Joie Seldon is an emotional intelligence expert and life and career coach who helps professionals create self-enablement and boundaries, manage stress, take action, and communicate productively. With over 30 years of experience as an actor, acting teacher, and somatic therapist, Joie has coached professionals at organizations like NASA, AT&T, and Wells Fargo. She is also the author of EMOTIONS: An Owners Manual.
Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:
[2:46] How Joie Seldon became an emotional intelligence coach
[6:32] Joie’s epiphany about victimization and procrastination
[11:39] Managing emotional distress in your personal and professional life
[14:04] Five steps to prepare for difficult conversations
[20:47] Joie talks about her system for identifying and reconciling emotions
[32:39] How to reach out to an emotional intelligence coach for help
[40:44] The mentors who guided Joie along her journey to emotional freedom
[45:40] What is somatic psychology?
[51:05] Mark Hiddleson and Joie’s personal endeavors
In this episode…
Emotional turmoil can impact our personal and professional lives, making it challenging to identify triggers, establish healthy boundaries, and communicate with others. How can you reconcile emotions in life and work to achieve fulfillment?
Emotional intelligence coach Joie Seldon has developed a simple system for tuning into your emotions. It involves developing a keen sense of emotional intelligence and self-awareness. Joie describes emotions as a biological information system that provides insights into your relationships and experiences through physical sensations. For instance, sadness indicates loss, fear requires paying attention to your surroundings, anger is a boundary setter, and joy represents connection. When you allow yourself to experience these emotions fully, you can manage them effectively.
Join Mark Hiddleson in the latest episode of The Tao of Pizza Podcast as he invites Joie Seldon to speak about somatic psychology and emotional intelligence. Joie shares how to prepare for difficult conversations, her emotional intelligence coaching process, and her epiphany about victimization and procrastination.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
Specialized Storage Solutions, Inc. contact phone: 707-732-3892
Mark Hiddleson's email: markhiddleson@aol.com
“The Way of Joy Qigong and Tapping Into Your Energy With Vicki Dello Joio” on The Tao of Pizza Podcast
“Holistic Approaches To Spiritual Fitness With Vicki Dello Joio” on The Tao of Pizza Podcast
Quotable Moments:
"I vowed that I wanted to find out what the truth was about life, and if it meant everything I’d been taught so far was not true, then so be it."
"Fear is what gets in our way of everything, including feeling our other emotions."
"Emotions are a biological information system. They are bringing you information about your relationship to whatever it is that you’re experiencing."
"When you understand the inherent information, sadness is about loss, fear is about paying attention, anger is a boundary setter."
“Joy is the emotion of connection. We feel joy when we have no defensiveness going on."
Action Steps:
Develop self-awareness: Begin by consciously observing your emotions and their triggers. Understanding your emotional responses helps you gain clarity, allowing you to address personal and professional challenges more effectively.
Practice grounding techniques: Use physical grounding methods, such as feeling your feet on the floor or focusing on your breath, to calm your nervous system. These techniques help manage anxiety, making it easier to have difficult conversations and maintain composure in stressful situations.
Embrace and explore emotions: Allow yourself to fully experience a range of emotions, from fear to joy, without judgment. This openness can transform emotions from liabilities into assets, providing valuable insights that can guide personal and professional decisions.
Set healthy boundaries: Learn to establish boundaries that protect your well-being and facilitate better relationships. Boundaries dissolve barriers and create space for growth and intimacy, which are crucial for enhancing emotional intelligence and navigating interpersonal relationships.
Seek support and guidance: Don’t hesitate to ask for help from mentors, coaches, or peers. Seeking support not only provides new perspectives but also exemplifies strength and a commitment to personal and professional development.
Sponsor for this episode:
This episode is brought to you by Specialized Storage Solutions Inc.
Listen...
I have been in the logistics and storage industry for several decades. I know I don’t look that old, but it's true.
We provide industry-leading warehouse storage solutions nationwide.
So basically, if you have a warehouse that needs Rack, Shelving, Carts, Conveyors, or Mezzanines, we help with....design engineering, installations, inspections, and repairs to help clients optimize their logistics operations.
Sometimes people don’t even realize that we can actually help with permit acquisition services.
We take a holistic look at your entire business supply chain ecosystem to develop the resources for continually improving your operation.
To learn more, visit specialracks.com or give us a call at (707) 732-3892. One of the best ways to learn more about our products and services is to follow us on Instagram. And there’s a link on our website to do that.
I will even give you my personal email address for podcast listeners, so email me at markhiddleson@aol.com if you’re ready to take your warehouse storage and retrieval systems to the next level.
Episode Transcript:
Intro 0:00
Welcome to The Tao of Pizza, where we feature top logistics leaders, entrepreneurs and supply chain innovators and share their inspiring stories with a holistic twist.
Mark Hiddleson 0:14
Mark Hiddleson here, host of The Tao of Pizza Podcast, where I talk with top industry innovators in the warehousing, logistics and supply chain business with a holistic twist. Before I introduce today's guest, Joie Seldon, this episode is brought to you by specialized storage solutions. And look, I've been in the logistics and storage industry for several decades, and I know I don't look that old, but it's true, what we do is we provide industry leading warehouse storage solutions nationwide. So basically, if you have a warehouse that needs rack shelving, carts, conveyors or mezzanines, we help with the design, engineering, installation, inspections and repairs to help our clients optimize their logistics operations. And it's funny Joie . Sometimes people don't even realize we can actually help with the permit acquisition process, we take a holistic look at your entire business supply chain ecosystem to develop the resources for continually improving your operation. So learn more. Check out our website. It'll be in the podcast notes or follow us on Instagram, and I even give out my personal email to podcast listeners, which is Mark hiddleson@aol.com so give us a shout if you're ready to take your warehouse storage and retrieval systems to the next level. So today we're joined by Joie Seldon, who's combined her experience as an actor, acting teacher, somatic therapist and 30 years of spiritual study to become an innovator in emotional intelligence. She's the author of emotions, an owner's manual. She's worked globally, coaching professionals at NASA, AT&T, Wells Fargo and more. Joie helps her clients release internal conditioning that blocks external success and take action that aligns with their values and purpose. Joie, welcome to The Tao of Pizza.
