A couple of years ago, I reached out to Dr. Ray – who is a very experienced clinical psychologist & coach – because I heard an entrepreneur raving about a therapy he was doing and how it helped him remove roadblocks and become a better entrepreneur. I thought let’s give it a go.
In this podcast, we start out by discussing some of the basics about therapy and coaching, then do a deep dive into helping men overcome negative patterns like emotional eating and other self-sabotaging behaviors.
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What You’ll Learn
- The difference between higher & lower functioning people
- Why negative leverage never works for lasting results
- The 3-step process for overcoming negative patterns
- How a man with everything can still feel empty
- What loving yourself really means
About Dr. Ray Doktor
Dr. Ray is a doctor in clinical psychology and pioneer in bridging psychology and Eastern philosophies with science and spirituality.
Over the past 24 years, Dr. Ray has worked as a transformational life coach, workshop facilitator, author, and accomplished speaker. He helps people break through their limited beliefs and challenges to attain Self-Mastery. He has training in hypnotherapy, Gestalt therapy, guided imagery, EMDR therapy, NLP, qigong, PSYCH-K, meditation, sound healing, and somatic experience.
Dr. Ray has conducted workshops around the world and has shared the same stages with Marianne Williamson, Bruce Lipton, John Gray, and Eckhart Tolle. He has also made numerous media appearances and has been quoted in several major media publications.
Dr. Ray currently resides in Santa Monica, California.
Links
Transcript
Marc Perry:
Okay. Hey everyone. This is Marc Perry. And today I have a very special guest with me, Dr. Ray Doktor, and his last name is spelled a D O K T O R.
And so a couple of years ago, I reached out to Dr. Ray because I had heard an entrepreneur raving about EMDR therapy and how it helped them remove roadblocks and become a better entrepreneur. And I’m like thinking, why not give it a try? I’ll give it a try.
So, while I never ended up doing EMDR therapy, I did have a handful of sessions with Dr. Ray, and they were really impactful for me on many levels. And I just recently completed another handful of sessions. And so for most of my life, the whole idea of seeing a therapist or psychiatrist, this was not something I ever contemplated. And frankly, I thought it was for people who maybe had some serious traumatic or psychological issues.
And so I wanted to do this podcast with Dr. Ray first to introduce you to him as he’s a really smart guy with a wide breadth and depth of experience. And number two, I’ve helped guys improve their health and wellbeing for 10 years. I’m really grateful. I think this is something that could potentially benefit a ton of guys who are struggling with the same patterns and challenges over and over and over and over again.
And so what I’m hoping to do today is pick Dr. Ray’s brain about therapy, what it is, what it’s not, who can benefit from it. So you can get an overview. This is something that may be useful for you, or maybe someone you love.
Right. And so, let me just tell you a quick bio, give you a kind of a quick background on Dr. Ray.
So Doktor is a doctor in clinical psychology and pioneer in bridging psychology and Eastern philosophies with science and spirituality. Over the past 24 years, Dr. Ray has worked as a transformational life coach, workshop facilitator, author, and accomplished speaker. He helps people break through their limited beliefs and challenges to obtain Self-Mastery. And he is training in a bunch of things. Maybe we’ll dive into a couple today.
Hypnotherapy, Gestalt therapy, guided imagery, EMDR therapy, NLP, qigong, PSYCH-K, meditation, sound healing, and somatic experience. That is all a mouthful. And so Dr. Ray has conducted workshops around the world and has shared the same stages with Marianne Williamson, Bruce Lipton, John Gray, and Eckhart Tolle to name a few. And he also has made numerous media appearances. I mean, you can Google him and you’ll see a bunch of media appearances he’s made and he’s been quoted in several major media publications. And so he currently resides in Santa Monica where I am as well. And so, with all of that said, Dr. Ray, I really appreciate you taking the time out to join today.
Thank you so much, this is very exciting and I’m looking forward to the questions you have, you are going to ask and for clarity, I’m going to talk about, you know, the therapeutic world and probably traditional therapy versus coaching, because, with coaching, it’s setting up future templates with therapy, it’s kind of going into the deeper story and say the past. And yet a lot of people never move forward. It’s just the same narrative.
