Coaching Through iPEC’s COR.E Dynamics: Emotional Influencers

This episode includes our interpretations of copyrighted works done by the Institute for Professional Excellence in Coaching or iPEC. 

[INTRODUCTION] 

Alex Cullimore: Welcome to Uncover the Human, where every conversation revolves around enhancing all the connections in our lives.  

Cristina Amigoni: Whether that's with our families, co-workers or even ourselves.  

Alex Cullimore: When we can be our authentic selves, magic happens. 

Cristina Amigoni: This is Cristina Amigoni.  

Alex Cullimore: And this is Alex Cullimore. Let’s dive in. 

Cristina Amigoni: Let’s dive in.  

“Authenticity means freedom.” 

“Authenticity means going with your gut.” 

“Authenticity is bringing 100% of yourself not just the parts you think people want to see, but all of you.” 

“Being authentic means that you have integrity to yourself.” 

“It's the way our intuition is whispering something deep-rooted and true.” 

“Authenticity is when you truly know yourself. You remember and connect to who you were before others told you who you should be.” 

“It's transparency, relatability. No frills. No makeup. Just being.” 

[EPISODE] 

Alex Cullimore: All right. Welcome back to this episode of Uncover the Human. It's just Cristina and I here today continuing our COR.E Dynamics Influencers section. It's good to have you. We're here Friday. It's another Friday recording for our Wednesday podcast.  

Cristina Amigoni: It's a normal day. 

Alex Cullimore: Fairly normal now. We're back to our usual groove of waiting to Friday where our minds are slowly falling apart and then we speak into microphones.  

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. And hope to make sense of anything we say. 

Alex Cullimore: This actually is a good tea up for what we're going to be talking about today. Today we're talking about the emotional influencers. We talked a little bit about this in the intro episode, but the emotional influence there being when our emotions can guide our energy and allow it to be either used or pulled back used in other ways that may be kind of productive to what we would like to see happen. What would you like to start with on the emotional influencer? 

Cristina Amigoni: Well, I am interested to see what happens when we coach each other and how emotional we're going to get on a Friday with mush brains.  

Alex Cullimore: It has been a week of lots of emotions. There's lots to unpack.  

Cristina Amigoni: Definitely. 

Well, when we look at the emotional influencers, some key areas of that influencer are emotional awareness and understanding. Step number, one which we talk about quite a lot in almost everything, is awareness. We need to understand what's actually going on before we can do anything about it.  

And then, emotional expression. How do we actually express emotion? What have we been allowed to express? What was shown to us? I mean, we learned a lot of this when we were kids. It was demonstrated around us about expressing emotion, emotional control. Not as much as control your emotions and to make sure you don't show them. And they're completely shoved down because, well, spoiler alert, you can still show them when you think you're shoving them down.  

But it's more about – I almost want to look at it as choosing. If you have the awareness of where your emotions are, if you know how you typically express them and you've done some of the understanding of that, emotional control is figuring out how do I choose to manifest. To show up my emotion in the best possible productive way? As opposed to letting them run rampant and do whatever.  

And then, just creating the emotions that will fuel the performance. We're emotional beings. I love how Brene puts it. We're emotional beings who occasionally think. Not logical beings who occasionally feel. And so, we can actually leverage our emotions to fuel our performance, the satisfaction, excitement, calm. How do we understand and get "in control" of our emotions so that they help us as opposed to drain us? And also, create very small nuclear bombs all around us.  

Alex Cullimore: That's exactly a great way of describing it. And we've talked about this with influencers in general. You can have positive influences. You can have more detracting influence on your energy. And this one is just a category of that type of influence. It can be for better energetic engagement or for worse energetic engagement. And we can put that to each one of those categories.  

If we think about emotional awareness, if you spend your time being unaware of your emotions, you're probably being carried by them. You're probably living very reactively and feeling that whatever emotion is coming up you're kind of running with it. You may not be aware of it. Or you're not really able to name it. You just know you don't feel good or you feel weird about this. There's those vague words that we use, like, "That kind of makes me upset." Or, "That. Yeah, I don't feel good about how that went down."  

There's 10,000 flavors that that might mean. The more you're aware of that, the more you can be curious with that and figure out what conscious choice you'd like to make on top of it. Whereas if you're less aware or you're unable to as easily identify emotions, and we all have moments where we're not going to be able to, that can pull away from our energy. Now we're just spending our time and all of our energies going into feeling that or trying to suppress feeling that, which goes exactly into what you're talking about with both expression and control.  

It's not about I'm going to tamp all this down and make sure that I'm totally stoic all the time. We all have emotions and we have to acknowledge them and address them. But how do we productively put that out into the world, or express them, or give ourselves enough time to express them in private if we need that? So, that still helps move our general motivations forward and our objectives forward and things that we would like to see happen. Rather than like trying to control our emotions now. All of our energy is spent trying to suppress them. That's definitely an influence. It's pulling all of your ability to do things into crushing and quashing feelings rather than expressing them and using them for what they might be trying to tell you.  

Cristina Amigoni: Susan David points this out as well, very well. And she always says it. Emotions are data. Not who we are. We are not fear. We are not sadness. We are not – unless we're in the moving inside out, we're actually not those. They're just data that actually show us what matters to us, especially the more difficult emotions and the stronger emotions. Whether they're on the happy, content, exhilaration side or on the anger, sadness, desperation side. All of those are triggered by what matters to us. So, they're great points of data to figure out, like, "Oh, that really matters. And I'm really happy. And I feel very satisfied when that happens. When people speak to me this way or whatever situation it is. Maybe I could create more of that."  

And on the opposite end, if you look at the data of what happens. What triggers the anger? Because, again, the emotions is not who we are. Something triggered it. What triggered the anger? What triggered the sadness? What triggered the frustration? Well, again, data.  

Maybe I can, first of all, figure out that there's a button there. Because if somebody pushed a button, there's a button to begin with. Why is there a button? What is the button telling me? Most likely tied to core values. What can I do about it? And that's where the unpacking of figuring out what these emotions mean can start.  

Alex Cullimore: That goes all the way to the really complex emotions. Definitely, anger is a huge one that we can feel and we can usually identify fairly quickly that we feel angry. But there's the really complex ones like grief, where it comes in 10,000 different manifestations. But what's really happening is it's really speaking to us about what's important to us. Something that we may feel a loss over something that really means something to us. And what does that mean for us going forward? What would we like to do with that information?  

