Today I am speaking with Sean Dadashi, the co-founder of Rosebud, an interactive AI journaling app. He was so brave in sharing his story of struggling with feeling of not belonging when he was young, and how he struggled with the terrifying darkness of suicidal depression. What was especially inspiring to me was how in a moment of willingness, he reached out for answers. What he found were ideas around spirituality that allowed him to follow a gentle path that helped him connect with a higher power. It’s such a beautiful story of hope that I know you’ll enjoy.
Before we jump in, I want to share the answers I received to last week’s question: Can you still be friends with your drinking buddies after you get sober?
The responses were really interesting! Some people like Nancy just replied with a firm “No”
Steve wrote me to say “Yes, the real friends that were much more than drinking buddies”
Lucy who is in early recovery just said it was too early to tell yet.
In my experience, the purpose of friendships is that you grow together. If the only thing in common you have with your drinking buddies is drinking and talking smack, then those aren’t friendships worth having anyway. The friends who really appreciate you will be open to spending time with you doing other things.
This week’s question is around how you deal with anger.
I have to be honest. When I first got sober and I’d get into an argument, I would yell, break things or cut people out of my life. I didn’t have great communication skills to say the least. But in 12 step, I was taught how to deconstruct my thinking, look for what was being triggered in me, and how to accept responsibility for my part, and ultimately let go of what other people said or didn’t say or do.
So what about you? How do you process anger as a sober person? You can respond to my post on instagram @arlinaallen or leave a comment on this episode at odaatchat.com. Next week I’ll share some of the responses.
So without further delay, please enjoy this episode with Sean.
Download the Rosebud App Here: https://www.rosebud.app/
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Full Transcript:
Sean
Well, Sean, thank you so much for joining me today. It’s great to be here. Yeah,
you know, we’re going to be talking about Rosebud, which is an A, correct me if
I’m wrong, if I misspeak about this, but it’s an AI -assisted journaling tool.
Is that a fair description? Yeah, we call it an interactive journal that makes
journaling easier and more effective. Yeah,
it really has. So I’ve been testing it out. And I have found that it’s asking me
like the deeper questions. There’s actually a little button that says go deeper. So
I’m like, yes, yes, yes, let’s go deeper. It’s been really interesting because there
have been times when, especially if I’m going through something if I feel triggered,
if I’m having just like a hard day or whatever, sometimes, you know, journaling is
good. I’ve been practicing journaling for a long time, but sometimes I don’t have,
like I need some prompts. And so, and I’ve seen that they’re journals that offer
prompts, but it’s such a different, I’ve been using it. So I’ve, it’s been such a
different experience to just say hey here’s what’s going on and then it comes back
with insightful questions that for whatever reason like i just can’t access in my
own mind so it is like a yeah it is interactive and it’s i’ve already found it to
be really really helpful what prompted you to create this app
yeah i mean the the inspiration came from My own personal struggles with depression
and just going through, you know, trying to understand what the hell was happening
in my life that was leading me to feel so terrible, right? And have this kind of
had a internal critic that was just very, very loud. And I think a lot of people
might be you know read feel like feel that and have that and so you know as i
was going through this process of you know just healing i guess you could call it
i was doing therapy i was i was very fortunate to start doing men’s groups which
we can talk about and has been a huge part of my my path and um You know,
I was journaling as well. And the, even with all the things that I was doing,
there were these moments right at 10 p .m. on a Tuesday where I don’t necessarily
have a therapist to talk to and I’m journaling and I’m spiraling in my thoughts.
And I just wish that there was something there that could help course correct,
help me see what I was missing and reframe it, ask me the right question to push
me and nudge me in the right direction. And that feeling was what made me wonder,
oh, could AI actually help me become more self -aware? And could we build a tool
that uses AI in a way that helps people grow? And that’s where the inspiration for
Rosewood comes from. I love it. It’s so interesting how, you know, these tools
typically come out of a challenging experience. You know, a lot of the, you know,
12 step was actually, you know, born from people who had like a desperate need to
get better. And so, yeah, it’s sort of like one of those things where it’s like
the best, the worst thing that ever happened to you can, you know, be transformed
into the best thing that ever happened to you. I always like to start off these
conversations with a little bit of context about childhood,
like how you grew up, because I really feel like the experiences that we have in
childhood sort of shape who we are and how we behave as adults. And I know you
have an interesting background growing up with parents that are immigrants. But tell
me a little bit about what your childhood was like. Yeah.
So you’re right. I grew up in Southern California in Orange County in a community
that, you know, didn’t have that as many immigrants in it. And my parents are
immigrants. And I went to a Christian school while my parents were not Christian.