I really want to dive in. I’m super excited. I think that’s even gotten me more excited. So what is therapy? Just starting out with that.
Dr. Ray:
So traditional therapy, because that’s what most people would probably experience, is where you talk about something and if you just open up about it, if you shed some tears, then for most therapists, that’s considered a positive experience. It doesn’t matter if you’re there for five years. The model is not so much about where you get, it’s more about the process. So the process could be forever.
Now, it’s not saying it’s not beneficial, but it’s to hold that space for someone to look at things a little bit deeper and be introspective, but with traditional therapy, what happens with that? A person still typically arrives at the apparent reality, such as I am this way I feel behind, or I feel like I’m a mess, or I feel a lack of confidence because my father was hard on me. My mother was never around, so my parents were alcoholics so this happened to me when I was in my childhood and so forth.
And every person should be able to talk about those things. It’s just, it’s one thing to talk about it. It’s another thing to like, okay, now that I have this information, how’s it affecting me internally and what unconscious beliefs I have about myself that stopped me from moving forward, regardless of say, what Marc is sharing and is positive and should work. And I’ve read these self help books. And I’ve watched these positive videos on YouTube. I find myself still kind of in this vicious cycle of self-sabotage and behaviors. So the model of traditional therapy is where you talk about your experiences, your emotions, and hopefully that therapist can hold that container for you to understand yourself better. So it is to lead to self awareness, but if that’s self awareness is also still with a kind of skewed perception of yourself, and you don’t have a map to move forward, you can truly get stuck in that even if you have an amazing coach, such as Marc offer you information, because it’s, you know, it’d be like, I noticed this a lot with coaches, they’ll share information, particularly with men more than women.
And men will try to think themselves into a positive choice. They are trying to think themselves and what they’re going to do. And yet emotionally they’re not aligned. Their unconscious mind is still saying, you can’t do it. You’re a loser and whatever else. So in therapy, the attempt is to try to find out why am I sabotaging myself? Why am I still not able to move forward? Why does it that I keep hitting this invisible wall, even though I consciously know that there’s a better choice.
Marc Perry:
That’s a lot of said, man, I really appreciate it. I think there’s a lot in there that we can dive into. And so, I mean, you, touched upon it in that answer, but I was just curious to hear, I guess even more directly or simply, coaching versus therapy. Cause I’ve coached guys for many years and sometimes when I feel like it’s almost straddling the line, it’s like, is this, is this almost therapeutic? Like where is this going? And so I want to hear your thoughts on what you think kind of coaching versus therapy.
Dr. Ray:
It is a gray area because also cognitive therapy could also resemble coaching because it’s given people say tasks, it’s kind of helping them kind of understand themselves and give them a behavioral modification such as a coach would be. But to be very clear, very simple, it’s this, therapy in a way it’s exploring the emotional realm, including maybe your past childhood, whereas with coaching and say traditional coaching, the idea is to move forward to where you want to go and it’s to remove still, maybe some blocks that might be in your way, but it might be more like such as yourself as a coach or other coaches.
They’re challenging a person’s philosophy. So for example, if I were your client and I was saying, you know, life really sucks. Or I just don’t think I can do it. Your approach might be will, you know, I hear you, I feel you, but what would you really want to do? And where would you really want to go? And then that person starts talking about where they want to go. They maybe start taking responsibility rather than kind of playing more in like, I can’t do it or victimhood and hopefully they can move forward to create a better life such as do training, you know, be committed to say staying on a diet and everything else.
But if they have the emotional story, if they have hidden emotional challenges, then that will always disrupt coaching, it will always disrupt. You know, even like there’s a lot of people who go see Tony Robbins, thousands and thousands, and they feel amazing for the first two weeks, but they often revert back to old behaviors because there’s hidden stories. So therapy can go there, but a combination of therapy and coaching, that’s a whole other model. And to me that would be the best of both worlds combined, because then you’re exploring what blocks you. But you also have a map where to go, you have a new set of philosophies, for example, in traditional therapy, if a therapist will typically be compassionate and say, yeah, your parents were not that kind to you. Yes, you didn’t experience love. Yes, your parents were conditional and a little bit judgemental.