The more we treat it like data ironically – we talk about being more emotional and being more aware of it. But the more we treat emotions as input, as something that it's reminding us of something that's important. And if we can understand that or understand that there's a trigger and decide whether we want to continue to have that trigger or what we can do about maybe diffusing some of that if it's not helping us or if it's ending up with us having outbursts that we don't like in retrospect but maybe we feel very important at the time, it's all information as to like what do we want to do about this? And why is this important? And what can we do to be more aware of this coming up in the future? And what do we want to have happened? And how can we put ourselves in the best possible situation so that we can have these work out a little bit more?  

And I think that's where people can sometimes drop off as feeling like, "Well, I have to put myself into a happy situation." No. You have to put yourself into a knowing situation. You have to know what's going on and then understand that and make the most meaning of it and try and do your best with that going forward.  

We live in an inherently chaotic and messy world and we always will. So, it's okay to have those moments where it's just not going according to plan. And it's not about padding away and having only comfortable feelings. It's about understanding what the uncomfortable ones are telling us and what we want to do about that. 

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah. I can think of like fear being a big one. What you just said, it's not about pushing the emotion away, but it's about knowing it. And fear is a big one. If you think about when we are fearless, the actual word doesn't describe what's actually happening because we don't – it's not that we have no fear. It's that we actually walk with fear. We take fear. We either put it in the driver's seat or in the passenger seat. Not in the driver's seat, hopefully. Or just hold fear's hand if we're walking and we decide that we can still do it. Fear can walk with us and we can still do whatever it is that's causing the fear. It doesn't have to paralyze us. We just bring it along.  

And fear usually determines some things that we should be aware of. Maybe be aware that there may be danger, so that we can be alert if the danger actually appears. But it's not about pushing it away. It's not about not having the fear. Again, we cannot choose to not have the emotion. We're going to have the emotion. We can choose how we express it.  

Alex Cullimore: We can choose to try to suppress it, but it will just get locked in us. Yeah, the Nagoski sisters talk about that. Emotions as a tunnel. Once you're in the tunnel, you can stop. But at some point, it's going to have to come out. At some point. It's just going to be held inside of you if you don't address it. You can repress it, but find a place to let it out.  

And there, of course, are times when you don't have the ability right where you are to express the emotion or to be able to like process it. And you'll have to like kind of put that on hold and whatever other danger, or something is going on, or just it's not the right situation, or whatever it is. As long as you can come back and then let it out and find the way you need to release that, then it's natural and going to happen.  

Understanding it is very common to end up with stopping an emotion. We still have to like feel that at some point. Because I think you just showed a quote recently that was about change, but I've also heard it applied to health that – it was like, leaders, if you don't make time for change, change will take your time. And I've heard that used for mental health and physical health. If you don't take the time to get healthy, you will lose time being sick. 

And so, we have to do this processing one end or the other. So, this is about kind of helping us get into that space where we're doing that in a proactive and productive way, so that we're not feeling continually trapped and backlogged on a bunch of feelings that we have halted halfway through. 

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah, for sure. One of the other things that I really like about understanding the emotional influencers and in understanding and unpacking it is it always starts with us. If we don't understand our own journey with this, we're definitely not going to have any grace or empathy for anybody else going through this.  

But it's that peace. It's that like once you have understanding about emotions and how they influence your life, and who you are, and how you show up, and your outcome, and your performance, and everything basically, you have the possibility. Again, it's a conscious choice. But you have the possibility to actually pay attention to other people's emotions and being aware of what somebody else may be going through.  

You're not going to know exactly what it is that caused it or exactly what they are going through. I do believe it does create a sense of empathy and grace for realizing that when there is a reaction, when there is a response, it's not as simple. It's not just what you see. It's not what you see is what you get. There is so much more behind it.  

And so, how can we extend that grace and that empathy to help somebody process those emotions or having that moment of, "I've had to repress this all day. I'm not going to have to like let it out." Can you be the person that that's let out with? Not to? Not be on the receiving end of the lashing, but create a space for that emotion to be able to be expressed in a safe way. 

Alex Cullimore: Yeah. And I think to your point, that starts with yourself. If you can start to give yourself that space of like, "I can feel this," then you understand the importance of that and you can understand that one of the things that they say, and it's sometimes easy to logically think about but hard to understand viscerally, is that we sometimes stop emotions because we're worried we're going to feel them basically forever. We're kind of worried that if we start to cry or something, we're going to cry for a long time. Or we can't get past that. And we do this with other people too. Like, "Oh, they're angry. Can they just stop being angry now? Or can this change or whatever?"  

And it's understandable. It's sometimes uncomfortable to be there. But if you can leave enough space, then you can understand that these things are finite and necessary to let out. You get a lot more grace and compassion for yourself, for others. And you enhance that emotional intelligence, which is understanding your own emotions, others emotions and trying the best you can to use that as data for what needs to happen.  

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah. It is pretty amazing actually how quickly the emotion will pass if you actually acknowledge it and let it live instead of suppressing it. The sadness, the desperation, the frustration, the anger, all those. The more you'll actually say like, "Yes, I am sad and I accept that I have a right to be sad. And so, let me just feel the sadness. Let me feel in the dark place. Let me cry. Let me do whatever I need to do to full on feel it 100%."  

And then, it could be a couple of seconds, a couple of minutes. All of a sudden, you'll turn around and be like, "Oh, okay. It's not quite as powerful anymore." It will come back especially if it's something very impactful. And that's also okay. Just because you feel sad once, that doesn't mean you're done. And you can stop the judgment of yourself being in that place.  

Be angry. Great. Go scream in the pillow or call a friend. Call somebody that you're like, "I am going to have to vent right now," and just vent. Get it all out. Once it's out and you see it out, you're like, "Oh, okay. Well, there goes that energy. That's not stirring inside of me anymore."  

 Alex Cullimore: I had that happen multiple times over the last week here, just of having this practice of trying to get to acceptance in very difficult situations. I ended up taking one of my menageries of cats, went in for a dental and then they found a little mass on her jaw. And they took a biopsy and they were like, "This really looks like cancer. This feels like cancer." And we'll know in like a week when the biopsy comes back.  

And so, all week has been this – and this cat's 2 years old. I mean, she's tiny. She's very young. She's really playful. Very ecstatic. One of our – not to pull favorites, but she is one of our favorites of the menagerie. And so, it's obviously you get thrown for a loop. I mean, you don't get control over a diagnosis like that. You just have to figure out what to do. But it's extremely painful and you have to contemplate the futures of like what you thought was going to happen versus what might be true now all while not knowing what really is true.  

