Special Guest Expert - Andrea Isaacs: Video automatically transcribed by Sonix

Special Guest Expert - Andrea Isaacs: this mp4 video file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.

Daniel Aaron:
Does it take to create a vibrant, thriving life? First, the sad news is that Thoreau was right most people are leading quiet lives of desperation, lacking in meaning, fulfillment, and vitality. But we choose more. We choose to create extraordinary lives and the art of vibrant living. Show entertains you with inspiration, empowerment and education to create your life into a masterpiece. It's time. Let's vibe up. Aloha, y'all. Daniel Aaron here I am, your host and this is the Art of Vibrant Living show. And it's gonna be a doozy of an important show. You'll find out why in a moment. We've got an amazing guest first, though, before I tell you about her. What is this show about? You might wonder. You might know, I don't know. I'll tell you though, from my perspective, it's about helping you, supporting you to create your most vibrant, thriving life and continuing to ratchet up the vibrancy on your life all the time. So here's two things one, a request, a suggestion, and that is, please, yes, be entertained and inspired and empowered means that you do something about this, right? Don't just take it as information in two eyes and out one ear or however that goes. Actually do something with this. Our guest today is going to give you some actionable, practical things to employ in your life to try out at home. So please make a commitment that you're going to do something with this, right? Even a little thing. And the other thing is, if you would like some support, if you'd like to have a one on one conversation with me, please reach out. I would love that. I'd love to meet you, find out what's going on, and support you with creating more vibrancy. You can email me Daniel at Daniel aaron.com now. Our guest today is maybe, I don't know, maybe a master in one of the most in the most important area of life. Right. So Andrea Isaacs is the founder of the Emotional Mastery Institute. She empowers transformational entrepreneurs to embody their unique gifts so they can stand out in a sea of sameness and expand their reach, impact, and income. She helps them overcome obstacles, embrace change, and step across the edge of their comfort zone to what's next with surprising ease and joy and why I say it might be the most important thing because emotions, that's the juice of life. And it's an area that's really challenging for so many people. So enough of y'all hearing from me about her. Better to hear about her from her. Andrea, thank you so much for being with us.

Andrea Isaacs:
Oh my goodness. Thank you Daniel. So so nice to be here with you.

Daniel Aaron:
Awesome, fantastic. Well, um, as you probably heard, I have already highlighted just how important your work is and I got 452 questions for you about that so that we can truly empower our audience today. First, though, would you tell us a little bit about how did you get to this point? How did this come to be your life's work? Sure.

Andrea Isaacs:
Thank you. I as a young person, I felt like I was a victim of my emotions. They would just come over me and I would feel sad or depressed or hurt or betrayed or alone or lonely. And I didn't know what to do. I didn't like those feelings and I didn't know how to do them. I had zero confidence, and my mother used to come up to me and she'd press my shoulders against the wall behind me. She'd say, just stand up straight, Andy. And I was tall. I've always been tall. And I wanted to cower because being tall meant I stood out and I was so shy. I was petrified of being seen or heard. If I had to speak, I would talk so fast that I'm sure people couldn't understand me. Anyway, fast forward many years later, I became a professional dancer and I loved to choreograph dances about people and emotions, and I had my dancers embody the emotion I wanted them to communicate, so their performance was authentic and powerful. And then fast forward another many years. I came across this system called the Enneagram, which I see as a great introduction to the language of emotion. And in learning this system, I learned about myself and why I was the way I was and why I was so painfully shy. And it thrilled me. And so I dove head first into a week long training program, where I sat on a chair for 12 hours a day, getting great information poured into my head and a four inch manual on my lap. And I kept saying I just got to do the types. I knew that these different personality styles had different emotions, different gifts and different challenges. And I knew you can embody all those different emotions. And I thought if I could do these types, if I could do what these different personality styles are about, I would remember them. It would be bone deep, lasting learning. It was so clear to me that it should exist and how it could exist and it didn't. So the first thing I did was I created a system to embody each of the nine Enneagram types. Any, by the way, means nine and gram is a diagram, and it describes the gifts and challenges of these nine personality styles.

Andrea Isaacs:
So I started teaching that. But what happened next really surprised me. Because I started to change confidence finally became a part of who I was, and I realized that it was because I had created the neural pathway for confidence. And that's when I realized what I'm doing is not just about this personality system called the Enneagram. It's about choosing, having the choice, choosing the emotions that you want or need. So when I felt shy, I knew how to shift out of it and how to embody a whole range of emotion. And so I now see the Enneagram, which was my starting point as a doorway to your emotional mastery. And I think emotional mastery is the key to life mastery.

Daniel Aaron:
Well. Thank you. And that's, um. That's fascinating and cool. Uh, series of moments and and episodes in your life that that clearly steered you to what you're meant to be doing, and. Why that last piece you said? Um. Emotional mastery being so, so essential. So important. Why is that?

Andrea Isaacs:
Well, emotions determine our mindset. Whatever emotion you're feeling right now is your mindset. And your mindset determines everything from the mood you're in when you wake up in the morning to the decisions you make throughout the day and the ones you don't make and the actions you take and the ones you don't take. And it also determines the quality of your relationships, your business and your life. And if you don't have emotional mastery, then relationships get wonky. You don't communicate in a way that you can be heard and received. You can't discuss challenges in a way that is effective and harmonious and comes to resolution. And then if you're building a business. Oh my gosh, there's so many emotions that come up in building a business because as entrepreneurs or leaders, we are always hitting the edge of our comfort zone and at the edge of our comfort zone. Any limiting belief you ever had will arise. And so you have to be the master of your emotions to get to the other side of your comfort zone and have the life that you want.