And I was baptized and confirmed Christian and my goodness yeah your parents were
from Iran is that true yeah my parents were from Iran they they came right during
the revolution that happened there that you know a lot of Iranians left and yeah so
they weren’t they weren’t Christian but I remember asking my mom you know why did
you guys send me to Christian school and she said, we just wanted you to have a
relationship with God. And so I can, you know, understand that now later on.
But for, for a kid, it was very confusing. I mean, I think immigrant children in
general can, our children of immigrants can resonate with this feeling like,
you know, where do I belong, right? You have one culture in your community and one
culture at home, which can create this kind of dissonance of like who am i people
you know people who move around a lot or call it third culture you’re like a third
culture kid um so i think that was one aspect of it and another aspect of it that
i actually think you know was what led to the mental health challenges that i had
um is that my family didn’t have a practice or culture of emotional like process
masking right and so we we had a you know dynamic growing up where it was just
like we would not talk about what was happening beneath the surface really right we
were just like try to keep things normal try to smile and what I think happens
there is that there’s this dissonance that got got created between what I was
projecting and living in my external life and what was happening internally. And that
dissonance once it got strong enough through all the challenges and things that I
had no way to process and deal with and speak to anybody about, eventually that led
to, you know, the gears grinding to a halt and depression. It feels like an
impossible situation. You’re just stuck in this place and and you don’t know what to
do because you’re just pinned between this intern the
even in my house, some, you know, dissonance there, some, you know, it was,
it was very confusing. And I feel like we all have like this need to belong. And
I can’t imagine that it’s like you’re living this double life. And we all just want
to, you know, fit in and belong. But so many of us grow up at this feeling of
like othered. Like, I’m not like everybody else and I better not tell them who I
really am or I’ll be rejected. I feel like it’s sort of the undercurrent. And so
we do have to, you know, like you said, like your mom, her survival skill is the
masking, right? Who doesn’t do that, right? But we feel like we’re the only ones
who do it. And it must, it is so confusing. I had a mom that was like always
putting on the happy face. So she could not tolerate any of my discomfort,
right? She couldn’t tolerate any of my pain. It was always like the bypassing. It
was like, oh, yeah, well, at least this or yeah, but this. And so constant dismiss.
Did you experience that too, the constant dismissing of your pain? Yeah,
I think it comes out of, right,
if somebody doesn’t want to deal with, if somebody can’t deal with their own pain.
They’re going to do that. And then that teaches me or us as children that,
oh, this isn’t something that’s okay to feel. This isn’t something that’s okay to
express. I have to just bury this, not talk about it.
And it wasn’t even a shame. It was just like, you know, just redirect,
right? If I did talk about it, it just, you know, we just don’t talk about it.
Right. Everything’s okay. Don’t, you know, just don’t bring it up.
It was good in a way because the tension that existed at home stopped existing.
And so that was great. But then, you know, there was the aftermath of that and,
you know, splitting homes. And that was a really formative period of, right, going
from middle school or junior high to high school. And,
you know, speaking of belonging and going into a new environment and you know having
switching homes and all this sort of stuff um but yeah i think all of that
together right just just leads to a let me to a place of feeling hopeless and um
and just severely depressed and i’ve i had experienced i’ve experienced depression
majorly three times in my life. That was the first time when I was around. Around
the divorce, around your 13? It was around 14, 15 years old. So the divorce happens
and there’s initial sense of relief. And then the other part kicks in and it’s the
morning of the family breaking up. It’s the, you know, like that is a 14,
15. It’s kind of like when your consciousness kind of comes online, your identity,
your ego, your personality kind of comes online. And it’s like, who am I? And
things aren’t going well. Like, it makes sense. And I, you know, like I went to
high school and I was like, oh, you know, I’ll be popular. I’ll play sports. I’ll,
you know, do all the do the things, right? And I did that my first year and I
still had that void inside of me. It didn’t change anything, right? I still felt
that despair on some deep level. Like, I didn’t know who I was. I had all this
stuff that was pent up. And I think after that,
I was like, what’s the purpose of all this? Right. I did all this stuff. I’m
trying to do everything right. And I still feel this void. I still feel like shit
inside. Yeah. That is a really painful place to be yeah did you have suicidal
ideation like when you talk about hopelessness like how dark did it get for you
yeah it got very very dark um i i did have suicidal ideation um i have had that
you know since then too um during your depressive episodes episodes.
During, yeah, during my depressive episodes. And, yeah, that first time,
yeah, I was, you know, I was a child of the internet. I spent a lot of time
online. And I think the, the powerful thing about tools like the internet is that
they can be used in both very constructive and constructive ways. I agree.