And I had a moment at one point where I just actually like stopped and said to myself like I really don't want this to be happening. And just acknowledging that as a feeling instead of – I had a bunch of voices that kind of tried to raise up there and all the default modes would have been like, "Yeah, you don't get a choice in that." It doesn't matter that you don't want this to happen. This is what's happening. You can't just like turn away from it, stop, denying everything. There's a thousand logical voices that come up. And they're not wrong. I didn't have control over that. But just allowing myself to stop and acknowledge that I really don't want this to be happening. This really sucks.  

And just sitting with that, it was overwhelming for about 20 seconds. And then I had an entirely different outlook for the rest of the day. And, of course, there's still like waves of grief that had come up more after that, and more fear and more worry that continue to pop up. But I had other moments where I wasn't in that level of acceptance. And that feeling would drag on for like an hour because it's constantly like nagging on your brain and, like, "No. Also, don't forget to feel this. Don't forget to feel this. By the way, I'm still worried about this."  

And until you just like let it out, then I could actually like get my mind around it to be here's what I can control and here's what I can't control. Here's what I want to do going forward. Thankfully, we got the biopsy results back yesterday and she does not have cancer, which we were not expecting, but we are very grateful for. That was a happy ending on top of it. But it was a hell of an experience all week of dealing with the potential grief. The grief of what is? What could be? The worry about how difficult this is going to become. And just allowing that accepting that and acknowledging it ended up much better than last time.  

I had like an elderly cat who was nearing the end of his life and there're, of course, thousand difficult decisions you have to make then. And I was much blessed in this space. And there was a lot of roiling and a lot of difficulty just dealing with that. And it's always difficult. This isn't like some cure all and then, magically, everything feels good. But acknowledging that helps you stay in a space that might feel at least more like you're in some conscious choice. You understand what – you allow yourself to be like this is overwhelmingly bad sometimes or this is okay. And it's just okay to feel that and not try and suppress it. All that energy spent suppressing it not only is exhausting, but you still have that feeling at the end of it. At the end of that long tunnel of suppression, it's still there.  

Addressing it a much more effective way and allowing it, and accepting it and just feeling it. And to your point, it is so much shorter than it feels like. I could spend hours denying any of these feelings. But if I had sat and felt it, I'd feel it for 10 minutes, I'd be able to move on to the next one. It's not saying it won't come back, but I will be able to like not just continually sit on and fight that.  

Cristina Amigoni: It's pretty amazing. Once we actually stop fighting, what happens? And also, when we are fighting the emotions because of whatever reason we feel that we have to. Again, it goes back to what were we allowed to express? What do we see around us? What is society telling us we're allowed to be doing?  

But we have this what we call meta-feelings where now you have emotions of emotions. I'm feeling the sadness, the anger, the frustration and then I'm judging it. So now I'm also adding shame to all of those. The unpacking of that becomes very complicated.  

Alex Cullimore: Yeah. Just allowing yourself. And then it becomes like a second layer of – there's like meta acceptance then of meta feelings. Because there's the feeling of like, "Oh, I'm angry that I feel sad about this. Because I don't feel – I know that I don't have control over this." One might imagine not particularly productive or helpful and is a lot of extra weight to carry around to feel judgment about yourself for what you're feeling. So then, you have to like accept that you are feeling the judgment of the feeling, and then accept the feeling and the meta acceptance of the meta feeling so that you can get to the acceptance of the core feeling that's driving that secondary one.  

It can be a twisted journey. Because we don't get to like just have conscious thoughts served up to us, like, "Well, I'm feeling this way because of this. And here's what the other things that are influencing." We just feel it. It takes a while to start putting names to that, but it helps a lot. 

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah, it definitely does. Shall we get into some coaching? 

Alex Cullimore: Sure. Let's jump into it. I can't remember who was coached first last time, but –  

Cristina Amigoni: I don't remember. I think you – I don't know. I think you coached me first. But I don't know.  

Alex Cullimore: Yeah, I think I coached you first. Do you want to –  

Cristina Amigoni: We can reverse.  

Alex Cullimore: I guess. If you feel like it. I'm game. Let's do this.  

Cristina Amigoni: All right. You're the client?  

Alex Cullimore: Yes. 

Cristina Amigoni: All right. Alex, let's talk about some emotional influencer. Let's start with how do you express yourself emotionally?  

Alex Cullimore: Wow. How much time do you have?  

Cristina Amigoni: Start on the light side of the spectrum.  

Alex Cullimore: I think I can talk about this mostly in the abstract just to get a picture of how I express myself emotionally. I think, for a long time, I got very good at repressing emotions, which was a really – it's a very gentle term for becoming very bad at labeling and working with emotions for myself. At least for me, that's what it felt like. I was very much into a lot of emotional repression. I didn't feel like I could express things. I don't have a huge amount of expressing most emotions. And that inevitably ends up being like, "Okay. So, it's bottled up for long enough that eventually it vents out one way or another." And that might be like you end up feeling like – or you. I mean, me. This is all my emotional processing. But I've ended up in various moments either kind of turning that all inward and then feeling like very overwhelmed and then not being able to decide which – going back to the energy levels, this goes very much into like pulling into a level-one space where you're like I can't do anything about this. Emotions are kind of overwhelming at this point and it's too much to deal with. I can't make choices and I don't know what to do here. And a thousand spiraling, catastrophizing thoughts.  

Or venting externally more in that level two area of like, "Okay, I'm going to make this everybody else's problem now. Now I'm angry. Now I'm going to like – you did this thing, which made me upset," which is a good point we should mention in emotional influencers. Nobody makes you feel anything. You just have feelings. Same as the buttons. If the button has been pushed, it means there's a button there. It's our responsibility to figure out what that is. And we don't have a choice in what emotional reactions we might have, but it's not actually somebody else causing that. The situation and the facts of it are creating a reaction for us.  

When I say that I've externalized that and pushed that out, it has been in unproductive ways and untruthful ways of like, "Yeah. Now, I'm angry that you did this thing that made me upset," and whatever else it is. You kind of externalize all that anger and push it as if somebody else has created that feeling. 

And that's what happened for me at the end of not processing emotions. And when I do process them, and I've gotten a lot better at a lot of practices here. A lot of it comes down to journaling. I just really like the process of like a much more full emotional expression of just, "This is my stream of conscious. This is what I'm thinking." I hold off judgment. I'll let myself rail and say things that I know aren't true or that I know are just like frustrations to get out and just let it out. And that's fine.  

I really don't want to grocery shop today. It could be something as basic as that. I know that I have to at some point, but now I'm upset about this. Just allowing things like that, that's been a much healthier way for me to get into expressing this and then being able to do that more with other people, which is a very longwinded answer. But it's a large question.  