And a coach, what might say we’ll do, do you know, they’re not here, they’re not in your life. And you kind of got to get over it. What do you want to do about it? And so a person in therapy can stay there forever and keep talking about that over and over and over again, it is good. And by the way, why I really like this interview also is that it’s letting others out there know how to use it to your best benefit, because it doesn’t mean, therapy is bad. It’s that if you need a space to talk about those emotions, great, but you also want to move forward. And if that therapist is not holding that space for you, you need some type of coach such as Marc to guide you there.
Marc Perry:
I really appreciate that. And for the listeners, one thing that I thought was really cool about working with Dr. Ray was I had an initial conversation, I told them about some of the challenges I’ve experienced, and he’s like yeah, four sessions. I’m like, what are you talking about? And he’s like, yeah, we just do four sessions. Then it’s done. And so for this type of area, I imagine that it creates a dependency situation really easily especially a personal trainer.
For example, I had a personal training practice. One thing I worry about is I didn’t want our clients to become dependent on us. And it’s like, all of a sudden I can’t work out unless I’m with my trainer and, or I can’t get results in less than with my trainer. And so anyways, I think this area in particular, probably even more than training, especially with therapy, it’s like all of a sudden, any slight issue or challenge in your life, it’s like, oh man, I got to see my therapist versus kind of handling and working through it yourself.
And so I’m kind of curious, Dr. Ray, I mean, from your perspective, how do you create a situation where you don’t create dependency? How is that possible? What are your thoughts on that?
Dr. Ray:
Well, first off, when I work with clients because I have the clinical training and a lot of people are coming to me for say therapy, but I don’t provide therapy, I haven’t worked in that realm, I’m a coach, but I would say I’m a hybrid coach because I have that training.
So I interview people, I do a discovery, free discovery call, where I ask particular questions I’ve been doing for a really long time, so intuitive. I kind of see where a person’s at. So there are some people who will show up and they are having drinking problems and are still really not aware whether or not it’s a problem. They’re just, I wouldn’t say, and I don’t say lower functioning with judgment, but I typically work with higher functioning people.
So a person who is lower functioning, where it’s just more about survival versus thriving, for example, that would look like a person, just, if they don’t stop drinking, they’re gonna lose their job, their family, they’re not even thinking about hobbies and working out. And you know what I mean? Like they’re at a level of, you know, my life is not really functional right now, but this drinking, this is the most important thing right now in my life. And I appreciate that they might be better off with a person who specializes in alcoholism or holding that space or that type of therapist or coach it’s, it’s a different model where they might have to see that person a lot more, more times in a way, almost as if this person’s are a sponsor, because they’re trying to deal with something that’s kind of been going on for a while. They’re still stuck in it. They might not even have that understanding of why they started drinking in the first place.
So people are at different levels of their healing and understanding if that makes sense. Like for example, your, you have been in this, I would say healing coaching arena for a very long time. So the conversations you hear by your colleagues and just even living here more people are higher functioning. So, but when you get with people who are like almost on skid row or where they are just like in a really, really like tough place where just imagine it being a man who’s never shared his emotions and he’s never even like saw his dad cry or share his emotions. His dad was very detached. And just say, he’s taken on some of those qualities for him just to say, I’m having a bad day, might be a lot for him to act any other than being on might be uncomfortable.
So that person might do well with a coach. That’s going to hold space like that or therapist who will spend a year, two years. Cause it might be really baby steps, really baby steps. So there’s sometimes that can look like this. Some people like dependency, but the model, which I shared is not, it is where that person will need to see you more. So for you Marc, you are higher functioning. And when I interviewed you, I validated that also meaning on our discovery call. So that’s kind of how I see in how I work.