And when I was in that pit of despair, I was just on my computer. I searched in
Google at the time. You know, how do I commit suicide? And I remember reading the
results, just absolutely feeling so overwhelmed, going to the bathroom,
I remember looking over at the bathtub, because that was one of the things that I
read in the results, looking in the mirror, looking in my eyes. And I just couldn’t
believe that I had even done that, you know, that I had actually searched it,
right? It’s one thing to feel it on the inside, right, and think it. It’s another
thing to actually like take an action in the physical world. Yeah. To search for
it, right? And actually picture what that, what
Like, I was in a sad place, and I was eventually, like, the next day went back to
the computer. I was searching for just different things. And I was on a forum,
and I found some people talking about some books.
And they were talking about how these books really helped them.
And they were books like Eastern, you know,
spirituality and philosophy and, and so I went to the bookstore and I tried to see
if the bookstore had any of those books and they had some of them and I picked
out some of those books and that was when I was introduced for the first time of
the concept of meditation was through one of those books. They actually outlined
how… Do you remember which books really spoke to you? Yeah, there was one author
in particular. His name’s Jidhu Krishna Morti. He actually has a center in Ohio, in
California. And he had a book called Inward Revolution. That was one of the first
books that I read. And it was in one of his books that I was introduced to
meditation.
thing that was everywhere it’s like in everything and i felt that on a very deep
level i remember having kind of like an epiphany sort of realization feeling and you
know that led me to have be able to shift my experience but i would say that i
was spiritual bypassing now looking back on it so i i didn’t see i couldn’t see
that at the time
Yeah. Well, listen, to be fair, I mean, it sounded like you really needed some
relief. Yeah. How old were you at this time? Were you like 16? I was 16,
yeah. Oh, okay. Okay. So at 16 years old, it’s like you’ve been carrying this
burden for quite some time. You get a new perspective, a new concept of a higher
power that feels really have a spiritual experience. And What a relief that myself
felt like. Huge, huge. And I’m like so grateful for it. And I think that was the
necessary first step to write what came later on in my life.
Right, right. So I want to know what came on later in life because it sounds like
you’ve struggled with this a few times. And so when you come out of this and you
started practicing meditation, what kind of meditation? Because I hear people doing
walking meditations, silent, like facing the wall kind of meditations,
music. I mean, there’s a bazillion ways to do. What was your progression with that?
Yeah. So the first one that I read in that book was just sitting still,
eyes closed, single point of attention. It could be on anything, you know, there
could be like a candle in front of… Yeah, or just any,
anything, like there, you know, I remember the first time there was just like a, I
had a shutter, like a window sill, and I just like paid attention to a line on
that. And that was it. Okay. Literally anything. literally anything and just keeping
the attention on that, you know, that can progress. Like, there are some that, you
know, bring the attention to the tip of the nose and the air coming in and out of
the, you know, one of the nostrils or both of the nostrils. One that I eventually,
you know, really liked and would do more is just noticing thoughts.
So bringing, I think of it as like the mind is like a fountain of thoughts, right?
And I’m trying to get to, I’m trying to get to the spout, right?
Oh, okay. Yeah, so I think of like there’s thoughts that come out and we catch the
thoughts at some point. But usually when we catch thoughts, there’s already a chain
of thoughts that led to that thought. So I try to bring my attention to the spout
so to catch the thought right at the moment that it initially comes out and then
just catch it and then let it go, right? I’ve never heard that. That is, I’m
totally going to try that today. That’s so cool. Yeah, yeah. So were you doing this
daily?
I was doing it, not daily, but probably, you know, a few times per week.
I was meditating and then also you know started going down the rabbit hole trying
different things got into like chigong which is more of this embodied movement kind
of practice and I think walking meditation is is great as well and I started
journaling around that time in high school as well I think it, you know, it
obviously is an excellent practice, and I’m building a journaling product right now,
so I definitely believe in that. So, yeah, there is a, you know, a few different
practices that helped me find relief and, you know,
find a different perspective in the moment and, right, you know,
really connect with
something outside of what I was, you know,
I guess experience me on a, on a deeper level.
And then, yeah, we can go into, you know, what happened that led me to finally
address it. Yeah, I’m curious.
So you started journaling actually pretty young. Like, that’s pretty amazing that you
adopted that tool pretty early on. What did you write about? I was a I was a for
the most part I was a crisis journaler I would say like fencing on paper about
what was going on totally yeah like I remember looking I’d always like look back at
the last entry before I would write my my next entry and there was always something
happening. You know, I did have, I did have periods where I would write about,
like, Dear Diary, here’s what I did today, you know, but that practice didn’t carry
on too much. And there were times where, you know, I’d hear about gratitude, you
know, journaling. And then I, like, would try that or, you know, and there were
other moments where I’d have, like, epiphanies and I’d write those down. But on the
whole, the times where I journaled the most were the times that I was going through
the most. Yeah. It’s like emotion. And I think I’ve heard you call it emotional
journaling. Yeah. Yeah. So you’re processing your feelings on paper.