Cristina Amigoni: It is a large question. But it is interesting how you talked about the journey. The journey of realizing that not labeling the emotions. Not naming them was kind of like the beginning of, "Well, because I didn't kind of pause to figure out what the emotion was," and went straight to repressing it as much as possible and bottling them in, which then eventually it's like a Coke bottle that you keep shaking and shaking and shaking. Eventually, it's going to explode, which means it's going to explode all over, whoever's around that. There is no control.  

Alex Cullimore: There's going to be splash damage.  

Cristina Amigoni: Yea. There's going to be splash damage. And then, working on stopping that pattern. Or at least improving. Maybe not stopping every time. Because we're never going to be perfect. But improving that pattern so that it's not the same pattern every single time. Journaling and finding ways to feel the emotion, to accept it, to actually process it and then feel it. And then, being able to decide, like, "Okay, it's the acceptance and it's the non-judgment." "This happened. And I just don't feel like going grocery shopping. So, I won't," which then frees up that constant cycle of I am repressing, "I'm not labeling. So, I'm repressing. So, I'm creating a whole new Coke bottle. I'm spilling. And then I have to deal with that consequence." 

Alex Cullimore: Yes. I had done it for enough years that like it did feel like I had exploded Coke bottles all over my life and go back and like do a lot of wiping up of a lot of surfaces. Sometimes other people are so sorry about that. That one, that was on you.  

Oh, it's an apt description. And so much of it is like just layers on layers of bottling. And you can absolutely – I think one thing that's important to note is that – and for me and I think for a lot of people, repression feels a lot like a game of shoulds. I shouldn't feel angry. I should feel this. I should go grocery shopping anyway. I should do this. Those are a thousand different ways of just logically telling ourselves what might absolutely be true that it needs to happen that way, but it's not helpful in terms of our processing and allowing ourselves to let that out and still do or make a better conscious choice about what we're going to do in something as simple as grocery shopping.  

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah, definitely. Well, and we all know that the shoulds are a big red flag. The shoulds that we impose on ourselves. The shoulds we impose on others. As soon as we start thinking that way and using those words, they're definitely a big red flag. Because for the most part, especially in human nature, at least my human nature, as soon as we hear a should not, guess what we're going to focus on doing? It's exactly the opposite of what we're not supposed to be doing, we should not be doing. That's where the energy goes because of the emotional reaction to the should and the should not.  

And so, having that awareness of like how many shoulds am I using when I'm looking at my emotions, and what I feel, and the meta feelings and the journey of the emotional piece. And how can I mitigate that? How can I reframe those shoulds?  

If you think about when this kind of autocycle was happening and then you kind of found a new journey to not let that take control over you all the time, what helped you move away from the auto spinning?  

Alex Cullimore: It was an inherently complex journey for one. Because step one often is being able to label and having some awareness of these things, right? Because I'd gotten just absolute Olympic-level expert at repressing emotions, I was not good at labeling them. I couldn't have told you like what this really is. Where it's really coming from. I'd feel not great and find ways to just ignore that for long enough to not feel it as much. And eventually, of course, inevitably, the Coke bottle eventually pops.  

But I think the first part of the journey was a lot of labeling. And I was given – some of my exercises, there were things like body scans. I'm feeling this. Where am I feeling that in my body? And then starting to kind of document like, "Oh, yeah. There's actually a little bit of difference in my body between when I feel frustrated versus when I feel angry. I feel frustrated on something. I just can't figure it out." And so, I can kind of feel that a lot more nodding in my forehead of like just furrowed brow, tightness there.  

Whereas anger can be much more of like a body sensation and kind of like a chest inflation and like warmth. I started to like label things that way and started to tie them up with the few words that were usually given for emotional context. I feel angry, I feel happy and I feel sad. And those are like the three things we usually go to.  

And when there are actually like – an Atlas of the Heart does a great of describing this. There are 40,000 different actual words out there for what emotions can be. And all these little shades of gray. And that helps us actually know these things. When we start to separate that – that was definitely part one of the journey, was being able to label that. And that's a long one.  

Part two is once you've labeled it, for me anyway, I started to get better at like labeling these things. But I was not great at figuring out what to do with that. It's like, "Okay, now I realized that I'm feeling angry about this." And I was trying to get better at just like allowing myself to be angry about things, but it wasn't coming out in particularly productive ways.  

Yeah, I feel upset about this. So, I'm just going to like fight back on whatever. I'm currently verbally arguing with somebody over. Whatever it is. And that is not super helpful either. Because I'm just basically just trying to express only like that I am angry. Not what to do about it. Not what I'd like to see happen. Not what is causing the anger. Just I got better at saying that, yeah, I'm currently angry. Which was a step. There was just so much more to go after that.  

Once I started to kind of get around that, I started to realize that like I needed to figure out. When I say I realized, there was somewhat journaling, somewhat therapists, coaches. Just all the helping professions that you can have to help unpack these things, which I highly recommend finding. Because they are incredibly helpful. Having that sounding board, that helps identify like, "Okay, you're feeling this. You have those. What are things that – what are you hoping will happen? What are you hoping will not happen? What can you do to put yourself in a good mind space to do that? And how can you understand that you're now currently triggered on this?"  

Or this comes back to an experience you had where you're like, "Oh, I didn't feel like I could have a voice here." Is that triggering and is that what's causing some of the anger that might be unnecessary? Or at least an overreaction in the situation compared to how you'd like to be able to react? And so, starting to figure out like how would I like to react. And then balance that with – that we're talking about, the control portion. It's not about containing and exercising full control over the emotions so much. It's what do you really want to choose to do with this?  

And starting to see that as a choice was incredibly powerful. And it took a while of practice before you're like, "Oh, no. I actually do have a little bit of a say in this." Where I can actually choose a little bit more like, "Oh, I'm feeling angry about this. And I would like to express this. If I need to figure out way more of what I need to express, then maybe I need to take a pause in the conversation and figure out what I really want to say." Maybe it's about giving yourself that space. Maybe it's, "Okay, here's the things that are upsetting me." Or, like, "Hey, I realize this might not make sense." Or you can see after you've labeled it, you're like, "Oh, I'm angry about this." That's probably caused from this. Here's what I'd like to do instead.  

I think that pausing, that labeling is incredibly important. Not easy to do. I fail on it all the time. But that's definitely been I think the current part of the journey, is being much better at like, in almost real-time, labeling and allowing that. 

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah. That's very powerful. And it definitely – as you said, it's a long journey. It's not a switch overnight. It takes a lot of practice. It takes a lot of consciously wanting to be on the journey so that you can get consciously choosing how you react to your emotions. And knowing that it's not going to be perfect every time. And sometimes it's going to happen. Sometimes it's not going to happen. And having that grace to just keep going, keep trying. Because it is a learning process that can improve and has a lot of impact.  

