Dr. Peter Buecker: How to Overcome Shame & Trauma

0:00 Welcome to the Unapologetic Man Podcast, the only podcast that's all about self-improvement, confidence, success, women, and being a man without making any apologies for it. What is up, everybody? It's Mark Sing. I have a very special guest for you today. His name is Peter Buecher, and he is the host of the Unbroken Podcast. And Peter deals specifically with childhood trauma. And as you guys know, I'm an NLP coach, and I also deal a lot with childhood trauma. In fact, it's my opinion that the majority of your problems with women are probably metaprograms that were written in early childhood.

0:40 So when I heard Peter's podcast, I was immediately resonating with it. I love what he has to say. This guy is absolutely awesome. He started as an orthopedic surgeon and realized that that wasn't his calling. And now he does what I do. And he coaches guys just like you who need to get over past trauma. So Peter, thank you so much for joining us today. Yeah, thanks for having me. What an introduction. That's awesome. Hey, no worries, man. I always choose the best people to come on the show.

1:05 I want to help my guys out. And we're growing quickly. So we do appreciate you coming on. And if you guys want to learn more about Peter, you can go check out his podcast, Unbroken Podcast. You can also go visit wearetheunbroken.com or petebuecher.com. And correct me if I have this incorrect here, Pete. It's P-E-T-E-B-U-E-C-K-E-R.com, correct? Yes, that's correct. All right, cool. I'll also leave that in the show notes, guys. So if you want to go check him out, I highly suggest it. So Peter, how you doing, man?

1:35 How's it been? I'm doing great. I'm doing great. Yeah, it's awesome. All right. So we're going to do today how to deal with past trauma. Now, I know for a lot of guys, they've had a lot of past trauma in their lives, particularly from women or even from their family members, their siblings, friends. And I want to know some of the things that you do to help guys out with situations like this where they may be dealing with something that's preventing them from getting success in life, getting success with women, and some tips we can give them to overcome that.

2:08 So what initially do you typically start with when meeting a guy who has trauma? What's kind of the core philosophy that you start with and then unravel from there? Yeah. So, you know, like any coaching, like when you first meet with, when I first meet with a new client, really what I want to get clear on is what's the actual pain that they're suffering in life, right? So we, because a lot of people who have trauma don't recognize that they have trauma. They just know that, for instance, every time a promotion comes up at work and I apply for it, I never seem to get it.

2:37 I get over, I get, you know, I get passed over or my wife just seems to get more and more disconnected and I'm just, I'm feeling stressed. I'm stuck. I'm overwhelmed. Guys kind of just identify more with what they're feeling in the moment and not so much the root cause of it. So what I get, what I like to get very clear on is what is the actual pain point that you have in your life and what is it that we, you know, what we need to get over.

2:59 So it's, it's like, where do you want to be? What's the barrier? And then how are we going to get there? But what I really focus on is, is the deeper, and you and I have talked about this. It's really, what is the deeper underlying belief that you have about yourself? And so whether or not you, you look at yourself and you have like identifiable trauma, you know, a sexual abuse, a physical abuse, a narcissist or an alcoholic parent or a death of a parent, a long-term illness of a parent, a sibling or yourself or whatever, these are all, you know, known traumas, what we call adverse childhood experiences.

3:30 Or whether you just are down on yourself or you're just kind of in the midlife, you know, humdrum. A lot of times what happens is if you're not having the success with women that you want, or your marriage isn't going the way you want, or you're not making the money that you want, or you're not getting the job or the career opportunities that you want, a lot of times it's because simply you just don't believe that you're worth it, that you deserve it. So we really try to get very quickly what I like to do.

3:58 And once I, you know, enroll a new client and we're working together, the first thing I do is I get them very clear on what I call the two selves. And so if you think about it, Mark, when you're born, you come into this world and guys who've had babies or been around babies, you know this, and you just had a baby, that when babies come in, like they just are, right? They're just kind of life incarnate. They're like, there's this little human that's just sitting there just being, they don't have any idea that they have a name, a gender, a family role of, you know, some other way to be.

4:28 They just, when they're hungry, they cry. When they, when they dirty themselves, they cry, they get changed. When they're lonely, they, they cry. It seems like all they do is cry, but really, you know, they may smile to engage you because that helps them connect. And there's all kinds of things they're doing, but they don't have a sense of some other way to be. And then at some point, like we've talked about, depending on the psychology model you use, your personality is pretty well set anywhere between the ages of about three and six years of age.

