WEBVTT
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We are really good at noticing patterns in other people.
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Your kid starts getting upset and you think, they didn't sleep well.
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They barely ate breakfast.
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We just left somewhere fun.
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Of course this is hard.
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Or your friend sends you another screenshot of a conversation with the same person you discussed 17 times and you're like, yeah, we've been here before.
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Until it's us.
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You've been scrolling for an hour, you haven't eaten, you've agreed to six things you didn't want to do, you're answering an email at 10 p.m.
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And you're wondering, why am I so irritated?
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Let's collect some data.
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Welcome back to Define with Denise.
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I'm Denise.
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And last week we talked about the gap between knowing and doing, why we can know exactly what we should do and still struggle to do it.
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This week, I want to go underneath that because sometimes the behavior we're trying so hard to change makes perfect sense.
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And that's where patterns come in.
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So today I want to start with a sentence that might feel comforting at first and then slightly less comforting by the end.
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Your patterns aren't your fault, but they are your responsibility.
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Now, when I say responsibility, I don't mean blame.
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I define responsibility as our ability to respond to the situation.
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Response, ability, responsibility.
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What happened to you may not have been your choice.
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The environment you grew up in wasn't your choice.
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You didn't choose every experience that shaped the way you respond to conflict, stress, discomfort, or connection.
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But when we begin to notice a pattern, create an opportunity to respond.
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And that's the part I want to talk about today.
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Because last week I asked you to replace what's wrong with me with what makes this behavior make sense.
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Let's actually use the quest.
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Maybe you shut down during conflict.
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Your partner asks, Are you okay?
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And you say, Yep, you're not.
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In your head, you have prepared a 12-page presentation with supporting evidence and probably an appendix, but out loud, I'm fine.
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Why?
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Maybe growing up, speaking up made conflict worse.
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Maybe staying quiet ended the conversation faster.
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Maybe we were praised for being easy.
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Maybe being low maintenance kept the peace.
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And at some point, silence worked.
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And the behavior that works tends to be repeated.
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That's behavior science in very simple terms.
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We do something, something happens after.
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And if the result is useful to us, we're more likely to do that behavior again.
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Sometimes it's obvious.
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A child asks for a cookie, they get a cookie, they learn that asking can lead to cookies.
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Honestly, fair, cookies are delicious.
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But the things that maintain our behavior aren't always tangible.
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Sometimes what we get is relief or escape, connection, predictability, a sense of control.
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Think about procrastination.
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You have an email you need to send.
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You know how to send it.
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You've thought about sending it.
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You've written send email on three different to-do lists.
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Email still isn't sent.
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We call that procrastination, but that's just the name we've given the pattern.
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What is the behavior doing?
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Maybe thinking about the email makes you anxious.
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You don't know how the person is going to respond.
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You want to word it perfectly.
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You don't want to disappoint someone.
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So you pick up your phone, you scroll for a few minutes.
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You don't have to think about the email.
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Your anxiety drops.
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There it is.
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Your brain just learns something.
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Email means discomfort.
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Scrolling, relief.
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So the next time discomfort shows up, what behavior is now a little more available?
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Scrolling.
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Your brain isn't sitting there plotting against your goals, it's responding to what has worked before.
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And this is what I mean when I say there's usually something underneath behavior.
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If we only focus on what we can see, we can miss why the behavior keeps happening.
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We do this with kids all the time.
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A child screams, we focus on stopping the screaming.
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Child refuses homework, we focus on compliance.
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A teenager slams a door, we focus on the door.
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Which, fair.
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Doors are expensive.
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But what is the behavior doing?
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Are they trying to escape something?
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Are they overwhelmed?
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Are they trying to get access to something?
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Are they looking for connection?
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Is there a sensory component?
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Has this behavior worked before?
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The goal isn't to excuse every behavior.
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Understanding a behavior doesn't mean we allow every behavior.
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That's important.
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Compassion and accountability can exist at the same time.
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Understanding it gives us information.
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And better information gives us a better chance of actually changing something.
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Now, here's where I think it gets interesting because adults aren't that different.
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We just sometimes have more socially acceptable ways of doing the same things.
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A child avoids homework.
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We avoid opening our bank account.
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A child struggles to transition away from an iPad.
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We sit in the car scrolling for 45 minutes because we're not ready to go inside yet.
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A child asks for a reassurance over and over.
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We send screenshots of the same text conversation to three friends and ask, okay, but what do you think they meant by the period?
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These behaviors aren't identical.
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Development matters, context matters.