Daniel Aaron:
Beautiful. Okay. Thank you. So, so many different ways we could go with this. Um, let's do this. Would you? Okay, well, I'll say this first when I in my little introduction to the show, one of the things I said, this might be the most important aspect of having a vibrant, thriving life. And you, you just spoke to that in the language is familiar to me, which is. How we. How do we measure our life? How do we measure the quality of our life? What's how we feel, right? It's how we feel on an ongoing basis or a cumulative basis. Does that make sense?

Andrea Isaacs:
Total. When I hear the word vibrant, something in me just lights up. I mean, that word is very alive. The tagline of my email signature used to be live life fully engaged. Another way that I like to look at having a vibrant life or living fully engaged, is being empowered to be all that you are. And so many people are living too small. They're not. They're afraid to be all that they are. But, you know, it's that word empowered. I think, that scares people, because the root of that word is power. And a lot of people don't want that. Personally, I'll speak for myself, and I think this is true for many. If you're around a wrong or bad or abusive use of power or power over, you don't want that. That's a wrong power, the wrong use of power. There is a good and a right use of power. It's the power to be all that you are. And I think vibrant living or life mastery. I think it takes the courage to stand in your power to own your power to have the power to use your power to be all that you are. And then you're empowered to make the decisions that will fulfill you. You're empowered to empower others. If you're a coach or an entrepreneur, you're your role is to empower others. And you can do that even more so when you are empowered, when you really stand in and own and embrace and embody your power. Power for good.

Daniel Aaron:
Hallelujah. I am with you. Uh, you know, we could distinguish that in some way as the difference between power over power over others as compared to the power to effect change. Right. That's like the physics definition, right? It's the amount of change we can create, or the good we can bring forward in the amount of time that we have. So I love that. Now let me ask this then what is emotional mastery? What does that mean?

Andrea Isaacs:
Well, I want to tell you a funny conversation that I've had many times. Uh, one person said to me. I don't want to be the master of my emotions that's controlling. Mm. Not, uh, someone else has said. Well, what's the difference between mastering. Mastering your emotion and repressing them. Mm. Very different. Okay, so, uh, I don't want to control my emotions. I want to know what they are. But you know what? Before we went live, you said something to me about how difficult it is to know what they are. So let's start with that, because that's not uncommon. A lot of people aren't clear. I don't know what I'm feeling, or they won't even say that. They just are unaware.

Daniel Aaron:
Well, can I can I give a little illustration of that before you go into it? Sure. Yeah. So this is part of my excitement about this conversation in the work that you're doing, Andrea, is how how essential it was for me when I was in my early 20s. I was, for the first time in my life, living with a partner, a woman. And one night she said to me. Does it even matter to you that we're. That we're together, that we're living together? And and I did what I had learned to do in relationship at that point, which was avoid, um, and I avoided her question. Oh, of course, of course it matters. Secretly, though, in my head I thought, oh my goodness, I don't know. I don't even know. How could that be? How could I be living with someone and not know if it matters to me? So the next day I, I got like, I need therapy and I got into therapy. And when I started into therapy, the very first thing the therapist said to me is, you know, well, how are you feeling about this? I'm like, oh, here we go again. I don't know how I feel. And I remember her giving me a printout of the names of emotions, and she said, put this on your refrigerator and look at it often. And that was like the beginning of a completely different world for me. Right. And, you know, and it's not it's of course, us as men tend to have more challenge with it. But a lot of us grew up without having any idea about emotions. So sorry. I just wanted to, um, toss that in the mix as you go.

Andrea Isaacs:
Great story. No, actually, um, emotional intelligence is not a part of our or was not a part of our education. It's beginning to come into the system, into the schools a little bit. But I want to say you reminded me of one of my own stories about emotion. Now, I knew I had them and I kind of knew what they were, but expressing them is another story. So I remember this is when the very beginning of doing my work, where I wasn't quite a master of it yet. I was invited to teach a program in Italy by a friend of mine who was a priest. So one of the things we did on the way to the retreat center, which was in the mountains outside the town of Lucca, was a beautiful setting. Anyway, he gave me a tour of Assisi, which, as you know, is the home was the home of Saint Francis. And as a priest he knew the history of Saint Francis and that town so well. And so when we toured the city, he explained why the bricks were pink. And he showed me in the church, which included this little cubbyhole where his parents used to force him because they thought he was weird, and he should just stop doing this crazy talk. And they, they made him, like, curl up in a little ball in this little hole. Anyway, he told me this story of, of of that, and he went on about these incredible stories I never could have gotten anywhere else. And afterwards he asked me this question, did you enjoy Assisi? And I was really shocked at his question, because of course I did. But I realized I was so overwhelmed with emotion, I just didn't have words to say what it was for me. And I realized in that moment what a mistake it was to not articulate. So now my my intention when I'm really overwhelmed with emotion is I say to myself, just use your words. You know, if I under speak, you're like, yeah, it was just say something. I mean, I said nothing, so I now I mean expressing gratitude. That's what it was. I didn't know how. So that's another learning. But let's see. We both digressed.

Daniel Aaron:
Well, let's let me bring you back to where I diverted us from, which is you're speaking into what is emotional mastery. What does that mean? Yeah, sure.