What's the cost of not going through this journey and just bottling up and then spilling all over the place?  

Alex Cullimore: Hard to pick just one. The costs are numerous in a few different ways, right? For one, there's actual physical toll on your body. I had a lot of tension for many years. And I could just feel like I would – I was in my 20s, early 20s and had like a massive neck pain. I was waking up with like stiff joints and nothing was – things that people tend to complain about in nursing homes. I'm waking up at like 25 and feeling like I have like just massive tension. Can't move well. There's the buildup of actual physical reactions that I think just that tension is held in the body. And if you're not releasing it, it's literally held. A great book called The Body Keeps the Score, where we physically have to hold on to these things.  

And it makes sense. We are, in the end, atoms that somehow our feelings and emotions are held somewhere in some physical form of chemical reaction or whatever it is. There is a physical toll for one. There's the relationship toll of like I can't have as deeper relationships when I'm in this like much more bottling up space. Because I'm not opening up. And I don't feel comfortable around other people. And they're then not going to be able to feel as comfortable around me. And now I'm not being able to express everything that I'd like to express. I'm not giving everybody opportunity to see me and to have the chance to know me.  

And thus, I'm cutting off like deeper connections, deeper relationships. There's a huge cost there. And then there's just the burden of knowing that – just that feeling that constant stress and tension of I'm holding on to something that I can't really admit, accept or work with and what I feel like is productive.  

And because of a lot of like feeling and desire of like repressing feelings, it was hard to get into the space of releasing those without them being fairly overwhelming. Because they built up so long. Very much like the coke bottle. By the time you release that pressure, it's fairly explosive. And that then feels very difficult to control. And it is. It's very much like a coke bottle that it's now bursting. I would hold on to things for so long that the cost was like that it would become explosive, which was not helpful.  

Yeah. Those are some of the numerous costs that it was kind of exacting and continues to exact when I don't do a great job of this and I will forever not do a perfect job of this. But those are some of the continual things that I'm reminded of. And it's helpful sometimes to know that, I think, for me. Because it reminds me like here's what is costing me to not go face this. I go address this.  

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah. Makes perfect sense. That's some very good awareness of what the cost is and that it's never going to be completely reduced. But it can definitely be better and improved. And it's the keep going piece as well.  

A couple of last questions. Let me see if I remember them. Because they were a lot of nuggets in there and I was like, "How do we not turn this into a three-hour coaching session?" One piece that you mentioned is having the environment. Having the space to be able to express these emotions. And when you didn't feel like you had that, that's when the bottling up happened more.  

And so, thinking of all this awareness and all this work that you've done, that you continue to do to understand your emotions and being able to, again, control them. Not repress them. But control them and have a saying and how they show up and how you show up while you're feeling them. What kind of space allows you to express in the most productive way your emotions?  

Alex Cullimore: That is an excellent question. There's a few things that go into it. The number one thing that always comes up when I think about like what feels more comfortable. I mean, ultimately, it's when you can be authentic, you can feel more comfortable. For me, I think the thing that comes up is non-judgment. And judgment can come out in a bunch of different ways when I feel like people are like, "Please stop being angry about that." That's very clear like don't do this.  

But there's also like more subtle judgments I think that we feel where like we get the idea that the group doesn't want to hear what we're thinking, or doesn't accept what we're thinking, or has a differing opinion. And that can be – it's obviously natural to have different opinions on things. But it can become more uncomfortable to express emotions unless you're very comfortable in your own emotional space.  

I think, for me, that goes twofold. And I need space alone to do a lot of journaling to kind of keep things processed. Otherwise, I'll build up a lot of mental clutter, which will make it more difficult to have the acceptance for other people's reactions if they're pushing the other direction or pushing a way that feels like it's against or not in congruence with what I'm currently feeling. Or they don't want to allow for that. Or it doesn't feel like they want to allow for that.  

Non-judgment I think is one of the biggest spaces. And the other thing that's always incredibly helpful and sometimes in the most challenging emotions difficult to get to is humor. And we do this all the time and we laugh all the time in what we do in our work. And we can't take it all so seriously. Otherwise, it would be very sometimes draining. But why not enjoy it?  

The lack of judgment and humor are two things that come up that are particularly like this is a very liberating space if you can get into those. Humor has to be pretty honest to be particularly funny. And non-judgment allows that space to express.  

Cristina Amigoni: But very important pieces, especially the non-judgment. It's definitely – as you said, it makes sense to be able to feel like you can express emotion when there is no judgment of that expression, or the emotion, or of you, or of also the script of what like you're supposed to be showing, or not showing, or doing, or not doing, or being, or not being. And so, the judgment peace can go very deep very fast if this space and the people around you do create that.  

It is also very interesting how you connected the fact that if you're not able to be in that space to express your emotion. And that clutter also drives you to not really being open to how others are expressing their emotions. Then, it becomes this, again, chain of reactions. Now you're very good at creating the space where people create and to express emotions. And the more clutter you have, you may not be able to create that space as well as you usually do. And so, then it impacts them. And it's going to impact the next person and the next person and the next person. And it just keeps going. And then the world is a very angry, and frustrated and depressed place. 

Alex Cullimore: That's a great summary of it. That is exactly how it ends up being. It is this weird chain effect. It's a chain reaction of like, "Hey, this didn't work. And now that's spilling into this portion of my life. And now that's spilling into this portion of my life." Like, "Oh, my God. We're down a five-car pileup here."  

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. Indeed. For sure. All right. Well, thank you, Alex. Shall we switch it over?  

Alex Cullimore: Yeah. Thank you. Yeah, let's swap over. And I'm going to start with the same fairly open question. How do you express yourself emotionally?  

Cristina Amigoni: I was really hoping that since I used it, you'd use another one.  

Alex Cullimore: It was too good. It has too many gems in it. 

Cristina Amigoni: Ah. Isn't that a clear way of how I express my emotions? No.  

Alex Cullimore: I don't want to be challenged on how I express my emotions. Duly noted. 

Cristina Amigoni: How do I express my emotions? I would say similar journey of repressing. I have this image – oh, it's not an image. It's a very clear memory of something that really happened. It was not a dream. And interestingly enough, it actually comes back and I dream about that not very often, but every once in a while. But I actually repressed emotions for the vast majority of my childhood, if not all of it.  