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But humans are human.
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Kids aren't the only ones who avoid discomfort.
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They're not the only ones looking for connection.
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They're not the only ones repeating behaviors that have worked before.
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We do it too.
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And I especially want the helpers listening to hear this.
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Parents, caretakers, teachers, therapists, behavior analysts, coaches, the person in the family who everyone calls because you'll know what to do.
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You are also a human behaving in an environment.
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You can teach emotional regulation and still lose your shit.
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You can teach boundaries and still say yes when you mean no.
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You can teach a child to ask for a break and then work for eight hours without eating.
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You can be a behavior analyst and stay up doom scrolling.
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You can work in health behavior change and still struggle with your own health behaviors.
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That doesn't make us hypocrites.
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But I do think it means we have a responsibility to get curious about our own patterns too.
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For me, growing up in a hard-working Vietnamese immigrant family shaped a lot of my patterns.
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Hard work mattered, respect mattered, family mattered, sacrifice matters.
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You show up, you figure it out.
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And I want to be really clear.
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I value those things.
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My persistence is one of my favorite things about myself.
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My ability to work hard has created opportunities for me.
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Caring deeply about people is connected to almost everything I do.
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I don't want to get rid of those parts of myself, but behavior is also contextual.
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Something that works beautifully in one situation can cost us in another.
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My ability to push through discomfort, amazing during high rocks.
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My body says stop, and I'm like, no, no, no, we paid for this, we trained for this, keep moving.
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But if pushing is my response to every kind of discomfort, that's different.
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If I'm exhausted, push, overwhelmed, push, need help, push, need rest, push.
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Eventually I have to ask, is this still working here?
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And the same thing can happen with helping.
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Caring for people is one of my values, but if I care for everyone until I have nothing left, then I resent everyone for needing me.
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We probably need to look underneath that.
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This is why I don't think changing our patterns means rejecting where we came from.
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Two things can be true.
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Pattern can have helped you before and be hurting you now.
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A value can still matter while the way you live, that value changes.
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You can value hard work without believing rest has to be earned.
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You can value family without saying yes to everything.
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You can teach respect without relying on fear.
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And you can help a child build resilience without asking them to suppress every emotion that makes adults uncomfortable.
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You can be grateful for what shaped you and still choose to shape something differently.
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That's the conversation underneath the behavior.
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And this is where responsibility comes back in.
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Remember, I define responsibility as our ability to respond to the situation.
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Maybe you didn't get to choose the pattern, but now you're noticing it.
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So what response is available to you?
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I love at acceptance and commitment therapy because it helps create space between who we are and what we're experiencing.
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There's a difference between saying, I am avoidance, and I'm noticing that I want to avoid this.
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One becomes identity, the other describes what's happening.
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And when I can notice what's happening, I have a better chance of responding intentionally, not perfectly intentionally.
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Maybe I notice I'm shutting down.
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Can I say, I need a minute, but I want to come back to this conversation?
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Maybe I notice I'm reaching for my phone because I'm anxious about an email.
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Can I send the email while I'm still anxious?
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Maybe I notice I want to say yes because disappointing someone feels uncomfortable.
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Can I tolerate a little discomfort and say what I actually have capacity for?
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Maybe a child is upset and every part of me wants to make the feeling stop.
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Can I stay present without immediately fixing it?
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Those are responses, and sometimes our ability to respond is limited.
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We're tired, hungry, overwhelmed, undersupported.
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We've been answering questions since 6 a.m.
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and someone just asks us where their shoes are while standing directly next to their shoes.
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Capacity matters, environment matters, stress matters.
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I'm never going to pretend behavior happens in a vacuum, but responsibility asks, given the situation I'm in, what response is available to me now?
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Maybe it's one breath.
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Maybe it's asking for help.
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Maybe it's saying, I need a second.
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Maybe it's putting your phone down for one minute.
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Fall responses still count because behavior changes practice.
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One response, then another, and another.
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And eventually a new response becomes more available.
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So here's what I want you to do this week.
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Pick one pattern.
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One.
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Please do not listen to this podcast and create a 17-item behavior intervention plan for yourself.
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Pick one pattern.
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Maybe you avoid, maybe you overwork, maybe you shut down, maybe you overexplain.
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Maybe you say yes when you mean no.
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Maybe you immediately try to fix everyone else's emotions and ask yourself, what makes this pattern make sense?
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Then, what is this behavior doing for me right now?
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Is it giving me relief, helping me avoid something, creating connection, giving me control?
