3296: This is Your Biggest Psychological Blind Spot by Dr. Kelly Flanagan on Personal Growth & Healing

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[00:00:26] [SPEAKER_00]: This is Optimal Living Daily.

[00:00:29] [SPEAKER_00]: This is Your Biggest Psychological Blind Spot by Dr. Kelly Flanagan of Dr.Kellyflanagan.com.

[00:00:35] [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm your narrator Justin Malik. Welcome back, or welcome for the first time if you're new here.

[00:00:40] [SPEAKER_00]: This is where I read to you every day of the year from the best blogs on the web.

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[00:00:52] [SPEAKER_00]: But with that, let's get right to our next article as we optimize your life.

[00:01:01] [SPEAKER_00]: This is Your Biggest Psychological Blind Spot by Dr. Kelly Flanagan of Dr.Kellyflanagan.com.

[00:01:09] [SPEAKER_00]: The car almost blindsides me.

[00:01:12] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm exiting the interstate on the way to my office having just passed through one of two

[00:01:16] [SPEAKER_00]: adjacent toll lanes which are merging back into one lane when someone who sped through

[00:01:21] [SPEAKER_00]: enters my blind spot. His horn alerts me to the danger. Disaster averted.

[00:01:29] [SPEAKER_00]: Six hours later, during our weekly staff meeting, it's my turn to share about the

[00:01:33] [SPEAKER_00]: ebbs and flows of my career. Why I got interested in psychology and why those interests

[00:01:39] [SPEAKER_00]: have shifted and evolved. I'm explaining the experiences that shaped each of my significant

[00:01:44] [SPEAKER_00]: career decisions when someone asks for the why behind the why, the common denominator,

[00:01:51] [SPEAKER_00]: the theme. I struggle to come up with an answer. Then another six hours later,

[00:01:57] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm on my way home passing through the toll booths again, merging back onto the interstate

[00:02:02] [SPEAKER_00]: when I remember my near miss from earlier in the day. Blind spots. That's my why

[00:02:09] [SPEAKER_00]: behind every other why. I became enthralled with psychology when I first learned in a high school

[00:02:16] [SPEAKER_00]: psychology class about multiple personality disorder as it was called at the time.

[00:02:21] [SPEAKER_00]: Essentially, one of the ways we all cope with emotional pain is to segregate it from our

[00:02:27] [SPEAKER_00]: consciousness, to tuck it away into some forgotten place within us, to keep it outside of our

[00:02:32] [SPEAKER_00]: and our sense of self. In extreme cases, the individual develops multiple personalities,

[00:02:39] [SPEAKER_00]: each tasked with keeping a part of the pain hidden from the other parts. It's a rare and

[00:02:45] [SPEAKER_00]: tragic affliction and is defined by dramatic blind spots. I was blown away. We don't just

[00:02:52] [SPEAKER_00]: keep secrets from other people, we keep them from ourselves. This was fascinating to me.

[00:02:58] [SPEAKER_00]: We have an unconscious part of our mind where we store intolerable or inconvenient truths.

[00:03:04] [SPEAKER_00]: What? Really? What is stored in my unconscious? There are things we know about our life that

[00:03:10] [SPEAKER_00]: we don't know that we know. I was hooked. I wanted to learn everything there was to learn

[00:03:16] [SPEAKER_00]: about human blind spots. In undergrad, I went on to discover that our blind spots,

[00:03:21] [SPEAKER_00]: while intended to be the solution to our pain, create even bigger problems for us.

[00:03:27] [SPEAKER_00]: Turns out pain isn't a bad thing and it can't wreak havoc on our lives unless we're unaware

[00:03:33] [SPEAKER_00]: of it. For instance, the car that came into my blind spot wasn't a bad car but it would have

[00:03:39] [SPEAKER_00]: been a disastrous car had I continued to drive as if it wasn't there. Yet that's how most of

[00:03:45] [SPEAKER_00]: us live all the time, ignoring the things in our blind spots and crashing into them over

[00:03:51] [SPEAKER_00]: again, then wondering why we have a penchant for wrecking things. Most of the suffering in life

[00:03:57] [SPEAKER_00]: isn't the result of our pain but of our tendency to pretend as if our pain doesn't exist.

[00:04:04] [SPEAKER_00]: Wait, really? We can dramatically improve our lives without doing anything to the world around

[00:04:09] [SPEAKER_00]: us but by simply unhiding the world within us. That. I want to help people do that.