4:53 So somewhere in there, we start to get the idea that I need to be some other way, you know, to, to be loved, to be accepted, to get my needs, to get my survival needs met because we're reliant on the adults to survive. And so we start creating this whole, we internalize this belief about ourselves that, uh, me just being me, isn't getting it done. Dad seems to always be on my case. Mom seems to never be happy. Uh, people aren't paying attention to me or I have to be an asshole to get people to pay attention to me or whatever it is.

5:22 And so we start creating these, these versions of ourselves to kind of fit in. And then we create another version to fit in at school and then at church or, you know, in our workplace later in life or whatever. But ultimately what we look at, there's this guy named Eli Jackson bear. It's kind of a spiritual thing. He has a book called sudden awakening and he calls it the initial wounding. So you go from baby, there's, I get to just be myself and everything's cool. And at some point you internalize a belief that, Oh, that's not going to get it done.

5:50 There's something wrong with me because remember as a child, we're egocentric, the world revolves around us. And so if the adults are off, if dad's an alcoholic or leaves the family or mom is, you know, never satisfied or she's always anxious and upset, we think it's because of us. We don't realize that the adults have problems because that's a much scarier proposition. So I internalize a belief. There's something wrong with me. And in my experience, there's like one of four beliefs that people have, right? It's, it's, I'm not lovable.

6:16 I'm not worthy. I'm not enough or I'm not wanted. And when we look at that, we get down to what that belief is. And then the next thing that happens, you say, Oh, the reason that people aren't, you know, or, or the reason that someone traumatized me or touched me inappropriately or, or hits me or whatever is because I'm defective. And then when you have the, I'm defective thought, the next thing that happens is an intense emotional reaction of sad matter, scared, right? And then we start manufacturing all these versions of ourselves who need to be or not be to avoid that feeling.

6:47 Cause that's a threat. We internalize it as a threat to basically a threat of abandonment, which is ultimately a threat of survival. So what I like to do is I like to point out that version of you that was what I call your true self. And then the other version that we create to fit in is called, you know, we call the false self or the ego. And then what I like to do very quickly with people is, um, much like what you talk about with doing like visualizations and using imagery and that kind of stuff.

7:17 I get them a really poignant visual of their true self, the version that was never traumatized, the version that just gets to be exactly as it is. And once they can see that, it's kind of like I say, it kind of gives us the guidepost. So if I say, I want to get, uh, a lot of people go to therapy, you know, for instance, therapy is kind of the thing. Like if you're upset, you're having problems, you're depressed or whatever, it's like, Oh, go to therapy.

7:41 But a lot of times therapy, you go and the only real thing you have in your head is I just want to feel better. Right. I just want to, I just want more peace. I just want to not feel as stressed, but that's like, for me, it's like, that's like getting in a car and saying, I want to go West and I'm in Kentucky. You're, you're in Colorado. So you're a little further West, but, but if I just get in my car and go West from, from where I am, uh, I could wind up in, you know, I could wind up in Mexico.

8:05 I could wind up in Canada. I could wind up in anywhere in California, wherever, right? There's a, there's a lot of places I could wind up if I just go West. But if I say, I want to go to the San Francisco Bay, now I have a much more, I have a much smaller target and I'm much more likely to be successful of getting something I actually want. So for me, the real juice of the work is get real clear on who you were before you believed you had to be somebody else.

8:25 Right. And that part of you is always there. We experienced it as, as intuition, as the deeper knowing, as those moments of, yeah, I should have trusted my gut and I didn't. And then, you know, that the cost of that, or yeah, I don't know. It seems like everything's pointing this way, but I really feel like needs to happen is this and you do it and it proves to be the right decision. Right. So that part of you is always there. So I get them real clear on that.

8:49 And then all the work becomes shifting them from this version that feels bad to this version that feels free and good and aligned. So in your teachings, you work under the same premise that I do, which is you're born with pure self-esteem, right? Yeah. It's like that little kid who goes up to women in the supermarket. I mean, I even remember when I was a little kid, you just, you just go up to people and you just talk to them. There's no self-monitoring. There's no low self-esteem.

9:17 You're pure, you're innocent. And then through traumas, which of course is the central core of your teaching, it gets covered up. It's like, I always liken it to the golden Buddha that they found in Thailand. What happened is tens of thousands of years ago or whatever it was, they had a golden Buddha and they had to cover it with mud because they were being invaded. Well, they were invaded. They never found the golden Buddha. And then years and years later, I guess they were washing it or something.

9:43 And then all the mud came off and underneath was gold. That's a good analogy for us is that we were born, you know, pure. We were born perfect. But through the rainstorm of problems, which we've all been through, you cannot run from your house to your neighbor's house in a rainstorm and not get hit with those rain drops. Same thing, right? It's like, you're getting, you're getting nailed and we're all getting nailed. And if you're not working on that, if you're not cleaning it up, then you're dealing with dysfunctional equipment, what I call meta programming.