I don't know if good is a good adjective for that. But I definitely was an expert at repressing emotions, especially difficult emotions of anger, frustration, unfairness, feeling left out, feeling that I couldn't express my emotions, that I couldn't express my ideas. Feeling invisible, feeling undervalued. All of those. A lot of the value-driven actually triggers. Until I was 15 years old and we were in Turkey on vacation with a bunch of families, and we were playing tennis. And it was a bunch of us friends and a couple of the adults playing with us. And my dad was telling people what to do. And that was kind of like the first time I realized how much that triggers me when I'm told what to do. And even more when I'm told what not to do. That is probably one of the biggest buttons I have.  

And I don't know what happened. Age, heat. Who knows? But I completely lost it. It was one of those Hulk. I call it Hulk moments. Because I went from being Bruce Banner in the corner of an apartment in India hiding, and protecting everything, and staying away from triggers, and being quiet and not having any friendships and relationships that could potentially push buttons to smash.  

I mean, talk about Coke bottles and Hulk smashing. I don't ever think I've screamed as loud as I did that day ever. And it was completely uncontrollable clearly once the bottle popped or the whole Coke truck of bottles popped. But it scared me. It scared me to realize that that was something I could do, that that was inside of me.  

And also, it scared me to realize that I didn't know how to control it. I didn't know how to not go from the bottling everything up to then exploding. And it took me a while. I mean, again, that was probably the most impactful explosion I had. But I've had a few more here and there and a few more kind of like going back into the pattern of like just bottle it up, bottle it up, bottle it up. I can do this. I'm an expert. It doesn't have to come out. And then the explosion happens.  

The journey was definitely started that way. Similar. And then, I learned I couldn't bottle them up. And so, for good or bad, I am better. Again, judgment, better. But I don't bottle things up very often. Actually, I hardly ever. And so, I don't get to the point of explosion. And through coaching, becoming a coach, being coached, focusing on the human side of things, emotional intelligence, training and all of those things, I have learned to pause when I feel something. I get triggered physically, as you mentioned. I'm pretty good at understanding the physical map of which button is where and which value is being challenged.  

And just really doing a lot of just accepting. I mean, I feel this way. I'm going to accept it. And then choosing. Choosing. Is this something that I can push aside? Because this is not the time and the place. Or is this something that I can't push aside and I do need to go deal with? Because it's going to be distracting.  

And so, I've also learned to figure that out. And sometimes it would be in the middle of a work day or maybe not in the middle of a meeting. That's pretty rare. But as soon as there is a break in a meeting, if it's during the workday, I will go for a walk. I will reach out. My way of expressing now it's usually physical. Remove myself from the space, the situation, the room that it was in. And also, reach out for help.  

And so, send the SOS to whoever like my close SOS receivers are and be like, "Hey, this happened. And I need to let it out." It needs to get out. I cannot let this build up.  

Alex Cullimore: That actually makes sense. It sounds like that explosive moment at 15 was a kind of a catalyst for understanding that it can be built up and then that the inevitable release can be even harder to control. And more challenging sometimes than some of the bottlings. It sounds like you've become much more aware of that. You feel like you try and release the pressure, so to speak, more often. So that it's not kind of building up.  

What are some cues for you when you realize that there is pressure building up? What do you notice?  

Cristina Amigoni: I would say, again, very much of a body scan and what it is. And I think we talked about some of these in the spiritual influencers because they come from values, and purpose and the meaning. And so, tightness of my throat if I feel like my voice is not welcomed, if I'm being judged for speaking and being judged for not speaking and will be judged for both.  

Chest tightness, fists, hand. Definitely shoulders and neck. If I don't express it fast enough, loss of sleep, digestions. Just stomach nausea. Those are some of them. And I'm pretty good at figuring them out. What I've noticed recently actually is that something that I thought was going to be more triggering for me because I wasn't opening up about it as fast as I had in the past. I kind of waited to see how my body would react before deciding if I needed to process and if I needed the external help to process it.  

And after two or three days of realizing that I hadn't lost sleep, I was like, "Okay. It's not as deep as it may be. Because I'm not losing sleep. And I don't like the internal dialogue." That's still happen and that needs to be released. That's when pretty much talked to you and I said like, "Hey, I need to release this. It can't be circling anymore."  

Alex Cullimore: That's a really cool illustration of like a framework of understanding what the buildup looks like. And then playing with that as data. Is this enough that it's causing me to lose sleep? If it is losing sleep, maybe this is deeper and I really need to reach out. If it's still there, what's still lingering about it and what could I do to release that? That's a great – it almost sounds like a nice flowchart of like, "Hey, here's what I'm going to try now. And given that, given what I'm understanding now, here's what I'd like to do going forward." 

It's fascinating and great awareness as well as great practices on ways that you are able to address some of that feeling of like pressure build up. You feel like it's not serving you as much.  

You touched on something really interesting that I just want to ask about. I'm curious where it comes from for you. You mentioned that you don't like being told what to do, but you like even less being told what not to do. Can you expand on that a little bit? What is that?  

Cristina Amigoni: It's a good question. I'm aware of it. I don't know that I've done the work to actually figure that out. Generally speaking, I don't, which is the same thing really. I don't function well in boxes. And that's what I see usually when I'm told what not to do or I'm not allowed to do, especially if the words allowed are used. That's it. I mean, you might as well just run because Hulk is going to come out and I'm not going to be able to control it.  

I find that lack of freedom to be very offensive. Because I think we worked through some of this when you helped me kind of release the internal dialogue. It shows me that I am not being accepted for me. Usually, the pieces that trigger the I'm not allowed to do this are the pieces that are tied to values.  

Whether it's wanting to share a gift or something I think that it's important to me and being told that I can't. Human connections. Being able to connect with people. But as I narrow it down, it's whenever I am not allowed to connect with people in the way that I want to genuinely connect with them. Whatever the situation is prohibiting me from being me in relation to connecting with others. That's the biggest trigger of the not allowed.  

If somebody told me like, "Oh, like you're not allowed to wear whatever after Labor Day," I couldn't care less. But it's really when it's that allowed. Like you're not allowed to speak to people. You're not allowed to facilitate what you want to facilitate in this environment. You're not allowed to reach out. You're not allowed to meet. You're not allowed to build a relationship. That's where the biggest trigger is.  

It's is a core value. Wanting and valuing human connections, deep human connections. If I am not allowed to get to know somebody else in the deepest way and in the way that I know how to get there, I will feel like I can't live. Now I can't be me. Now I can't be me. I'm not accepted as me. And I start doubting if the other person or whoever's imposing is, "Do you know me at all?" Clearly, you don't know me at all. If you don't know me, then you don't value me. You don't appreciate me. Then what is this? Then this relationship now is in question.  

