Secret #32: Choicefulness with Dr. Aprilia West
In this episode of 'Life's Dirty Little Secrets,' hosts Chris McCurry and Emma Waddington engage in an insightful conversation with Dr. Aprilia West, a renowned psychologist, executive coach, and author, about the concept of 'choicefulness.' West, with over 20 years of experience working with various individuals and organizations, delves into how our power lies in our moments of choice.
She explains how default reactions can limit our potential and discusses the importance of mindful, intentional decision-making. The conversation covers practical steps for developing choicefulness, recognizing cognitive and emotional biases, and aligning actions with what truly matters to us.
This engaging and enlightening discussion is essential for anyone looking to tap into their full potential and live a more intentional life.
Highlights:
Defining choicefulness
Emotional efficacy
Defaults and behavior patterns
Values and decision making
Cognitive biases
Emotionally driven decisions
TIMESTAMPS
[02:16] Defining Choicefulness
[03:58] Living by Design vs. Default
[05:51] Examples of Default Reactions
[09:34] Steps to Develop Choicefulness
[11:47] Understanding Emotional Signals
[18:00] Biases and Interferences in Choices
[34:13] Exploring Personal Values
[41:09] Conclusion and Farewell
About Dr. Aprilia West
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Dr. Aprilia West brings 20+ years of real-world experience working with individuals, leaders and organizations across a range of industries, including Fortune 500 companies, U.S. Congress, entertainment industry executives, artists and creatives, and tech founders to increase wellbeing and performance. Her extensive experience as a psychologist, executive coach and trainer gives her a niche understanding of human behavior and how to facilitate positive, prosocial change.
In 2015, Dr. West developed the construct of emotional efficacy, the ability and belief that you can harness your emotions and align your actions with your values in the face of stress, distress and challenge. She also designed, tested and continues to supervise ongoing research on an evidence-based protocol, Emotion Efficacy Therapy, designed to expand emotional intelligence, psychological flexibility and resilience and a related assessment, the Emotion Efficacy Scale-2 (EES2)
Dr. West has authored several books and publications related to psychology and decision-making including: ACT for Your Best Life (2023), What You Feel Is Not All There Is (2021) and she is coauthor of Acceptance and Commitment Coaching in the Workplace in Positive Psychology in the Workplace (Springer 2021) and the clinician’s guide to Emotion Efficacy Therapy (2016). In addition, Dr. West trains professionals worldwide in applying contextual behavioral science in clinical and organizational settings.
Dr. West is a fellow with the Institute of Coaching, McLean, affiliate of Harvard Medical School, is credentialed as a professional certified coach (PCC) through the International Coaching Federation. She is also a founding member and past president of the Southern California chapter for the Association of Contextual Behavioral Science (ACBS) and a member of the Society of Consulting Psychology (Division 13) of the American Psychological Association.
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Secret #32: Choicefulness with Dr. Aprilia West
Introduction and Guest Welcome
[00:00:00]
Chris McCurry: Hello, I'm Chris McCurry, and this is Life's Dirty Little Secrets.
Emma Waddington: Hello, I'm Emma Waddington, and I am so delighted to have Aprilia West here with us. I've known Aprilia for a few years, and it's my delight to have her today. She brings [00:01:00] over 20 years experience with individuals, leaders, organizations across a range of industries, including fortune 500 companies. US Congress, entertainment industry, executives, artists, creatives, tech founders to increase wellbeing and performance, her extensive experience as a psychologist, executive coach, and trainer gives her a niche understanding of human behavior which is wonderful. And she's coauthored several books and publications related to psychology and decision making, including act for your best life, which was published last year.
Emma Waddington: What you feel is not all there is, which was published in 2021. And that's the one we're going to be focusing on today. And she's co author of acceptance and commitment, coaching in the workplace and positive psychology in the workplace spring of 2021. So that was published a couple of years ago and the clinicians guide to emotion efficacy therapy, which is how I met a pretty, which is a fantastic book and model [00:02:00] actually.
Emma Waddington: So today we're going to be talking together about choicefulness. So welcome, Aprilia. Thank you so much for coming.
Dr. Aprilia West: Thank you so much for having me. I'm looking forward to this conversation with you guys.
Emma Waddington: Yes. Yes. It's going to be brilliant.
Defining Choicefulness
Emma Waddington: So maybe we can kick off with defining choicefulness. What do we mean by that?