Joie Seldon 2:00
Glad to be here.
Mark Hiddleson 2:02
It's great to see you. I have to give a shout out to Betty Ann Green, who introduced us, yes. Then, as it turns out, we'd also met at a workshop with Vicky della Joie . Oh yes,
Joie Seldon 2:13
I know it's a small world, isn't it?
Mark Hiddleson 2:17
Sometimes it is, and there's two I've hosted Vicky twice. It was so, so awesome. For 30 years, she was one of my first I call her a lot of things. So she's like a spiritual teacher, spiritual guide, inspiration, you name it. But yeah, she's wonderful. So welcome. So share a little bit about how you got started in this, this industry, the journey to become, oh,
Joie Seldon 2:46
well, many years ago. I mean, many years ago, when I was living in Los Angeles, my ambition was to be a movie star. I was an actor, a struggling, struggling actor, and I was clueless. You know, I had a lot of ambition. I think I had talent, but I had no idea how to go about creating a career, and I had very little support. So all of my internal doubts, self doubts and issues were were keeping me from really finding my path. And one day, I was just frozen in my spot, just like I don't know what to do. I literally couldn't move. And in my back of my mind, I heard this voice. It was like someone really speaking clearly, saying, God does not mean for you to be miserable. And I was, like, stunned by this thought, like, well, like, yes, of course not, duh. And and then I thought, Well, why am I miserable? And why is this not working? Why is my whole family? Because I came from a very, very unhappy family, and in that moment, I vowed that I wanted to find out what the truth was about life, and if it meant everything I'd been taught so far was not true, then so be it. I was willing to just let everything go and kind of look at the world with a fresh eye and ask for guidance. And that set me on a journey that I've been on ever since, and it's been quite a journey. And one of the things that I discovered in my process is that I was willing to feel the full range of my emotions, no matter how uncomfortable, miserable they were. I I even remember one day going well, I may be miserable, but at least I feel something. Feel something versus I feel something. I'm not indifferent to life. And so that it that I've always had a passion for just like being alive. And I realized that by feeling all of my emotions. So that helped me to move forward and make choices and find help. And I mean, literally, one day, a book fell off a shelf in a bookstore that I picked up and read that was pivotal for me. So I just kept following the guidance I got through feeling and eventually it became my passion to really understand why emotions were so important.
Mark Hiddleson 5:24
Yeah, and there's not a lot out there. I mean, I'm seeing it more and more, and I guess it's because I'm looking for it. It's, it's one of my passions, too. I think we, we share the view that it's one of the things that's kind of messed up, is our technological advances are really out there, but are emotional. Because I think I joke with myself, because humor is one of the things I work like. I think I'm like a very highly emotionally developed 13 year old at the spectrum. I think the world is kind of like between seven and eight, you know.
Joie Seldon 6:01
I completely agree.
Mark Hiddleson 6:05
And the mistakes I make and something and my ego gets in the way, and it's like, Man, I'm just like a really emotionally evolved 13 year old, but there's room for, there's room for for growth, and, man, this is powerful story, because one of the things you've mentioned that you had to be willing to say, like, well, maybe the way I've been looking at things isn't and that's easier done. So how did you how did you go about that? You know,
Joie Seldon 6:32
I when I had that, and it was very visceral epiphany of seeking the truth. And by the way, I don't think there is a truth. You know, we all there's a million opinions, and we're in a lot of conflict now because of people claiming that they have the truth, that the truth that we do know is how we feel any in any given moment. That's our truth. And so I just was open. And I think the universe, when you are open, the universe says, Ah, here. And I met people. I got involved in metaphysics. I was working as a waitress, as all actors starting out in Hollywood too.
Mark Hiddleson 7:20
That's the path, right? That's it.
Joie Seldon 7:22
And so I was, I was waiting tables in a restaurant, and the hostess and I became friends, and she was involved in metaphysics. And so I went to my first metaphysics class, and another friend gave me a book to read, and it’s called The Science of Mind by Ernest holmes. And I just, you know, there were just these things that came into my path. And I started doing workshops and, you know, processing, really looking at, oh, this thing that I have called I found my victimhood, my martyrhood, things that I had actually been kind of trained to do in my family and and worked on those things,
Mark Hiddleson 8:04
yeah. And we all those are the victims. It's got something like call the archetype of read a few books on arc and the victim. We all have it. It was funny the other part of your story, when, what did you say? Oh, the fears and doubts and everything that were going I was like, Oh, you have those.
Joie Seldon 8:21
Like oh, fear is the if we, if I only teach about one emotion, it would be fear, because fear is what gets in our way from everything, including feeling our other emotions.
Mark Hiddleson 8:33
Yeah, yeah, I would think, and that's one of the reasons we brought it into our business more than others, because I think, you know, we want to be effective, and I think fear to hold us back from doing things where they're uncomfortable, to make a phone call, but it really needs to be made now and we put it all or just, you procrastinate? Will you procrastinate because you're, there's some something's Yes, walking you so. Or just, AF, you know, having a difficult conversation. You know, how do you sit down with somebody say, Look, this is but we need to have this conversation. Yes,
Joie Seldon 9:07
and that's a big one. I actually have a free giveaway on my website about how to have a different prepare for difficult conversations, because I found it especially in the business world. I mean, I think it's true, you really can't separate business world and personal world, the same issues are there for both, and that's one reason I became very passionate about helping people it work in and I commend you for having that in your company, because it it's we are human beings first, and we are our emotions are a guidance tool for us and people have so many misunderstanding, misconceptions about what emotions are, and so when you can face your fear and recognize that you're not going to die, first of all, because primal emotions like fear and anger, fight or flight are very primal, and you. They're there to save your life. So we need these emotions, but in our day to day life, when something comes up that makes us, you know, contract, yeah, then the basic message of fear is, pay attention. There's something. Something's happening. Something's happening now, is it from the outside, or is it the insight? Is it my own history, my own insecurities, or whatever it is? All it's about is just being present and paying attention so that you can actually deal with whatever it is it's getting in your way, and then you can take that action.