Now to answer your question directly about dependency it’s that the coach or therapist never takes responsibility for their wellbeing. They never take away. They, for example, it is really about to give a reflection to that client such as you’re aware, or you made a good decision, you know…do you notice how much better you’re doing? How’s it feel to make your own decisions to make healthier choices? It’s where you instill in them all little things, no matter how small it, it appears. So they start feeling that competence. So they make their own decisions. And don’t develop this dependency on that coach or therapist ever.
It can also happen when, say a therapist or a coach hasn’t worked out their own shit. In other words, there are therapists and coaches out there. And yet this is kind of a warning where they, they have a word through their demons and therefore they develop a dependency. It’s other way around people don’t realize that there are therapists who have been with their clients for 20 years because that they might rely on that consistency of making money too, that they, their sense of self is by having a person come into the office and keep working through it. But if the client is stuck in a process and so as the therapist is stuck in a process, they both have become codependent on each other.
Marc Perry:
Interesting.
Dr. Ray:
We went somewhere else with that.
Marc Perry:
There’s a lot here. And again, there’s a lot here. I mean, I think, you know, we were talking about in the beginning about these patterns, right. And certainly guys who’ve gone through our programs, for example, you know, certainly with eating challenges, right? It’s like they can’t stop. Let’s just call it. Who knows what it is like late night snacking or just emotional eating. It’s like, they get stressed out and it’s, you know, the rails come off type of thing.
And so I guess I’m curious, there are probably many different ways to think about stopping a pattern right. And creating a new pattern. I’m curious how you think about it and how you go about helping someone?
Dr. Ray:
Okay. So imagine, and I’m confirming that the majority of your clients are men or are they all men?
Marc Perry:
Well, you know, we’ve got a website where we’ve got like, you know, hundreds of thousand people who come, it’s all men right now in terms of all the customers. Yeah.
Dr. Ray:
Okay. So it’s a man and he has challenges eating. Okay. And so I’m approaching it in multiple ways. So imagine on his refrigerator, he has a post that says what you’re looking for is not in here. So just that is a little reminder. And also hopefully bring some humor in that. And so he might have a notepad somewhere there.
And every time he feels the need to eat, he has to check him his body, literally put his hand on his belly and his hand on his heart and say like, what are you really feeling? Is it a hunger or something else? And it’s to direct him into the state or the emotion of what he’s feeling in his body. And if that were to become uncomfortable, then to avoid that discomfort, this say eating is probably is kind of pseudo way, like to take an aspirin, you know, for a headache to get rid of that. So that would just be like one little start just blast things out.
Now, working with a coach or say someone like myself, it would be to see why is this feeling bad? If you’re able to fill yourself, isn’t that great rather than being robotic. So his association connections, emotions might be, this is awful. You know, I need a man. It up, it might be, it’s what his dad told him. It says he grew up in a culture where, that was more value to be able to be stoic or something. So it might be the narrative he’s saying when he feels that therefore he doesn’t allow himself to cry. And so he’s kind of bottled up. So the food serves as a way to help him feel some type of relief to feel better.
So when you start creating disconnections right now, so I already know a lot of men are gonna, wow, wow. Like you’re kind of breaking your racket wide open, but there’s an inner dialogue. That’s happening. There’s a sequence before you start eating. And when you understand that you understand the mechanism, it’s really hard to keep falling into his patterns because you’ve just not heard this interview. You just now learned that there’s a sequence and it’s more, you start catch yourself to where, of course you put healthier things in place.
So it’s like if I’m feeling emptiness and that’s why I’m eating, what is a core issue in my emptiness? Well, it could be that I don’t really experience life and I’m not present. Therefore the money I make doesn’t fill me up. The woman on with, doesn’t fill me up. Nothing fills me up because I’m not really present with myself. I don’t like who I am. Men might hear this go, well, fuck. I’m fat. You know, like, how can I love myself?
Well, you’re feeding yourself up with something. That’s making me feel worse. And when you fill yourself with emotions, it creates the newer chemicals in your body to help you feel literally satisfied and to where you start breaking a parents, because you started giving your body to things that’s always wanted rather than food.