Andrea Isaacs:
Thank you. Well, first of all, it means knowing what you're feeling. And because that is the first stumbling block which you've experienced. And I kind of knew it, but I didn't know how to express it. I love and this is what differentiates me from a lot of people doing work with EQ. Emotional intelligence is I look at or I have my clients tell me what their body is experiencing. You know, you're feeling a contraction or your shoulders curving forward is do you feel butterflies? Are you shaking? Um, do you feel like your guts like boiling up? Do you feel ready to explode? Are you clenching your jaw? There's a lot of somatic description that's really, um, that really captures how you feel. The first step in understanding your emotions is noticing your your physical experience, your somatic cue. Soma comes from the Greek word, uh, somatic comes from the Greek word soma, meaning body. So it's your body awareness. It's becoming aware of your body. That's a step one. So it's knowing your emotion, but then it's having a vocabulary. You know, if you think of emotional intelligence as having a language, a language of emotion. We have to look at as a foreign language, a language we were never taught. Right. And so if you think of when you first learned English, for instance, you learn the simple words Jack and Jill went up the hill. The dog. His name is spot. Very simple language. And look how well you speak now. You speak in paragraphs. You know a ton of words, right? And emotions are like that. So we start with, like the lures you had in refrigerator. We start with the language of the Enneagram type. Type one perfection, striving for perfection, type two connection, type three dreams or image and and going for your going for your dreams. Type four I could go around the whole circle. The point is, I think the Enneagram actually is a great introduction to the language of emotion. And in my work we embody, we first start to embody the gifts and the challenges of each of those types. And there's a reason for doing the gifts and the challenges. We do the gifts because and we repeat the gifts of each type because that creates, trains and strengthens the neural pathways for a beautiful range of emotion. And then we explore the shadow side of each of those types. Because we all have a shadow. We do, we may we may not know what's in it. But you know what? When we're stressed or we're hurt or angry or pressured, our shadow leaks. So it could be that's when anger comes out or defensiveness comes out. And when we go into it deliberately, we learn that we have the flexibility and the ability to step out of our shadow and choose the high side of of whatever emotion you want.

Daniel Aaron:
Cool. Awesome. Well thank you. There's so much in that. And I interject for the purpose of educating me. What do you mean by shadow? That may not be obvious for all of us. Sure.

Andrea Isaacs:
Thank you. That's a great question. I may not, uh, so here's an example. A shadow is a part of you that you may not like. Like, oh, maybe I get defensive if you criticize me. Well, I don't want to see. I'm not going to say I'm a defensive person. I'm not going to acknowledge that. I don't want that. I don't like that part of me. So I put it in my shadow thinking, you won't see it either. I don't see it. It's in my shadow. And you don't see it either. Except you will, because the shadow leaks. And when I get criticized, I. If I get hurt or defensive or criticize back, that's all my shadow stuff. A shadow is any part of you that's not your best and highest self. It's a part of you that when you're stressed or hurt or you get triggered, someone pushes your buttons. It's a part of you they don't really like, and it leads to conversations that don't go well. Since we all have one, what we have to learn how to do is befriend our shadow, unpack it, and let it have a voice. Not to a person, not to hurt someone else. But what I like to say is in a ritual environment, in a ritual container where there are no real life consequences, like, say, in a private coaching session or in a class, or everybody's doing this work. We go into the shadow and we let it rip, because there is what I call a pendulum learning curve, right? Say you've never had a voice and that was me. Shy, hated to be seen, didn't have a voice. If I was hurt, I wouldn't tell you. And I would hold it in and hold it in and hold it in and hold it in. That was my shadow, right? Hold it in and hold it in until I couldn't take it anymore and I would explode. Hmm. That's not very healthy, right? That's. So what we do in our ritual container is we explore both ends of that polarity. We do the exaggeration of holding it in and holding it in.

Andrea Isaacs:
You notice how that feels in your body. It doesn't feel good. And then we let it rip. We go to the other extreme, and it's really awesome when you let it rip those old wounds of holding your voice in for years and for decades finally has an outlet. And it just you let it rip and it bursts out. And it's such a freeing feeling and the benefit of that. Here's the end of the polarity. The benefit of that is, once you know both extremes, you can find that sweet spot right in the middle where you can just take a stand and say, wait a minute, that was hurtful, or wait, stop. Or whatever comes up and that you need to say you don't need to raise your voice. You don't need to yell and scream and slam doors. You don't need to shut up and never speak, and never tell that person for fear that they'll never like you again, and you'll lose them as a friend. Or they'll break up with you, or you'll get fired or whatever. No consequences. Because if you just hold your ground right in the middle. And you say and you use your words. And. What happens next is you're received in a way that you can be heard and you can have a conversation, and whatever it was can be resolved. That's emotional mastery.

Daniel Aaron:
Beautiful. Okay. So. Gosh, so many ways we can go here. What what what happens? Why? Why don't we know about this? Like it's as you said, it's often not taught in schools or it wasn't much before. And it seems like the most fundamental, important part of learning to be human. Um, and so, I mean, I guess one part is why are we not taught? And that might be a discussion that's not so useful, though. Why is it so challenging for so many of us?

Andrea Isaacs:
Well, I think, you know, as I know you know, Daniel, we are spiritual beings having a human experience. And I think the biggest challenge about having a human experience is what exactly what you just said is learning how to manage our emotions. Mm. I think simply that that's the simplest way I could put it, actually.

Daniel Aaron:
Okay, cool. So manage our emotions. Um, and I love that you made the distinction earlier. It's not about controlling. It's not about pushing them down. Right. It's it is about let's see if how well I'm understanding it is about becoming aware of what we are feeling. Which brings a question then. Yeah. Does everybody feel?