Mark Hiddleson 10:35
Yeah, it's one of the same. I really don't like I don't like scary movies, I'll tell too. But if you think fear isn't something avoid, I mean, people actually pursue it, so it isn't positive or negative. So the other thing I want to get into is like this. It's not a weakness, it's more of a strength. That's something else that I think we share, that emotions don't make you weak. Is actually, I'm not holding all your weaknesses make you strong if you embrace them. But one thing about being into business, I'm thank you for commending me. By the way, sometimes I feel like it's swimming upstream, but I think, I think it is the right direction. The other thing is, I've found it's much easier to deal with emotional distress and everything at work than it is at home. So it's, it's kind of like my practice field, right? If we're doing having these relationships, it's important, we gotta work hard things, because when you go home, it's a lot tougher. The stakes are higher. The stakes are so much higher.
Joie Seldon 11:39
Yeah, yeah. And then one of the things that interested me, because I was, I was an acting teacher, I got into the real realization that I'm really here to help people learn how to feel, you know, how to feel their emotions. And so I ended up in grad school and became a somatic therapist, which wasn't in my original plan, but it was an incredible experience of recognizing that emotions happen in the body. They're biological, they're not ethereal and and that now I've I've lost the train of thought. I got a little sidetracked from there that that they though the stakes being high. So when I transition from being a therapist to a coach. And I started working with people in the business world, everybody, no matter what their presenting issue was about their career, work situation, we always ended up dealing with family, often from their childhood, parents, sometimes siblings, but just everything, because it's all part of who we are, and that that the things that they learned for their job, they would take home and apply to their personal lives,
Mark Hiddleson 12:54
Yeah, and our our family. We have a family business. So every boundaries are so important. We have a saying called Don't mix church and state. I don't know. I think state is the business in Church's home, but we don't know which one. We don't mix them up, even we try not to, and it's, yeah, almost impossible, because, you know, we want to share victories and successes, and we don't let it dominate our culture.
Joie Seldon 13:19
And we're very smart. Yeah, boundaries are really important. One of the things that Vicky teaches about, Vicky dialligio teaches about boundaries, is that boundaries dissolve barriers, and that they're not there just to keep negativity out, but there to create space for you to function at a higher level. So that's another thing I do a lot of work with people, is boundaries. Yeah,
Mark Hiddleson 13:43
and the laws, just for way more intimacy than if we know where the boundaries we can play. It's this other old area we could play in that if we didn't have these boundaries, we wouldn't even
Joie Seldon 13:52
go there. Absolutely, that's so true. So
Mark Hiddleson 13:57
share a little bit more about the resource you were talking about, a resource that you have on your website. You said, that's one of the things
Joie Seldon 14:04
Oh, yeah. How to prepare? It's five steps to prepare for a difficult conversation. And one of them is like, really looking at what is that fear and to understand the fear is a contracting emotion. So everything is made of energy, right? You know, we come down to subatomic particles. It's just energy. So emotions have a signature vibration and a direction of movement. So fear is a contracting emotion. It moves us inward. And so what we tend to do is go and we our breath gets shallow and we get tight. And when that's happening, we're our brain is not functioning at its highest. So there's ways to calm your body. I have some really simple, easy to do, tools and techniques that you can use anywhere no one knows what you're doing, so that you can stay ground. It, and also to think about how you're going to what you want to say, so that you don't make the other person defensive. Yeah, so that's what happens so often, is we go in with our attention and then we blurt out something, or we come across as either too aggressive or too mealy mouth, you know, too selfie facing, and it doesn't get anywhere. But if you show respect, if you can say to somebody in some form or another, there's something I want to talk to you about, is that okay with you? I have some things I'd like to express or share with you. Is that okay with you? You're asking permission to be truthful, yeah. And that asking permission shows respect to another person, and then they relax so they're less defensive, yeah. And then when you say it, then if they get defensive, they say, Well, you said, I could say it. So let me hear what you're now. Let me hear what your where your response is about we get afraid to really slow down and get down into because everybody comes with their history, you know, Yeah, everybody's bringing their baggage with them.
Mark Hiddleson 16:17
Yeah, autobiography. I call it autobiography in this and people think that they are their autobiography. I think that's one of the things like that. Is not who you are. You know the guy who was captain of the basketball team, the one of the award of the thing, or the person that made the huge mistake that ruined that relationship, or where like you that is. But it does come up. I mean, it is, it does the pattern, the energy it is, the patterns
Joie Seldon 16:42
are there, yeah, and, and, and. So when you can, when you can come in, you're self grounded and set your intention. What is it? Did you really want to get out of this? Do you want to just vent? You know, that's not going to get you anywhere.
Mark Hiddleson 16:59
Write it all out, yeah, or I have vented to other people that said, Look, this is a vent,
Joie Seldon 17:06
if you name it, and you ask my husband and I, I learned this with our marriage is like, when we would get have an agreement, if I'm really upset with you and I want to express it, we'll ask permission. And I'd say, Hey, I'm really upset about something, can I express it? And he'd go, let me get myself ready, put on your armor. It's just like, get it out, and then I'd be done. And what happened by telling that truth? And you have to have agreement. You have to have agreement with people, and it depends on your level of intimacy, how far you can go, but when you have that, I would discover, oh, this is my stuff. Yeah, it's my stuff. It wasn't you. It was me. I apologize, or it would be he'd go, oh, yeah, you're right. It was me. And so you can get to those truths with ultimately brings you to greater intimacy and greater trust.