Marc Perry:
This is really powerful stuff. And so Dr. Ray, just as an aside, it’s, you know, one thing I’ve kind of helped guys with, and I’ve been kind of recommending his idea of having like a photo food journal.
So the idea is, you have your cue routine reward kind of pattern, right? It’s like, Oh, you have a cue. Maybe you smell something. Maybe you see something and then you go through a little routine. Next thing you know, it’s like mindless. And then, you know, you’re eating whatever it is.
And maybe it’s not going to be the best for you. And maybe it’s kind of pointing you in a way that’s not improving your health and wellbeing. And so the one kind of caveat is that yes, it can help you become very aware. Cause it’s like a pattern interrupt. It’s like, oh, before I eat, I’ve got to take a photo of something, interrupts the pattern. Right. But the tricky thing is, I think what you’re getting to is they’re, they’re deeper.
There’s another layer, there’s another layer two or three or four underneath this. And so, um, and so you were mentioning in terms of these archetypes, I guess, right? Like someone who maybe is very stoic. I mean, I’m just trying to get a sense of how can someone get to the root? Not only just get to the root, they might even know like, okay. Their challenges, their issues, but how do they find the root and then overcome it. I mean, obviously working with someone like yourself might be very helpful, but I just want to kind of ask you that.
Dr. Ray:
Okay. So I want to mention one thing, keep me on track here because I’m hearing three responses right now. So first off, keep in mind that the majority of people who try to stop eating are using a negative leverage. And that means depriving themselves. And that means having negative thoughts. And why I say it’s not inherently negative it’s, but it’s more of this is that if deep inside, within your emotional body, this is rewarding you to some shape or form to eat more. And often that person has become that way by negative things that have been said to him or her. Okay. So then if you start creating rules and things to do to deprive yourself of this thing, then you’re just being mom and dad to yourself once again.
So I just wanted to plant that seed a little bit. So negative leverage rarely…never works. Never works because it’s deprived and you still have something that you’re still not getting. So just want to put that out there.
Marc Perry:
That’s really, really powerful.
Dr. Ray:
Okay. Number two. The other response is this. You asked me how does a person work on himself when I respond? The other thing that will be actually how my look now, this goes to like, you’ve heard the same, like, you know, there’s when you try to use the same intelligence that created a problem, you get nowhere. And so the reason why a lot of people are also stuck with coaching or therapy or reading self help books or say attending a Tony Robbins seminar it’s because they still have that same mechanism that overriding negative life philosophy or life experience.
So therefore, as an example, and a lot of men can relate to this. And that is this. Imagine I’m a man and my father said I would never be successful. And this is actually a client. A client I worked with who was running a billion dollar company. And his father was a full blown narcissist. And his son who was older in his fifties, I would say, had a lot of those traits as well. And his father was a doctor and this man went to the best college. He started a company very early on his age, but it was always to prove something to prove to his father. So even though the money was in the bank, he never arrived to a sense of peace and freedom within himself. And he even say attracted the attractive wife. Uh, it still wasn’t enough.
And him too, he was an alcoholic. And so he came to me like when he was 55 years old. And so when now, when I say positive, like negative leverage, it could look positive to the rest of the world. You push yourself through college, you did these things. But if the narrative, the negative narrative was still there, it was, if you’re not these things, you’re a loser. If you don’t do this, you’re a loser. That’s dad’s voice also. So he achieved this and yet never felt a sense of peace and love for himself. So this it’s very important to remember that even when it looks like you’re moving forward, it is why take note men, why you end up self sabotage.
And again, because you might be doing this program in the attitude in which you have to push yourself through it is a negative. Still has that negative command. And we need to get rid of that negative command. And your reason for wanting to do this has to be because you just love yourself, you’re worth it. And it’s moving into that space. And if this were to come up, well, I’m not this until this. Then it’s like saying, okay, then you’re only worthy by what others say, or you only lovable by how it looks out there. You know? And again, a lot of people will get there and still not enough because it’s not coming with them. It’s more from the external validation. Okay. Now to the third response. Should I hold on?
Marc Perry:
No, it’s amazing. Continue, please.