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And finally, what response is available to me in this moment?
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Then bring in your values.
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Of the responses available to me, which one moves me closer to the person I want to be?
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That's it.
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Understand, respond, practice.
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Your patterns aren't your fault, but they are your responsibility.
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Not because you should be blamed for how you learn to survive, cope, connect, or get through difficult things.
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Responsibility is your ability to respond.
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And sometimes the first response is simply noticing.
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Oh, there I go again.
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That's awareness.
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And awareness gives us an opportunity to practice something different.
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You can't go back and change every experience that shaped you, but you can get curious about what you're carrying forward and what you're ready to redefine.
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And next week, we're going to talk about something that has a huge impact on our ability to respond differently.
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Our environment.
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When I moved from Los Angeles to the Bay Area, I left the gym I've been at for eight years.
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Eight years.
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It was my routine, my people, a huge part of my life.
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And when I moved, I felt lost.
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The funny part is I knew how to work out.
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I love working out.
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That wasn't the problem.
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Again, my environment had changed.
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And eventually trying to find a place has led me to functional lifestyles.
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The people who expanded what I thought my body could do.
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So next week, I'm bringing one of my coaches on to Define.
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We're going to talk about finding community as an adult, proximity, environment, and how the people around us change what feels possible.
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Because sometimes you don't need more information.
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Sometimes you need an environment that makes sense and a different response more available.
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I'm Denise, and this is Define with Denise.
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My hope isn't that you leave with all the answers, it's that you leave asking different questions because different questions lead to different conversations, and different conversations create the opportunity for change.
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I'll see you next Tuesday.
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Thank you so much for listening.
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We are really good at noticing patterns in other people.
00:00:03.439 --> 00:00:06.799
Your kid starts getting upset and you think, they didn't sleep well.
00:00:06.959 --> 00:00:08.320
They barely ate breakfast.
00:00:08.480 --> 00:00:09.759
We just left somewhere fun.
00:00:09.919 --> 00:00:10.960
Of course this is hard.
00:00:11.119 --> 00:00:20.879
Or your friend sends you another screenshot of a conversation with the same person you discussed 17 times and you're like, yeah, we've been here before.
00:00:21.120 --> 00:00:22.320
Until it's us.
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You've been scrolling for an hour, you haven't eaten, you've agreed to six things you didn't want to do, you're answering an email at 10 p.m.
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And you're wondering, why am I so irritated?
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Let's collect some data.
00:00:35.840 --> 00:00:37.759
Welcome back to Define with Denise.
00:00:38.000 --> 00:00:38.560
I'm Denise.
00:00:38.799 --> 00:00:46.000
And last week we talked about the gap between knowing and doing, why we can know exactly what we should do and still struggle to do it.
00:00:46.159 --> 00:00:52.799
This week, I want to go underneath that because sometimes the behavior we're trying so hard to change makes perfect sense.
00:00:52.880 --> 00:00:54.399
And that's where patterns come in.
00:00:54.560 --> 00:01:01.520
So today I want to start with a sentence that might feel comforting at first and then slightly less comforting by the end.
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Your patterns aren't your fault, but they are your responsibility.
00:01:05.599 --> 00:01:08.319
Now, when I say responsibility, I don't mean blame.
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I define responsibility as our ability to respond to the situation.
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Response, ability, responsibility.
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What happened to you may not have been your choice.
00:01:19.280 --> 00:01:21.519
The environment you grew up in wasn't your choice.
00:01:21.680 --> 00:01:27.120
You didn't choose every experience that shaped the way you respond to conflict, stress, discomfort, or connection.
00:01:27.280 --> 00:01:30.959
But when we begin to notice a pattern, create an opportunity to respond.
00:01:31.040 --> 00:01:32.959
And that's the part I want to talk about today.
00:01:33.040 --> 00:01:39.519
Because last week I asked you to replace what's wrong with me with what makes this behavior make sense.
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Let's actually use the quest.
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Maybe you shut down during conflict.
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Your partner asks, Are you okay?
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And you say, Yep, you're not.
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In your head, you have prepared a 12-page presentation with supporting evidence and probably an appendix, but out loud, I'm fine.
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Why?
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Maybe growing up, speaking up made conflict worse.
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Maybe staying quiet ended the conversation faster.
00:02:02.319 --> 00:02:04.799
Maybe we were praised for being easy.
00:02:04.959 --> 00:02:07.200
Maybe being low maintenance kept the peace.
00:02:07.359 --> 00:02:09.919
And at some point, silence worked.