Exactly. Which for somebody who can’t, like me, who couldn’t speak these things to
anybody else, right? else. Putting it on paper was great. It was the best thing
that I could do given that I was deeply uncomfortable with sharing anything with any
other human being. Gosh, that is so that is such a common theme for people in
recovery. It’s like we’re suffering and we don’t want to tell anybody that we’re
suffering. So starting with a journaling practice where you can just get it all out
of you is hugely helpful. And I’ve heard of people saying the worst thing and then
putting it in the fire, right? Like literally, you know, because you don’t want
people to, like, especially if you’re afraid that someone’s going to read it to say
the worst thing ever and then put it in the fire so that it can’t be used against
you, I suppose. Right? But yeah, that’s really important.
You had mentioned that you had participated in men’s groups. That was like another
tool for you.
And I know that you can we talk a little bit first about your like I know you’re
not you don’t have personal experience with having to struggle with addiction, but
you’ve had people in your life that have. Can you tell me a little bit first about
your, like I know you’re not you don’t have personal experience with having to
struggle with addiction, but you’ve had people in your life that have. Can you tell
me a little bit about that experience? Yeah, totally. So a very close cousin of
mine who I grew up with, he was older than me, but I really looked up to him.
And he was an addict from age 15 to
And, you know, speaking of having the mask on, like, we’d hang out when I was, I
was like, you know, seven or eight and he was 15 or 16. And he would be doing
drugs. And I had no idea, you know, like. He didn’t know what he was doing. I
didn’t know what was going on at all, right? And nobody really did.
But, yeah, he and I were very close. And I actually ended up working with him.
He ended up becoming sober.
things that I’m really grateful for is that I got exposed to A .A. and the A .A.
community through the process of working and living with him because we would hire
folks from recovery and from folks who are recovered from going through A .A.
And so a lot of the people that, yeah, I would hang out with were Um,
my cousin would, you know, read from the big book, like as we were driving into
work. Um, sometimes we talk about that at work. Uh, and I actually attended some A
meetings myself, which was, um, a really, really, really actually formative experience
that I think fed into, um, the realization of the,
like, like power of what a men’s group is as well, which I can, community and
men’s groups. How did you find a men’s group that wasn’t 12 -step oriented? Because
I hear that a lot. Like in our society, we have like this epidemic of loneliness.
Like people are so disconnected. I feel like social media has been like poison. It’s
like this illusion of connectedness, but it’s not real connectedness.
And so I see, like, I have people in my life who really need community,
but a lot of people aren’t finding that through traditional ways, like through church
or things like that. So how did you find a men’s group that was focused on
personal growth, connection, sharing, stuff? Like, how did you find that? I was just
really, really lucky. I was just really lucky, yeah. I mean, I wasn’t even looking
for it. It found me at the right moment. So, yeah, and so at that time I was
living in San Francisco. I had,
I was going through a confluence of three major transitions. One, being, you know,
moving to a new city. Two, I had just gotten out of a relationship that was a
deep relationship that really stoked all of my fears and insecurities in a huge way.
How old were you at this time period? I was around 26, 27 years old.
Oh, okay. Yeah, sorry to interrupt you. What was the third one? Yeah, and three was
the business that I had actually been working on with my cousin that I spoke about
in Austin. That had failed. So I was at a place where My identity from a career
front, relationship front, you know, friends and community, everything was up in the
air. That’s like implosion on every level. Yeah. And it was the deepest pain that
I’d ever experienced in my life. But that pain forced me to address things and
confront things been resistant to do so to do before that right i think that’s the
gift of pain um they say that you know in the rooms they say that pain is the
touchstone of all growth and i feel like it creates this opportunity of willingness
that’s a level of willingness to like drop all your predisposition all your your
beliefs about what’s what’s possible who am i what should i be doing it’s like
everything it’s like that post -traumatic growth it’s like you’re just willing to just
like change everything and it’s very hard to get to that place of extreme
willingness until you have like deep pain they call it the gift of desperation and
it sounds like it sounds like man it sounds rough but it sounds like you got it I
got it. Yeah. I mean, it was the, for me at that point, that was the worst pain
that I had really ever allowed myself to even experience, right? Because I could
probably mask it and avoid it and all that kind of stuff. But after this was the
third time of being severely depressed. And I knew that there was stuff that I
needed to deal with that I could feel it, right? Like, you can feel I’m sweeping
something under the rug. I know there’s stuff for my childhood I’m not dealing with.
