health.
Shulamit Ber Levtov
Depending on which, if you look at the World Health Organization, or Health Canada, or the US Department of Health, they have between five and nine social determinants of health, but isolation factors in all of them. It has an impact on your health the same as a pack of cigarettes a day.
Rebecca Hass
Wow.
Shulamit Ber Levtov
That's how hard it is to be isolated. Because we are social creatures, we are meant, our biology drives us to connect with other people, even when we're introverts. You know, we still have that sense of need for connection and belonging, right, just to a lesser extent than people who identify as extroverts.
Shulamit Ber Levtov
So when we are alone, and when we are isolated, our nervous system remembers from like, I don't know, I'm speaking as a lay person, Neolithic, Paleolithic times, what it was like to be cast out from the group. If you've ever watched the show Alone, have you ever watched Alone?
Rebecca Hass
No.
Shulamit Ber Levtov
It's, people are taking, survival experts are put alone in the wilderness, and it's whoever survives the longest wins. You can see how difficult it is when they're on their own, and you can see very clearly that if they were cooperating with one another, they would do so much better, right? Our organisms remember this ancient ancient truth, that, you know, if we're cast out, we're doomed. So this isolation today affects our nervous system. It's a threat.
Shulamit Ber Levtov
So, we're in fear, and add that in with everything else, and, oh, you know, it's no wonder we lost our crap.
Rebecca Hass
Yeah. Well, and speaking as an introvert, too, and you kind of alluded to this before, that you're kind of having both sides at once. You're feeling people-d out, and you're isolated. As an introvert who suddenly was at home with everyone, that added another element of it for me, and I know a lot of other people, because it was like, okay, not only that, that I don't get any alone time, but I'm not getting the fulfilling social interaction. Are you hearing that from a lot of people?
Shulamit Ber Levtov
Yes, yes, that is, like I said, in the context of being an entrepreneur, but even just being it's too people-y, too people-y! Too much, right? And, as you say, so that it's overwhelming, which is another one of the elements of trauma, that all this stuff coming at you is too much, right? It's overwhelming. But also, as you say, the quality of connection is not what you would want it to be, because you're stuck at home with people who, maybe they're your family, maybe they're your beloveds, but they don't always, as an entrepreneur, they don't always get you. They don't always get what's happening in your business and in your life and the kinds of things you need support for.
Shulamit Ber Levtov
And not to be able to find a quiet moment. Like, how hard has that been for people?
Rebecca Hass
Yeah, especially, I think most of the people listening to this podcast identify as creative in some way, and having the mental space and the alone time to do that is so so important, too.
Shulamit Ber Levtov
Yes, and the stress that arises when you can't, it's like a kind of constipation.
Rebecca Hass
Yeah, that's a great way of describing it.
Shulamit Ber Levtov
Right? It all just backs up inside you and creates all kinds of other issues and problems when your creative life is unfulfilled. I don't know about most people, because I don't work with creatives, but in my own creativity, I really do need that kind of expansiveness - no interruptions, freedom to move in response to what's moving in me for a period of time, right?
Shulamit Ber Levtov
I need to be able to determine what my environment is going to be. Not to be able to have that is enormously difficult on people.
Rebecca Hass
Yeah. Well, and even though you just said you don't work with creatives, I would argue that you do, because you have to be creative to be an entrepreneur.
Shulamit Ber Levtov
Yes. I agree with that part. Yes.
Rebecca Hass
Yeah. So it's all connected.
Shulamit Ber Levtov
Yeah, it is all connected! Yeah.
Rebecca Hass
Shifting a little bit, I was looking at your website a little bit before we talked today. I really appreciated on your about page, how you talked about mindset not being the be-all end-all. Because as we know, it's often, in coaching spaces, and entrepreneurship spaces, and all kinds of places, you hear about mindset is everything. I'm a full believer that mindset can be a powerful tool, but I really appreciated how you said, "No, mindset is not everything," because there are so many other factors that go into how you think, and whether what you're doing will succeed. And, you know, you talk about false positivity. Can you share some of that with our listeners? I think it's so important.