Mark Hiddleson 18:07
Yeah, it's an asking permission. It's funny because my reputation in our family, and it's not related to this, but my nickname is the permission giver, because my wife's always teased me that any time anyone's ever asked me for anything, I've always just said yes, and it's not 100% true, but there's just been enough anecdotal evidence that there does seem to be and and I like to say yes. I mean, it does feel good, but asking permission, that's one practice of setting boundaries, other than when you ask and then you have to honor it, yes, because for us, it's comes back in feedback, like we've gotta have. It's not even a difficult conversation. But hey, I've got a coaching thing. Or I wanna, there's some pointers I wanna give you. I wanna give you some feedback. Is now a good time? Because a lot of times it's not like something else. I got three phone calls. I mean, it's like, okay, now
Joie Seldon 18:58
is a good time. Or When can we meet? That's part of one of my steps of preparing, yeah, so that you create a space, a design, if it's now, it's now, but it has to be named, yeah, rather than just run into somebody in the hallway and say, hey, you know?
Mark Hiddleson 19:15
Or the difference between bringing some something up in the meeting setting versus one on one, that's a boundary where emotions play huge,
Joie Seldon 19:25
very, very important in a company, yeah,
Mark Hiddleson 19:29
or even a family, you know, family setting, even friend setting. Well, I think that's great. And so you have that if we go through all five of so we're going to put that resource on the show notes, so anyone who's listening, they'll be able to I'm going to check it out. Um, you know, difficult conversations every day. I'm going to read. I'm going to do first in practice too. Like, no matter how many times
Joie Seldon 19:55
I've done that with clients, well, let's, you're going to have this me. Let's let me role play. Right, and it's amazing the results that people can get when they approach these conversations. I've had people like terrified of losing their job, to getting a promotion and getting a raise, getting exactly what they wanted, because they're very clear in their intention, and they're respectful of the other person, and they manage their own nervousness and anxiety about it. Yeah,
Mark Hiddleson 20:26
I love it. So you've created a practical, easy use system for learning about emotions, to turn them from liabilities into assets. So do you want to share more about the system of what, what makes it easy to use?
Joie Seldon 20:43
Yes,
Mark Hiddleson 20:44
I want the easy.
Joie Seldon 20:47
Well, first of all that you have to start with emotional intelligence. The foundation is self awareness, and this is why they're there. People don't. People aren't. So I commend you. If you're an emotionally intelligent 13 year old, you are so far ahead of the rest of the planet, I'll tell you, I
Mark Hiddleson 21:06
think I might be 11 or 12, but I mean
Joie Seldon 21:10
playfulness. So you have a youthful energy, you have a playful energy, which is, you know, humor is a tremendous i I'm married to a stand up comic, and he makes me laugh every day, and it was very good for me, because I was a very serious kid. I mean, I had a pre altered stomach in elementary school. That's how serious I was, and I'm a much more joyful. I had to grow into my name. But let me get to the some of the things about emotions. First of all to understand that emotions are a biological information system. They are bringing you information about your relationship to whatever it is that you're experiencing. Your relationship to it so that it's that intense, seemingly intangible thing that connects us to everything that we experience outside of ourselves and inside of ourselves, to our memories, our beliefs, our attitudes, our past trauma, all of that stuff we have, this thing that's going to communicate through the body, through physical sensation. And you know this because when you're sad, what you're sad, your your energy is lower. You kind of tend to turn inward when you're angry, you're you know, you're more intense when you're Joie ful. So we have the signature feeling, and we can get tuned in by our body, and they activate very specific parts of our body in order to prompt you to a certain type of action. So we bring up fear. So if I'm in a situation at work and I feel myself, fear and anger are often very closely tied, because they are two sides of a coin. There are our Protector emotions. So they come up when we're trying to protect ourselves. Now and at primal level, if somebody you know comes up behind you and sticks a gun in your back, you know your your fight or flight instinct is going to kick in so that you can handle that situation in the best possible way faster than you can think. But in our interactions with day to day lives, that same mechanism is has to be ready for any situation, so it gets a little spark, and what we go wrong is we misinterpret it, or we project onto it, something's wrong. So I want to just get people to understand that if you feel nervousness, if your nervous system, your autonomic nervous system, is activated, it doesn't mean anything is wrong. It just means something's happening. So that I take people through in my book emotions and owners manual. There's four because I wrote it a while ago. Now I have 70 primary emotions, their signature. I believe that we're they're the ones we're hardwired for. But if we take the four in the book, sadness, fear, anger and joy , these are like Cornerstone emotions for everything we experience. So when you can understand the inherent information. Sadness is about loss. Fear is about paying attention because something's happening. Anger is a boundary setter. Anger's Message is no, this is not okay with me. Yeah. And joy is the emotion of connection. We feel joy when we have no defensiveness going on. When we feel a sense of connection. It can be to a person, to music, to nature, whatever that is that brings us joy . And so when we understand the visceral ex. After Experiencing these, then we can stay present with it and recognize, oh, in this moment my stomach is churning, I'm, I'm, that's my signal that I'm, I've got I'm nervous. So what is it that I'm thinking could happen? Because our thoughts and our emotions are, you know, they're married, yeah, well, these
Mark Hiddleson 25:25
emotions lead the way. And like you said, it's in your body. One of the things when you're talking about the posture and something I've you learned through performance, like you performance, sometimes changing your body can change your state. Maybe you're sad, you're saying, I'm still sad, but if I'm like this, yes, it starts a shift change. And I've heard of a train your mind, or train your body and your mind to follow is, well, wonderful, you can see I'm doing,
Joie Seldon 25:54
yeah, well, that's exactly. That's a perfect lead in actually, thank you for setting me up, because the quickest way to manage nervousness is to go do it through the body, not through your mind.
