And the Self Inquiry Series is off and running! In this first self-inquiry episode, Dr. Lexi Giblin, PhD opens by giving us the 411 on RO DBT’s self-inquiry process and then we turn to Sally and Andrea’s live self-inquiry. Kara Bazzi, Opal Co-Founder, and the group pose questions to try to open up new learning for Sally and Andrea. Sally struggles with parenting guilt and wanting to do it “right”. Andrea wants to be a “good daughter”. Listen in on how their distress gets opened up and challenged in new and interesting ways!
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Thank you to our team…
Editing by David Bazzi
Music by Aaron Davidson: https://soundcloud.com/diet75/
Sound engineering by Ayesha Ubayatilaka at Jack Straw Studios
Transcription by Rev.com
Lexi Giblin (00:11):
Welcome to the Appetite, a podcast brought to you by Opal Food and Body Wisdom and Eating Disorder Treatment Clinic in Seattle, Washington. On this podcast, we talk about all things food, body movement, and mental health. I’m Dr. Lexi Giblin, your host for today, and I’m here with Kara Bazzi, Opal’s clinical director and co-founder.
Kara Bazzi (00:32):
Hi everybody. Happy to have
Lexi Giblin (00:34):
You with me. Thank you. Yes, today is a exciting day because we are launching our self-inquiry series and I’m finding myself more nervous today for this recording because I think I care so much about self-inquiry and I have been wanting to sort of open the group room door and let others into what we’re up to in Self-Inquiry group at Opal because it is so powerful. It is just my favorite group at Opal, and it is just powerful to see how people are changed by the self-inquiry process and hear the questions that are asked. It is just amazing. So I am thrilled today to take you into that experience of self-inquiry. So in this series, we will conduct an Opal Self-inquiry group on the podcast live, and listeners will learn the self-inquiry process and potentially find resonance and inspiration in the difficult questions posed to take to their own self-inquiry work.
(01:51):
And today we have two people who will join us in the studio to do self-inquiry. But before we hear from them though, let’s talk about what self-inquiry is all about. So self-inquiry is a core mindfulness skill in radically open dialectical behavioral therapy, also known as R-O-D-B-T, which was founded by Dr. Tom Lynch. And in the self-inquiry process, we are choosing to go towards unwanted emotions or distress for a very specific reason. And you want a good reason to choose to go towards unwanted emotion. And there’s a really good reason here, and that is for learning and growth. So a basic assumption that we’re making in self-inquiry is that the emotional difficulty is a great teacher and one of our greatest teachers. So moving away from emotional difficulty or dysregulation as we call it in R-O-D-B-T, can block potential growth. And one of the things I say to our PHP clients is that they, while they’re in higher level of care with us, they are in this moment of crisis in their lives. And with that crisis comes a great deal of opportunity for learning. So the worst the adversity, the greater the opportunity for learning. And in other words, good therapy hurts. So this process is intentionally painful because that is where the learning is.
Kara Bazzi (03:39):
And I imagine Lexi, I know when something really hurts, it’s hard to want to do it. So I’m curious, how long does someone do a practice like this?
Lexi Giblin (03:49):
Yes, in traditional R-O-D-B-T, the self-inquiry process is intentionally short at about three to five minutes. And as Dr. Lynch says, you want to visit the cemetery, you don’t want to build your home in the cemetery. So self-inquiry serves as really more of a touch point for feeling hurt, not an invitation to choose to swim in pain all of the time, and we really want it to be a place that you would want to return. So it’s intentionally short for that reason as well.
Kara Bazzi (04:23):
And then is it something you do on your own or is it a group practice all the time like we’re going to be doing today?
Lexi Giblin (04:30):
Yeah, so you can do self-inquiry in all sorts of ways. I often say that there is a self-inquiry lifestyle that you can live where you’re just, when you experience difficult emotion, you get curious about it as you go through your day. So it just is part of your way of being that the formal process can be in a journal or verbally with someone else. And to say a little bit more about self-inquiry, what you’re trying to do is find your edge or the place where the known meets the unknown, and you’re assuming that you have blind spots or that we all have blind spots and you’re getting curious about what you do not yet understand about yourself, the world people experiences, and you understand in self-inquiry that we can’t see what we can’t see. And the work of self-inquiry is to try to see what you haven’t been able to see yet.