Shulamit Ber Levtov
Sure, well, I'll start with the mindset thing. I gotta tell you, I have a real bone to pick around how mindset is misused, like it's an old, old psychological truth from way back in the day. Albert Ellis, in the 1950s, he developed Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy called REBT for short, precursor of cognitive behavioral therapy, which we know today, although REBT, is also used. His insight was that how we think about things has an effect on our emotions, how we appraise an event, or for a fact, determines how we feel about it.
Shulamit Ber Levtov
So, from that point of view, our thoughts do determine, can, to a great degree, determine our experiential reality. But we can develop, especially as young people, we can come up with, our brains can come up with like, one plus one equals five, and we never really examine how we got to the conclusion about five, right?
Shulamit Ber Levtov
Like, to make it real, for example, my childhood experience taught me that if I needed help, nobody was coming. And if somebody did come, they were not helpful, and in fact, created more pain in the situation. So for much of my life, that belief that nobody's coming to help operated in the background, and prevented me from seeing the help that was right in front of my nose! Right in front of my nose, right?
Shulamit Ber Levtov
That's an example of a mindset or a belief that developed adaptively when I was young, and that I needed to identify, "Okay, so I guess I'm not going to ask for help, because that just makes things worse, right?" And in order to survive as a young person, or little children, we do, you know, our brains come up with all kinds of stuff. So that's an example. It doesn't serve me anymore to believe this unexamined belief that, you know, if I ask for help, nobody's coming.
Shulamit Ber Levtov
Especially as an entrepreneur, it really doesn't serve me, and to be able to look at that, look at where it came from, work through the emotional, and the story, and the emotions around how that got that way and then gently looking from my own self at how that actually has been helpful, and that help has actually been present in many times and in many places, helps me shift my sense of things, and helps me expand my view so that there's the truth of my past, and, in addition, there's the current truth. And both of them need to be there.
Shulamit Ber Levtov
It's not that one wipes out the other because that's bypass, that's what we would call spiritual or psychological bypass where we, this is the false positivity thing - "Oh, everything's great, so it was never bad." Well, no, actually, we have to recognize that there's difficult and painful things, and there's the current truth. So mindset work is more like what I've described, the way, I think, psychologically healthy mindset work is more the process that I've just described, around my thought that there was no help for me, and that no help was coming, and when you can have that shift happen, then it opens up all kinds of things. But what happens mostly in the self-help / wellness industry is that mindset becomes a weapon, it becomes weaponized.
Shulamit Ber Levtov
So that if you get stuck somewhere, the person in the position of, playing the role of guide, or we could say authority, teacher, whatever, we'll say, "Well, that's clearly a mindset block, and you have to do something about that. So just change your thinking."
Shulamit Ber Levtov
Well, I've changed my thinking a lot, enormously, over my lifetime, and it's not a question of just, "Change your thinking. It's long, hard work. So it's like, a nuance around it, right? Mindset is really, really important, has a really important impact. And it's not like snap your fingers, and it's done kind of thing.
Rebecca Hass
That'd be nice!
Shulamit Ber Levtov
Oh, my gosh, like, seriously. And here's the thing, when somebody says to you, it's a mindset issue, the question to ask yourself is, what's their interest? Why are they saying that to me, and are they offering me support? So, I might say to a client, “It sounds to me like this might be a little bit of a mindset issue, let's examine, let's be curious and take a look about the conditions around this, and you know, what your thoughts and emotions are?”
Shulamit Ber Levtov
So I'm inviting a person into an exploration. My intention in that is to support them. But then you might also hear people say, “Well, you know, you have to, you're stuck in your process with me, and it's clearly a mindset issue, so, like, you just have to learn how to think about this differently."
Shulamit Ber Levtov
Or if you're unwilling to spend a certain amount of money and somebody says, "Well, you know, you have an issue with your money mindset." No. Like, why are they saying that? So it's important to think critically about this as well.
Rebecca Hass
Definitely. Then if you take it to its full conclusion, if mindset is everything, and changing your thoughts will make good things happen to you. That means if something bad happened, it's your fault. And that just comes with a whole load of...I don't know.
Shulamit Ber Levtov
Yeah, so much of this stuff that is presented to us as empowering. Again, it's a question of nuance, because, as a trauma survivor, I saw only half the picture in my life. My trauma mindset, the adaptive strategies that were brilliant in the moment, and helped me survive, covered that aspect of life, and that time of life. Those things carried over into the rest of my life, and colored my life, and obscured the other half of the picture. I needed to bring that other half back in.