10:16 Yes. So this thing of, I am not enough, which is a huge issue for the majority of my clients. Is there a typical trauma that results in that? I certainly have my ideas about what it might be, but I want to hear in your teachings and your coaching, have you found, you know, specific incidences that typically relate to that? Yeah. Well, um, so any of the beliefs can come from any number of things. And I think beyond just trauma, just kind of what you were talking about, it's more just the internalization of shame, right?

10:47 Of this sense of being defective or something is wrong with me and all the fallout from that. Um, however that gets there, sometimes it's trauma, sometimes it's what I call the death by a thousand cuts. It's just the repetitive things over and over again. So where I see the not enoughness belief in people. Um, a lot is with a parent that can't be pleased. So, so if you have a dad who's just always like, you know, you bring home a report card and you got 97% and he's like, he's like, well, next time you better get a 98, you know?

11:15 Um, or you have a mom who's really hypercritical. A lot of times, um, uh, I find that, that women carry the not enoughness belief, maybe a little more commonly than the men, uh, just again, in my work. Um, but because they had a mother who was always harping on them, like you need to look pretty, you need to dress this way. You know, we're not going out of the house until you have your, your shoes on the right way, or your hair is done this way or whatever.

11:38 Um, and for guys, a lot of times it's, we get driven into activities like sports, right? And if you're sports, it's competition, it's always being better. It's always being better. Getting one more leg up, working just that much harder, you know, no pain, no gain, all these things. And it just sort of wears on you over time. It's like, okay, I can never get over the hump. I'm just trying to chase them. I'm on this. I call it the hamster wheel of pain. Like you're running on this hamster wheel and you just never get there because there's never some point where you get to and you go, okay, I made it.

12:05 And there's an advantage that of course, cause we always want to be at our best. And especially as men with our masculine energy, like we're always, we're very competitive and, um, and we, we always want to be at our best. Right. And we want to provide the most for our families and we want to be seen as, as you know, whatever, um, amongst our peers. But the point is that sometimes it really wears down your psyche. Like I'm just never seemed to be, uh, appreciated. I've just never seemed to ever get to the place where I feel like I've kind of made it.

12:36 And then we get into relationships. Of course, as you know, with your work, we get into relationships. I always say those beliefs, whatever they are, right. If you have an absentee or an alcoholic father, who's not, who's not, um, emotionally available, that kind of a lot of times shifts more into the unwanted or the unlovable beliefs. Um, there's just, again, general trends. Any of the beliefs can come from anything. But the point is about these beliefs, Mark, and as you, and as you see in your work is you talk about your meta programs and that meta processes and that kind of stuff is that these beliefs become not only the lenses through which you see everything, right?

13:08 So if you're, when your girlfriend or your wife or somebody says something like, Oh, you know, I need you to do this or you should have done that, or you did this, but I need you to do it better next time. We see it through those lenses of the not enoughness or the not worthiness, the not lovability. And then it becomes a much deeper wound than just a basic comment about something that you could have, or should have, or you know, should do, or should be doing.

13:35 Yeah. But not only is it the lenses of perception that we wear, it's also the beacon of attraction. You know, when we talked before, uh, you, you mentioned like law of attraction, right? And it's a real thing because when you send the energy out into the world of I'm not lovable, what are you going to get back? You're going to get women, you know, as a guy, since you're, you know, that's who your program is for. And you're going to attract women that reinforce your belief of not lovability because the behaviors that you take to offset that belief, they like that.

14:06 And there's actually, and so then they're, they're coming to you and they're attracted to that. And now you're doing, doing, doing, trying to prove that you're lovable, trying to prove that you're enough. And they're taking that in, but they also have it too. And so then you get into this, this, um, this dance that for so many times just creates conflict or the relationship just falling apart because you haven't healed those wounds. So I don't know if that answers, that's a long winded answer to your question, but it's just what I see is that these patterns that start to develop in people's lives and then they just can't ever get out from under it.

14:38 Yeah, no, I like that a lot. And oftentimes with attraction, uh, there's a concept called the pain body and it's the accumulation of pain, right? I'm a big Eckhart Tolle fan. Eckhart Tolle. Yeah. Oh yeah, baby. I love that guy. So he calls it the pain body. I think Carl Jung called it shadow and accumulation of pain. And it literally is an entity that lives inside of you. If you ever get really pissed off or you act in a way that doesn't seem congruent with who you are and it's negative, it's oftentimes your pain body coming up to feed and it does have a consciousness.