Mark Hiddleson 26:09
Yeah, don't try to stop yourself. It's
Joie Seldon 26:12
not always punching in at its best when you're anxious, but when you can calm your body, bring your energy down. What happens when you're you, when you're scared, your energy comes up all around here, where your four out of five senses are. I'm looking, I'm smelling, I'm listening, I'm tasting. Is there a threat here? This is what animals do. So if I take that energy that's all up here and I in with my intention, send it down, or you can just feel you can feel your butt in the chair. You can feel your feet on the floor. There's a very specific tool that I teach that's that helps people to bring the energy down into the lower body. This sends a signal to your brain through your vagus nerve. So there's a lot of science in this and brain science to the brain that says, I'm safe. And when your brain believes that you're safe, it will calm down. It will stop sending out these alert signals. Your body will calm down. You can think more clearly, and then you can handle the situation. And when you practice this. You get used to it. You can do it like almost instantly. You can do it really quickly. And it doesn't mean all the nervousness goes away, but it does mean that you're present and you're grounded, and energy is flowing,
Mark Hiddleson 27:35
yeah, and interest curious about where, what, how all this, instead of being against it, or is it good, or is it bad? Just what is it? And we don't even know it might what you think is good might be bad. I don't even know exactly.
Joie Seldon 27:48
Curiosity is, is a always a powerful tool, yeah,
Mark Hiddleson 27:52
because it uh, and it is kind of fun, like we're talking about the scary movie. I mean, the emotions, if it's um, and they're appropriate, you know, I heard a I love that your husband's a stand up comedian. Now, I want to have him. I love stand up because I love humor. I think it takes a lot of guts. It takes so much guts, it brings so much joy . So I think it's that weakness becoming a strength that you're talking about with emotion, because you're taking that and then you're spreading that Joie to other people. I mean, to laugh, that changes. I mean, it's just a state change. It's an exercise, it's a practice. But those feelings are, they're there. And I think they they control, they control the dance. I mean, all your thoughts and thank you. They're guides.
Joie Seldon 28:40
They're there. And the thing is, people want to control their emotions, which is why they try to stuff them. But you cannot control them. They're biological. They are going to happen. And it is, in fact, the attempt to repress, suppress, deny, change them, that actually causes the problem, this whole languaging it. There's negative emotions and positive emotions. I I am against that, because when you label something negative, then you don't want to experience it, but you say, Oh, I'm angry. What is that about it? Being curious about yourself being curious about the other people, and what the situation is that brings us to a state of presence, and it's a life force. I mean, our emotions are part of the life force energy that animates us, and so when we deny them, we're cutting off our own life force energy. But when you allow them, they come and go very quickly. They don't hang around. Sadness is the one that can hang around, because it's about loss, and it's not just about any loss. It's about the loss of something that has value to
Mark Hiddleson 29:52
you. Yeah, it was, I mean, for me, most recently, and I worked with Vicky for six. Months when my dad passed away, I really wanted to avoid, you know, pain and suffering and everything. But there's a time where you don't, I mean, there were three months that are kind of like a blur, yeah, but I did experience, you know, a lot of the pain of my kids, and so they didn't want my kids to be hurt. It's like, well, if I'm hurt, then they're going to be hurt, and it it's work to to experience that in the lows. And what I was going to say about the the stand up comedian he was talking about, he said, Yeah, there was a time in my life I was depressed. My girlfriend had just left me. I was broke. Nobody was hiring me to do any jobs. And he was like, I should have been depressed. Yes, that was anything else. I would have been crazy. Yes. It drove me, and it reminds me a little bit your story too. You were at a place where you had a certain feeling that this sucks, or whatever it is, and you were willing to open yourself up to something like a new Yes. Journey. Open up to new
Joie Seldon 30:57
Yeah. And it was not a smooth journey. I mean, we I just, I was in a state. I actually, I just put out a little video that I shot in my car because I had gotten into a funk for a couple of days where I was procrastinating, and then I kind of went like, Oh yeah, I'm really procrastinating. What? All right, what is that about? Let me ask for help, because that's one of the things that has been one of my saving graces, is to ask for help, to seek out, whether it's therapy or a friend or reading an article. And so I reached out, I got some help, and then I just everything changed. So we're, we're, we're never going to be always happy or always even keel. But it's that navigation that is so important and key, because it's part of the richness of life to feel a wide range of emotions.
Mark Hiddleson 31:55
I think that asking for help is one of the key you know, as a alpha, or whatever, fully evolved 13 year old, whatever you want to call it, I know that I need to ask for help. I've had times in my life and coaching, I mean, it's part of my values, like I'm going to coach and be coach. Like, there's people that I coach and I need to be coach, and you are a coach, and share a little bit about about your coaching practice, and what are some of the what's the path? What's a practice for reaching out? Because I even have a situation where I was looking for help, and so I looked through Google, whatever, and I left somebody a message that's been like two weeks ago, and, well, I left them a message. They didn't call me.
Joie Seldon 32:39
I know it always shocks me that I get that from people like you know, if somebody finds me on Yelp, I do because of my acting background. I do public speaking, presentation skills coaching, although what's happened is that people come to me because they want to learn how to speak up at work. And it turns out it's the tip of the iceberg, and there's all this other stuff. So over the years, my my coaching is, it's very personal, but I have I start with an emotion education session so that we're on the same page. People get my book, they either get the physical book or the audio book. It's on Audible and and so that we have a common language, and they have the base understanding of where the emotions are, what what they are, and then, as we address what their issues are, speaking up at work, asking, you know, they're not happy in this company. They're not sure the boss is. I mean, I have lots of different stories I can tell you for different scenarios, but a lot of it is comes from people having either ambition or probably they have, usually, they have ambition and they have intelligence that's not getting utilized. They see things that could be done better. They see things that could be helpful to the company or the business or their own if they're an entrepreneur in their own company and they feel they don't know how to move past that or deal with that. So we kind of unpack where the blocks are from the pet history. I mean, everybody has trauma, some much more than others, but we have those trauma experiences that get in there, and then when they start to understand, Oh, I'm, oh, this, I'm, I'm having panic attacks because I'm both scared and angry, and there's some grief in there, and they can unpack or pull out this mass of emotion that's gotten into this stuck in us, and then they start to show up on a daily basis. I had a woman come recently that she was like, just miserable, and in just, I think it was two sessions when she. Fully understand what anger was and where hers was coming from. It just completely changed how she dealt with people at work, and just turned her whole situation around at work. Now we're working on her personal life, yeah, and so it's, it's a walking through those and then learning I have lots of things like self image discovery and change process, because we have a unconscious self image that sometimes gets in our way. We have one at work, and we have one in our personal lives, and, you know, in different areas. So working with self image, working with learning how to set boundaries, how to create boundaries, and all of that is all part of the mix.