Shulamit Ber Levtov
So we want to bring both in, and that helps us see the whole picture. It's very empowering to bring in the other half, but when we look at it the other way around, as in, "Well, just change your mindset," then, when you're unable to do that, just like that, then all the information you're receiving is that it's your fault, and there's something the matter with you when in fact, in many cases, in my experience, as a therapist, it's something significant that happened in your life that needed some metabolism.
Shulamit Ber Levtov
You need to digest that and process that experience before you can have the shift that can eventually come. But you're very right in bringing up this idea of self blame, because so many people will come to me, and they'll think there's something the matter with them. 50% of my job is really supporting people and seeing that there really is nothing the matter with them, that there's a good reason that they're feeling the way they're feeling or a good reason for what they're experiencing. Then people go, "Oh, you mean I'm not crazy?" I can't tell you how many people have gone, "You mean, I'm not crazy? There's nothing the matter with me?" That in itself is a big relief, to be able to get off the hook of self blame and shame, then that also kind of opens the door to all kinds of possibilities.
Rebecca Hass
I'm laughing because that resonates with me so much. My first experience with therapy was very much like that. I was experiencing so much anxiety, and I didn't know that I didn't have to trust each and every one of my thoughts that was telling me horrible things. And it was like, "I'm not losing my mind?" Just that validation from a therapist was so big for me.
Shulamit Ber Levtov
Same same, same same. When my therapist validated some of the stuff I was going through, it was a big relief. That just speaks to the power of validation. You don't even need a therapist, you know, to have a business bestie who really gets you and who validates what you're going through. It's just like, "Oh, my gosh, I'm seen, I'm heard. Somebody gets me. I'm not alone." It feels really good, right?
Rebecca Hass
So, what if somebody is feeling alone, and they don't have the support of a therapist, they don't have a bestie they can talk to? And they're like, "Hmm, I think my mindset is holding me back in some way." What's the first question that you would tell them to ask themselves, to look at it in a self compassionate way?
Shulamit Ber Levtov
So first, I want to give a caveat that this kind of work is enormously difficult to do on our own, because what happens when we're having high emotions is that we flip our lids. So quite literally, our thinking capacity, our prefrontal cortex, it's called, or neocortex, sometimes, where our ability to take in and synthesize information, be creative, be curious, make decisions, all those kinds of things, are unavailable. Literally, it stops communicating with the rest of you, that part of your brain when your emotions are high. Having somebody else present has a regulating effect, it helps calm and soothe your emotions, right?
Shulamit Ber Levtov
So I will say that, for me to do this kind of work on my own, I don't actually do it on my own. So I have a peer practice three times a week of just a supportive peer, where we hold me sit silently with one another. We share 30 minutes, 30 minutes, you know, where the one sits silently while the one speaks, and then we switch. So that's the place where I do this kind of work just with a silent witness. I find that that really helps.
Shulamit Ber Levtov
So I'm somewhat reluctant to give tips for what you can do on your own because of the difficulty. That said, a journal, you know, that gives you a kind of observer stance with your thoughts and feelings, and to put them down on paper and read them back to yourself. Also doing it by hand on paper - paper slows the process down as well. Going more slowly is a really important regulating element of helping your nervous system regulate to go more slowly when you're worked up.
Shulamit Ber Levtov
Where you might like to start with that is doing some free writing, just allowing what comes to come around - this question of, is there something in my mind in my thinking, that doesn't serve me anymore, that isn't serving me right now? Start free writing on that. You may find that some of that kind of percolates down into the ideas that you have about the situation, and maybe past experiences about the situation as well.
Shulamit Ber Levtov
As you percolate, maybe you can begin to sort out, "Oh, I see that I have this assumption." That's another, you know, we talk a lot about core beliefs, but assumption is another good, "Oh, I have this assumption that nothing ever works out for me," or "I have this assumption that the world is a hostile world," you know, or whatever. Then you can start examining, once you've kind of boiled it down to, what is the assumption underlying, or the belief underlying this, then you can start looking. You can be curious, right?