Dr. Aprilia West: Yeah. So choicefulness is I don't know if I made it up, but I don't know if I've seen it anywhere else. And it's really something I got to through my study of emotion science, because what I gleaned from over 10 years of research and working on the emotion efficacy therapy protocol and piloting that, and then creating the construct of emotion efficacy Was that our power is found in moments of choice.
Dr. Aprilia West: That's really where we get to choose how we want to show up what we want to express [00:03:00] what we want to expand or contract. And when people don't realize this, they often end up living their lives and what I refer to as just a trance of reactivity. Transcribed by https: otter. ai Which, you know, it's not bad or wrong.
Dr. Aprilia West: It's how we're designed to be. But if we really care about tapping our full potential and what's possible for us in life, then we need to develop more choicefulness. And I define choicefulness as really just how skillful you are in optimizing for what matters most, even in the face of stress or anxiety.
Dr. Aprilia West: Challenge and pain.
Emma Waddington: So, yes, that's, that's such an interesting Introduction and just a thought about choicefulness that often we think we are making choices, but what you're suggesting is that sometimes we're not like that more about that reactive part.
Dr. Aprilia West: well, so the key is exactly what you just said there, that reactive part.
Living by Default vs. Design
Dr. Aprilia West: So, you know, [00:04:00] in any moment we're living our lives by default or design and default means simply that we just are reacting in the way that we're hardwired to react to our environment. And that can be what's happening inside of us can be what's happening outside of us.
Dr. Aprilia West: And typically that helps people survive or think fast on their feet when something's happening and they need to make a quick choice. when we function more to live by design, what we're doing is we're actually assessing what really matters to us in the context we're in. And then we're choosing our behavior very intentionally by being creative to show up in ways that we actually move toward what matters to us.
Dr. Aprilia West: So in that inside of that, you could think of any choice that you make as moving you either toward or away from what really matters to you. And in that [00:05:00] default mode, unfortunately, a lot of times we end up just doing whatever feels easiest or most familiar or least threatening or most comfortable or most practiced.
Dr. Aprilia West: So it's not it's not the way to live your most creative, intentional, flexible life.
Emma Waddington: So thinking about that, that default, because I think that this is for many people, quite a new way of thinking about behavior. Like, I don't think we often realize to what extent the default and the reactivity is there. And so maybe we could give some examples cause I think people do probably recognize when they are very scared of something or very angry and they say something they didn't want to.
Emma Waddington: But I think it can be even more nuanced than that.
Dr. Aprilia West: Yes, definitely. Definitely.
Examples of Default Reactions
Dr. Aprilia West: So even as I'm sitting here now, you know, I noticed that. I'm holding my breath a little bit more than I normally would because I'm [00:06:00] anticipating what you're going to say. And that is a default reaction. I don't have to think about or try to do that. It happens naturally.
Dr. Aprilia West: And so it is with most of our 35, 000 choices that we make every day. There's a whole lot of defaulting going on. And now again. You know, this is not black and white. Default is not bad. You don't want to have to think, oh, there's something in my eye I should blink until, you know, my eye makes enough, you know, eye water to flush it out.
Dr. Aprilia West: Like it's nice. It conserves energy for us to have those kinds of default reactions. However, if someone comes up and asks me, you know, what do you want to do today? And they present me with a choice. Instead of, you know, just reacting based on whatever is most comfortable, familiar, practiced, I have, I have an opportunity that I'll miss if I just default in that [00:07:00] moment.
Dr. Aprilia West: I have an opportunity to actually design what happens next and how I want to show up. So in that sense, it really is a secret for a lot of people. They don't realize, wow, I'm making all these choices. I'm moving from moment of choice to moment of choice. Throughout the day. And again, some of those are some of those default choices are helpful to us in the context.
Dr. Aprilia West: We don't necessarily want to have to think about what we're doing all the time. That's that would exhaust anyone. But we do want the ability to be choicefulness sense that we recognize the choices that matter to us. And then we optimize by choosing what matters most. Mm.
Chris McCurry: mean, this has shown up for me in my work with working with parents and their kids because parents and kids get into routines. I called them dances. One author called them automatized transactional patterns, which is a bit [00:08:00] clunky, but it's the idea that we get into these routines That are very well practiced.
Chris McCurry: And in that way, they can be highly efficient getting out of the house in the morning, bedtime,
Dr. Aprilia West: Mm hmm.
Chris McCurry: But if the routine isn't working well, but everybody's on autopilot
Dr. Aprilia West: Mm hmm.
