Dr. Julia DiGangi

Power in relationships rises when we understand that problems are patterns.

The pain you're feeling isn't new. It's old stuff that's surfacing--not to harm you but to be handled for good.

I want to normalize marital misery.

The idea that the *full range* of human emotion doesn't exist inside the most *emotional* relationship on the planet is false.

Plenty of us are out there working through intergenerational pain in our homes: Who taught you how to have functional conflict? Who taught you that someone can be mad at you and still love you? Who taught you that it's not your partner's job to love you more than they love themselves? Who taught you that you can love someone and still leave? Who taught you that your partner can never ultimately save you from the things you don't want to face inside yourself?

I've been working with couples for a long time and I think a core cultural error is that we think good relationships don't have pain when the truth is good relationships know what to do about it.

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Capacity: Powerful relationships require powerful nervous system capacity.

This is a 3 part program.

We start 2/14.

On Darkness.

On this Winter Solstice, I am reminded of just how much I cannot see. An earlier version of me would have demanded clarity to chaos I did not create.

But somehow, on this darkest night, the conversion deepens. And I see, with even more wisdom, that our work is not to flee the darkness but to face it.

My husband, the nuclear engineer, often speaks in a language I do not understand. Tonight, this man comes to me speaking about the iron core of the earth and the impossibility of gravity. He also mentions, with a passing comment in front of an open refrigerator, that dark is the absence of light. I am, at first unimpressed--as if he has said the opposite of up is down. Who cares.

But now, with the pickles in his hand, he goes on to elaborate that light is a real force--talking about photons this and electromagnetic radiation that--whereas dark, he causally notes, is just the absence of all of it.

Light is real and darkness is nothing.

And it strikes me, as he eats while the sun reaches its northerly apex, that maybe I am ready to take all the parts sustained by darkness--the fear, the shame, and the loss--and see them for what they really are: nothing.

On Surrender.

I keep waiting for you to see my greatness. But you keep messing up my majesty.

- Why won't you listen to me?
- Why don't you do it my way?
- Why can't you be more agreeable?

And while we’re at it: What about all those apologies I said you owe me?

Codependency masquerades like power as I hemorrhage another day, and another year, and a whole damn lifetime waiting for you to agree to give me what I already know I need.

But the Universe is full of good jokes. And in these fallow nights of winter, when the ground is barren and the trees empty, the Rising is very much alive.

It is I who am stuck in the sepulchre of my own righteousness.

Some nights, the pain is too great to bear. And so on my knees, I beg for mercy. And I can’t quite understand why there is none to be had. How can it be that these people I have sacrificed so much to save will not stay with me? Why won’t they cooperate with me? Why won’t they listen to me?

Can’t they see time is running short?

These holy nights of Advent speak. The waiting is almost over: The baby is coming and the consciousness is rising.

So, I get back on my knees. And for a moment, as if a breeze moved a veil, I can see something I couldn’t see before. There isn’t just one lever of power. There are two. There is the Striving



And there is the Surrendering.


These days, you can't not think of Christmas, and what is Christmas without the story of Mary. Before there was the Christ, there was she. With an unyielding trustingness that—not only can I not comprehend, but an earlier version of me would have thought silly. Impractical.

Delusional.

Yes, you go ahead and trust while I hustle. You show us surrender while I show you power.

- Watch me do this!

- And try harder here!

- And optimize this, too!


And I won't lie--the striving has been deeply meaningful and the success satisfying. All is well, though. Natural, really, because the universe speaks to us in twos. There is the dusk and the dawn. The rising and the falling.

The Striving and the Surrendering

[Cont'd in the comments.]

You heal in proportion to the amount of truth you’re willing to tell.

Intention 2024: Starts 01/05. It's emotional power like you haven't seen it before.

Join us on the inside. Details in comments

I am always curious about epistemology--about ways of knowing. It was interesting to hear Melanie Ann Layer talk about various ways of thinking about emotional intelligence.

The greatest thing I ever created.

The costumes, not the people.

I'm a hobbiest forager. It's fun to teach my kids about the biology of nature.