Shulamit Ber Levtov
Not like, "Is this really true? Are you really true? Is this really?" or, "You dope? This is not." You know, it's more like, "Oh, hmm. Is this really true? I wonder. I'm curious. Let me see." With the wonder and curiosity, as if you've never been to this place before, you can start to then do some more free writing on how is this true and how isn't this true in my life.
Shulamit Ber Levtov
What I find when you're doing this work on your own, I've sort of mentioned this before, but I'll say it again, in this context, not having the expectation that the one cancels the other out. It's really about seeing the whole picture. So there are some times when it's true, and sometimes when it's not true. That's the beauty of the process, is seeing that there are times when it isn't true, so that it's not the case that nobody ever will come to help you. The case is, sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. That's the whole, that's the truth in quotation marks, right? Because it's the whole of the story.
Shulamit Ber Levtov
So maybe if you're the kind of person who likes to do this stuff on your own, you can experiment with that process and see what happens. Don't shit on yourself if you don't get anywhere, because it's hard to do on your own.
Rebecca Hass
Cool, thank you for that really comprehensive answer. I really am inspired to pull out my journal, just from hearing you describe that. I love that you're talking so much about curiosity, too. I consider that to be one of my main values, personally, and in my work. This just came to me while you were talking, so thank you for helping me make this connection, but I think that the curiosity inherently, I don't want to say forces, because that's too strong of a word maybe, but it facilitates self compassion.
Shulamit Ber Levtov
100%.
Rebecca Hass
Because it's hard to do, how can you be curious and open and be harsh to yourself? I don't think they're compatible.
Shulamit Ber Levtov
I would say that curiosity is an aspect of self compassion. You know, I really believe that that is a self compassionate move that we can make to be curious about what's happening inside. There's a couple of steps that come before curiosity. The first one is recognition that you're having a tough time. "Ohhhhh, I'm having a tough time, stuff is tough for me."
Shulamit Ber Levtov
Then the second step is to validate, like we talked about before, we can validate ourselves. "Ah, no wonder I'm having a hard time, look at what's going on. Look at the conditions right now. This is so tough." You can, you know, offer yourself a gentle touch and take a breath - "No wonder, no wonder," and then you can invite curiosity: "I wonder if I can be curious about this."
Rebecca Hass
I love that, because those are the steps that when you are very busy and overwhelmed, that you might not have the presence to even just stop and be like, "Hey, I am having a hard time," because you're just like in the hamster wheel, go, go, go go go. And, you know, just taking a moment to say, "Oh, wow, I did a lot of things this week. And some of them really stressed me out. And I didn't even stop to notice that." That's huge.
Shulamit Ber Levtov
Yeah. Yeah, I think as entrepreneurs, we're so, I know, I personally and I see it and others, I'm very focused on the do, on the execution. Also, the execution obscures or separates me somewhat from my actual, my inner experience, which is good and bad, because I have chronic headaches. I've noticed how work is a way of, it kind of turns the volume down on a headache. I'm not enjoying myself, but it's not in the front of my awareness, because I'm focused on work, which is good, but also not good, because it can be something we can kind of default to, never paying attention, and/or we can use this on purpose as a way not to pay attention. So all these things that show busyness show up in all these different ways, and makes it hard when just the pace, you know, makes it hard to pause and take a breath and be curious about how, or just check in with our, "Oh, my goodness, yeah, this is really tough."
Rebecca Hass
Mm hmm. Then that translates to creativity, and that if you can't hear your own thoughts, and can't be aware of what's going on, how are you going to hear those little creative nudges and catch those ideas? They're going to get lost in the noise.
Shulamit Ber Levtov
Yes, I would say I would refine what you're saying just a little bit, because I think our thoughts, it's not about hearing our thoughts, really, the creativity, because thoughts are often, you know, the judging, blaming, shaming, critical. Worry also really shows up there because we're, you know, we're hyper-vigilant often, entrepreneurs, because we face so much risk. So we tend to be on the anxious side of things, which serves us well, because it generates lots of energy and it means that we are prepared, because we are paying attention. But it generates a lot of thoughts that are, you know, if we immerse ourselves in those thoughts too much, like you said, with anxiety, right? It takes us down a path that's not helpful. But when we're a little bit more resourced, when we stop and breathe and look within, we can sort out. We can sort those kinds of thoughts and let them be where they are, and tune in a little bit more deeply underneath those thoughts to the kind of, like you say, the smaller messages, the quieter, softer messages. Yeah.