Chris McCurry: then they're really hard to change. And the first step is to create some awareness, some mindfulness about what you're doing.
Chris McCurry: So I read somewhere that awareness creates the possibility of choice. But if we're just like. On autopilot on default mode, then, yeah, we, we just, we're zipping through these things, wondering why things are yet again, going so badly
Dr. Aprilia West: Yes, exactly. Yeah, I mean, you're talking there about, you know, the dance is based in our learning history is what we call it in the nerdy, you know, contextual behavioral science community. Which really just means it's what we know with a certain person in [00:09:00] a particular context. And we just do that.
Dr. Aprilia West: And again, sometimes that defaulting is helpful. You know, my, my God daughters and I have certain ways of dancing with each other that are known and familiar that we don't really have to think about. And we, in some ways are defaulting. We're not actually looking to change or make different choices in some of those kinds of rituals.
Dr. Aprilia West: And when that's all you do, you can end up living a much smaller life than is possible for you. So, that awareness of choice is so key, as you're saying.
Steps to Develop Choicefulness
Emma Waddington: And I guess then, so if we sort of break it down even further, getting to that place where you notice that something's not working is kind of step one, right? Like if I think of my life or in the life of my clients, friends, being able to reflect on is this really the way I want to be relating to this person?
Emma Waddington: For example, I do quite a lot of couples therapy.
Dr. Aprilia West: Mm hmm.
Emma Waddington: [00:10:00] and there is an assumption that this is just the way it's going to be.
Dr. Aprilia West: hmm.
Emma Waddington: Actually, that first step to notice that actually I'd like it to be different. I'd like to be doing differently, or I'd like more out of this or less out of this, whatever it might be, but that first step to recognize that something isn't quite the way we want it to be.
Dr. Aprilia West: Exactly.
Emma Waddington: Is that the way we start? Do you think?
Dr. Aprilia West: Yes. Because that otherwise we're in a disempowered state, right? Where we're resigned and, you know, maybe even cynical in the sense that we have just, we've, we've decided nothing else is possible. And so realizing something is working and that there are opportunities to choose something different to expand your, the moves you're making in your relationships or in your work or in your life.
Dr. Aprilia West: Is the first step to stepping into your full power.
Emma Waddington: Yes, exactly. And that noticing and. [00:11:00] And then the second step would be to try and think about what you'd want it to be instead, maybe.
Dr. Aprilia West: Exactly. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I tend to think in, you know, three steps awareness and then learning how to decode what matters to you is sort of the second step, right? Because there's, you know, as we'll probably get into here in a little bit the biases that we're all born with and that influence our choices.
Dr. Aprilia West: are often going to get in the way of us being able to decode what I call the emotional signal from the emotional noise there. And then the third step is really designing your actions in line with what matters to you.
Chris McCurry: when you walk us through those three steps,
Dr. Aprilia West: Sure. We can, let's get into it.
Understanding Emotional Signals
Dr. Aprilia West: So the first step is really just about awareness of moments of choice and As Emma mentioned that usually starts with what we might think of as an emotion triggered, right? Or as she [00:12:00] said, you know, I'm noticing something's not working for me, whether that's, you know uncomfortable experience or a relationship pattern that you don't want to continue.
Dr. Aprilia West: And you start by just realizing, wow, you know, I have a choice about what I do next. And in the emotion efficacy therapy work that I have developed and continue to work on over the last decade I have people get very clear on what's happening, what their experience is, and they learn to identify and label all of their emotional stuff, which includes sensations, thoughts, urges, and feelings.
Dr. Aprilia West: And just to be aware, wow, all of these things are exerting a lot of influence on what I choose to do or how I'm choosing to show up for myself or, you know, in my life. So, the first step, again, is just getting clear on, you know, what's happening in any moment for me emotionally and especially in [00:13:00] moments where I'm triggered and might be more likely to default to an automatic reaction.
Dr. Aprilia West: The second step is learning how to listen carefully enough to what your emotions are telling you to differentiate when they're just trying to help you optimize for safety, certainty, comfort, and coherence and when they're trying to help you do what matters most. Now, again, let's be clear.
Dr. Aprilia West: Sometimes safety is what matters most. Sometimes you need to focus on surviving, but most of the time in modern life, we're more surviving what other people think of us or how we're thinking of ourselves. So it takes a much more sophisticated kind of listening to hear those signals that tell you, you know, what would, what would most expand your life in your moment of choice?