Tonight we tinctured our yarrow.

Used for centuries to treat disease and wounds, yarrow is known for its
- antioxidant
- anti-inflammatory
- antibacterial and
- antihepatotoxic effects.

Good for the body and good for the brain.

There is some preliminary research to suggest that yarrow may be able to protect against oxidative stress and, subsequently, neurodegenerative diseases.

This intrigues me as a neuropsychologist.

Another fascinating case where nature may heal the body and brain 🧠

I had a great time talking to about emotional power.

I wrote Energy Rising to show people that our lives break down, not because our problems get too hard, but because our feelings get too big.

When you know what to do about emotion, you know what to do about everything. Thanks, Arielle.

and I talked about how your greatest source of power comes from your emotions.

Your life breaks down not because your problems get too hard but because your feelings get you big.

It was an extraordinary conversation.

I wrote energy rising to give you eight clear steps on how your nervous system turns emotional pain into emotional power.

Pre-order today and sign up for a private seminar with Dr. DiGangi. https://form.typeform.com/to/Dk34D7lX

Never did I ever think a screenshot of an Amazon tracking number would make me weep. 🤣 😭

The books are coming! The books are coming!!

It's been so moving to start to have people ping with me with their orders and early comments.

If I had a million lifetimes to live, I would tell the story of human pain and human power. Thank God it's this lifetime.

Let the Energy keep Rising.

There are a lot of definitions of leadership in parenting. But here’s one that’s most aligned with how your brain works.

I don't normally like to post things like this on FB, but 9 years ago today, Eric and I got married. And I can vulnerably say it's the greatest decision he's ever made.

Sometimes, we get our miracles.

Mine came on a Tuesday. Or maybe it was a Wednesday. Truth is nobody knew anymore. It was late in the pandemic when no one knew a damn thing about time anymore.

While I don’t remember the day, I can’t forget the moment. It was Harvard Business Review calling and they wanted to know:
“Would I be willing to write a book about leadership and emotion?”

For more than two decades—or four, depending on how you look at it—I’ve been trying to get people to pay attention to the full throttled power of their emotion. I've spent a lot of years knocking on powerful doors, trying to get people to talk about tough emotions in our businesses, political systems, on social media, and in our homes. Lots of times, people told me 'no.' Too scary. Too soft. Not scalable. Not enough ROI. Don't we have a checklist for that, anyway?

But sometimes, our miracles come looking for us. And mine found me on a day I can’t recall in a moment I can’t forget.

Harvard Business Review is the world's top leadership platform, addressing many of the world’s most powerful leaders—business leaders, politicians, entrepreneurs, parents, relationships partners, thinkers, managers, creators, and teammates. They wanted me to talk about the science of emotion at our jobs and in our homes.

You'd have thought I'd be ready.

But I wasn't.

Turns out when miracles come, they're easy to blow. Miracles, like traumas, shatter your old life. Whether you like it or not, these strange events yank you into a reality you weren't totally ready to face.

So, I wrote the book. And it was bad.

The content was fine. But the energy? No. The energy was wrong, filled with the precise forces I was writing a book to help people release. I wrote it based on who I thought I needed to be: Academic. Buttoned-up. Distant.

Defended.

But somehow, it occurred to me that one should probably not blow a miracle. And so I dumped 75,000 words in the trash and started over.

I worried that my editor was going to dump me, too.

I wrote and I wrote. I wrote across days and I wrote into nights. I wrote as one year rolled into the next. I wrote with small children on my chest. I wrote through my mother's long winter and the night of my father. I wrote as something broke in my marriage. I wrote as the world retreated into its small homes and kept writing as we emerged again. I wrote about leadership, I wrote about relationships, I wrote about pain.

But above everything, I wrote about emotional power.

And y’all: It’s a masterpiece.

If I had a million lifetimes to live, I would spend it writing (and talking) about emotional power. About the things that injure us and what it really takes to rise again. About the authority that rises—not on the things you achieve—but on the energy of who you are.