(05:40):
So in self-inquiry, feeling emotion, you’re feeling along with curiosity. So it’s experiential in that your emotion is leading the way while you’re layering on questioning and curiosity. So it’s not just this cognitive process, it’s an emotional process, and you’re seeking your shadow self or the part of you that you would rather not see, and you’re intentionally disturbing the peace and looking for dysregulation. So it’s a place where ambiguity, complexity and messiness reigns supreme. As I always say, if it’s complex, let it be complex. If it’s ambiguous, let it be ambiguous. Self-inquiry really is the antithesis to tying things up in a neat bow. You’re really letting it be whatever it is. You’re not trying to make it into something, it’s not. So we’re searching for unexpected ways of thinking, unexpected understandings, and we’re looking out for old stories or sort of these patterned routine ways we have of making sense of our experiences. And importantly, we are working to find good questions, not answers. So in self-inquiry, we are suspicious of quick answers because quick answers can often serve to regulate our emotion and move us away from dysregulation where the learning is. So in R-O-D-B-T, good questions are questions that cause dysregulation or elicit discomfort, resistance, sometimes confusion, other times strong emotion or sometimes just a physical tension. And those questions that elicit those difficult emotions, those are the keepers and the ones that you might want to take to your self-inquiry practice moving forward.
Kara Bazzi (07:56):
So that gives us all a really good context for the self-inquiry process. But I’m curious if you can give us more specifics of what this actually process actually looks like.
Lexi Giblin (08:07):
Yes. So I would break down the self-inquiry process into three main steps. So within this three to five minutes, you are first identifying a specific time when you experienced an unwanted emotion. So this is the step where you’re feeling, so you’re moving, you’re bringing up in your mind’s eye the experience, the specific time when you experienced the unwanted emotion, and with bringing up all that was happening for you then in the here and now you take yourself back into what it felt like. So what sounds sight, smells, sensations in your body? Do you notice? And I like to, when I do self-inquiry, I like to hone in on the moment when I felt the most intensity in the specific memory. So when did I notice tears come to my eyes immediately? When did I notice my heart begin to beat rapidly? What happened just before?
(09:12):
So take yourself back in. That’s the first step is the feeling part. Take yourself back into the specific time and then while feeling the second step. So you’ve got the emotion there, you’re trying to hold it there. And the second step is to get curious and ask the question, what is the learning here? And here, you’re not wanting to come with your patterned old ways of thinking about the learning. So it’s sort of this question of what is the learning here, or what do I not yet understand is another way of asking that question, what am I missing? And then the third and final step is to find a reminder. So find a good question that would get you back to this learning in the future. And this question is often one that you do not want to ask, and it should prompt you to feel the dysregulation you associated with the learning that you did and the self-inquiry. So you’re trying to provoke could be provocative with yourself in this process and ask the difficult questions, the ones that you would rather not ever hear in your whole life. Okay, so now we’d like to introduce you to Andrea and Sally who have agreed to join Kara and I in the studio today to practice self-inquiry. Any identifying information has been removed from this recording. Hi, Andrea.
Andrea (10:54):
Hello.
Lexi Giblin (10:55):
And Sally. Hi. Thank you for being here. Hi, thank you. We’d like to invite you to do five minute journal self-inquiry process. And in this process you’ll be doing three steps. You’ll be going through three steps. So you’ll first identify a time when you experienced an unwanted emotion or unwanted sensation or energy of some sort, and you’ll try to take yourself back into it emotionally. And then once you’re there, do the second step, which is to get curious about what the learning is. What is the learning here, what do I not yet understand? And then finally, third, what’s a good question to get me back to this learning?
(11:46):
Okay, so we’ll give you five minutes and be back. Okay. So Sally, Andrea have just done five minutes of journal self-inquiry work. And now we will add to this work by entering a group process. And I want to say a few words about the power of the group process of self-inquiry. And we’ll be doing this in this series where we double down on the power of independent self-inquiry by positioning the work in a group context such as this, where multiple viewpoints can come to play in the process, the different perceptual biases that we all bring into this room will create a particularly fertile ground for helping you see the parts of yourselves that you cannot see. Self-inquiry on your own is tough when you’re searching for what you can’t see, it’s hard to see what you can’t see. So this space offers you other viewpoints of on your work and maybe can jog some learning that you wouldn’t otherwise be able to access.