15:10 It does have an intent and it's cunning like a fox. Yes. What happens oftentimes is pain bodies will get attracted to each other. And that's why you see people who end up with the same kind of person over and over again. Why do I always get with these asshole girls who are just negative and want to drag me down? The girls say, why do I always get attracted to asshole guys? It's because your pain bodies are, are like, you know, magnets. Yes. Magnets to one another.

15:37 It's classic codependency really. Yeah. Like, yeah. Um, and there's another great book too. Uh, since you brought that up, there's another guy named James Hollis, H O L L I S James Hollis. He has a book called why good people do bad things. And it really is how that pain body or, and he's a union psychologist, but he's, it's a very approachable read. Um, a lot of great stuff about, about men and midlife and that stuff too, that he has out there. But, but the point of that is, is that when you're doing stuff, right, we've all done stuff that, that all of a sudden you look at it and you go, why in the hell did I do that?

16:10 That's not me at all. That's not in line with my values at all, but it's in you somewhere. And it's in that shadow, like you talked about. And the shadow is not visible. The reason it's called the shadow, it's not visible to your conscious mind. So you're doing shit that you just don't even know, you know, is, um, uh, why you're doing it because it's coming out of that shadow. It's, it's, it's coming from your unconscious mind, but that book is really good at helping kind of explain how that works and then sort of how to overcome that too.

16:36 Yeah. I'm actually looking for a new book right now, so I'm downloading it. Um, I got, I got the audible.com. I love that thing, man. And what's cool, a little tip for you guys, if you don't absolutely love the book, you can actually take it back. It's kind of a douchey thing to do, but look, if I don't love the book, I take it back and get my credit back. And so, you know, I get to read several books and if I just keep the ones that I feel the author deserved it, you know, it's like, yeah.

17:01 And then the other ones I return and get new ones, but, um, I'm always down to read new books. So what was it again? What was it called? Uh, James Hollis, H O L L I S is the author. Okay. And it's called why good people do bad things. Got it. Got it. Yeah. It's all about the shadow. If you need to learn, learn about shadow that that book is going to help. Yeah. Yeah. I'm all, I'm all into that stuff. So I appreciate that. So what I like to do on this podcast is I like to give my guys real techniques, something they can come away with today to better themselves, to make themselves more attractive to women.

17:36 So I know you got a lot of techniques up your sleeve and I dropped a few on your podcast. So, um, let's, let's talk to the guy who is having trouble attracting women. So typically in his situation, he's dealing with a level of insecurity. He's doubting himself. He might have a belief that he doesn't want to inconvenience women with this approach. He's not enough. You know, there's, there's issues there with what do I say to her? How do I get her attracted? What if she rejects me?

18:05 There's all these issues of really, it comes down to self-worth and not feeling like you're enough. So hate to put you on the spot here, but judging by your reactions here, I think you got something loaded up. So yeah, I got a couple, a couple of things that have proven really helpful for me. I mean, again, the reason I do this is because I went through all this, right? The reason we're here talking about this is because I've done all these things. I've been terrified of, of approaching women and thinking that, you know, uh, that I shouldn't because why would they ever want to be with me?

18:32 Um, and, uh, so I totally resonate with that, but a couple of things that have been really powerful and I'll, I'll do the one that's a simpler and then I'll go to the deeper level for people who really want to go there. One is with thoughts. You realize that thoughts are just, they're just experiences that we have, right? It's like having an itch in your big toe. The thought will just pop up in your mind and it pops up from this deeper stuff. Like you talk about the deeper processes or these deeper beliefs, but in the moment, like if you're, you know, if you're thinking like, okay, there's this really, you know, this really pretty woman, I'm going to go, you know, approach her.

19:04 And you notice that you get that feeling in your chest. Like you talked about that shame feeling, that heavy feeling in your chest and the thought goes, oh yeah, but she'll never want to talk to me. She's too pretty, you know, or I'm, I'm such a, you know, I'm such a loser or, or I should be dressed better. I don't like the way my, whatever it is. Right. Um, you start to notice those thoughts bubbling up and those would become aware of those deeper beliefs are pretty deeply buried, but the thoughts we know.

19:26 So the second that we have a thought that, that generates a feeling that doesn't feel good. Right. Um, oh, I'm such a loser. And then that generates that feeling of shame. Right. You stop the thought. If you can, if you can train your mind, this is like where mindfulness and meditation all that stuff really helps, but you don't have to be a guru to know how to recognize your own thought. You just have to know that you can recognize your thoughts. Right. Um, so if you recognize a thought of, oh, I'm such a loser, like you, you talked about on my show about how to sort of grab those and throw them away.