Andrea Isaacs:
Well, you know, I'd like to say yes, because we're all human and we all have a heart. And heart's our heart's center, which is where our heart, the organ heart lives, is filled with all of our emotions. And actually one of the things that we can do, and this is a nice practice for our listeners and I do often, is if you don't know how you feel, place your mind's attention on your heart center, and you might even place your hands there on your sternum, which represents the home of all of your emotions, and ask yourself, how do I feel right now? And just notice what comes up? It could be, well, I don't know. It could be, well, my body feels cold, I'm kind of shivering or I feel really exhausted. I feel a weight on my shoulders. It doesn't matter what comes up to notice without judgment. It's a great start to ask your heart center how you feel now. There are also people say on the autistic spectrum that they don't express their emotions. Oftentimes, of course, there's a whole range because there are very highly functional autistic people, which are who are who are brilliant. Um, although I would say many are reluctant or don't know how or aren't aware of what they're feeling or don't know how to articulate them, or another possibility, they think about their emotions. Um, they think about, yes, I think I'm happy to be with with my partner going back to your story. But do I feel right? Is this what I want? Um, I would say yes. They have emotions too. And if you treat them with kindness and love, they'll feel that and they'll respond accordingly. So they may not be aware of of what they're feeling or have the words to articulate it. But I would like to say that your answer to your question is yes.

Daniel Aaron:
Yeah. Everybody's feeling. And, uh, I'm with you. I think the questions become, are we in touch with what we're feeling? Because clearly, you know, we got really good, you know, especially in the last century, the last part of the last century at finding ways of blocking feeling. Right. We've got, uh, doctors prescribing things. We've got all our legal and illegal ways of keeping ourselves from feeling. I remember when I was 26, I moved to Omega Institute. This, you know, so exciting, this place and all these people doing, uh, holistic learning and learning, knowing about themselves and meditation and yoga. And I was like a kid in a candy shop. And one of the biggest enlightening moments for me. And look at this. I still remember this now, 400 years later.

Andrea Isaacs:
Um.

Daniel Aaron:
I grew up as an overweight kid, and part of part of that, for me, was a way of not feeling what I wanted to feel. Right. Um, I had sort of a physical and emotional insulation. Yeah. So I was at a dinner one night. They're sitting on a picnic table with some of the other people that worked there. And this one man, I'll always remember this. He takes his plate and he slides it forward. You know that universal gesture we have for I'm not going to eat anymore. And as he did it, he said, I am sufficiently cut off from my feelings now with.

Andrea Isaacs:
Ate enough to tamp down his feelings.

Daniel Aaron:
Yeah, that was exactly what he meant. And I remember when he said that that was such a new concept for me. At that point, I was like, what? Oh wow. And because I was so used to over eating, in part because I couldn't even feel in my body or my emotions.

Andrea Isaacs:
He said, I'm sufficiently numb from my feelings.

Daniel Aaron:
Yeah.

Andrea Isaacs:
Wow. Well, he was at least he was aware he was doing it.

Daniel Aaron:
Yeah. And honestly, I don't know. I mean, he maybe he was joking. Um, maybe he was on a learning curve of something. But anyway, my point in the reason that came to mind is just we've got all these different ways of not feeling things. Yeah. And my work with breathing, that's a big component of it. So let me ask you this then. For those of us who have found ways of not feeling right, and we could talk more about that, but hopefully people understand what I mean by that. Why why do we do that? Like as you've pointed out, how important emotions are, why would people avoid feeling them? Why would we stop feeling well.

Andrea Isaacs:
You know, I love your question. I've had many clients who who have had that experience, and so I'll ask them questions about your childhood. Do you remember a time when you were a child, when you were really young? Were you when you had an emotion, maybe you were hurt or you were crying, or you were angry. You had some emotion, and mom or dad said something like, don't feel I don't have time for you. Did something. I'll ask, did something like that happen? And they may not say it right away, but I'll ask a few other kinds of questions, and I'll do some kind of a guided process to take them back in time and go, oh yeah, I remember. And then this memory starts to surface about when you came home from school crying because something bad happened and mom had no time. Dad was gone and mom had no time. And she just I don't I don't have time for you. Just I just don't have time for you. I mean, that by itself. Gives the kid a message, I guess. Oh, if I'm crying, I'm not going to be tended to. So maybe I shouldn't cry. Or maybe I'm maybe it's too demanding or they don't have words like this yet. But the the imprint, the message is don't feel, don't feel, don't feel, don't feel. And it's safer because the hurt of having an emotion that needs some care, that needs some tenderness, that needs kindness, and having it rejected, not having it tended to, is so painful it's easier and safer not to feel. So. I would say that people who are who don't know their emotions got some kind of message that taught them it's not safe to feel. And then doing this work with me, they realize it's safe to feel and they start to feel again, and they start to feel it's safe to be me. It's safe to be all of who I am. And they they then they become this vibrant soul living, empowered to be all that they are. They just emerge like from a from a caterpillar to a butterfly. They just emerge into this full human being and it's part of being. Actually, I like that phrase. I never said it before to be a full human being because we are human and we have these, I like to call it four centers, not just three, four centers. We have our thinking center, the home of our thoughts. We have a heart center, the home of our feelings. We have a body center which we all know about, but we don't always listen to it. However, when we're in touch with all three centers, our fourth center opens. That's our spiritual center, and that's when we're connected to all that we are, to all that is. And that is vibrant living. Right? Mm.

Daniel Aaron:
Beautiful. Thank you. Okay. Well. What? What about this consideration? Right there is sometimes we hear the phrase that all emotions are true, they're real. And then sometimes there's a message that comes that says, you know, don't, don't, don't believe your emotions. They're changing all the time anyway, right? What, what how do we make sense of that? How can you help us with that?