Mark Hiddleson 35:40
And how if, if, if somebody wanted to improve their relationship with their boss or get their ideas heard at work. And so for me, a lot I don't want to ask for help, because I feel like I've already figured it out. I should be able to figure this out myself. Say in me, the thing was like, Well, you know, I do, I do want to help with that and but there's a boundary. They're asking for help. Seems like a weakness, kind of the same thing you said about people looking there's a theory of asking for help, like, well, well, what
Joie Seldon 36:16
I like to say is, how many people, if it's so, if it, if it's asking for help, is a weakness. Why is it that people don't have the strength to ask for help? Yeah, there's, there's, there the courage, you know, there's a lot of dismissal about, oh, that's, you know, that she's too emotional. It's often towards women. And then, of course, that puts pressure on men to definitely not be emotional. Because, you know, there's, it's dismissed, but it's like, it takes courage, true, but it, what I find is that people are really starved for the truth, and when you can recognize that asking for help is actually a way that we evolve in our lives, that we grow to be a better person, because we cannot do this on our own. I grew up in a family where I felt very isolated. I was my sister, brother were much older, and nobody in my family got me at all. And young adult, I can do this. I was independent. I lived alone. I didn't actually I got married at 45 it took me that long adventure. You know, it took me a while to because I was so but somewhere along the line, I started asking for help and seeking help, and now it's easy for me to reach out, because we need that connection. We're here together. Yeah, and the world is showing us that more than ever, we need to get over and get beyond our lack of emotional intelligence. I, I, I'm actually developing the emotion evolution Institute. It will be launched next spring. Nice, because I feel that we're we're evolving so quickly technologically, but we, like you said at the beginning, we are lagging in the emotional evolution, and we have to evolve emotionally, and we're not going to make it. We're going to self destruct, and I don't think that's our destiny. But and with the thing that people I want to make a point is that the more you're in touch with all of your emotions, the more joy you will feel, because joy is the emotion of connection. And when you're connected to yourself, you connect more easily to other people. They feel the connection, and it just ripples out
Mark Hiddleson 39:02
that's something that's beautiful. Say a little bit more about that, because I have a book that's coming out shortly, or by the time you know somebody's listening this, maybe it's already out, and that inside out journey, I think it's such an important thing, if anything, that you want to see in the world, you first have to create. The first creation is within yourself, loving this first, the way you talk to yourself, the your relationship, what I call a second weird my relationship with myself. It's it's
Joie Seldon 39:30
the most important. It's the and we're taught. I was taught. I was raised I was selfish, anything I wanted something for myself. I was told I was selfish and this self sacrificing thing and the giving up of our power through religion and through beliefs and culture and all kinds of different ways and gender and all these different issues that keep us from this beautiful, miraculous experience of being a human being. Yeah. I mean it, it's fun, yeah, feeling is fun, and it helps us to then contribute to the world the gifts that we are there. That's how so many of my clients come in, because they really want to contribute. They want to give of themselves, and that's what's being stymied.
Mark Hiddleson 40:20
Yeah, fear is holding us back for so many things, especially speaking up is something that we talked about before. So I mean, do you have any would you be willing to share any examples or even mentors? If you had, I know you mentioned the book by Ernest Holm, but did you have mentors who were sort of an example of that, or led the way. Well,
Joie Seldon 40:44
I've had, I've had different therapists over the years. I've been in therapy a few different times. I mean, I my first therapist. I was in my in my 20s, late 20s, and and she was like a mother to me, which is what I needed, because my mother was very critical and and so I don't have any, I can't say I have mentors, but I've had teachers, and I have, I mean, now I'm in a I'm in a program now where I have a I have a spiritual coach, and I have a business coach that's part of the program that's all kind of metaphysically based. So I continue, I go in and out of having guidance, because I one of the things I learned in my my days of do I can do this myself, is that I couldn't do it myself. Nobody can. Nobody can. So each stage of evolution that I go through, like, now I'm ready to do something at a it's a pretty big deal for me, this institute that I want to launch. Like, I can't do that by myself. And I had a whole I launched an incredible course called emotions at work, and we launched. It was an online course. It was fabulous, but it launched the week of the the shutdown of COVID shut down. And so it was geared all for companies to to have their employees, teams and managers to go through this emotion education course. And it didn't fly with companies, because they all stopped spending money during COVID on professional development,
Mark Hiddleson 42:22
but that's for one thing. That's the number one tool we need. I
Joie Seldon 42:26
know, but we couldn't sell it. But I did have students from all over the world who, individually, who came. We ran it a few times through, through a couple of years, and I and the thing is that emotions are the universal language. Is the thing we all share, and regardless of your culture, regardless of your background, your religion, you know what country you're from, I coach people in India. I actually had a great gig coaching, speed coaching for a company in Silicon Valley, two teams around the world. And so I in Europe, India, Japan, everybody has the same core issues. They have the same core desires, the same fears. This is the thing that connects us. Yeah, so I didn't answer quite your question about mentors, because there's been lots of people over the years and books that I've read a million books, so don't ask me to name them right now. Yeah,
Mark Hiddleson 43:23
I see the books. That's one of the things I have. Only my, you know, favorite, 150 books here, but 1000 in the rest. We
Joie Seldon 43:32
move from, we downsize from a house and the thick, biggest thing I had to deal with is getting rid of
Mark Hiddleson 43:37
books. I love books. Yeah, it's so amazing. And so what's the best way to get a get a copy of yours? And I was going to ask you, this is almost personal. This is perfect for, like, did you read your own audiobook? I did it. Awesome. I did. Yes, most people read their own or people because, do they do
Joie Seldon 43:57
it depends? Yeah. You know, it depends. A lot of people don't, but I, I mean, I was an actor, I did voice over work. I had to read my own book, right? So it is on audible.com, and the books on Amazon. It's in Kindle, print and audible. And it's a great it's a workbook. It's it goes through those four primary emotions of sadness, fear, anger and joy . And then it goes into exercises. So it gives you the principles, the core information in them, and then some exercises of how to release in a healthy way stuff you're carrying from your past, how to deal with things in the present moment. It gives you exercises and tools for having good communication. It's a it's pretty cool. Yeah,
Mark Hiddleson 44:49
it's nice. It's like having your own little emotional fitness dojo, yes, and it doesn't practice. I mean, that's one of the thing I've always practiced. So if you're an actor, you have to practice your lungs. You have to practice. Is under pressure, you're just going to fall to your whatever, your lowest level, right?