19:52 Well, what I do is I say, okay, I acknowledge the thought because one thing we get really good at is sort of sweeping thoughts and feelings under the rug. And then we sort of ignore them or push them away, but that energy is still there. So what we do is I say, acknowledge the thought. Okay. That's one possibility that I'm a loser. Right. What's another possibility. And immediately when you, when you catch a thought and you acknowledge it, it's like, I say, our thoughts are like a five-year-old kid that wants your attention, right?

20:23 They will fight and dig and scratch and do everything under the sun to get your attention until you turn your full attention to them. And then they usually are like, oh, daddy, I was, you know, I saw an aunt in the other room and you go, okay, that's great. And then they go running into the room and they're happy. Our thoughts are kind of the same way. They'll keep building up and getting more intense and more intense until you finally acknowledge it. So immediately I go, just acknowledge a thought.

20:43 Okay, well, so thank you for telling me I'm a loser mind, you know? Um, that's one part. What's another possibility. And immediately when you ask what's another possibility, usually two, three, four other things will come in. Right. And then what you do is you go, okay, well, um, so actually I'm not a loser. I have a pretty good job. I make a pretty good paycheck. I, you know, drive a nice car, whatever. Um, and you go, okay, so that's another possibility. Number, number three is, you know, maybe she has some self-esteem problems and maybe just me walking over there and saying hi to her is going to make her feel better.

21:14 You know, maybe it's not just about me. It's maybe it's about, uh, and you talked about, you know, you talk about how to approach people in the right way. So much of it is, um, I heard someone say that, you know, one of the biggest fears people have is public speaking. Right. Yeah. But, but the reason is, is because the focus is on yourself. What are they going to think of me? What if I mess up? Yeah. The second you turn the attention on the other person and say, okay, what value am I going to deliver?

21:40 Yeah. And what two things in this hour presentation, what are the two things I need to make sure they know when I'm done? Yeah. Even if you flub up a lot of things, if they remember those two things, you've done your job. Yeah. And I think it's the same when you're approaching someone or you're going to an interview for a job that's stressful or you're giving a big presentation at work or whatever, any of these situations is, um, okay. The thought process, okay, well, maybe I am a loser, but I have value to deliver, you know, or I can make this, I can make her feel really good by just saying something nice with no expectation of outcome.

22:12 Right. She might say, oh, thank you. And then you might turn around and start talking to somebody else or whatever. It's fine. Right. But the point is, is that you recognize the thought that generates a feeling. You say, okay, what's another possibility? Immediately two or three other thoughts will pop up and then you just simply go with the best feeling one, you know, this is the one that feels the best in your body. And as guys, that's hard. Like for me until I was, you know, until even just a few years ago, if you asked me what I was feeling in the moment, I would have had a hard time even telling you because that's something I really had to work through learning how to feel stuff and name what I was feeling and actually be in touch with it.

22:50 But you know, if you feel good or bad in your body or you're feeling tight or you're feeling, you know, like, you're feeling nauseated because you're going to go talk to this woman that you're attracted to. Um, but immediately you just notice what's the, what's the thought that feels the best to me? Um, well actually, you know, you're a pretty good looking guy and you, you have a pretty good job. You have a lot going for you and you can probably make her feel good just by saying something nice to her.

23:11 That feels pretty good. So let's do that. You know, it's that simple. And then the deeper dive you can do is I call this like a five-step, uh, inquiry, like an instant inquiry, right? Into your mind. So that's more based off of a feeling. So if I'm feeling that shame feeling in my chest or that nauseated feeling in my gut, I'm getting ready to go talk to this woman. Okay. What am I feeling? I'm feeling this nauseated feeling in my gut. That's number one feeling. The acronym here for the first four of them is FTSB.

23:37 It's like an investigation, right? The Federal Transportation Safety Board. I remember things by acronym. So FTS, so feeling, well, what triggered the feeling? Well, I thought I'm going to go talk to this woman, right? And I'm scared. What's the story I have? The S's story. The story is I'm going to walk over there and she's going to call me a loser and smack me in the face or throw me a drink at me or whatever. Right. But that's just a story because we don't know what's going to happen.

24:03 She might turn around and go, Oh my God, this is my Prince Charming. And this is the guy I've been waiting for. And I've been looking at him all night and I was hoping to come over and talk to me. We don't know. Right. But the story in our mind based off the shame that we feel is so powerful that it generates so much of our reality. So if you say I'm feeling this nervous feeling, what triggered me is the thought of going over to talk to this woman.