Dr. Aprilia West: So a [00:14:00] really kind of more obvious example might be if, you know, after this podcast today, I'm closing down my computer and I'm thinking about my commitment to go work out. And then I'm also thinking about the fact that, you know, I'm at the very last episode on a show that I've been watching and there's a book I've been wanting to read and figuring out, you know, what matters most, what will move me toward my values.
Dr. Aprilia West: And recognizing I have a moment of choice. Now, I may actually prefer to read the book or watch the show. That might be what feels most comfortable or pleasurable to me. And I am being, you know, somewhat practiced choice maker, very clear. That exercise is, you know, very, very clearly what matters most to me.
Dr. Aprilia West: And so I'm going to choose that.
Chris McCurry: those there are competing interests at times that we have to sort out.[00:15:00]
Dr. Aprilia West: interests. Absolutely. Absolutely.
Chris McCurry: So the third step.
Dr. Aprilia West: Yeah, so that leads us to the third step, which is figuring out, you know, based on these different values that I have in this particular context, this moment, this situation, this relationship, this day, this hour, this breath, even. You know, what matters most to me and then figuring out how do I design action that aligns with my values in this moment?
Dr. Aprilia West: And so that's, that's the third step. If you can master those three steps, which I call mindfulness, mindset, and meaningful moves. You're, you're going to be very much in your power and, and very, what we're calling choiceful.
Emma Waddington: And I'm fascinated as I listened to that. I'm just thinking of, you know, in my own head moments where I may have thought I was being choiceful, but actually I probably wasn't. Like sometimes it's in hindsight, [00:16:00] it's afterwards that we realized that that wasn't the right thing to do, how that opportunity to reflect helps us to see the patterns of behavior and to think about impact.
Emma Waddington: So sometimes do you think that sometimes we have to do this work afterwards, like in the moment over various sort of perhaps conversations, like, you know, Chris was talking about some of these dances that we have, you know, as parents, but also as partners. Or at work, or it might be that you find yourself regularly missing out on exercise and choosing the couch or your book.
Emma Waddington: Over time we can come to reflect that this is not working. Like some of these decisions, reflections don't necessarily happen in the moment.
Dr. Aprilia West: Right. No. And this is where you know, tracking and, and personal feedback is so important. You know, I'm, I might not notice if I don't exercise one day, if it weren't [00:17:00] for having ways of tracking that, you know, I have time where I check in on my commitments every day and I figure out, you know, am I playing the games that matter to me at the highest level?
Dr. Aprilia West: And, You know, and this is what I do a lot with my therapy and coaching clients is that we have really clear metrics so that we can be boss level choice makers. You know, you have to be aware, you know, what are you choosing? You're always choosing something. The question is, what are you choosing? And is it what really matters to you?
Dr. Aprilia West: So I think this is a lifelong journey becoming choiceful. You know, a lot of my own reflection, you know, what I learned the most from is looking back. And reflecting on what happened, why did it happen that way? Why did it go that way? And really making sense of, you know, what was my subjective state, AKA my, you know, emotional, space that led to the choice that I made, you know, that led to optimizing [00:18:00] for something.
Interference and Cognitive Biases
Dr. Aprilia West: You know, there's really four types of interference that I have kind of crunched all the 200 some affective and cognitive biases into that might also be helpful to share with your listeners. Because I think just, you know, being aware that this exists and then looking for it in our choices. Can be another way to do what you're saying, Emma, which is to, you know, really get good at figuring out when your biases are, you know, choosing for you and when you're choosing.
Dr. Aprilia West: And the first one is just that there's, we're working really hard, you know, as I mentioned, 35, 000 choices a day, not all of those are intentional. You know, choices, a lot of them are just default reactions, but it's still a lot of choosing. Okay. And there's actually just too much noise in our space that we have to sort through.
Dr. Aprilia West: And so our biases have us default to what is most [00:19:00] familiar. Because we can't possibly process and sort through everything that we can come in, that we come into contact with. So what this, what this could be broken down to for someone is to just notice that there's a lot of information and what you have control over is your attention.
Dr. Aprilia West: You know, what are you going to pay attention to? And for some people that's, you know, harder than for others. You know, I happen to be on the mild side of the ADD continuum. And so my attention can really ping all over the place unless. You know, I'm aware of what's happening. And then I also have that superpower of hyper focusing like a lot of people who.