And instead of running away from it that time, I was like, you know what? Like, if
this is going to keep happening, I might as well just freaking deal with it now.
Right. Right. Yeah, logic kicks in. Right. And so I just knew I was like,
I can’t keep going like this. I have to deal with it.
And so I first started seeking a therapist. That was the first step that I took.
What kind of therapy?
Well, I guess I just went with a recommendation from, you know, other people around
me who had done therapy, right? And so I think it was sort of, I can’t remember
exactly. Like talk therapy, yeah yeah like a talk therapy like cognitive behavioral
therapy i don’t i don’t remember exactly which modality of therapy that the first
person i talked to practice there are so many yeah people go oh i went to therapy
and it didn’t work and i’m always like well what kind yeah and i think for me the
first therapist didn’t work the second therapist didn’t work and then after that i
uh i was like okay i’m just going to get like 10 therapists recommendations,
I’m going to look up therapists, and I’m going to come up with some questions that
I want to ask every single one of them. And I ask every single therapist, the same
questions. What question did you ask? Basically, like I described what I was going
through what I was experiencing. And I said, you know, do you have experience, you
know, dealing with with folks like me? What have you done to like help those folks
can you tell me a little bit about your approach and then I ask them generally
like what’s your overall approach to therapy right how what is your like yeah how
do you approach therapy in general what what’s your what’s your modality or whatever
what’s your modality all that kind of stuff that was a great question can I just
interrupt you to tell you how impressed I am that you didn’t give up like I it
pains me when people are like oh I when they go to one therapist like you said
and it
therapy doesn’t work for me and they just go back to suffering what why what was
it about you that you decided to attack it and and in that manner i think the
pain was just high enough like that’s that’s pretty much it right did you have
faith that you were going to be able to solve this problem i think on some yeah
on some level the first thing was and i remember I remember being there in such
deep pain, and I realized that the only way, because, you know,
at that point, there’s despair. You’re like, I feel like giving up, right? The
suicidal ideation is coming back. Is anything worth it? Right. And I realized that
on some level, I had to believe that things would get better. Yeah. I had to just
put my faith in believing that things would get better even though in those in that
moment there was nothing that was telling me that anything was going to get better
i i like on a like most levels i could not see that anything was going to get
better but i just had that feeling i was like
however delusional it is i have to believe that things can get better because that’s
the only way that i’m going to keep pushing through amazing that you brought up the
were delusion, right? Because there is such a thing as positive delusion,
right? And if we kind of break it down, anything that’s not happening right now is
a mental delusion. And we tend to ruminate on negative mental delusions.
We don’t typically ruminate on positive mental delusions. But it’s like Schrodinger’s
cat, right it’s like that experiment where both things could be true so if both
things have an equal possibility of being true why not go dilute positive delusion
right 100 % yeah yeah i think the thing here and the sort of way that i see it
now is that right i believe we’re all made of various different psychological parts
right there’s there’s the parts of me that um
because I wasn’t sure, but yeah, internal family systems, I love internal family
systems. So looking at things from an internal family system’s kind of lens,
right? In that moment where I was in deep depression, I was just with, like, that
part was like consuming everything, right? But that’s not the only part that exists,
right? And so being able to create that, like perspective,
like have a little bit of distance just create that tiny bit of distance where
there’s okay there’s depression there’s realizing that hey i am not depressed there’s
a part of me that is depressed right but that’s not all of me and then that
creates an opportunity to be like oh there is a part of me that believes too right
it may be quieter in this moment but it still exists right And when I’m not in
the throes of that deep despair, that part can get a little bit louder, you know,
or a little bit more present, right? And slowly, right, you can kind of move from
that place, the part of deep despair and depression kind of running the show because
it is such a painful experience and makes sense that, right, when it happens, we
get completely enthralled by it. Oh, overwhelmed yeah right but it isn’t the only
part and we can slowly start to bring in this other part and i think practices
like meditation when used in that way right when when used in an integrative way
can be really really powerful so instead of you know i was using meditation in a
lot of ways to to escape and bypass but using meditation mindfulness practice to
integrate the internal experiences that you’re having, I think actually is maybe the
most effective, one of the most effective ways to meditate. Yeah,
that’s some spiritual jih Tjitsu there where you’re like actually acknowledging the
painful thoughts and the rumination and getting a little bit of distance. Like that
is, I am not my thoughts is a really powerful pivot point. right? Because I feel
like
the reframe of how I felt towards the depression, towards the anxiety,
because I don’t know about you, but I kind of know about you because we all are
kind of the same in the sense that it’s like, oh, I hate my depression. I hate my
anxiety. And the reframe, but you can’t hate yourself well, right? And the reframe
that IFS gave me was that, oh, this part is actually trying to protect me.