Dr. Ray Doktor:
The third one is this and that is, you said how a person could change. How did you actually ask once again?
Marc Perry:
I was saying, it’s identifying the root. And you’re saying, how do you create a solution, and I think you talked about that one guy who had that negative disempowering belief in his father’s voice, what do you do? How can that person change and not continue that sabotage?
Dr. Ray:
Okay. So I’m going to try to remember what happened. This was like five years ago. Okay. And so just with that person. So first off with that particular client, he is never feeling enough. First, an important question to ask them, what is your relationship to emotions, negative or positive? Because imagine emotion is like your check engine light, whether something’s working or not. And if you’re denying it, you’re never giving yourself literally positive feedback to make better choices. You deny who you are. And therefore you effort yourself into doing things that are not really aligned. So it’s never going to feel good, but you keep overriding your emotions with negativity, or just trying to, I guess you say power yourself through it.
So what is your relationship with emotions…negative? Is it like you feel like a pussy? What is it? And of course, if a man is hearing this right now, you’re already way ahead of most men, because you’re obviously listening to this because you’re a little bit more open to emotions and self improvement. So amazing. So when it’s going, it’s going to that thought then also, what was your earlier feelings and thoughts, emotions, and the persons to like close your eyes and check in with themselves. And then it’s asking, so how do you feel about emotions now?
I asked that in three different ways. That man, if you were to say, I’m not good with it, then it’s starting at that level. And that is what can we do for you to accept yourself, your emotions that come up for us to move forward. And after you stop working with me, you need to have a positive perspective about that. So they might be stuck right there and talking about that until they become comfortable with it. And what are there shadows – when I showed myself, when I was vulnerable, my dad put me down when I was vulnerable to my mom, my mom didn’t pay attention to me either. When I opened myself up to the male friends or people I went to school with, when I was in high school, they made fun of me, but it’s more to kind of go, okay, that happened. And how did that serve you? And what would you like to experience now?
Well, I’d like to be accepted and validated, then it would be the question. Do you need it to be validated by your high school friends, your dad now, but as a man right now by yourself, because they’re not going anywhere, they’re here, they exist and exist, every human being. Can he be okay with your emotions? Just say, that person finally has that catharsis they cry or connect with it, whatever way technique I use. I give you okay with emotions. That just be the first level of healing, being okay with emotions. Okay. I can keep going if you want, but I don’t want to just be a model.
Marc Perry:
No, I understand. So let’s keep going a little bit. I think this is a really good train of thought and I think it’s gonna be really helpful for a lot of guys. You know, there are certainly, at least for me, I mean, you don’t want to go with the emotions, like, “hey man up, suck it up, handle it.” Those are the kinds of voices. Oftentimes that go in my head. So I really appreciate this. Please continue.
Dr. Ray:
If you’ve seen have problems eating. Number two is okay, now, you know, emotions are okay. Then I want you to just say one experience or few experiences in which you feel where a pivotal point of your life to where you started eating more, smoking more weed, or just not feeling the best by yourself. And then the person starts talking about it. Then I would have them close their eyes and I would want them to, I want you to feel them to experience. And as if you’re there as if you’re happy now, feel it, you know, see it, smell it, experience it as if you’re there. And oftentimes people will keep opening their eyes because they’re not able to go there. You know?
And that shadow that’s coming up is also what they avoid, which leads to them say eating. So I’m like, just stay with it. Remember emotions are okay. Feel with it. They might have an idea they have to get out of it because they have that negative command. So I’ll say, sit with the emotion, be with it, let it be, let it move through your body and always hands down for that. They, you know, they’ll experience it on a different level. Even if they open their eyes or are uncomfortable just with that guidance to go. This is here and it’s okay. It could neutralize it, but ideally it would be where they feel it and it leaves their body. So the energy is not there. If that energy is not there, then also it’s going to take away those heavy feelings you might have late at night. Believe or not, but by doing that during the day, so that’s the second step of just being able to neutralize it
Now the third step might be where now that you know that, well, let’s first get to a transparent belief. Now that the person is able to process the emotions and let it go, then it’s that apparent reality, that surface, I started to feel bad when I felt rejected by my girlfriend or I was fired or something. Okay. So the idea is that you felt rejected. You didn’t feel good. Therefore you started feeling bad about yourself. You started eating. Okay. But the fact that now that they’re okay with sharing their emotions, they’re able to share it, when they share it, there’s more, it’s not just in our head. And matter of fact, their head is connected to their emotions, but there’s still a little bit on the surface. They’re more like talking about it happened. Now, listen to how I say this.