(13:04):
So this is extra heat on, they’ve just done five minutes of self-inquiry work in their journal, and now they’re going to share their self-inquiry work with us, and then allow us to ask questions of their self-inquiry work. And so it’s important that Andrea and Sally that you can end this self-inquiry process at any time if it feels like it’s no longer helpful. So we will write down the questions you’re receiving so that you can have them for later and focus on how it feels to consider the questions that are being posed of you. Remember, we’re looking for good questions, not answers, and we’re looking for good questions. In other words, zingers or the ones that are difficult or confusing to hear. For those of us not doing self-inquiry, our job is to serve as provocateurs and ask asshole questions. And we’re doing this with utmost kindness. We will work to not validate or soothe or ask questions that will regulate you in your work. And we do this with kindness, as I said, because our kindness, our questions are coming from a place of interests in your growth and learning. So our work to sort of sit on our hands and not validate and soothe and ask questions that would regulate is our way of showing for your interest in learning. So Sally, would you start by sharing, taking us into the journal work that you just did?
Sally (15:05):
Yes. The journal work I did was around an incident that happened recently with one of my kids, and it was an incident where I felt overwhelmed. I felt a little lost, different directions to go, wasn’t sure which direction to go. And I also was, I think, well, I think I was battling some guilt. Yeah. Okay, so guilt was the primary emotion that was the emotion being repressed primarily. Okay. Yeah, I think so. Yeah. There’s a narrative in the family around moments like this, and this particular kid hasn’t felt, has been able to tell me that he haven’t felt the best care in these kinds of moments. And so I was like, how do I do this better? But we’re in a different chapter and kind of got flooded with all of that.
Lexi Giblin (16:18):
And when you asked the question, what is the learning here? What did you come up with?
Sally (16:32):
What I came up with in the I’ll own right now, there’s a part of me that wants to do this. And so I’m like, oh, does my answer, did I give the right answer to this question? So I’m just going to own that, which is weird. That brings up a little emotion, which is the theme, right? I want to do it right, I want to do it right to my kid, I want to do it right in this moment. So I guess maybe the learning is what is driving me to want to have to do this, do everything. What’s the fear behind not doing it right?
Lexi Giblin (17:14):
Does that answer the question you’re
Sally (17:15):
Asking? Yeah.
Lexi Giblin (17:16):
And when you ask yourself that question, does that dysregulating to consider?
Sally (17:25):
I think it feels just horrible to think that I would not do something right by another person. I don’t mind failing a task. But when it comes to people in my life, that feels like the failure I do not want is to have done something wrong relationally, yet I know, I mean, I have a million times and then especially depending on the circle of intimacy that I’m in with those people. So my kiddos being the top and not wanting to do it wrong again.
Lexi Giblin (18:16):
Okay. And are you open to questions from us? I am. Okay.
Kara Bazzi (18:25):
The first question that comes to my mind is what if you don’t ever know if you’re going to do it right?
Sally (18:34):
I’ll never know. Well, that’s terrifying. My whole body is tingling when you make that statement,
Lexi Giblin (18:49):
What if you never know if you did it right? That was the question.
Sally (19:02):
Yeah, I can feel a strong resistance to that. It’s kind of like that’s not an acceptable option.
Andrea (19:14):
I can think of the question you mentioned this being like a narrative in the family and that your kid expressing to you that they felt a lack of care in that moment. And I think I’m hearing you also want to be care taken in that. And so my question is why is there a need for you to feel for you to receive care in that situation as well? That seems maybe what’s coming to the forefront and why do you feel the need to be care taken?
Sally (20:08):
And my head goes to analytical answers, but trying to stay with just, oh, wow, that makes me teary.
Lexi Giblin (20:20):
Just letting it sit and letting it be there rather than moving to answers is really key. Part of this work, or one of my questions is what is on the line? Why does doing it right matter so much? What’s on the line?
Sally (20:56):
Yeah, I think I’ve asked that question so many. Well, not in that way, but I have a very quick answer. I notice I have a very quick answer to that, so that feels like it more regulates me. Interesting enough. Interesting. Okay. But actually now that I own that, I’m wondering if I let that typical answer go and stay with the unknown. Maybe there’s another answer then that again feels kind of scary.