24:25 The story I have is that it's going to be a disaster. And then you go to the belief, right? FTSB, feeling, trigger, story, belief. The belief is that, um, you know, well, I'm not really good enough. Anyway, I'm not worth a woman like that. Um, I'm not lovable. There's no way she's ever really going to love me. And the second you can identify that, then you can go to the lower level, which is what's the truth. The truth is just, this is a belief that I have and I'm making up a story about it and I'm reacting to the story, but I haven't actually gone over and just talked to the woman.

24:55 Right. The, the, the reality is I'm standing here in a bar. I'm attracted to a woman. She's probably here because she's hoping somebody will come talk to her. Like why do women go to bars and sit and talk to like, you know, like the whole point is she's here for the same reason I am. So if I don't walk over and say something, then I'm definitely not going to meet her and get her number or get to go out with her. And the worst thing that's going to happen is she's going to, you go out, you walk over and you say, you know, genuinely, you say something nice to her, you know, Hey, uh, I saw you sitting here.

25:26 You looked really nice. You don't mind if I sit down and we can talk for a little bit or whatever, buy you a drink, whatever. Then the likelihood is the worst thing that's going to happen is she gonna say, you know what? I have a boyfriend, but I appreciate it. Or, um, I'm not really interested, but thank you. You know, like it's not going to be like some horrible, she's not going to pull out a sword and start stabbing you. It's going to be generally the things that we fear are so much less scary than we make them out to be in the story.

25:48 If that makes sense. Absolutely. So, so I like just, just notice what you're feeling. Notice where the thought is, notice what the story you have created. And then you throw that away and you go, the reality is, is I just have to walk over and say something and see what happens. Um, because you never know until you actually do it. Oftentimes we tell ourselves a lie to protect ourselves because ultimately, ultimately we are afraid of rejection. And as my guys have heard me talk about many times, and I'll say it one more time for those of you who haven't, but the reason we're afraid of rejection is because we come from tribal communities to where if you open the wrong girl, you could get smashed over the head with a rock.

26:26 If you approach the girl who belongs to the alpha male, you could lose your life. So that's ingrained into your brain and you should be happy that you have it. But in today's society, it no longer applies. So the story that you're telling yourself deep in your subconscious mind is that of might get smashed overhead with rock, right? But when you identify that and be like, Oh no, no, no, no, no, no. That is ridiculous. Okay. That is totally stupid. And you go through the process that Pete just explained.

26:53 You can overcome that approach anxiety. And to add to your first point, many times it actually feels good to feel bad. I remembered you said that, right? Like you said, pick the best feeling one. Well, you have to pick the one that's best for you too, right? Because we have, we have, um, neuropathic pathways that are built into our brain. When we feel like shit all the time, that synopsis is going across that neuropathic pathway. So it feels good to actually feel like shit. But is it improving your life in the grand scheme of things?

27:23 Is it making your life better? Hell no. Hell no. It's making your life so much worse. And I want to add to that too, is that feeling bad is easy. Feeling bad is a weakness and feeling bad only leads to bad. I have a theory and, and I want, I want to hear your thoughts on this. This is my little pet Mark theory here. I want to think. So many people are stuck in the, the complaining thing, right? Like, oh, the weather sucks. I can never catch a break.

27:52 My life sucks. And I think it's because when we're babies, which I just had a baby. So I've been thinking a lot about this. We are rewarded for essentially complaining for trying. Yes. So when she cries, mommy and daddy are there, right? We pick her up, we change her diaper. So I think it's people that haven't grown out of that. They're just used to getting rewarded for being negative. And maybe even in their childhood, when they were negative towards their parents, their parents bought into it.

28:19 Yeah. So I'm thinking that people still unconsciously believe that their negative reaction is going to have some kind of positive reward, but dude, it doesn't work that way. It just makes your life shittier. Right? Yeah, absolutely. And another thing is, is that again, we're talking about, you know, sort of internalized shame and shame-based beliefs and triggering, right? It's what's triggered in the moment. And if what's being triggered as a shame-based belief, there's a, there's a song, a Chris Stapleton song, whiskey and you, where he says, he says, if I don't break down and bring it on myself, it'll hit out of the blue.

28:55 Right? The point is, is that sometimes it's easier to go ahead and shame ourselves so that we don't really have to run the risk of someone else doing it for us. So we go, we go negative. And if you look at one of the things I do with, with pretty much all my clients is we, we do relationship dynamics and how this plays in, right? The default position, if you're working from your shame-based belief of not worthiness, not, not lovability, not worthy, not wanted, the default position that we take when we're triggered is the position of victim.

29:24 Because then you don't have to really own and live up to your own feelings, right? You let the other person come and comfort you. And like you said, it, maybe it's, it's ingrained from childhood because you cry and you, you get upset and somebody comes and comforts you. That's why kids, they fall down, they kind of look around. And if somebody looks like they're about to come over there, then they start crying. But if you just sort of ignore them, they just kind of get up and walk over and say, mommy, I fell, you know?