00:02:10.000 --> 00:02:12.639
And the behavior that works tends to be repeated.
00:02:12.800 --> 00:02:15.280
That's behavior science in very simple terms.
00:02:15.439 --> 00:02:17.599
We do something, something happens after.
00:02:17.759 --> 00:02:22.400
And if the result is useful to us, we're more likely to do that behavior again.
00:02:22.560 --> 00:02:23.680
Sometimes it's obvious.
00:02:23.840 --> 00:02:29.120
A child asks for a cookie, they get a cookie, they learn that asking can lead to cookies.
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Honestly, fair, cookies are delicious.
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But the things that maintain our behavior aren't always tangible.
00:02:34.960 --> 00:02:40.400
Sometimes what we get is relief or escape, connection, predictability, a sense of control.
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Think about procrastination.
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You have an email you need to send.
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You know how to send it.
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You've thought about sending it.
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You've written send email on three different to-do lists.
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Email still isn't sent.
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We call that procrastination, but that's just the name we've given the pattern.
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What is the behavior doing?
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Maybe thinking about the email makes you anxious.
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You don't know how the person is going to respond.
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You want to word it perfectly.
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You don't want to disappoint someone.
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So you pick up your phone, you scroll for a few minutes.
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You don't have to think about the email.
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Your anxiety drops.
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There it is.
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Your brain just learns something.
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Email means discomfort.
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Scrolling, relief.
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So the next time discomfort shows up, what behavior is now a little more available?
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Scrolling.
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Your brain isn't sitting there plotting against your goals, it's responding to what has worked before.
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And this is what I mean when I say there's usually something underneath behavior.
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If we only focus on what we can see, we can miss why the behavior keeps happening.
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We do this with kids all the time.
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A child screams, we focus on stopping the screaming.
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Child refuses homework, we focus on compliance.
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A teenager slams a door, we focus on the door.
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Which, fair.
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Doors are expensive.
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But what is the behavior doing?
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Are they trying to escape something?
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Are they overwhelmed?
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Are they trying to get access to something?
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Are they looking for connection?
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Is there a sensory component?
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Has this behavior worked before?
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The goal isn't to excuse every behavior.
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Understanding a behavior doesn't mean we allow every behavior.
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That's important.
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Compassion and accountability can exist at the same time.
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Understanding it gives us information.
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And better information gives us a better chance of actually changing something.
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Now, here's where I think it gets interesting because adults aren't that different.
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We just sometimes have more socially acceptable ways of doing the same things.
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A child avoids homework.
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We avoid opening our bank account.
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A child struggles to transition away from an iPad.
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We sit in the car scrolling for 45 minutes because we're not ready to go inside yet.
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A child asks for a reassurance over and over.
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We send screenshots of the same text conversation to three friends and ask, okay, but what do you think they meant by the period?
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These behaviors aren't identical.
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Development matters, context matters.
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But humans are human.
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Kids aren't the only ones who avoid discomfort.
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They're not the only ones looking for connection.
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They're not the only ones repeating behaviors that have worked before.
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We do it too.
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And I especially want the helpers listening to hear this.
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Parents, caretakers, teachers, therapists, behavior analysts, coaches, the person in the family who everyone calls because you'll know what to do.
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You are also a human behaving in an environment.
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You can teach emotional regulation and still lose your shit.
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You can teach boundaries and still say yes when you mean no.
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You can teach a child to ask for a break and then work for eight hours without eating.
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You can be a behavior analyst and stay up doom scrolling.
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You can work in health behavior change and still struggle with your own health behaviors.
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That doesn't make us hypocrites.
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But I do think it means we have a responsibility to get curious about our own patterns too.
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For me, growing up in a hard-working Vietnamese immigrant family shaped a lot of my patterns.
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Hard work mattered, respect mattered, family mattered, sacrifice matters.
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You show up, you figure it out.
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And I want to be really clear.
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I value those things.
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My persistence is one of my favorite things about myself.
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My ability to work hard has created opportunities for me.
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Caring deeply about people is connected to almost everything I do.
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I don't want to get rid of those parts of myself, but behavior is also contextual.
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Something that works beautifully in one situation can cost us in another.
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My ability to push through discomfort, amazing during high rocks.
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My body says stop, and I'm like, no, no, no, we paid for this, we trained for this, keep moving.
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But if pushing is my response to every kind of discomfort, that's different.
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If I'm exhausted, push, overwhelmed, push, need help, push, need rest, push.