Dr. Aprilia West: You know, our neuro diverse in that way but too much noise can definitely overwhelm me. And then, you know, I lose the thread, I lose the plot. I'm not being intentional. I'm just sort of at the effect of stuff that's coming at me. So that's the first [00:20:00] one. The second one is there's just not enough obvious emotional signal.
Dr. Aprilia West: So then we get busy as we are humans being these meaning making machines. And we make meaning of everything, even when we don't have enough evidence to support the meaning we're making. And so that can lead to making choices. For instance, You know, if you're in a relationship and you have a certain listening of someone, it's very easy to predict what that person's going to say or how they feel.
Dr. Aprilia West: And then they say something to you and you make meaning based on it, even when it's not helpful. So that's the second kind of interference we see with choicefulness.
Emma Waddington: can I just, because that is so important that making meaning our brain being a sort of meaning making machine, maybe we can sort of expand just a little bit to, for our listeners to understand what we mean, what we that if you could just describe when we say meaning making, what are [00:21:00] we, what are we saying?
Emma Waddington: Yeah.
Dr. Aprilia West: way I tend to explain it to clients or in trainings is that There's sort of two ways of thinking about life. One is just what happens, right? These are observable, verifiable events. Like there was, most people would agree there was a solar eclipse about a month ago now, I think a full solar eclipse.
Dr. Aprilia West: You know, most people would agree that right now, Joe Biden is president of the United States. Now, the other part of life, as we understand it, is the meaning we make of these things. So, you know, I bet there's lots of different meanings. If we were to interview people about what does it mean that there was a full solar eclipse?
Dr. Aprilia West: I bet we'd get all kinds of responses from it's an incredible natural wonder to, you know, the gods and goddesses are aligned to who knows what else people might make meaning about that. [00:22:00] Certainly there's a lot of different meanings people make about Joe Biden being the president of the United States.
Dr. Aprilia West: So when you think about meaning making, we're just talking about how do we put language into reality in ways that allows us to interpret our experience. Right? So we could have the same experience on this podcast right now, but come away making really different meaning about it. You know, you could say, Oh gosh, April talked so much, you know, that was a tough interview for us.
Dr. Aprilia West: And I could come away thinking, wow, I got to talk so much. That was amazing. So that's what I mean by meeting making machines.
Emma Waddington: guess it's not intentional always.
Dr. Aprilia West: We're born with it. Mm. with it, and we're born to be right about it. And I actually talk a lot about that in my book, What You Feel Is Not All There Is, about how driven we are to [00:23:00] make meaning and then look for evidence to support what we already believe. And this is what makes it so hard for people to change their minds.
Chris McCurry: Well, it goes back to assimilation and accommodation. I mean, we're just have this tendency to just assimilate information into our pre existing notions and structures and
Dr. Aprilia West: Yeah.
Chris McCurry: accommodation changes is, is really hard. . But it's really true. We, we have these, these biases and, and there's comfort in that and stability in that.
Emma Waddington: hmm. Mm hmm. And it's just so interesting that that meaning making machine runs sometimes just under our awareness.
Dr. Aprilia West: Mm hmm.
Emma Waddington: Don't necessarily notice that we have made an assumption about somebody's intention or somebody's behavior. And I thought to clients about the meaning making machine. They'll be so surprised at what their default, because sometimes we will [00:24:00] have these default ways of seeing things.
Emma Waddington: And then we'll seek, you know, like you said, coherence, we'd like to be right. Even when it's really awful, like we're seeking coherence that we are. A bad parent,
Dr. Aprilia West: Mm hmm.
Emma Waddington: you know, we, we like to be right, even when it's really painful.
Dr. Aprilia West: Mm hmm.
Emma Waddington: So yeah, these meaning making machines are powerful.
Chris McCurry: I think this stuff is exacerbated when we're feeling stressed. I know that we regress when we're stressed back to like four year olds.
Chris McCurry: our thoughts become fact. And and we can become very egocentric and rigid and all these things. And you know, under stress, we're, we're even more likely to do these things and have these cognitive biases show up.
Chris McCurry: And that gets, that becomes a very vicious cycle.
Dr. Aprilia West: Yeah, and they're, and they're cognitive and affective because they at the root of them is essentially [00:25:00] how we feel you know, in, in my book, what you feel is not all there is. I talk about emotional reasoning bias and emotional reasoning bias is actually the opposite of the title of my book, which is what you feel is all there is.
Dr. Aprilia West: Right. And so, and the reason we're wired that way is to survive because we want to, we need to be right about the fact that the lion on the Savannah is looking for lunch and that we are the lunch. And if we're wrong about that, it could mean our death. So we evolve then to want to be right about, you know, My coworker is giving me side eye and that means that they're upset with me.