Joie Seldon 45:04
The motivation. And I always say, so, okay, so you didn't do it this time. But then afterwards, you think, Oh, I could have done that. That's a learning. Now I'm going to say, Okay, next time I could do it this way. And eventually you become emotionally fluid, you become able to be present. Because ultimately, it's about being present.
Mark Hiddleson 45:28
And so I meant to ask you earlier about this. This is somatic psychology, so it's really using your body as a tool. But share a little bit. I know what somatic psychology is, but, but I'm not an expert in this, so yes.
Joie Seldon 45:40
Yeah, a lot of people don't. The Soma is the whole person, including the body. And I didn't even know it existed till I went to grad school and I discovered it. And it's, it is, we're embodied beings. So everything that we experience, we experience on a cellular level. And that's why you say, Oh, I have a gut feeling, or Oh, my neck is so tight, or my heart starts pounding. All of these visceral, physical experiences that we have. We experience life, not in our brain only, our mind only, but through every part of our being. And since emotions communicate through the body, if we're suppressing or denying an emotion, it will stick around. That's where we get sick. We get illnesses or we have accidents, because there's this energy that's stuck in our body. And so somatic psychology is a way, and there's many different modalities, and I've done study different ones, so I use that in my toolkit working with coaching. But there's, there's some that are very, very simple that you can just when you tune into this sensation in the body, instead of going to your mind and thinking about, Oh, why am I upset, you just communicate with this sensation in your body, and your body will reveal a tremendous amount of information. And when you release that energy from your body, then you're done, yeah, you know, you're not reiterating the same when you have a pattern where you're saying, Oh, this again, and it get, you know, it can take years for it to get lighter and lighter and lighter, but you come back to it. It's because it's still in your body. And with somatic psychology, it's a great way to move more quickly into the store core of why a behavior is happening or experience is happening, and to release that in a way that's more thorough. Yeah,
Mark Hiddleson 47:48
yeah. So the practices aren't just mental gymnastics or cognitive changing your but you know that's behavior, but even the behavior you have to use your body. So I've always, I've loved somatic psychology. There's a few authors, uh, Richard heckler. He's a little Have you heard of Richard strong? Well, there's actually two Richard hecklers this. I was, I went to school at JFK because Richard heckler was going to JFK. Oh, did you I was going to ask you what? So
Joie Seldon 48:14
I did. I got, yeah, my degree is from JFK, somatic psychology.
Mark Hiddleson 48:18
And that was my other question, where? Because so JFK, that's where I got my degree in holistic health education, and I went. One of the reasons I chose JFK is because there was an instructor called Richard heckler, but there's Richard Strozzi heckler, yes, and they're one who's Aikido based, and the other is hakomi, but they're both martial artists and both somatic psychologists, and right, already signed up by the time I was there, but that's where I met Vicky, and that's where I went. Met Wendy Palmer, Oh, yeah.
Joie Seldon 48:46
Wendy Palmer, yeah, I didn't they were not teaching there when I was there. Yeah,
Mark Hiddleson 48:50
yeah. I went between 2002 1006 is when I went to I graduated
Joie Seldon 48:56
in 22,005 not 2005 Sorry, I have to think I'm very bad at dates.
Mark Hiddleson 49:08
I will have to go, we'll put it, we'll post it on the show. 2000 3003. Oh, so I was so you graduated right in between when it moved from Orinda to Pleasant Hill. So you mostly,
Joie Seldon 49:22
I started at my mostly, was there Marinda? Yeah, I was
Mark Hiddleson 49:26
about 5050, it was a really bummer when we moved from Marinda. That wasn't terrible,
Joie Seldon 49:30
well, so we were there at the same time. Just, that's hilarious. Yeah,
Mark Hiddleson 49:35
that's when Bernice salomar was probably one of your i
Joie Seldon 49:40
Yes. In fact, I started out in and in a psychology course not be intending to be a therapist, and I loved it. I thought she was fantastic, but I didn't know what I was going to do with the information. And I met Mark Ludwig, who. Was the head of the somatic department, and I started taking electives and somatics, and I changed my major, and then I had to do a whole year of internship and everything to to get the counseling degree. And I loved it. It was fantastic.