Andrea Isaacs:
Well, let's see what I can do. First of all, I'd like to say that all of your emotions are valid. Every one of them is true and is real for you right now. If you think you're feeling it, you're feeling it. That's good enough for me. The next question though, there is another question. And that next question is what are you going to do about them? Hmm. Right. And how will you express them? Which feelings do you want to have? And what happens over time is people learn that, oh, that's an emotion I don't like. I don't want that one. Oh, that's an emotion I like. That emotion feels good. So really simple way to describe some of the emotions are to categorize them as there are there are feel good feelings and there are bad feeling feelings. Which ones would you rather have? Do you want to feel sad or happy? Well, I feel valid in being sad. There are a lot of reasons to be sad. But do I want to stay sad? No. Well, how do I be happy? What is well, happy is a funny word because I would say for much of my young life I didn't value happiness. I thought all those happy people, they're superficial. Hmm. And now. Yeah, I like the depth of emotion, the depth of life. And if there's a disturbing feeling coming up, I want to understand it. If you're having one of those feelings, I want to know what's going on. I want to understand it. Even if you're angry at me, I want to understand. I have this craving to understand. And the choice is yours. And how you express them is has everything to do with the quality of your relationships and the quality of your life. Mm. Let's see. Did I answer your question?

Daniel Aaron:
Well, that's that's great. I love what you said. And it brings another question, though, of course, which is. I have a feeling. I misheard this. I want to check though, because I think we could we could put something forward maybe that we don't want. It sounded a little bit to me, like you were saying. I know you weren't, but I could see where it could go into. Oh, well, I want these feeling, I want these feelings, but I don't want these feelings. Right. Um. And is it is there a danger in saying I'm not going to feel those things? Does that bring us back to, um, you know, blocking our feelings or repression? Suppression?

Andrea Isaacs:
Well, those are really good questions. I want to see if I can unpack that. This is a really good question. I don't want people to repress their feelings. I want them to understand them. So if I have a feeling and I don't know what it is and I'm not liking it, I like to journal. And this is something I really invite people to do. If you don't understand your feelings, journal it. Ask and ask that little boy or little girl inside questions because you know we all have an inner child, as I know. You know we all have one. And the wounds we had early in life that put into place, whatever those feelings are that we don't want, that little one knows, knows why they didn't want, why they had those feelings and knows what brought them on. When we go back, and this is what I do in my coaching, we go back in history. When those disturbing feelings were first imprinted, you either resisted some of those feelings or they were inflicted on you. I like I remember swearing I'm never going to be like my dad. He was an angry man. I'm never going to be like that. It was a feeling I didn't want. I didn't want to be a person like that. That was very powerful. It's kind of like part of what you're asking me. But what happened for me is by not allowing my anger. And I'm not saying I wanted to go out and be angry, but by not allowing my anger, there's a saying we throw the baby out with the bathwater. And that's what I did. Because the other end of that polarity of anger is also confidence. And I threw out my confidence because think of the energy of anger. It's big energy, right? It's explosive. Yes, but it's also big. And I was afraid of being big because I thought being big meant being angry. And it doesn't mean that I could be big and kind and open hearted and tender and delicate and all of that. So I don't want to feel anger, but one of the things that I needed to learn, and that I love teaching, is how to express anger in a healthy way.

Andrea Isaacs:
You know, there's a lot of spiritual bypasses you're familiar with. Um, some people say to me, you know what? I'm spiritual. I don't get angry. But you know what? They're human. That's that's not dealing with your anger in a healthy way. Because whatever it was you're angry about will happen again with that same person and with others. And it'll happen again and again and again and again and again. And then at some point, it could hurt, damage or even end a relationship. So. Is. There are a lot of things to consider. Is it the right time? Is it the right place? Is this the right person to express it to? So this takes maybe some wisdom about those emotions that you don't want going back to, like feeling all these emotions that you don't want. Is it repressing them? Um, there's something important about expressing them. You know what? Maybe not all of them. There probably are some emotions that are best kept to yourself. I'm going to just allow for that as a possibility. But what I think is really wise in a bigger picture is to know how to express them to the right person, with the right amount of energy, at the right time, in the right place, in a way that you can be heard and received. That's mastery.

Daniel Aaron:
Wow. Okay, that's both exciting and intimidating.

Andrea Isaacs:
Why is it intimidating?

Daniel Aaron:
Well, I say that because that sounds like that could be a hard thing. Right? And I'm just place kind of say a little more. Um, I'm just placing myself while one back in my shoes, like, because I was like you in, in terms of I had my mother was the angry one. She was like, uh, some would say a rage aholic. And I saw so much rage from her. I made a decision unconsciously, um, when I was young. Like, I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to be a rager. Right. And so what that effectively meant for me was, no, I don't feel anger. Right. Um, or I, you know, I kept a distance from my anger. And so I remember when I first became aware that that. Oh, actually, I do feel anger. And in fact, it's important for me to become aware of the anger that I feel. Right? When I first did, you called it a big energy. It was for me. It was so intense. It was like I think of, um, the, uh, what's the, uh, The Last Airbender, right? The TV series. Do you know this TV series?

Andrea Isaacs:
I never I never heard of that one.

Daniel Aaron:
It's it's brilliant. It's it's an animation thing. And it's this young boy who's an avatar, and he is learning to master, uh, the different elements on his way to becoming an avatar. Right. And as he's learning the fire element, which, you know, could relate to us here, he, like you, were talking about the pendulum. He would go too far and he would feel the fire, and he would put it out and it would burn things and destroy things. Right. So I know my experience with anger in the beginning, and I think this is the fear for a lot of people I know is, well, if I allow the anger, if I let it out, it's it's going to burn people up. Right? So that feels I think for a lot, a lot of people a scary thing. It was for me way back then and even now, sometimes I think, am I, am I letting the right amount out? Am I expressing it in the right way, or am I going to hurt someone or hurt myself? Does this make sense? Why? Beautiful.