[00:04:16] [SPEAKER_00]: So I went to graduate school where I began to learn about some of the most common secrets

[00:04:20] [SPEAKER_00]: we keep from ourselves. Amongst them, the reality that if you didn't reinforce your parents' self

[00:04:26] [SPEAKER_00]: image, you'd never get the love you so desperately desired. The rage you sensed beneath the surface

[00:04:32] [SPEAKER_00]: of everyone and what you needed to do to make sure it didn't come out toward you. The you

[00:04:38] [SPEAKER_00]: that you needed to become and the things you decided you needed to do in order to survive.

[00:04:44] [SPEAKER_00]: I learned about it all and wiped my brow with relief. Thank goodness I've never had

[00:04:49] [SPEAKER_00]: to deal with anything like that. Thank goodness I'm the professional and not the patient.

[00:04:55] [SPEAKER_00]: Then, the depression hit. My blind spots way of honking at me. Hey dude, we can't carry

[00:05:01] [SPEAKER_00]: the load of your life much longer. We need a little attention here. Then my marriage started

[00:05:06] [SPEAKER_00]: to suffer from all my finger pointing. Then career burnout. Then massive parenting fails

[00:05:13] [SPEAKER_00]: and on and on. Eventually you have to stop learning about blind spots and start looking

[00:05:19] [SPEAKER_00]: at them. So I became the patient. Ten years ago this month, my therapist was 30 minutes late

[00:05:26] [SPEAKER_00]: picking me up from an otherwise empty waiting room and he had the wisdom to ask what it felt

[00:05:32] [SPEAKER_00]: like to wait for him. I said, well it doesn't make any sense because I was alone but I felt

[00:05:38] [SPEAKER_00]: sort of embarrassed. He nodded as if this made all the sense in the world then asked,

[00:05:44] [SPEAKER_00]: Do you think another word for that might be shame? Boom, one of the biggest and most common blind

[00:05:51] [SPEAKER_00]: spots of all, shame. The sense that I am not worthy of love and belonging exactly the way I

[00:05:58] [SPEAKER_00]: am. The mother load of pain. The doorway into almost every other blind spot. Indeed, shame is

[00:06:06] [SPEAKER_00]: eventually the doorway into the biggest blind spot of all. Not a painful one though.

[00:06:10] [SPEAKER_00]: A beautiful one. A worthy one. The soul you are given. The unquestionably lovable thing

[00:06:18] [SPEAKER_00]: at the center of you. The part of you that you forgot about long ago when all the other

[00:06:24] [SPEAKER_00]: blind spots began to pile up. It turns out if we do the work of digging through some of our

[00:06:30] [SPEAKER_00]: other blind spots, we discover at the bottom of them our biggest and most beautiful blind spot

[00:06:36] [SPEAKER_00]: of all. Martruist, worthiest, most lovable self buried right there within us all along.

[00:06:45] [SPEAKER_00]: What a lovely surprise. You just listened to the post titled, This is your biggest

[00:06:54] [SPEAKER_00]: psychological blind spot by Dr. Kelly Flanagan of Dr. Kelly Flanagan dot com

[00:06:59] [SPEAKER_00]: and I'll be right back with my commentary. Thank you to Dr. Flanagan. At the end he said,

[00:07:05] [SPEAKER_00]: Shame is eventually the doorway into the biggest blind spot of all. Not a painful one though.

[00:07:11] [SPEAKER_00]: A beautiful one. A worthy one. The soul you are given. The unquestionably lovable thing at

[00:07:17] [SPEAKER_00]: the center of you. The part of you that you forgot about long ago when all the other blind

[00:07:22] [SPEAKER_00]: spots began to pile up. And pile up reminds me of the theme of minimalism that comes up on

[00:07:29] [SPEAKER_00]: at least once a week on minimalist Mondays, if not more. These blind spots pile up just like

[00:07:36] [SPEAKER_00]: clutter in our homes. Sometimes out of view, stacked in the garage. But confronting it,

[00:07:42] [SPEAKER_00]: while it isn't easy, can create some amazing changes for us leading to more awareness and

[00:07:48] [SPEAKER_00]: growth. But baby steps right? It's not about perfection but small steps towards our best

[00:07:55] [SPEAKER_00]: It'll definitely be uncomfortable at times but certainly worth it.

[00:07:59] [SPEAKER_00]: So how do we find these blind spots? Again, not easy. Working with a professional can definitely

[00:08:05] [SPEAKER_00]: help. But I think this podcast can also shed light on them. If there are areas that come

[00:08:10] [SPEAKER_00]: up that we quickly reject or dismiss or think isn't possible for us, that actually might be

[00:08:17] [SPEAKER_00]: a place to investigate. And with that I appreciate you being here and investigating along with me.

[00:08:23] [SPEAKER_00]: Have a great weekend and I'll see you tomorrow. Where your optimal life awaits.