It actually has a positive intention. And if I can bring love and compassion,
like just that reframe of like, oh, I get it now. You’re just trying to help me
because I’m not able, I don’t have the skills, the patience, the, I have all the
self avoidance. And so you’re, you’re actually trying to help me avoid myself or
avoid these feelings by having this depression. I feel like that’s what addiction,
too, is also is that, you know, I always felt like the purpose of obsession,
addiction, it’s distraction. It’s distraction from pain that I can’t resolve to
resolution on my own. And so I love this reframe that you’re presenting with these
tools. It’s like just getting a little bit of separation through the meditation and
rolling, like, oh, these feelings are here to protect me. They’re here to teach me
something and that I can lean in and resolve it so that I can be,
you know, ultimately be kind of free of it.
Yeah, 100%. Right. And the magical thing about that this work is that as what I
found is that as I started integrating and resolving those things within me, it
allowed me to show up for other people, right? And in situations where other people
would trigger, you know, might trigger some of those same parts or whatever it is,
it just kind of makes the world a little bit less crazy, right? Oh my gosh,
that’s what we need right now is a little piece. There’s, yeah, there’s a great
quote. There’s this guy, Ramon Maharshi, who has this quote, he says,
don’t like trying to like change the world to avoid your own pain is like trying
to wrap the world in leather to avoid the pain of of stepping on thorns he says
it’s much easier to wear shoes
that’s much easier and i just had a discussion this morning at a meeting you were
talking about triggers and what’s so interesting is this idea of under every trigger
is a treasure, right? Like, if we can sort of do the lean -in approach that you’re
talking about, like leaning into, like, I love how you went through 10 therapy, that
was amazing. But it’s like, you know what, let’s lean in and let’s figure out why
am I being triggered, What is underneath us? What tools can I bring to it to
resolve it so that because you’re right, it’s like we’re not going to be able to
control, you know, what’s going on on the outside. But when we can actually process
those feelings to resolution, then we’re actually free. And that is the treasure,
right? It’s being free of things that used to eat, let those unheeled.
It’s like what you won’t deal with will control you, like the feelings that,
basically yeah um and after really doing the internal work internal family systems
all that kind of stuff i realized it’s about integration rather than enlightenment
it’s about uh right when the trigger comes not bypassing escaping it being like
everything’s okay but sitting with it nurturing it right getting into right
relationship relationship with it.
And that’s when the knot kind of untangles and,
right, internally, there’s this sort of sense of harmony. And it’s not something that
happens once and that’s it, right? Don’t I know it. Right. It’s like this stuff is
like, it’s like showers, right? If you don’t take a shower for a couple days, you
stink. So. Yeah. Right. So it’s a practice.
It’s a practice, yeah. What I’ve unlocked, and I think what you unlock through this
journey, is the tools and the practices that help create that integration,
that help create that centering. And it’s something that I have to continually do
because it can get really easy to, right, want to avoid discomfort,
avoid pain, right? Some situation is triggering and then be like, oh, it’s their
fault.
as the blame finger, right? Like, if you’re blaming somebody for triggering you,
for making you feel a certain way, they actually have power over you. And as
someone who is slightly prideful, that is very offensive.
So, like, I want to take my power back. So recognizing that I have to let go of
the blame, that’s super empowering. It’s like, well, how do I take responsibility for
for my own failings. And I think the powerful thing, again, about this kind of work
and IFS and parts work is, like, if somebody’s making me upset, can I see them as
a part of me, right? Yes. If you spot it, you got it. Exactly.
Like, if I could treat them as just a part of me, right? And I consider them,
like, as me in some way, right? And I’ve done all this work to integrate my parts.
Yeah.
of embodied visceral sense of connectedness like oh they are me this is just another
part of me that is um you know embodied in in a different form right yeah but
it’s another part of me i’ve dealt with this part of myself before right how do
how would i deal with this part of myself right how would i integrate that and
then i can show up and respond to that situation with the other person in the same
way. Yeah, it’s so, it’s so interesting because in 12 -step, there’s something called
like the angry man’s prayer, the sick man’s prayer. It’s like somebody triggers you,
upsets you, you know, you go to your sponsor with your drama, and they go, oh, you
need to pray for that person. And the first time I heard that, I was like, you
mean slash their tires. What do you pray for them? What are you talking about? And
Eventually, what I figured out was this idea that people are just mirrors. You can’t
love or hate something about somebody unless you love it or hate it about yourself.