They’re kind of blaming outside circumstance, it influenced them, but it’s truly that if they felt really good about themselves being fired or having a break, it would just be another life event.
For example, I have a six year old son, if he were to like barge in on this interview and get on the camera and say, fuck you, Marc, Marc would probably see him and laugh. He started laughing because it’s a kid. And yet if he’s 26 years old, you’d be like, you would take a person. Like if the boys supposed to be an adult and you would feel like he’s confronting you, maybe a sense of self. And yet a six year old, you didn’t have that reaction. So within our framework, within our, you know, mental construct, we interpret information differently. And some things we allow it to bother us, some things we don’t.
Okay. So now I’ll take what I just shared and now imagine that man, or who was in high school when he was 17 years old, when his girlfriend broke up with him, he interpreted as if he was not enough, that he wasn’t attractive enough, he wasn’t worthy that’s because he didn’t have a strong self-esteem. And so it’s not because she broke up with him, it’s what he sets himself. So the apparent reality is I felt this way because my girlfriend broke up with me with a transparent belief. The internal one is this – I didn’t feel worthy, I didn’t feel enough. And then now you’ve got it.
And so I’d go in a refrigerator when I don’t feel enough. I go in a refrigerator when I’m not really loving myself. Okay. Now I understand this and now we understand this. When it’s like on a surface, just love yourself. What the fuck does that mean? Just love yourself? Well, now, you know what it means on a deeper level and what you could possibly be experienced in a better way. Because if you perceive things as being against you, then even someone was saying, just love yourself. You can experience that as if you’re doing something wrong. So it’s being able to listen to the inner dialogue and how you’re interpreting information.
Marc Perry:
As you’re speaking, Dr. Ray, it reminded me of like, man, I’ve got to listen to this again because there’s a lot of information you’re going through, and this is something that you can listen to two, three times and still get new insights with. And one really cool thing we did, which was a complete game changer for me was when we did our sessions together, you said to record them. And I’m like, okay.
And I thought that was amazing that you allow people to record it. And so when we record it together and I could hear, I listened to the whole thing. And I’m like, and I heard myself talking and I was like, who is that guy a couple of times, because then I can hear these stories. So tell me a little bit more about why you do that and what you think the benefits are.
Dr. Ray:
I’m going to respond to that, but I wanted to give some, because I gave a very long winded response to this whole process to give it a one, two, three, four process would be number one, to be able to find out your relationship to emotions, just in general. Number two, to be able to have the experience, to experience your emotions fully and let it move through your body. Number three, to be able to talk about the experience in which you feel victimized or hurt you or influence you in a way that you’re vulnerable and open and connected to your emotions. And number four, to be able to discover the transparent relief, the inner dialogue of what you said to yourself about the experience, then that would help catapult you over your invisible or the walll would just disappear the visible hall. So there’s that.
Marc Perry:
I really appreciate that. Yeah, please continue.
Dr. Ray:
As far as the recording is this, what’s great about that and traditional therapists don’t do it or allow it. I would demand it. If you do it, I would pull out your phone and record yourself. And of course they have issues with just privacy. So you might have to sign some document, but when you are in your shit, you’re in your shift. You don’t know how you sound, you don’t know what’s going on. So when you record yourself in a great coaching session, you’ll hear your defensiveness. You’ll hear your limited beliefs. You’ll hear yourself argue for your limitations. You know, like for example, I’ve worked with clients who will say, yeah, they’ll talk, we’ll get to a great place. And they’ve landed there and they feel like they’re there. And they describe it in a way where they understand it. And then they say, well, what’s going to happen when blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
I said, you just, you just went there. And then we go back into deeper work again, they feel pretty good. And then they start going, you know, blah, blah, blah. You know, I’m afraid that it’s going to fail because you realize the person keeps going to a past story to past version either we haven’t gone deeper or whatever, but what’s interesting in recording to hear themselves. And then sometimes I’ve come back and say, now I know what my girlfriend was talking about when she says that just take everything to a negative, no matter how positive it is that I seem to kind of keep projecting like this fatalistic outcome or something. So recording allows you to kind of in a way, hear how you unconsciously think in real time.