Andrea Isaacs:
I love that you're saying that. And you know, I have a couple of stories will illustrate sort of a journey about about mastering that. Yeah. So early on in my teaching, this work I mentioned, we go, we do this movement, embodiment practice to embody the gifts of each of these personality types and the shadow side. So there's one particular type who's known for confidence and their shadow is anger. So we're going into the anger. And I do a talk a little bit about it, and I do a demonstration of what it might look like. Right. So it's big energy like you just describing it's fire. It's scary. And so this one woman raises her hand and she said, I have spent thousands of dollars in therapy not to be like that. Why do you want me to do that? And I think she was afraid of exactly what you just said. She was afraid she would, like, burn up and she would scare people or hurt someone. And that's not. That's not emotional mastery, by the way. But I understood that she was willing to do the exercise. And what happened in the process of the exercise? She had permission to be angry, to let it rip in a ritual container where there were no real life consequences, and that I guide them through another process. And I asked the question something like this. How would your body rather feel? And after you do all that anger no one really wants, well, unless you're evil, no one really wants that. So for energy softened. In her hands came to her heart. And she said the words I speak with a gentle heart. Mm. Her energy totally changed and see with anger. Anger the reason it needs to be expressed in the right way, with the right energy is you hurt underneath it. It was hurt, right? So the idea is to be able to express the hurt with a gentle heart, to hold your ground, to be strong, not to be a pushover, and not to burn people up with your anger, but just to stand in your presence. And as you put your hands here and I'm feeling my own energy soften and to say to yourself these words.

Andrea Isaacs:
Because when you say the words, your mind energizes this neural pathway. And to say the words. I speak with. A gentle heart. You can even see them quietly. And then to start to talk about, you know, when you said that x, Y or Z thing or you did that thing earlier, I felt really sad. And I kind of get angry, but I really want to talk about what was going on with you when that happened or something like that. The point is, when you change the energy in your body, it changes how you think and how you feel and how you respond to life. And the words that come out of your mouth are just different. And you're able to express what happened that made you angry. That's the point of anger. It's something happened that needs to be discussed. And you're able to now to bring it up in a way that it can be discussed. Now there's another woman in the other side of the spectrum is kind of the same picture. She was one of those explosive people, and she she learned how not to express her anger, which you could say was a good thing because she wasn't hurting people. But what she did is she created what she called a tan block inside her body because she'd feel her anger and she'd go like this. I'm not angry. I'm exaggerating a little bit. But she was holding this tan block inside her, and she's not able to express what happened. And that wasn't healthy. It was good in a way, but it wasn't complete. So in working with me, she learned how to tap into what was underneath the anger and to still hold her ground because she was no pushover. You know, she didn't want to just never speak. So she was able to hold her ground and to have the strength that was really important to her, and to speak with a kind and gentle heart. And she was heard, and it really changed everything for her. Her tan block melted.

Daniel Aaron:
Are you saying?

Andrea Isaacs:
Tan and. Like. Think of the color tan, tan, tan. It's like a boring, dull color, right? Yeah, if I may say. I mean, I know some people like the color tan, but as a fire is like red and hot orange, right? It's like all these really different. They're very different color. She didn't want that. She and she didn't want that explosiveness. So she did the opposite of both the color turned from like bread and bright orange to tan. And the energy went from explosive to constrict, constricted and contracted and blocked. Literally blocked. Mm. I'm not. Breathing. And then that's what was happening for her too, when she did that. So in working with me, she learned how to express from how to. She noticed when she was angry because she felt both the urge to explode and pulling it into the tan block. And then she made the choice to hold her ground and to speak with a gentle heart.

Daniel Aaron:
That's beautiful. Well, you know, Andrea, one of the for me, one of the most, I think, most important things in my journey of growth and healing and. Becoming more and more vibrant all the time has been learning to speak about emotions, right? Learning to speak with people when there are challenging emotions there. And so I'm going to. Ask you one more question here to solicit more of your wisdom and experience in a little bit of a funny way, perhaps Doctor Seuss, right, who was not a psychologist, as far as I know, however he created what was it? Um, Cat in the hat. The Cat in the hat. Right. And here's what's amazing about the Cat in the hat. And for people who don't know the cat in the hat, I'll explain it really quickly. So the cat is a really fun creature that comes to visit these two kids when they're home on a snow day. And what the cat does is creates all kinds of adventures. And one of the things that he does in creating those adventures is he makes a mess, right? And he makes this mess. And then the kids get freaked out and they're like, oh, no, mom's going to be mad when she gets home and finds this mess. And so the cat says, oh, don't worry about it. We'll we'll clean that up. And he cleans it up. But then the mess goes over here and the mess goes from, from, you know, mother's dress to the wall to the kitchen to the floor, out into the snow. And what ends up happening is it's not cleaning the mess, it's just moving it from one place to the other. Okay. So the reason I bring all that up is there's a term that that I've used a lot in my own work. Um, and something that I'm curious to get your perspective on. There's one there is a school of thought or therapy therapeutic approach which says it's good to cathart. Right. Catharsis. Like if you're feeling something, get it out. Right. Um, and my feeling of it, and that's certainly been useful for me at times in my life, especially when I wasn't aware that I actually could feel anger. Right? So the ability to let it rip, as you said earlier in a safe container had a benefit. However, my experience has also been that when we throw it out, well, of course one is it could make a mess in different places and land on other people. But two, my sense is that we don't necessarily learn what we need to learn or have the transformation so that there can be a downside to catharsis is this is this is my question making any sense?