Dr. Aprilia West: I need to be careful or I need to hide or I need to have a conversation. So, so the meaning making is very much about interpreting threat and safety cues at, at the very, you know, core of it, and then, you know, we kind of move up what not necessarily in a linear way. But, but a hierarchy [00:26:00] of needs where we can pay attention to other things other than just surviving the lion on the Savannah.
Emma Waddington: Thank you. That's really helpful. I, I, I'm glad we had that digression. I think it's, it's important. So I took you off. You were talking about the the third step. So we were starting to talk more about
Dr. Aprilia West: of interference actually that
Emma Waddington: Oh, the types of experience. Yes. Great.
Dr. Aprilia West: So, so far we have that there's just too much information and for us to take it all in, that there's not enough clear signal about what the meaning of things is. The third one is just that they're the biases that help us act quickly to survive.
Dr. Aprilia West: So we tend to rush to judgment based on all kinds of factors that may or may not be accurate. So we jumped, you could think of this one broadly as we jumped to conclusions, right? And that helps us make choices, especially in high stakes situations. Again, that can be helpful if you're standing in the middle of the road and a bus is careening toward [00:27:00] you.
Dr. Aprilia West: But it could be really unhelpful in situations where your survival is not at stake. And then the fourth type of interference is, is quite simply one of capacity, that we can't remember everything. So we tend to reduce or condense or pay attention to certain things that we think are important to remember, and we sort of throw out the rest.
Dr. Aprilia West: And this is why memory is not very reliable for a lot of us even if we're not, you know, struggling with some sort of memory challenge. And yeah. And, and then, as I mentioned, there's over 200 of these biases that, you know, are influencing our choices in every, in any moment. So. Being aware that we have to really come online and be very intentional about what we're doing, how we're choosing to show up, is really the most transformative work I think I do with people, yeah.
Emma Waddington: do you think noticing these biases could be useful to like tracking them? [00:28:00] Yeah,
Dr. Aprilia West: There's so many, and given the last, the last category of we just can't remember everything, I think it's more helpful just to know that there might be a lot of fake news happening that, you know, it's worth kind of double, maybe even triple checking to see, you know, is this really what matters most to me?
Dr. Aprilia West: And that could be anything from, you know, is working out tonight, you know, in context, right? You know, that can look really different if I've had a full day and I'm training all day tomorrow or, you know, If I just happen to not feel like going to the gym and so being aware that there's just a lot of maybe you could think of it as just forces moving against you doing what matters most at any moment, trying to keep you safe, comfortable, secure.
Dr. Aprilia West: You know, certain coherent, that's to me what makes the biggest difference is just people being aware or [00:29:00] people being able to just, you know, pause and be thoughtful and to be in that inquiry. Yeah. Yeah.
Emma Waddington: not to add to the competitive loads.
Dr. Aprilia West: Yeah. So you can do it in the moment. You can also, you can also pre design, you know as I was mentioning earlier, I wrote a whole chapter at the end of my book on playing infinite games.
Dr. Aprilia West: And that has to do with, you know, basically getting what you care about or what you want to create into reality in an effective way, and that can include everything from just getting really clear on what you You know what it is that you want to do? What are the milestones and then using, you know, leveraging some of the neuroscience to rehearse yourself, making those moves that then make it easier for you to to, to choose new behaviors for yourself. So there's, there's a lot you can do both in the moment, but also. Ahead of it.
Emma Waddington: Yeah. And, and, and [00:30:00] later so you can actually be
Dr. Aprilia West: after the fact, exactly. Yeah. Cause there's so much learning and
Dr. Aprilia West: in a replay and, you know, yeah. Yeah. And assessing. Yeah.
Emma Waddington: Yeah. And just take opportunity. It's, it's that space, right. That it used to be called acceptance and commitment therapy. The model that we all are very familiar with used to be called cognitive distancing, didn't it?
Chris McCurry: Comprehensive distancing.
Emma Waddington: Oh, whoops. But that distancing, right, that taking that space, be it to think ahead of what I want to do in this moment or to reflect back with a kind lens, because often we reflect back with a critical lens you know, can help us to make better choices or choices that are more aligned with the life we want be bolder, braver.
Emma Waddington: with a bit of time and space,
Dr. Aprilia West: Mm hmm.