Rebecca Hass
That reminds me of, I don't know if you've read Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert?
Shulamit Ber Levtov
I haven't!
Rebecca Hass
Oh, it's so great, even if you're not looking into it as a person who studies the creative process, but there's a part where she talks about having the fear in the car with you, but it doesn't get to drive. I really love that way of imagining that idea, like, those thoughts are gonna be in there with you. It feels like maybe you should make them go away, because we don't like them. They're uncomfortable, but really, they can't hurt you if you can put up that little barrier. I know I said that very simply. That's not a simple thing, either.
Shulamit Ber Levtov
Well, it can be with practice.
Rebecca Hass
Yeah, exactly.
Shulamit Ber Levtov
One of the things that happens is we have a sort of a tendency to aversion for things we don't like, so our tendency is to try to make these thoughts go away or tell our mind to shut up. I don't know if you've experienced this, but I'm guessing probably the more you push them away, the louder they get.
Shulamit Ber Levtov
That's happened. Yeah.
Shulamit Ber Levtov
Yeah. Kind of like kids.
Rebecca Hass
They get mad at you.
Shulamit Ber Levtov
Yes, they do get mad at you, because they want you to pay attention. Because they're trying, they're not using a very effective means, but they're trying really hard to keep you safe. The way they're doing it really sucks, but at heart, they've got good intentions. That's why if we dismiss them, they're going to keep yelling, and yelling and yelling and yelling. But as you say, if we can say, "Oh, hi, anxious voice, anxious self, anxious part, come, make yourself comfortable over there. It's okay for you to be here. It's okay for you to be the way you are, I'm going to do what I'm going to do."
Shulamit Ber Levtov
It does take some practice, but it does, with time, become a move that you can use on a regular basis, just allowing them to include themselves in the way that they feel is right, without any effort on your part, and you go forward with what you have.
Rebecca Hass
Yeah, I like to add a, "Thanks for coming. Thanks for trying to help me. I know you're trying to keep me safe. That's really nice of you. But it's not helping right now. Sit over there."
Shulamit Ber Levtov
Yeah. From the point of view of parts work, which I use extensively in my personal life, and also in my work, is that they, as you say, are here to help. But they don't trust, especially because they're used to being squished, not that anybody's minding the store, they're afraid. So, you know, like you say, to say thank you is really powerful to them, and to say, "I'm paying attention. Thank you for letting me know, I've got this. You don't have to, it's not your problem to solve. You're the one who gives me the information, and I take care of this. Thanks so much for sharing the information with me. I got this."
Rebecca Hass
I like that. Yeah, that relates back to a way that some people think about creativity, too, that like, you have the creator, and then you have the judge. The judge doesn't need to be there while you're making the thing, because they're going to get in the way, they're going to be like, "Hey, I don't know, what about this, this might not be good." Like, they have a really important job, but it comes later down the line.
Shulamit Ber Levtov
Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, and once they trust that you're going to come to them when the time is right, and that you're paying attention and that they matter and they're important, they can relax enough to allow you to be where you are now, because they trust that you're going to get there. Yeah,
Rebecca Hass
Yeah, I've been thinking about that idea in the context of enoughness a lot lately, in my own life, too. You know, there's so many ways that we can feel like either we are not enough, or we don't have enough, and I just kind of had the epiphany or maybe re-epiphany that that's kind of a trauma response to the worry about not being enough because, you know, you if you don't have enough food, you're gonna die. If you go back to those really primitive impulses, there's a really good reason why we worry about not being enough and not having enough.
Shulamit Ber Levtov
Yes, I think it's twofold. I think on the one hand, it's very concrete about survival in terms of specific material resources. And I think that it's also emotional / social in that. If I am not enough, people won't like me, and if people don't like me, I will be cast out and then I will starve and die. You know, so it's dual. There's a sense of like, "I have to be seen to be okay by other people, the people around me." And it's fear inducing when you're not.