And I recognize, like, things that I hate in myself or, you know, in others,
you know, condescension is something that used to really trigger, like when someone
was condescending to me, like, that would really trigger me or people that were rude
or self -centered or things like that. I had to sort of, it took some courage,
but I had to recognize that I also have had those character traits at some time.
I was condescending to others. I was rude to others. I’ve been selfish and self
-centered. And it’s so funny because we want justice for ourselves, but we want
compassion and forgiveness. Am I saying that right? We want when someone else is
acting like that, we want justice, but when we do it, we want forgiveness but this
is the process of self -forgiveness is when you wreck it see in someone else you go
oh they’re afraid like when i behaved badly it was because i was afraid it was
because i was missing some information it was because i didn’t take care of myself
and i behave badly and then i felt bad about it so i would shut that part down
and then when someone else does it. I react with the same level of venom. But if
I can learn to have compassion, you know, there’s this idea that you can’t escape
the same measuring stick that you judge others by. So if in my judgment I’m judging
someone as, you know, condescending, it’s like, oh, but I’ve been there too. And I
did it because I was afraid or whatever. And so when I start to have compassion
for the, when someone is displaying this, I can have it for myself,
too. It creates this self -forgiveness and this. So it kind of, you know, leads to
this place of peace. But it needed to make sense to me when people were saying
like, oh, if you spot it, you got it. You know, I typically see that in terms of
negative attributes, but could also be used for positive attributes, too, like
recognizing there is when I admire somebody, it’s like, oh, I have those attributes
too. So it doesn’t have to be all, you know, triggers and shame. It can be
positive things because we kind of want to also think about where we want to go.
And I noticed in the app it was when I was, I’ve been practicing it over the last
few days in preparation for this conversation. And I noticed that it’s also sort of,
it’s like helping me explore my feelings, validating my
is to help you understand what you, what your values are,
who you want to become, and help you move toward that. So it does that in a,
you know, a sort of subtle way. And so,
yeah, and, you know, speaking to the piece of, I love that you brought that up,
that it can be positive things, too, that you notice and other people, right?
Because if you notice something, right, that means that you, the first step of
anything is creating awareness around it, right? There’s so many things that we’re
just simply not aware of. And if we have an awareness around, there’s some trait in
somebody else that we really admire, for instance, right? Just that awareness means
that you’re able to see it. You might be able to bring that part out in yourself
in a way, you might already be bringing it out in a way, but you just want more
of it, right? And this is the power of self -inquiry and self -reflection is that it
can help kind of understand, well, what is it about that thing that is so appealing
to me, right? Why do I even want that? Where is that coming from?
And from that place of deep why, and right, we can kind of ground into,
you know, this is why I’m doing this. And tools like Rosebud can help you actually,
you know, notice ways in which you are practicing it, notice opportunities to
practice things more, right? And help you keep track of that over time because one
of the most powerful things about Rosebud is that it has memory. So it will also,
you know, call you out basically. That’s so important. Yeah, it’s not so sycophant
cheerleader all the time, right? It’s like, oh, by the way. Right. Like, by the
way, you say that you want this, right? But I, you know, you talked about this and
noticed this pattern, right? So one of the most impactful things about Rosebud is
the way that it connects the dots between what happens and helps to create that
higher level of awareness, right? Because again, if we’re not aware of something, if
we’re not aware of a pattern that is playing out in our life, in our relationships,
in ways we might be self -sabotaging current certain things or whatever it is, right?
We don’t have that awareness, then we can’t do anything about it. It’s operating in
the shadows, basically and so we want to bring things from the shadows into the
light yeah it’s it’s interesting it’s like we all have these blind spots and I feel
like you know we that’s why we need um external but like I know you have men’s
groups and therapy so like but this is just another tool to it can be done at any
time that’s why I was like oh this is going to be really powerful for people you
know it’s like you can’t people are not available 24 -7 so it’s nice to be able to
have a tool that is available 24 -7 to do to just help us recognize their oh I’m
in the pattern again but really it’s about what do I need what actions do I need
to take that are different like what else can I do it’s like oh I’m here in the
same spot again it’s like I’m at the end of another relationship I’m at the end of
another another toxic friendship or relationship. You know, I have another failure of
some kind. It’s like, well, how did I get here and what do I need to do
different? It’s nice to have, you know, like something to help you work through all
that. And is that what you see for people that are sort of in recovery is just an
ability to have like constant 24 -7 an opportunity to work through stuff like that.