Chris McCurry: So, self compassion plays a role [00:31:00] here.
Dr. Aprilia West: Yeah. And I think, you know, I find that that just opens up for people when they learn about this universal human condition, know, that we are all born with what I call the three B's, a certain biological preset a set of biases that influence our choices, and And finally, learned behaviors, you know, patterns of behavior based on, you know, our history, our experience in life, and, you know, and then we act the way we act in the context and Bye.
Dr. Aprilia West: Bye. If we're not able or we don't have the tools to be self aware we are going to default and, and being self compassionate is key there, right? We're not making anyone or ourselves bad or wrong for what we do. We just hopefully want to be more intentional and, and be designing our actions in critical moments of choice.
Emma Waddington: I love that [00:32:00] I love the three B's. Is, is that in your, in which, is that in one of your books? Cause I hadn't, is it
Dr. Aprilia West: Yeah. It's, it's in what you feel is not all there is. It's in chapter two. Where I kind of set the stage. It's, I call it the nerdy chapter. It's the chapter for people who like theory kind of frame up the skills that follow. Yeah.
Emma Waddington: because it is true that one of the most,
Emma Waddington: you know, compassionate lenses is to realize that so much is happening that's out of, not out of our control, but that we're not intentionally making it happen, that it's happening. And that biological level, or that sometimes say to my clients, this moment is telling us more about your history than it is about you. I'll feel very upset about what happened, but then look at historically what they've done or even, you know, if we go right back and some of the, the, their history and their childhood can build those narratives and can make. Meaning for them and, and [00:33:00] that is a very validating, but also normalizing moment to realize that, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm not in control the whole time of, of, of my history and the influences that I have on the biological level of this moment.
Emma Waddington: Like you're saying, some of those affect impacts, but also some of that, you know, learned history. This is something that I've been doing for a really long time. yeah, it's, it does.
Dr. Aprilia West: is, that is a tricky thing. I think for all of us is, you know, we are a hundred percent responsible for our choices and yet we're also limited. By how aware we are, how mindful we are by, you know, how easily we get hooked by thoughts or how, you know, how much we need to have a certain idea about ourselves or have other people believe a certain thing about us and then how well we know how to design actions based on what matters most.
Dr. Aprilia West: Once you realize that all of that is going on, you have more access to the idea that you're, you're more [00:34:00] than any moment of choice. to me, that is such a kind perspective to come from. Yeah.
Emma Waddington: like that. You're more than any moment of choice.
Emma Waddington: So true. Very powerful. And so maybe it would help.
Exploring Personal Values
Emma Waddington: Oh, I'd love to talk to you about, cause in emotion efficacy we talk a lot about values and I love the whole section you have about values there. And I still use it with my clients. I love the, to reference the list.
Emma Waddington: And we talk That list perhaps we can touch a little bit about, you know, what do we mean by values, but also how do we come to think about what is important to us? Yeah,
Dr. Aprilia West: context. And there also, there's also sometimes difficulty distinguishing between what we've learned from our parents or the culture. Or scripts that we've run that [00:35:00] have been successful for us in our lives around what matters or what our friends think matters. So I feel like the values pieces, you know, I'm, I feel like I'm always pulling the thread even for myself and discovering, Oh, wow, you know, that doesn't matter so much to me now, or I thought that mattered and it doesn't matter so much.
Dr. Aprilia West: So it's really an exploration, and the list is just a starting place to begin to put some language on defining what matters to you. So one of my, one of the values I talk about for myself is possibility. I've just, You know, nothing lights me up more than talking about what's possible with people.
Dr. Aprilia West: and then, you know, I've aligned a lot of my work life and my personal life around, you know, making something else possible. And but it took me, you know, it took me years to get there because I grew up with sort of more traditional kinds of values around. Service and work and you know, those, those [00:36:00] things are still important to me, but, but nothing lights me up more than the idea of helping other people see what's possible for themselves that they don't already see as possible.
Dr. Aprilia West: So there's a kind of resonance. I, I almost liken it to, you'll recognize what really matters to you because it's sort of like listening to a favorite song. You know, you can feel you know, the energy in your body. You can feel yourself get excited. About that value or about something that you've done aligned with that value when you're discovering what that is, and then, you know, once you have some idea of what your core values are, and, you know, we can have infinite numbers or we can have several that we really, you know, focus in on then it's a matter of, you know, moment to moment, what matters to me.