Alex Cullimore: That's a great awareness of both the tie and of kind of an emotional influencer plus a spiritual influencer. I mean, the fact that that spiritual influencer, the value of connection, the value of being able to be yourself is being challenged is coming out with emotional context, which is absolutely makes sense. That's 100% normal that we would end up with, yeah, "This is challenging my values." This is going to create some feelings. That'll absolutely shake that Coke bottle. That's going to turn that a little bit. That's like throwing a Mento in there sometimes. Just give that immediate explosion.  

You hit on something really interesting you talked about when you think about being told what to do versus what not to do. You talked about it brings up the idea that when somebody's saying what not to do, they're giving you a wall. Like, you can't go past here. When somebody tells you what to do, it's like asking you to be here's what's important and here's what – and you might be able to understand, especially if it's well-communicated. Like, yeah, I can see why you might need me to do this right now. I'll go over and do this. Whether or not that's immediately what I wanted. Sure. Great.  

But the other one then it's it sounds like it's a core challenge to almost your authenticity of like, "Hey, if I'm being told what not to do, I'm being told I can't be here." Given your description of your story here of getting to that space of being able to process these things feels like – and you can tell me how this resonates with you. It feels like that challenge is a fairly large button of like, "Oh, I'm not being allowed to now do the work that I've fought so hard to be able to do." This repression of, "Hey, here's the story that I've built. This is now challenging the progress, the person I've become."  

Cristina Amigoni: No. It definitely does. And it actually relates to a podcast I heard yesterday that I shared with you as well. It's just this 7-minute, 10-minute warning kind of not meditation, but inspiration, inspirational podcast. It talks about finding your purpose and how we all have a purpose. And our purpose is – the way that the host explained it, it's actually tied to the things that we're finding are challenging in our lives and especially in our childhood.  

The podcast talks about how our souls were put in a specific situation because that's a situation we need to help others with. And so, if we experience it first, we can understand better how to potentially help others go through that. And so, I've been now stuck. I'm trying to figure out, "What's my purpose? What's my purpose?"  

Going back – and not that I figure it out. But if I go back to what is it that was challenging or that is still challenging when those walls are put in with me is the invisibility. Is the not being able to be accepted and seen as me. And not being able to be seen at all.  

And so, if I also think about somebody asking me what your why is, I always use the quote. My why is to make sure that everybody feels like a somebody. And so, it goes beyond me. It's like I know what it's like to be feel like a nobody. And so, my mission, my why is really to make sure that nobody else experiences that as a permanent state.  

Everybody's probably going to experience that at some point. And I can't fix that. But what can I do? How can I create a space where at least I'm not the one that triggers that feeling in somebody else to be a no one? And so, I don't know if I answered the question. But, basically, it's the awareness of the walls, create invisibility. And invisibility is not just bad for me. I've mastered how to live in it and suffer in it, but I won't accept that for others if I can do something about it. 

Alex Cullimore: That absolutely makes sense as such a core value. And you ' even mentioned it as your why. As like this is – I want to make sure I'm somebody who makes other people feel like somebody. I'm going to give that space. And that's definitely how you've lived. We've seen that reflected in client testimonials. People get feeling in that space.  

And so, it would be a direct challenge to that. If you're feeling like people are telling you what not to do, this is direct challenge to being able to create that space and now you're being – it's like being told you're too much or not enough. Always very damaging. You're not allowed to do this in this way. That absolutely makes sense that it could be triggering. When that happens, when somebody is stepping on that button and that is triggered, what actions do you tend to take?  

Cristina Amigoni: I would say, first, recognize that the button was pushed. And I can get there pretty fast. And then I would say start understanding, unpacking that. And from an action perspective, that may mean stepping away. If it's text message, or an email, or a non-live situation, go for a walk. Get the outdoor. Seeing how much is that dialogue creating, still lingering? And I able to let go and evaluate? Is this a temporary situation? Is this one of those emotional moments where, "Okay, my emotions got triggered. I'm not going to react if I can. Let me stop the reaction. Take a pause. Whether it's a few seconds, or a few minutes, or a few days from reacting to this." But also, trying to extend that empathy.  

If I feel that empathy hasn't been extended to me, how can I turn that around? How can I try to understand what triggered the walls? What triggered the prohibition? How can I extend grace to figure out that, well, maybe this is not about me? Most times it's not about me. And so, is this something that will impact me to the point that I can't let it go? Or is it something that I can just let go because it was just a moment?  

And the impact on the outcomes and on the actions are not that big. If it's a permanent situation, that will continuously impact my life, my results, the value I can provide to others, and especially the latter, the value I can provide to others. Then it needs to be addressed.  

And at that point, it's more of a curiosity journey of let me process a frustration in a safe space with a coach, with a coach friend, with a friend, with whoever can allow that space for me to process their frustration, so that I can enter the conversation with the individual, individuals' situation about the walls without the frustration, with the curiosity of, "Is this temporary? Is this permanent? Is there any way of changing this? Can I explain why it's important?" And then we can reach a compromise or a collaboration piece and then kind of go from there.  

And I've been in instances when it's not temporary. There is no compromise. The wall is – the more we talk, the more the conversation continues, the thicker the wall gets. And so, then I remove myself from the room. It's like then this is not not in my room anymore. If I can't be myself, then I am wasting my energy. So, I going to go somewhere else. 

Alex Cullimore: That absolutely makes sense. Always a choice to help get ourselves into a place where we can be more accepted. And one really fascinating thing that you've hit there is this idea, this value challenge where somebody comes out and they've told you you can't do something. You feel like you're now no longer allowed to express and connect with people the way that you want to.  

You mentioned that like then I feel like I'm not being given the space for empathy. And that makes me want to figure out what's the empathetic response here. Interestingly, you've already turned this challenge of your values into an opportunity to practice that exact same value, which is a fascinating and beautiful turn of this is how I saw it. This is how I would like to express that. And it's a very powerful turn of events of like, "Hey, I'm feeling challenged on values here. But here's what I can do that is actually playing in my values and understanding and continually evaluating to the point of, "Okay, if this can't move, then this is not the place that I need to be. This is where I can move on."  

That's well-articulated and a great process. I'm curious where you might find opportunities to give yourself grace in the process that is inevitably kind of a roller coaster as you go through that? 

Cristina Amigoni: Good question. What places can I give myself grace? I don't know. I've been lucky, if lucky is a word to use as a proper word here, enough to create that in the vast majority, that space that I need in the vast majority of my life. It's fairly rarely challenged at this point. And I would say when it is challenged, the grace that I give myself is that reminder of stepping away.  