Yeah, I think it’s something that can, you know, so often in recovery, you’re sort
of going from different, through different processes, right? You go to detox and then
go to, right, inpatient and then outpatient and so we’re living. And so you’re going
through all these different things. You might be seeing different counselors through
that process potentially, right? I think AA is really powerful because you might have
a single sponsor. So that becomes a through line, right? And somebody that you can
talk to at any time. But, right, Rosebud can be really powerful because it’s
something that you can carry with you. It’s a journal, right, that you carry with
you through all of these stages of this process. And it’s something that can really
help in between if there are, you know, A meetings or, you know,
meetings with your sponsor or meetings with a counselor. it’s something that can help
in between those sessions, right? And a lot of people use Rosebud to help prep for
the next, you know, whatever counselor meeting or whatever. It’s like, what did I
journal about this week, right? And then it kind of pulls everything up for you.
And then you go into it and you’re like, okay, this is the thing that I need to
talk about. Like what am I, you know, for me in men’s groups, for instance, every
single men’s group meeting I would go in and I would feel into what am I most
afraid to share?
What if I had a sponsor used to ask me, is there anything you don’t want to say?
Right.
And that was that I knew whatever came up, that was the thing I needed to talk
about. Yeah. So it’s like leaning into the discomfort, right? Yeah. Creating that
space for that practice. And also for folks going through recovery, there was a
nightly inventory.
a different dimension and meaning on the gratitude. And it maybe allows us to see
other things that we’re grateful for for similar reasons. So yeah,
again, it’s something that you kind of carry with you. It’s something that supports
in between sessions. It’s something that if it’s whatever, 2 a .m., you wake up in
the middle of the night, and you just need somewhere to process something that it
can be a great place. and yeah I
deal with, right? And I think going through recovery is sort of a similar process,
like it takes a village. And so it does. No,
I see this as a really powerful tool. And it’s kind of one of those things. It’s,
you know, over time, you sort of develop this toolbox, right? And so journaling has
always been one of my favorite tools to use and to recommend. But there have been
times when I journaling practice feels a little stale because I’m just sort of, you
know, ruminating in my own thought. So I could see the potential of, you know,
having some, you know, this tool to sort of that knows me and has history and can
call me out on my
or whatever. Say, hey, have you, have you tried this? Or how do you feel about
that? So, yeah, I feel like this is a really important tool. Yeah, well done,
too. I really like using it. I’ve used it for a few days now. And I’m excited to
explore it some more before this episode comes out. So, well done.
Well done. Thank you. I appreciate it. Yeah. Was there anything else I didn’t ask
you about around the tool or the practices that you want to close with
um let
me see like how has it um like what is your depression working with depression feel
like now hmm Yeah, I think so I did have a experience of depression even after
like the one where I was 26, 27, that led to the,
you know, inspiration for Rosebud. But the difference was that I was able to kind
of contextualize it and be with it in a way that I knew that hey this is just a
sadness and I know how to deal with it right I just have to lean into it share
about it right feel the feelings not try to cover it up mask it escape from it
yeah right and that Right.
Just those practices again, I was able to, it’s like a sailor that’s sailing over,
you know, the seas, right? Like let’s say you’re going from, you know, the U .S.
to, you know, to Europe across the Atlantic. And you know that, hey, this is a
turbulent part of the water, but I know what to do to get through it, right? Yeah.
And that’s the difference. It’s like someone who’s sailing that for the first time
versus somebody who is sailing it, has sailed it before and is sailing it again,
and now actually has the proper tool to deal with it. And when the big wave comes,
it’s freaking out and being like, you know, actually, let’s turn left and go
completely somewhere else or, right, let’s not go to Europe. Let’s go to Antarctica.
right yeah so there’s there’s that calm, right?
And I think that’s what these practices provide.
And, you know, if there was something that I would tell myself as a,
you know, going back to that 15, 16 year old, Sean is, you know,
the pain is a gift, right? Lean into the pain, lean into the discomfort. It’s okay,
right? There’s nothing that you’re experiencing that other people don’t experience,
right? We all, like you said, we all have the same stuff that we’re going through.
And I think that’s one of the most amazing things about AA and about men’s groups
is that it just allows you to see how really connected we all are and how all
this stuff that we carry and go through. It’s not like we invented it, right? We
didn’t invent any of this stuff. This is stuff everybody shares. It’s existed for a
long time, right? We might be carrying it in this moment, but we didn’t invent it.
And it’s through, you know, bringing it out into the light, whether that’s
journaling, whether that’s with community, that actually allows for the healing to
happen.
That’s beautiful. I feel like that’s a great place to sort of wrap up. And I just
want to thank you for your time today. Thank you for your transparency. I love what
you’re doing. AI journaling is really opening up a whole new path for people to be
able to process their feelings to resolution. So well done. Thank you so much.
Thank you. It’s a pleasure to chat with you today.
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