Dr. Aprilia West: And I don't actually think you have to stop and say, okay, what's the value here? I think We can get to a [00:37:00] place where we can just know like, okay, I'm rushing, but my partner's son needs something right now. I can see that he's upset. So, you know, I'm gonna stop and I'm gonna, you know, be present and listen.
Dr. Aprilia West: Now, do I need to know what the word or the value is for that in order to do that? No. But do I need to know I have a choice in order to express my values? In that situation, yes, I do. Or else I would just default to. Moving on with the day. Yeah. Mm
Emma Waddington: I love that. Yeah. I love that value of possibility. I, I've never thought about it, but I can feel myself lighting up.
Dr. Aprilia West: mm-Hmm?
Emma Waddington: love the like values can, because I think there is something so Experiential about values. Like it can get really wordy. Like sometimes, like you said, when we look at these lists that you get times we can get stuck with your sort of conventional values, like you [00:38:00] said. And, and actually trying a value on,
Dr. Aprilia West: Yeah. Mm-Hmm?
Emma Waddington: would listen to a song and see how it feels and how it connects to you.
Emma Waddington: Yeah,
Dr. Aprilia West: Mm-Hmm.
Emma Waddington: it's, that's, yeah, that's exciting and in some ways, well, more heartfelt instead of being too
Emma Waddington: reliant
Dr. Aprilia West: less hatty, right?
Emma Waddington: yeah, less heady, which I think gets in the way. Of what's right, the right value, right?
Dr. Aprilia West: yeah. Let me choose the right values or the right words or something, which. You know, I think as professionals, sometimes we get so attached to a model that we, you know, we sort of lose the, the deeper intention, you know, or what we're actually trying to accomplish. And you know, my, a lot of my clients are incredibly meaningfully engaged in their lives, but it doesn't mean that they always know what value they're expressing in any [00:39:00] moment.
Emma Waddington: That's right.
Emma Waddington: Yeah. Amazing.
Dr. Aprilia West: exactly.
Chris McCurry: it's it's fantastic now, you know, the idea of, I need to choose the right values is kind of right there with, I, I need to be right.
Chris McCurry: Um, which means I, I, I can't take a risk here. And sometimes living in that, you know, zone of, the heart can feel very risky.
Chris McCurry: It's, there's some, an uncertainty in the possibilities.
Dr. Aprilia West: I think that goes to learning how to re what I call relax your ego, which is another way of getting at the act process. We all know called self as context. Where, you know, the story you have about yourself doesn't have to be all shiny and, and perfect but that you can try things on and you can decide, you know, later that you wish you would have chosen something else.
Dr. Aprilia West: And that's okay, that that's part of figuring it [00:40:00] out. So
Chris McCurry: we learn.
Dr. Aprilia West: that's right.
Emma Waddington: your ego. I've just written that down, I'll be using it today in my therapy. Relax your
Chris McCurry: Or, or with your
Dr. Aprilia West: Yeah. It's, it's one of the cards actually in the deck act for your best life. The, one of the practices I called it, relax your ego.
Emma Waddington: My goodness. I need to do some shopping. , get your latest stuff because it's, it sounds amazing.
Dr. Aprilia West: Thanks. Thanks so much.
Chris McCurry: Yes. And now you have a new fan.
Dr. Aprilia West: been my supporter of my work for a while. I have to say I've been so grateful for that.
Chris McCurry: she's a wonderful support as she has been of mine for many years now. So we, we value her very much.
Emma Waddington: Well, thank you. Oh, my goodness. My ego is loving this. I'm,
Chris McCurry: Well, relax it.
Emma Waddington: I'm enjoying this. Thank you.
Chris McCurry: All right.
Chris McCurry: So
Dr. Aprilia West: long as you're noticing that your ego loves it, that you're, you're [00:41:00] relapsing enough.
Chris McCurry: Okay. That's good. That's good. A little, a little, comprehensive distancing right there.
Dr. Aprilia West: Exactly. We'll take it.
Chris McCurry: All right.
Conclusion and Farewell
Chris McCurry: Thank you so much,
Dr. Aprilia West: You're welcome so much,
Dr. Aprilia West: I hope it was what you hoped
Emma Waddington: I'm
Chris McCurry: Oh, absolutely. And we'll have a link to your website in the show notes and people can seek you out and read your books and be
Emma Waddington: get your cards. I'll be doing that. That's
Dr. Aprilia West: sounds great. ,
Chris McCurry: It's been a real pleasure.
Dr. Aprilia West: All right. Take care, you guys.
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