29:47 So yeah. So I, I think that your, your theory is, I think is spot on in that regard. But if you think about it, a lot of times, and I know I've been guilty of this in the past before I was really aware of it is I would just go straight to victim because I knew I was feeling bad. I didn't necessarily know why I was feeling bad, but then I knew that I could get something from somebody else if I played it long enough. And I think that that's sort of a human tendency, at least in our culture, that's a, that's a tendency that's there.

30:15 Yeah. But it doesn't result in positives in the long run. It doesn't. And the difference, the difference is the healthier version of that is vulnerability, right? So the difference is in victim mode. The, the need that you have for comfort or the need you have to not feel afraid or to not feel, you know, shame, um, is a, is a subconscious need. It's a, it's a not recognized need, but when you can say, when you can, when you can really feel it and go, wait a second, I'm triggered into my shame here.

30:42 And you can verbalize that in some way. Hey, what I really need for you is just to say something nice to me right now. Like what I really need is just to be comforted. Like, and you can just own that and say it. Yeah. It, it, on the outside, it looks, or on the inside, it might feel kind of the same, but the outlet is much healthier. So what you get is a healthier response in return because the victim, uh, there's something called the Karpman triangle, K A R P M A N, the Karpman triangle.

31:04 And that's what's called the drama triangle. And so if you're in these shame-based beliefs, what happens is you, you, you know, you're playing the role of victim because you go to, Oh, I'm not good enough. And no one's ever going to like me. And we try to get attention that way. What happens is you get a response of one of two things. You either get a rescuer, you know, so your woman comes over and says, Oh no, it's good. You're okay. You're a good guy and whatever.

31:30 Okay. But now she's reinforcing the victim behavior. Okay. And losing attraction for you at the same time, losing attraction for the same time, or you get the persecutor where you get the person that says, yeah, you know what? You are a loser. You are a piece of shit. And, and then they, they feed into it that way. But all three of those roles are acting off of, of unconscious needs. But on the other side, when you go to what's called, sometimes it's called like the winning or the winner's triangle, but it's the opposite, the more healthy version is the vulnerability piece.

31:57 When you, when you acknowledge the feeling and you acknowledge the need and you understand where you're coming from and you have self-awareness, which is what you and I do with people, right? We build their self-awareness and give them tools and skills to live with. They can verbalize the need. Now, instead of getting a, a rescuer, you get someone who cares about you. Well, how can I help you with that? You know, let's do this together. And that's a much healthier thing in a relationship, right? Or instead of getting a persecutor, you get someone who's assertive.

32:21 They say, okay, that's cool. But what I need you to do right now is to, you know, let's, let's own this. I'll help you with this. But then I need you to do X, Y, and Z for me. And now everything's, it's acknowledged. It's out in the open and we're not working with subconscious needs because that's crazy making, you know, it's crazy making. You're trying to constantly unconsciously or sort of passively aggressively or passively get things that you don't know what you're trying to get. It always feels like you're sort of spinning out of control.

32:46 But when you, when you can acknowledge yourself and acknowledge your feelings and develop some, you know, emotional intelligence, so to speak, then all of a sudden, once you get back from your partner feels a lot better and it feels a lot more loving. And once you give back feels a lot better to them and you create a much safer space for true intimacy, which is, you know, what I think we all sort of strive for in relationships, but very few people actually have figured out. Um, so I don't know, that's kind of a primer on that, but those shame-based beliefs and the shame-based behavior that comes from them is so toxic to relationships and, uh, and to attraction, right?

33:19 So you, you attract a mate, but as we know, I'm sure we've all, anybody who's listening has been in relationships, you know, knows the feeling of attracting someone and having that really good feeling and whatever. And then you get into a relationship and then it just deteriorates because nobody really knows how to communicate or really meet each other's needs in a healthy way. And so, so much of it is because of that, that underlying core of that shame that just sort of sits down there and, and infuses into the relationship and then ultimately kills it if you're not careful.

33:55 Yeah. Good stuff, man. I love, I love all the stuff you said. And as an NLP coach, I take a different, slightly different approach to things, but it's kind of like two different ways to skin a cat. And, and I love that. So you were telling me before the show started that you were an orthopedic surgeon. How in the hell did you get so knowledgeable about this shit? Did you like study this while you were operating? Yeah. Well, a couple of ways. Yeah. A couple of ways.