Even though there's a big, strong pull to react, it's knowing that what I'm feeling is okay and accepting it. And I know what to do. I know what the next step in the process is. And it is the stepping away. It is the sharing if necessary. It's necessary every time. It's the sharing. What are all those steps?  

And really, kind of the grace where I – very slowly get to answer the question. I would say that grace is the non-judgment. If it's something that's really triggering – it's a pretty fast highway to self-judgment. To judging my value of wanting and needing human connections.  

And I would say that when I recently faced that challenge, that was probably the hardest part, is that I had to – that the internal dialogue was all about having to justify that it's okay for me to have that value. That it's okay for me to live my life that way. And I don't need the articles and the data. And I don't need the world to give me permission. That's where probably the biggest grace that I could use myself is stop judging it to the point where I don't need permission. This is the way it is. This is who I am. This is a core value. And that's it.  

Alex Cullimore: That is well put. That that's always a difficult journey of getting into that space of allowing ourselves to do that, especially when we're particularly challenged to where it's something that's so core. If you were to give yourself maybe a mantra, or something, or a small phrase to remind yourself to enter that and maybe allow that, "I am. This is who I am. And this is a core value. And that's all that I need," what would be a phrase or a way to want to remind yourself of that?  

Cristina Amigoni: I would say it's the phrase that I put on my LinkedIn banner five years ago, and it's the same phrase that I live by, is the Ubuntu. It's the I am who I am because we are. There is no I without the we. And I am not willing to having to justify that, to having to explain it and fight for it. If I have to fight for it, I'm in the wrong room with the wrong people.  

Alex Cullimore: That's well but. And good measure of self-protection and understanding of like here's what I can do. Here's what I can't do. And here's what I'm willing to do and not do. And a beautiful example of conscious choice as well. This is what I can do. This is what I can't do. I do want to just acknowledge and celebrate just a process that you've gone through. I mean, you've built a very robust framework for working through life's inevitable curveballs and challenges. We're all going to have them no matter what we do. We're always going to end up with these moments. Well done on creating such a robust system for yourself and understanding of yourself to be able to work through something like that.  

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah. We'll see how robust it is the next time this comes by and how fast it crumbles.  

Alex Cullimore: Every time, there's a new challenge. What's the phrase? Oh, I think maybe it's Hemingway or something I think I had a quote that was like, "The world will break most people. But the ones who come back together will be stronger at the broken places. Will break everybody." There's always going to be a challenge and there's always – and in that, there's an opportunity to make our broken places more robust and understand our system a little better.  

And it sounds like you've done so much of that. You've already got a good robust system, which life just then guarantees it'll throw another one and we'll take out a new challenge. And that's fun.  

Cristina Amigoni: Yup. And a bigger challenge will come in and see how robust the system is.  

Alex Cullimore: Every time, there's a new boulder.  

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. It's going to be a bigger one. The important thing is to listen to it. Can't prevent the challenges.  

Alex Cullimore: It's not worth trying to prevent the challenges. The challenges are what make us who we are and they make us better in the end. And we always look back on challenges with like, "Man, I got through that. What does that say?" That's great. That's great to know about. We can try and avoid challenges. They'll come for us. Life will happen. 

Cristina Amigoni: It will happen. It'll definitely will. All right. 

Alex Cullimore: Thank you so much for sharing. 

Cristina Amigoni: Oh, thank you. good questions. It's always hard to be coached.  

Alex Cullimore: Coaching is a blast. It is like just this challenge of yourself against yourself. And times, that is like, "Oh, my God. I'm much more of an adversary in this particular arena than I thought. I'm really not ready to address this one." That's always fun to run – I think when you start to do that enough, it starts to feel more like, "Oh, hey. This is been massive opportunity." Instead of like, "Oh, this is a massive block." This is like, "Oh, there's something huge that's available on the other side of this. I'm going to have to really dig in."  

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah, it definitely is. That is what I appreciate. And it is. It's this constant choice. It's like, "Ah, okay. Well, I can avoid this or I can actually face it. Where am I going to go?" There's a perceived ease on one side, but it's not easy. Let's just go face the challenge. There's another one. There's another layer. There's another onion to be peeled. It's like we're not done yet. Just go do it. It's really not an option. At least for me, it's not an option.  

Alex Cullimore: It's not an option if you want to release and be more authentic. You have to go through the struggle. And the fun part about doing things like coaching and just getting to do this kind of work is understanding all the angles at which you can investigate this and probe this and start to build a robust understanding of like, "What might be challenged here? What could I do here?" And then a set of questions for yourself and a set of resources around you that you go get to ask those questions for you. That's the best part about having coach friends. They'll ask questions you didn't think of.  

Cristina Amigoni: Or the one question that you don't want to ask yourself, they're the first question they're going to ask. 

Alex Cullimore: Oh, they always know. 

Cristina Amigoni: Every time.  

Alex Cullimore: That's when you know you got a really good coach. And they're like, "Well, it seems like this." I was hoping you didn't notice that. I don't want to address that.  

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. It's really good to have a good set of coach friends is because, while you may get in your own way and try to get away with it, they won't. And you know that. The courage to reach out and the sending the SOS message, it's that courage to be like, "Okay, how long am I going to get in my own way and avoid this?" Because as soon as I say help to a coach, them I'm like, "And now I'm going to face it whether I like it or not."  

Alex Cullimore: That is the internal block about reaching out for help half the time. It's like, "Oh, God. If I do this, I'm going to breathe oxygen into it and have to face it." 

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. Yeah. Yeah, which is why it took me two days to actually reach out the last time. Because I'm like, "I don't want to face what I need to face. And it's not going to be an option the minute I send the message."  

Alex Cullimore: Yep. Yeah, what are friends for yeah.  

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah. Exactly. Enjoy the emotional influencers.  

Alex Cullimore: Yes, thank you so much for joining.  

Cristina Amigoni: Thank you.  

[OUTRO] 

Cristina Amigoni: Thank you for listening to Uncover the Human, a Siamo podcast.  

Alex Cullimore: Special thanks to our podcast operations wizard, Jake Lara; and our score creator, Rachel Sherwood.  

Cristina Amigoni: If you have enjoyed this episode, please share, review and subscribe. You can find our episodes wherever you listen to podcasts.  

Alex Cullimore: We would love to hear from you with feedback, topic ideas or questions. You can reach us at podcast@wearesiamo.com, or at our website, wearesiamo.com, LinkedIn, Instagram or Facebook. We Are Siamo is spelled W-E A-R-E S-I-A-M-O. 

Cristina Amigoni: Until next time, listen to yourself, listen to others and always uncover the human. 

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