Andrea Isaacs:
Yeah. Well, I. Think catharsis has a place. However, I strongly suggest you not do it with other people. Who. You might hurt. And that's the value of having what I call a ritual container where there are no real life consequences. Because yes, you need to fully feel your feelings, and that's the benefit of the catharsis. You fully feel your feelings. And then I like to ask this question. How? Who's the. Let me rephrase this. When I asked myself the question is, who's the me I'd rather be? Who's the me I want to be? Now, it's easy for all of us to be that person we really want to be when everything's going great. If we're sitting alone on top of a mountaintop meditating, it's easy to be who we really want to be. Push comes to shove. The question is, can you be the person you really want to be? When that hits the fan? When someone's pushing those buttons, when you're hurt, when you're sad, when you're offended, when you're angry, can you still be that person? And with these skills, these tools of emotional mastery, yes, you can be your best and highest self no matter what. And that's the goal of emotional mastery. To be your best self, to do the catharsis in the privacy of your bedroom, or with a coach who who knows these tools. Yes, because that energy has been is inside you. It's been in there a long time, maybe a lifetime, right? And if you don't get it out, it's going to still be there. And then even smaller things kind of related will trigger it because your shadow gets full and it's going to leak. So it's the value of it is doing it where there are no real life consequences. And then you do get the message. Here's a personal story that I was in a situation where I was doing a speech or doing a speaking gig for like 500 people, and a close friend was going to hang. There was this big banner that was announcing the event that he he was taking on the task of hanging it outside the building, and he had some questions about it.

Andrea Isaacs:
And, um, I can't remember the whole story, but when I, when I was prepping to go on stage, this is in the rehearsal. When I was prepping to go on stage, he interrupted the rehearsal to tell me all these problems he was having with the banner, and it was really frustrating for me. I wanted to be in this zone. I wanted to be in the mood of like, you know, giving my talk and all of that. And he he was like, really? Um, what he was doing was making his needs more important than my needs. Now, I could have stopped and just addressed it, but there was something about what was happening, and I really I just can't remember the specifics because the thing was, was managed so well. I just can't remember it, but I was I remember being upset. I wish I could remember it more because there was. Right now I'm not really getting why I was so upset, but there was something else I'm not remembering. But anyway, I had time to go home and change my clothes and get ready. So I went home and I said, okay, you're really upset and and you got to fix this. You're supposed to be good at this change this, change this. So I let it rip for a moment, like maybe a minute. I just let it rip and the privacy of my home. And then I asked my body. I asked my body, like, how was how did my body rather feel? And I felt my heart, my heart center. And I felt my connection to this other person who really wanted to be there for me. I felt that heart to heart connection. And that's the person I wanted to be. The person with the with that heart. So every all that energy that I the hurt that I felt, the distraction that I felt, the feeling that his needs are more important than my needs, it just dissolved. And I did the talk. The talk went super well. And I said, okay, we're going to talk about this later and had this list of like five things. We're going to talk about this later.

Andrea Isaacs:
I didn't need to jump into it. I just knew we're going to talk about this. Okay. Thing went well. We both had to go our separate ways for a couple of hours, and we got together later and I was about to say something and he said, you know what? I was thinking about what happened. And he told me his side of the story when he when I allowed him to speak first, he addressed every single one of my points. Was done. I had nothing left except to say that. Wow, that was I. Thank you. That really means a lot that you that you said all of that. So in a way, I didn't have to get angry. I if he hadn't done that, I would have brought it up in a way that would have been, you know, very gentle. Actually, I have a process called the five C's to tango with tough topics, and we go into that if you want to. But the point of it is that when you're hurt or angry or you feel offended or whatever, it's important to know that you're feeling to allow your feelings to for you to know what they are. Um, and then for you to choose what you do with them. Because emotional mastery is knowing how to express what you're feeling in a way that can be heard and received. If it's not received, I mean really received. Not just that they hear the words, but they really receive it. And you can have a conversation about it. It ends up bringing people closer together and it nurtures relationships instead of challenging them or ending them.

Daniel Aaron:
Yeah. Beautiful. Well you know, and again, I was semi-joking earlier when I said, oh, it's exciting and intimidating. Um, it I think it can be intimidating because, again, a lot of us just didn't have much education around emotional mastery. Yet. It's much more exciting, though, because there's so much benefit. I've experienced that in my own life. Just being able to one know my emotions to express them, and and being able to do it in such a way that it brings me closer with people is phenomenal.

Andrea Isaacs:
So I have. Another story that I think you can relate to. I was teaching a program in, I think it was Australia. Yeah. No. I'm sorry. It was China. It was in Hong Kong. I was in Hong Kong. And there was breakfast in the in the meeting center. Whatever. Um, before the first session. So I hadn't met anybody yet, but we were the only people there. So this person, this man says down at the table across from me, and he says, I know who you are. With that tone. I said, okay, because my pictures on the on the brochures and the material. He says, I hear your work is so deep, it's scary. And so we. Yeah, right. We had a little conversation. I can't remember what we said, but I remembered him. So we do this work. I mentioned the Enneagram and we go around the these types doing this movement work, which is. Um, it's highly experiential and very emotional. People are experiencing a lot of different, uh, gifts and challenges and emotions. And so he's sitting there with his arms crossed, kind of sitting, but he's participating. But he's in this kind of posture through a lot of the program. And finally we get to the last type and he stands up and people do some coaching with me during the session. When they when they have a stuck emotion, he stands up, he throws his notebook on the floor and he says, okay. And he says, you've got me. And he stands up and he's he's got all this energy. And he and I can't remember the language, but the process was something about I wanted him to. I said, so what were you feeling? What was going on inside you when we did that exercise? And he started doing what he always what he does in life, which was ranting and raving and yelling and screaming, and he almost punched a hole in the wall with his fist. I said, you have to not hurt anybody or anything, right? There's no real you can't hurt anybody. And he was okay with that. But in the process, he let all that energy out.