34:16 One is I lived it, you know, 10 years ago, I went through a divorce. I was going through kind of career burnout. I kind of got to some point in my life where every day of my life I had worked towards this dream and this, this career and this ambition. And then I got in there and then my relationship started falling apart and I had two small kids and I'm, you know, I'm making some poor choices in my life and I'm going, how did I get to hear?

34:38 That's how I got to James Hollis's book. Cause I had to read it to figure my own self out, you know? And I was going to therapy and I was doing meditation and I was learning all these things. And then I, you know, I started to have some insights. Then I started to see what was happening with my patients. They're coming in as an orthopedic surgeon. You sit in the room and listen, people talk about pain all day. And I was seeing the level, their level of anxiety and depression and the stresses they were facing.

34:59 And so then I actually went back, went back to school and then, and I'm just now actually, uh, almost seven and a half years later, finishing a PhD in mind, body medicine. So how are thoughts, how are stress, how are anxiety, how these feelings, these, you know, these shame based emotions impact not only your, your mental health, but your physical health. But, um, it's a whole nother conversation from the day, but I don't see a separation between the mind, the body and the spirits all one in the same.

35:22 It's just you. And then we figure out how these forces are playing to, you know, in your life and how they affect your body and your health and, you know, your outlook on things. So I do have professional training, but a lot of it, a lot of what I do with my people, honestly, uh, some of the modalities I use come from there and a lot of the knowledge I bring, but so much of what I do with people is just because I lived it. You know, I lived it.

35:46 I had to figure myself out. I literally felt like my life was on fire everywhere I looked and I'm like the only way out of this fire, right? And the only way out of this life that's just burning down around me is to figure out who the hell I am for real on the inside and what I really want in my life and what I want it to look like moving forward. And those questions have just transformed everything in my life to where we talked about, like I'm as of tomorrow, I'll have my last day as an orthopedic surgeon.

36:10 Uh, and I'm fully in this world of helping people overcome the aspects of their life, their internalized beliefs, their triggered stress responses, all this stuff to give them real peace, real, um, authentic peace and, and, and happiness and contentment in their lives and peace in their relationships. Good stuff. Yeah. And the deepest knowledge, the deepest wisdom comes from personal experience. It's the same thing with me is I was horrible with women, totally anxious, couldn't even go outside. And now I'm a coach and that's why I feel I'm a good coach is because I can put myself in the shoes of those who are suffering just like I did.

36:44 So that's right. Really good stuff, Pete. I appreciate you coming on and I wish I knew initially that you were a PhD because 80% of, do you know that 80% of people never finished listening to podcasts when they start them? 80% have fallen off, have fallen off. So you 20% that are still listening, big pat on the back. That's right. Uncle Pete over here, we appreciate you, but I want another shout out. PhD. Yeah. Peter Buecher. Is that correct? Buecher? Yeah. Yeah. All right. Pete Buecher.com. We are the unbroken.com and the unbroken podcast.

37:13 By the way, unbroken, that's the name of one of my favorite books. Did you read it? Uh, I'm, I'm aware of it. I have not it. Oh my God, dude. Talk about perseverance. He was a world war two. Um, he was in a bomber and they were shot down and he survived a Japanese internment camp and it's just such an amazing story of perseverance and never quit attitude. So, um, I love that name. When I saw it, I was like, Ooh, unbroken podcast. I got to interview him.

37:41 So yeah, I appreciate that. Thank you so much for coming on. Um, I'm going to, thanks for having me. I really appreciate it. It's been a great conversation. Yeah. We're going to blast this to my entire audience and you guys, I strongly suggest going with Peter. Um, I'm actually probably going to hire you because I have problems as I talked about with you, with my sacroiliac joint, or maybe it's the piriformis syndrome, what you're telling me about. So, um, I, I do believe it has something to do with, with my need to get validation for women.

38:05 And I'm, I'm totally exposing myself here on this podcast because that's what I do for my guys. But yeah, you know, I, I have some issues where I love attention from girls to the point where I feel like it might be, um, dysfunctional. And so I would love to talk to you about that because as my NLP coach, my NLP coach told me, you know, sacroiliac problems are down there in the hip could have to do with feelings of, you know, being guilty about being too sexual.

38:35 So I would love to work with you on that. I love hiring coaches. I think getting coaches is everybody should do it. Fortunately, a lot of my guys do do hire me. I'm out to a six week waiting list. So, um, these are champions who want to prove themselves. So don't be surprised if a couple of them contact you as well. And once again, you guys, you can find him at, uh, Pete Buecher.com or we are the unbroken.com. It's like a song. We are the unbroken with like, that's right.

39:03 It's a mantra. Yeah. I love it, dude. I love it. Well, thank you so much again for coming and everybody, we will see you in the next podcast.

This transcript was made automatically, so a few words may be off.