Mark Hiddleson 50:14
I love JFK. I somebody needs to revitalize it. They were bought by National University, and then it's, it's no more, it's JFK, so we have to carry, there's a torch there that has to be carried by the graduates. So that's awesome. I'm so glad you're at JFK. That's where I met. Vicky is at JFK. I did two weekend workshops with her, Qigong workshops. Yeah, I
Joie Seldon 50:39
remember when she was teaching there. I had just met her not long after I graduated. Yeah,
Mark Hiddleson 50:45
awesome. So we've got about five more minutes. I like to ask everybody, what is there any new technology that you're using in your business or professional life that you want to share, or any other personal interest thing before we wrap it up. Well,
Joie Seldon 51:05
I actually am learning. I am learning to use chat GPT, simply because I'm so deep in my work that when I try to, I love to write, but putting like, you know, putting out the wording on a on a website, or I've tried hiring other people to write for me, and it doesn't work, so I wrote to helping me get those wording in, you know. So it's like, because there was a time when I was, you know, too old for technology, but, but otherwise, I think that the thing that I want to share that is most important is for people to recognize that your emotions are a gift. They are beautiful, they are meaningful, they are purposeful, even the ones that feel yucky, they're like shame. There's a difference between toxic shame and healthy shame that if you can really open up your mind to embrace the complexity of human being, human and to to honor yourself. I mean, what is self love anyway? It's a turning towards yourself with positive attitude and acceptance and non judgment. So to take the judgment out of the emotions and be curious about them and to recognize it. If you just feel that energy in your body, it's enlivening, and it makes you youthful, and you will have more fun in life.
Mark Hiddleson 52:41
Yeah, that's a promise. That's, that's your promise.
Joie Seldon 52:44
That's my promise. I'm going to be, I'm going to, I don't always say this, but I'm going to be turning 76 in two weeks.
Mark Hiddleson 52:54
Amazing. You have awesome energy that is so great and
Joie Seldon 52:59
and I can hardly believe it myself, but I know that my vitality is directly connected to the emotional flow that I experience. Yeah, and that doesn't mean I'm happy all the time. It just means I allow whatever's there to
Mark Hiddleson 53:16
be there. Yeah, that's beautiful. And I forgot to mention, you work with NASA, and there is, there's a guy, I can, can't think of his name, but he was the longest standing director of NASA and Dan golden. He's, he's like an entrepreneurial and scientific visionary, and he was NASA's longest tenured administrator from April of 92 to November of 2001 of the three US presidents, and he commented on one of our episodes on the on the Dow piece. Oh, wow. And we'll have a million listeners earning but it is kind of, I always look at the comments and I will post this, and I'll tag you in this episode, you can comment,
Joie Seldon 54:03
it's great, and I'll share it with my list, and I've got a VA now that's that's we're getting on top of getting stuff out on a weekly basis. So I will definitely share this. And I also have a friend who is in, he isn't he in a woman. She has the business where they build out, uh, offices, new offices for companies. And I just thought maybe I should introduce you there. Might I know yours is very niche, but I can tell him and see if there's any, anything that could be beneficial to Yeah,
Mark Hiddleson 54:41
I love it. There's overlap of each other. Yeah, we come across every once in a while. Usually we come across if somebody wants to sell all of their old stuff, as far as, like, furniture, office setups or but I love any, any introduction. I would love to, okay,
Joie Seldon 54:54
cool. Yeah, he's a great guy, too. So, so anything else, it's. This is really fun. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and it's so interesting that we end up having these can this connection at JFK,
Mark Hiddleson 55:06
yeah, and there's a chapter one. So my book has, there's four lenses. There's a spiritual lens, emotional lens, a mental lens in a physical, what I call the action lens of being a and so the first four chapters are kind of developing these lenses, where spiritual creates the possibility emotional harnesses the passion. The mental is harnessing your power to choose, and then it's choosing to take action. And so those are, like the four, fantastic. So this emotional I might even go
Joie Seldon 55:35
in alignment. I might quote
Mark Hiddleson 55:36
you. We're almost, uh, we're getting ready to publish, but I'm going through the final I can add. I'm adding stuff in to where, like, stuff that I've taken notes over here is, it's like, Where does this go? But I'm probably gonna include something from this, because it's really what's there is, I've been studying this for so long, and I meant to ask you about the science, but there's never, like, the science of emotion is kind of something that's it's new, because it was always like, this is the gooey stuff we're just we're gonna deal with.
Joie Seldon 56:06
But neuroscientists who really opened us up to the real understanding that emotions are biological because of what happens in the brain. Damasio, I don't know if you know Damasio or
Mark Hiddleson 56:21
it sounds familiar,
Joie Seldon 56:23
some books on my shelf here that I could I couldn't get rid of all my JFK books. But yeah, that's I went in to, well, I kept trying to remember that. Couldn't remember it in the interview about the name of the department the degree that I initially signed up for there, oh, probably
Mark Hiddleson 56:43
consciousness studies.
Joie Seldon 56:46
No it was a psychology. But with it,
Mark Hiddleson 56:50
what's the word personal? Trans person? Trans
Joie Seldon 56:51
personal psychology. That's what I said. That's what I read. Signed up for, because I was teaching an acting class called accessing your emotions. And my students would say, Yeah, my acting is getting better, but this is affecting my life. And I because I did improvisational theater for years, so I was an improv based workshop and and I got so much great feedback than then I said, oh, there's something bigger here than me, and that's what I need to
Mark Hiddleson 57:20
follow. Yes, dynamite, and I want to be the first to thank you for coming on the Dow pizza. This has been amazing, emotional. I usually wear a professional shirt. If I was going to bring this up in the beginning, I usually wear a shirt with a collar, but there was something about this shirt that was calling me. It was going to feel good to put it on. And I was like, Hey, this is a feel. Sometimes I'm in a crappy mood, I will, you know, I had a friend that had a sweatshirt that he gave me, and he's like, bop and strong and everything. And one day I was feeling weak, and I'm like, I'm gonna put this shirt on. And that's
Joie Seldon 57:57
attunement, see, that's all that's actually part of emotional intelligence, because you're attuned and your intuition is heightened when you have that experience. So fantastic.
Mark Hiddleson 58:09
Thank you so much. This has been beautiful. This has been beautiful. Such a great pleasure.
Joie Seldon 58:15
I've really enjoyed it.
Outro 58:17
Thanks for listening to The Tao of Pizza Podcast. We'll see you again next time, and be sure to click Subscribe to get future episodes. .
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