Andrea Isaacs:
And he had been filled with that anger energy for a lifetime of it. I didn't get his story about how his dad treated him when he was a kid, because it wasn't that setting. But anyway, I don't need to know the story. He after he got it all out and I guided him through a process where he allowed the energy to shift, he he took his arms and he throws the arms back and he opened it. He went and he is his heart chakra was just like wide open and tears were streaming down his face. And he said the words, I surrender. Hmm. Now, if I had told him, why don't you just like surrender? Why don't you just tell yourself I surrender? He would have just said you and walked out. I mean, he would not have listened to me if I had said that to him. But after he did that exercise, he knew that's what he needed because he had scared his kids. He had scared people he'd been in relationship with. And in this ritual container, he got it all out and he was able. Next time he felt that anger, he could use those words in his mind to shift his energy. That would soften it and allow him to speak in a way that he could connect and be heard.

Daniel Aaron:
That's beautiful. Thank you.

Andrea Isaacs:
So what's scary for him? Yeah, it was scary. Yeah, but look what he look. What happened?

Daniel Aaron:
Well, and as you said very early on in our conversation. And we're going to need to wrap up unfortunately, in a moment. Um, it's a lot of what your work is about is helping people go beyond their comfort zone. And, you know, it's scary to go beyond the comfort zone, though. That's as we know that's where life begins, right? Especially the vibrant life. So, uh, Andrea, Andrea, you, uh, have, I believe, a gift for our audience. Is that true?

Andrea Isaacs:
It is. True. It's called your emotional Mastery Toolkit. And the toolkit has a quiz that addresses 18 areas of emotion the gifts and the challenges of these nine different personality types, which, as I mentioned, is an introduction to the language of emotion. You immediately get your emotional mastery blueprint, and I get it too. And your blueprint illustrates how you've shown up in your past and your present. And it can also be a guide for the future you want to create. And you get an interpretation guide. You get a short video clip called What is Emotional Mastery? And there's also before the days of zoom and all these video things. There's a class I taught called the Whammies webinar. Because these challenges people have, I call them the whammies and they're they're double whammies like a knockout punch. It's like a double knockout punch. And that can really make change seem difficult. Um, and so I talk about the Double whammies and the triple whammies and you start to get insight about. The makeup of why you've gotten to be the way you are. I'm starting to write a different manual. It's happening. It's been happening in my work for a long time now, but I hadn't written about it is instead of writing about all the whammies, which was the first thing I wrote about in the different combinations of challenges, I'm writing about the different combinations of gifts, because when you have a unique, we all have a unique combination of gifts that really point to your life purpose. And when you are in touch with your life purpose and living it, for that is vibrant living, right? So once you get your blueprint and the interpretation guide, which by definition has to be somewhat generic, you will also get an invitation to a call with me where I can look at your blueprint and tell you what I see in terms of your gifts, your unique gifts, your life. What can reveal your life purpose and the challenges that have been in the way of knowing it or living it? Hmm.

Daniel Aaron:
Wow. That's, uh, tremendous. Thank you for that. Uh, and I'm going to read out the, the URL, the web address for people just so that they can make sure to grab that it's on the screen if you're viewing, though, if you're listening, not viewing, it's, uh, at Andrea's website, which is Andrea, Andrea Dash Isaacs isaacks.com and then slash EQ toolkit. Right. Simple EQ toolkit. Right. Those are all spelled like you would think. So that's beautiful. Wonderful. Thank you so much for that, Andrea.

Andrea Isaacs:
My pleasure.

Daniel Aaron:
Alright. Well, and that brings us, sadly enough to our final question, the big question, the impossible question. It's so big, there's no way you could answer it because you've got so much knowledge and experience. So can I ask you the big question, please? All right. So even though you've got so much to share, if you had to boil it down, distill it into one thing, what's the one thing you would say that will help people to live their most vibrant, thriving life?

Andrea Isaacs:
I want you to know that you deserve to dream. You deserve to be all that you are, and you deserve to make your dreams come true. To have the dream relationships business, to have the dream life that you want and deserve.

Daniel Aaron:
That is awesome and beautiful. The message is you deserve it and I love that. Thank you so much, Andrea. I really appreciate you being here with us.

Andrea Isaacs:
Thank you Daniel, it's really been fun talking with you.

Daniel Aaron:
Yeah. And thank you for, you know, all the all the work that you've done to develop this level of mastery in yourself. It's a it's a beautiful gift that you have cultivated by being able to go beyond your comfort zone. So awesome.

Andrea Isaacs:
Thank you. Um. My pleasure.

Daniel Aaron:
All right. And for y'all in our audience, thank you so much, I love you. I love that you are here. I love that you are interested in not just interested in. You're doing something about creating your most vibrant, thriving life. It makes a difference. Not only does your life get better, it makes the world better. So thank you, thank you, thank you for tuning in. Remember, apply something here. Take advantage of Andrea's generous offer and I'll see you soon. Take care y'all. Mahalo for tuning in to the Art of Vibrant Living show, y'all. I'm Daniel Aaron and may you live with great vibrancy.

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