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Eventually I have to ask, is this still working here?
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And the same thing can happen with helping.
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Caring for people is one of my values, but if I care for everyone until I have nothing left, then I resent everyone for needing me.
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We probably need to look underneath that.
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This is why I don't think changing our patterns means rejecting where we came from.
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Two things can be true.
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Pattern can have helped you before and be hurting you now.
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A value can still matter while the way you live, that value changes.
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You can value hard work without believing rest has to be earned.
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You can value family without saying yes to everything.
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You can teach respect without relying on fear.
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And you can help a child build resilience without asking them to suppress every emotion that makes adults uncomfortable.
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You can be grateful for what shaped you and still choose to shape something differently.
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That's the conversation underneath the behavior.
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And this is where responsibility comes back in.
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Remember, I define responsibility as our ability to respond to the situation.
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Maybe you didn't get to choose the pattern, but now you're noticing it.
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So what response is available to you?
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I love at acceptance and commitment therapy because it helps create space between who we are and what we're experiencing.
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There's a difference between saying, I am avoidance, and I'm noticing that I want to avoid this.
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One becomes identity, the other describes what's happening.
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And when I can notice what's happening, I have a better chance of responding intentionally, not perfectly intentionally.
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Maybe I notice I'm shutting down.
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Can I say, I need a minute, but I want to come back to this conversation?
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Maybe I notice I'm reaching for my phone because I'm anxious about an email.
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Can I send the email while I'm still anxious?
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Maybe I notice I want to say yes because disappointing someone feels uncomfortable.
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Can I tolerate a little discomfort and say what I actually have capacity for?
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Maybe a child is upset and every part of me wants to make the feeling stop.
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Can I stay present without immediately fixing it?
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Those are responses, and sometimes our ability to respond is limited.
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We're tired, hungry, overwhelmed, undersupported.
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We've been answering questions since 6 a.m.
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and someone just asks us where their shoes are while standing directly next to their shoes.
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Capacity matters, environment matters, stress matters.
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I'm never going to pretend behavior happens in a vacuum, but responsibility asks, given the situation I'm in, what response is available to me now?
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Maybe it's one breath.
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Maybe it's asking for help.
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Maybe it's saying, I need a second.
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Maybe it's putting your phone down for one minute.
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Fall responses still count because behavior changes practice.
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One response, then another, and another.
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And eventually a new response becomes more available.
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So here's what I want you to do this week.
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Pick one pattern.
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One.
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Please do not listen to this podcast and create a 17-item behavior intervention plan for yourself.
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Pick one pattern.
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Maybe you avoid, maybe you overwork, maybe you shut down, maybe you overexplain.
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Maybe you say yes when you mean no.
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Maybe you immediately try to fix everyone else's emotions and ask yourself, what makes this pattern make sense?
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Then, what is this behavior doing for me right now?
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Is it giving me relief, helping me avoid something, creating connection, giving me control?
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And finally, what response is available to me in this moment?
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Then bring in your values.
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Of the responses available to me, which one moves me closer to the person I want to be?
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That's it.
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Understand, respond, practice.
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Your patterns aren't your fault, but they are your responsibility.
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Not because you should be blamed for how you learn to survive, cope, connect, or get through difficult things.
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Responsibility is your ability to respond.
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And sometimes the first response is simply noticing.
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Oh, there I go again.
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That's awareness.
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And awareness gives us an opportunity to practice something different.
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You can't go back and change every experience that shaped you, but you can get curious about what you're carrying forward and what you're ready to redefine.
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And next week, we're going to talk about something that has a huge impact on our ability to respond differently.
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Our environment.
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When I moved from Los Angeles to the Bay Area, I left the gym I've been at for eight years.
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Eight years.
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It was my routine, my people, a huge part of my life.
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And when I moved, I felt lost.
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The funny part is I knew how to work out.
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I love working out.
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That wasn't the problem.
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Again, my environment had changed.
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And eventually trying to find a place has led me to functional lifestyles.
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The people who expanded what I thought my body could do.
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So next week, I'm bringing one of my coaches on to Define.
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We're going to talk about finding community as an adult, proximity, environment, and how the people around us change what feels possible.
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Because sometimes you don't need more information.
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Sometimes you need an environment that makes sense and a different response more available.
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I'm Denise, and this is Define with Denise.
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My hope isn't that you leave with all the answers, it's that you leave asking different questions because different questions lead to different conversations, and different conversations create the opportunity for change.
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I'll see you next Tuesday.
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Thank you so much for listening.