Rebecca Hass
Absolutely. It's hard to sort out those primitive impulses from the ones that are actually pertinent to your life. I mean, being cast out now, that could have some serious ramifications on your life. It's not like you're not in a society and you have no food anymore, and you will die, necessarily, but, yeah.
Shulamit Ber Levtov
Well, and especially as entrepreneurs, I mean, we think about in terms of reputation, we think in terms of our network, for our business, like, if people start talking shit about us, we can starve, right?
Rebecca Hass
That's true.
Shulamit Ber Levtov
It is, we have to walk. This is one of the things that's very hard on entrepreneurs as well. Speaking of emotional health and well being and the impact of the pandemic, where, you know, if you're struggling emotionally or any other circumstance as an entrepreneur, to be able to be transparent about, "Ooh, things are not going, I'm not doing so well," then you worry, "Are people gonna think that I'm a flake and not do business with me?"
Shulamit Ber Levtov
This is called impression management, and impression management feeds into the isolation, because you're reluctant to share what's happening on the inside, and you're left alone with that, because you're afraid that it will affect your network, or it'll affect your business, or it'll affect your brand equity, and all that stuff can have an impact on your business, it's very hard.
Rebecca Hass
Yeah, it's really hard to balance that with the impulse to be your true self and to show up in a genuine way.
Shulamit Ber Levtov
Yeah. I'm very transparent, at least, that's the story I tell myself about myself, anyway. There's a nuance to what kind of transparency, because if I'm going through something, and it's not yet metabolized, and I need support for it, I can be transparent about where I am right now, and I can say, "I'm going through something, it's very difficult for me, and I'm getting support," or "I need support," or "I have to find support," or whatever, right? Versus giving all the details and telling how the difficulties affect me. It's like metaphorically bleeding all over everybody.
Shulamit Ber Levtov
To extend this analogy, if I'm bleeding out in the road, it's really not even going to do much for me, and it's really going to upset other people. If I'm at that level, I have to go to emergency, and get the first level emergency care for what's going on with me. Then afterward, I can tell people what it was like, and how I went through it, and how I metabolized that, because it's in service then, for, first of all, common humanity - that people can see themselves in our stories, because there are universal themes that come out, but also that there may be things that we learned that are worth sharing. That transparency comes after it's been metabolized. So that's a refinement to that. I find that for me, in any case, being transparent at the level of stuff that is more or less complete for me, is actually part of my, if you will, brand, because it's part of how I help.
Rebecca Hass
Yeah, I think sharing is a huge part of how we help people, and that can be so much further reaching. If you're talking about sharing in a blog post or a social media post, you know, you can't work with everybody who comes in contact with you. Maybe they feel seen in your story, and that's amazing.
Shulamit Ber Levtov
Well, I don't know if you've ever found books to be helpful therapeutically, but I sure have. When you read it in a book, somebody is writing about it, and you're like, "Oh, this is so therapeutic. I feel so seen and heard and validated." Then I feel hopeful, just because I read it in a book somewhere, but it matters.
Rebecca Hass
Yeah. It makes you feel less alone. It goes back to the isolation we were talking about.
Shulamit Ber Levtov
Yes. Yeah. I think shared humanity is a real antidote to isolation. I was afraid earlier that you were going to ask me for somebody who's got nothing, got no resort, like what can they do to address isolation, and I was like, I was biting my fingernails going, "Don't ask me that!" But it's coming to me now that this is one of the ways actually that this kind of validation that happens through the written word, or through video or audio, right, hearing others without necessarily interacting with another human being, which can be quite risky if you're anxious about other people, but you can get that kind of shared humanity experience in other ways. That will alleviate some of the distress around your isolation too.
Rebecca Hass
Yeah. Even before the pandemic was a thing, I think that that has been a big part of my life, as someone who is an introvert and a highly sensitive person, and, you know, was a really shy kid growing up. It was easier to find yourself in a book than it was to make a new friend, maybe.
Shulamit Ber Levtov
Oh, yeah, I feel that. Yeah, I had a lot of friends - I called my books, my friends. because they really were.
Rebecca Hass
Yeah. I would max out my library card and lug tote bags out of the library as a little kid.
Shulamit Ber Levtov
Oh, yeah. I still love the smell of library books and libraries.