Marc Perry:
I think for the reasons you just said, I mean, it’s so powerful. It’s one of those things where it can create change, right? It’s like hearing yourself say something you’re like, wait, that’s me? I’m continuing and you can observe the pattern when you hear it yourself. As you’re saying, it’s almost these unconscious things, but you become conscious of the unconscious things. And that seems to be so powerful.
Dr. Ray:
I’ll give you an example, okay? I was in an interview just like this, a podcast. And it was during the peak of shutdown. And I had my son with me and I was trying to do the interview when he was in the other room. And I sounded like I was talking really fast. I mean, I do in general when I’m excited, but I was on too much coffee, I sounded stressed out and I was hoping I can use the interview for, I was, I actually did some breakthrough stuff for the guy and I found myself communicating in a way in which I’ve heard before.
I feel what I’m saying is positive, but I have a little bit of a bite to my tone. And so even with me, supposedly as an expert, I’ve heard myself on recordings and have said, wow, I must’ve been having one of those days. And it’s okay. So we’re not supposed to be perfect. We’re to be hopefully compassionate with ourselves.
Marc Perry:
Cool. So, listen, I mean, we’re getting up on like 45 minutes already. Before we run, is there some way that people can learn more about you?
Dr. Ray:
Yes. Visit my website, which is www.raydoktor.com. And that’s my real name as mentioned Ray at raydoktor.com.
Marc Perry:
Awesome. All right, well listen, Dr. Ray, it was, you know, I’m super grateful you came on. I’m really, I guess optimistic that this is gonna be really helpful for a lot of guys in particular and thanks so much. Enjoy the rest of your day, man.
Dr. Ray:
Thank you very much.
Marc Perry:
Alright, bye bye.
Hi Marc,
I just wanted to congratulate you on this podcast and thank you and Dr Ray for making it. There are some great insights in it so thanks for sharing the transcript too so that i can revisit them. I signed up with your program a few years ago and have been following your posts ever since. However it wasn’t until earlier this year that i made a real breakthrough and got a lot leaner and that was because i had become more aware of the relationship between my behaviour patterns , my emotions and my inner dialogue , Its been a game changer… Thanks for sharing
Hey Ross, I really appreciate you sharing this! I’m excited to hear you are doing well and improved your body & health.
I am thankful that men across the world will be hearing this information. The conversation about sitting with emotion was huge.
As a Registered Dietitian Nutritionist I have found that many of the clients that I work with, especially those who are still carrying trauma and have yet to call out their so-called demons or PTSD have tremendous progress after speaking with a therapist then working with a coach, trainer or RD. You cannot do this work alone.
And often busy, successful people are extremely uncomfortable sitting with/calling out their emotions. I’ve also met men who are so unsettled with themselves that they can’t be bored, EVER. So when boredom hits they turn to food or booze.
Because food is culture, community, socialization, and not just fuel it can get sticky when differentiating specific driving factors. I believe the first step for people is realizing they are emotional/boredom eating! Many people do not even realize that, so this first step is critical.
From there, therapy can be huge for identifying why this happens.
But, I agree with Dr. Ray! You can only talk about things so many times. It isn’t always helpful to keep beating and sulking over a situation and I think he nailed it in talking about when a coach comes in! To help you pick up all your baggage, recognize and throw it out and keep moving forward. Thank you, Marc and Dr. Ray for this informative podcast!
Thank you for sharing your thoughts, Katie! And I’m glad to hear you enjoyed the podcast.