Kara Bazzi (21:34):
Going back to the what if you never know you did it right and you don’t have an answer. What happens when you don’t have an answer?
Sally (21:46):
Yeah, that feels like the cutting
Lexi Giblin (21:48):
Edge, the Kara’s question feels like the one that’s really hitting on an edge.
Lexi Giblin (21:58):
Okay. Okay. Well that sounds like a good question for you to work with in your practice.
Sally (22:08):
Yeah. Thank
Lexi Giblin (22:09):
You.
Sally (22:09):
Thank you.
Lexi Giblin (22:10):
Really appreciate you sharing. Okay, so now let’s turn to Andrea.
Andrea (22:20):
Okay. Yeah. So I think I’ll start with naming the emotion that came up for me, which I thought I came into this thinking I had an emotion, and then as I journaled it actually transformed into something else. So I’m going to say the emotion that came up for me was dread. And so this comes up around my relationship with my mom, and it’s so interesting since Sally just spoke of an experience being on the parental side, and I experienced this very recently yesterday, getting phone calls from my mom fills me with some dread because of how some of those conversations have gone in the past and that I don’t always, I would say in the last couple of years, I dread phone calls with my mom. I don’t know how they’re going to go. My mom’s emotions are hard for me, and a lot of the times I feel like I just don’t know what I’m getting into. I don’t want to pick up the phone. I don’t know if she’s going to be in a good mood or a bad mood, and how’s that land for me? Yeah. So I think dread is the really unwanted emotion because then I feel shame around being a bad daughter.
Lexi Giblin (24:01):
Okay. And when you asked the question, what’s the learning here, did you come with any thoughts on that?
Andrea (24:13):
I feel like that kind of came easy, but then I was second guessing the answer or the, what am I missing? I feel like what I’m missing is my mom’s experience, and I think that’s the big unknown why there’s something going on for my mom in our conversations. I think that I feel like I’m not getting what I need from her, and I think why can’t she give me what I need? And then what is it that it that she needs? I feel like, I don’t know.
Lexi Giblin (25:06):
Hey, and are you open to questions from us? Yes. And it’s typical for there to be a lot of space between the questions because we’re all just taking in what you just shared, the power of what you just shared, and seeing where our minds go about where to take things. So always appreciate the spacing between questions so that we can process, and then also you can process what you hear. So
Kara Bazzi (25:48):
The first question that comes to my mind is, can you be a good daughter and still be disappointed with your mom?
Andrea (25:57):
Yeah, that I want to really push back on that. I want to, yeah, that lands.
Kara Bazzi (26:20):
So maybe in a similar vein, what makes you think that a good daughter means that you would always feel positive towards your mom?
Andrea (26:31):
I find I want to answer that. I feel like I know where that idea comes from.
Speaker 5 (26:43):
Yeah, I think that’s a good question.
Lexi Giblin (26:51):
What if you knew your mom’s experience and it still didn’t make sense?
Andrea (27:05):
Yeah, I think that one makes me feel sad.
Kara Bazzi (27:18):
What would it be like to accept your mom can’t meet your needs?
Andrea (27:27):
That one feels a little less dysregulating. Okay.
Sally (27:45):
This is Sally. And I’m wondering if there’s any part of you that might be scared or resistant from actually knowing your mother’s reasons?
Andrea (28:00):
Yeah, yeah. That’s a hard question.
Lexi Giblin (28:08):
That one hits you.
Andrea (28:09):
Yeah, I think that one makes me want to cry.
Speaker 5 (28:11):
Yeah.
Lexi Giblin (28:23):
Okay. Well, it sounds like we hit on a few different good questions that could lead to some learning for you. So we’ll close there. And I just want to express my gratitude for your bravery and sharing these most important parts of your experience in life with us and with our listeners. And I hope that this process can bring you, our listeners, a sense of what self inquiry can look like and a sense of the power of the learning that can come from. So thank you to Andrea and Sally for taking us into your brave, difficult self-inquiry work. And thank you to Jack Straw Cultural Center for Sound Engineering. Thanks to Aaron Davidson for the appetites original music, and to David Bazzi for editing. If you want to learn more about Opal’s programming, go to opal food and body.com. Until next time.