Rebecca Hass
Yeah. Oh, there is a candle, actually, that I got that was old book smell. I think it was, it's in Minneapolis where I used to live, I think it's called Frostbeard Studio. They have book themed candles.
Shulamit Ber Levtov
That's cool.
Rebecca Hass
It's very cool. So you can kind of replicate that yourself if you don't, you know, live in a basement of books. Although that's the dream, I think.
Shulamit Ber Levtov
Yes. Well, I don't know. I prefer a loft of books, so that there's lots of light.
Rebecca Hass
Oh, sure. Yeah. You could have both maybe, because you want to be cozy and dark sometimes and light-filled other times. And you can't control whether the sun is out, as much as we would like that. I really find a lot of catharsis in those rainy days sometimes, though, actually.
Shulamit Ber Levtov
Well, it can be very soothing and calming, right? This is one of those, in terms of helping our nervous system, too much input can be overwhelming. So, you know, we have the children who have cocoon wraps in classrooms, sometimes. Maybe not during the pandemic, but what they used to do before was, when somebody would get upset, they could go and have a cocoon wrap and be alone in a quiet place. If they wanted, not if they were sent - sending somebody into isolation is really bad, but allowing somebody to choose that calm, quiet, soothing space can be really nourishing. You're right that having the warmth and the cozy and the cushy and in the dark, it can be so lovely.
Rebecca Hass
I love that idea. I wish that had been a thing when I was in elementary school. Yeah, I think that I would have said yes to that question.
Shulamit Ber Levtov
There's just so much, and as a highly sensitive person, just too much stimulation.
Rebecca Hass
Yes. Yeah. Listeners have probably heard me say this before, but I have a practice of when I know something is really busy for a while, or after a big event I schedule in my calendar. I call it "cat and couch day," and there's a fuzzy blanket involved in that, obviously, which both the cat and I love. Yeah.
Shulamit Ber Levtov
Yeah. Well, that has to be a feature of every weekend for me. I just could not continue to work, the level of emotional support that I provide to other people, I need to have my own really intense self care practice. That cat and couch is weekend fare for me every weekend, yeah.
Rebecca Hass
Yeah, me too, at least as much as I am able to. Things have gotten busier this fall for me, but yeah, have to have that carved out space. Yeah. So, on that note, tell me about some of your favorite self care practices. You don't have to list everything ever if, you know, it evolves. What's good right now?
Shulamit Ber Levtov
When I'm asked this question, I always answer this, this is always the first answer, is my focusing practice. Focusing with a capital F. It's from the tradition of Gene Gendlin, it's a peer practice. Gene Gendlin and Carl Rogers studied together, and they looked at what made a person successful in therapy and what didn't. They discovered that this kind of referring inside to sensory data was what enabled people to do well, and so Gene Gendlin operationalized a way to teach this. It's a natural human impulse to do this, but some of us have more access than others. So Gene develoedp this process, so that we could reliably do it. This is the pure practice that I was talking about.
Shulamit Ber Levtov
I do this three days a week, minimum, every single week, because it is so important to have this inner connection time with myself. I also take a few hours of what I call sanctuary time on Sunday mornings, where I'm alone in a space where I have an agreement with my beloved that I'm uninterrupted. It's like that kind of flowy, I can do what I want in that time and space, and I create the space with the light and the quality, music or no music, and it's a couple hours to do. There's no agenda. I often do some journaling in that time. I might do some reading, I might do some listening, I might listen to an audiobook, but there's nothing planned. I just step into the space and see what I want. That sanctuary time has become so important to me over the past year. This is a relatively new practice I started a year ago, so so important. Those would be the two big, big ones.
Rebecca Hass
Love it. I like that you have such a structure around these things, too, because it's easy to say, "Well, I need more space to look inward," and, you know, it kind of happens, kind of doesn't. I like that you have a commitment to it. The sanctuary practice, I've been doing something similar. I've been calling it Magic Monday because I have this rehearsal on Monday evenings, and I often work on Saturday mornings, as well. So the weekend needs to intentionally spill over into Monday.
Rebecca Hass
Magic Monday is, like you said, no agenda, but it's whatever, it usually involves going for a hike or some sort of outdoor exploration or walk, whatever my intuition is leading me toward that day. Sometimes I'm like, "I don't want to go anywhere far away. I'm just gonna walk around the neighborhood," or whatever it is, but yeah, doesn't it feel just so wonderful to know you have that waiting for you?
Shulamit Ber Levtov
So delicious. I find that my stress and tension, the parts of me that feel the stress and tension, when I remind them that we have this, and it's there for us, you know, they relax a little bit. They know that there's going to be time and space for me to down regulate, and to be able to breathe more, and in a different kind of way. It's reassuring during the course of the week. Yeah, just like you say.
Rebecca Hass
Yeah, I love that element of it. I think expansiveness is the other thing that is hard for me to access when I'm too busy. You know, just that, like wonder about things. Part of it for me, too, is just exploring outside, and I moved to California two years ago. So I'm still learning about the plants that are native here, and all this stuff. There's this app called Seek that identifies plants for you, so I'll just walk around and be like, "Ooh, what's this? What's this?", either walking around with my phone identifying things, or just looking around. You know, it's not always the technology piece of it, tut it's just so fun to be able to give into that curiosity, knowing that there is time and space for it, instead of, on my walk in the morning, I know I have to get back for a call at 10am, and I'm like, "Well, I shouldn't stop and look at this plant." Really, would it take more than 30 seconds and affect that? Not really. But your brain kind of gets in that mode of like, "We gotta go, this isn't okay right now."
Shulamit Ber Levtov
That's what I find as a therapist, or for any service provider who works with appointments, that you're always going to the hour or going to the next appointment, the next meeting, the next this or that. Even if there's lots of space, and they're not back to back, there's a vigilance. I find that I need to be attuned to the passage of time in such a way that I can manage those things, that not having that in the rest of my life is really important.
Rebecca Hass
Yes, vigilance is a really good word, and it ties in with all those anxiety impulses that you don't want to get into. So we're getting close to the end of our time here, I have to ask you the question that I ask everybody, which is, what does being a whole person mean to you?
Shulamit Ber Levtov
Let me check inside. As I check inside, I'm remembering that the time in my life when things were only up in my head, that there was no insight to check, that there was no pausing and breathing and sensing down below. That memory gives me the answer to your question, that for me, being a whole person, for me now, being all of me now, is that integration of the somatic, the inside, the down below, and the flow of communication now, between that and my mind, whereas before, I was all mind driven, which of course was adaptive and brilliant at the time when it arose, right? But life is so much warmer, my experience of life, of living as me, as a much warmer and somewhat more spacious experience, when there's that flow of communication, that's what it means to me to be a whole person.
Rebecca Hass
Thank you. I love that answer. Everyone has a slightly different spin on it. I find that a lot of the same themes come up, and it's just so cool to see it through each person's lens. I love the idea of warmth tied to that, too. So, last question: What are you excited about right now?
Shulamit Ber Levtov
Well, I'm excited about the women entrepreneurs support community that I'm currently running, because we were talking about isolation, and you know, there's a proliferation of coaching programs, there's a proliferation of training programs, there's a proliferation of networking opportunities, but there is no space that I'm aware of where it's a space convened to talk about the emotional side of entrepreneurship. So I'm delighted that the second beta, beta B, is running currently, for a space for women entrepreneurs to gather and just have the opportunity to talk to one another about the emotional side of things. The beauty of the space, of an open sharing space, of shared humanity and vulnerability is really powerful. It warms my heart to be a witness and a holder of space for this to happen.
Rebecca Hass
Very cool. I didn't realize that that was the case, but now that you're saying it, I don't know of any spaces like that either. The emotional side is sort of like a sidebar and a lot of different things, but it doesn't get the main focus in anything I've ever seen, so I'm really glad that you've created this and that you are holding that space for people.
Shulamit Ber Levtov
Yes. Thank you.
Rebecca Hass
Yeah. So, thank you so much for having this conversation with me today. It's been so lovely. I can't wait to edit and re-listen and absorb some of these things that you said that, you know, it's gonna take a second listen. You know, everyone listening, you can listen to this as many times as you want, how nice! So, thank you so much, Shulamit, have a great day.
Shulamit Ber Levtov
Thanks, Rebecca.
Pianist and composer