There's a lot to be said, but I'll start here: If you want to lead yourself, soften yourself, transform yourself, then write a book. Let it take you to the edge of everything you have. And then let it pull you a little farther. Let it scare you. Let it hold you while you grieve and tenderly attend to your secrets. Let it enliven you and enrage you. Most of all, let it heal you.

And then, my God, watch how you find the only thing any of us are looking for anyway: Greater access to the Spirit and the Self.

There are many things I can say about this book but today I'll end here: I can't wait to share it with you.

Harvard Business Review

explanation of pain tree & how it affects our lives

The next time, you get all worked up when someone doesn't agree with you, soothe yourself with this: We exhaust ourselves trying to prove our point—that our ideas are big enough, our visions bright enough, our lives worthy enough.⁠
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I unconsciously believe that if I can prove my point, I can claim my power. In other words, if I can just get you to see it my way, then I'm the more powerful one: the smarter one, the righter one, the better one, the safer one.⁠
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But hear this: If I need you to affirm what I already know, then who really knows what?⁠
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If I need your agreement, then who really has control over who?⁠
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If I need your permission, then I hold no power. ⁠
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When you truly hold your own power, you can let them have it all--their opinions, perspectives, and ways of doing it. When you truly hold your own power, you set the whole world free.⁠
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This year—this time—when I let go of them, I finally claim the only thing I ever truly wanted: Myself.⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠
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In this moment when life feels exhausting, there's a lot of people telling you to "just say no." No to this demand. No to that obligation.

No to more.

But for "no" to work you have to understand the problem with "no."

At its core, the problem with no is a problem with boundaries. And the problem with boundaries is a problem of pain.

As a neuropsychologist who works with families, couples and parents, I have people coming to me all the time to talk about boundaries.

This person did this. That person did that. She took too much. He gave too little. And so on and so on.

It is not an over exaggeration to say every single interpersonal problem is aided when viewed through the lens of boundaries.

But the reason so many of us feel bad in our relationships is because we insist that it has to do with the other guy when it really has to do with me.

It's like this: Until I can hold my own pain, I'll never really be able to own the power of no.

Why?

Because until I can truly hold the horror stories in my own head--that she's gonna be mad at me; he's gonna punish me; they're gonna think less of me-- I cannot hold the "no."

Until I can truly hold the pain in my own body--the anxiety, worry, fear and stress of what other people are gonna think of me--I cannot hold the "no."

And as long as I cannot hold my "no," then I don't have any meaningful boundaries.

Worse yet, if I need other people to hold *my* boundaries, then what power do I have at all?

When other people patrol the perimeter of *my* life, I am not safe at all.

Holding boundaries is hard, hard work. For most of us, no one taught us this when we were children.

But when we know how to work with the pain of "no", it's here that we find the power of boundaries.

To call back your energy, you must first let go of them. ⁠
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Of all the exhausting places to be, the most depleting is living your life in pursuit of Other People’s Approval. Pleading for their permission; begging for their blessing. ⁠
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But desperation dresses up like rage, and we choke on our fury: Distressed by the days they never saw me. Aggravated by every refusal to do it my way. Betrayed by the moments you were too distracted by your story to play your part in mine.⁠
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There is a shame in giving away the sanctity of our power so we bury our secrets to hide from ourselves. ⁠
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But Night does strange things to my secrets. For reasons I can’t quite explain, her darkness electrifies my understanding with the fire of a thousand stars. Now, I see: They were never breaking my heart. ⁠
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I’ve been breaking my own. ⁠
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I’m the one who gave it all away. I'm the one who kept my mouth shut when I wanted to speak up. I'm the one who said yes when I wanted to say no. I'm the one who exchanged freedom for attention; achievement for pleasure; leadership for likes. ⁠
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I’m the one who gave away my Holy Fire for the b***y prize of your agreement.⁠
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I have divided myself from myself—and a house divided cannot stand. ⁠
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Suddenly, I'm struck by the eerie silence of my most neurotic companion, Other People’s Permission. Panicked, I hear their warning call in the distance: “Sweet child, we have tried to deliver you. But we can take you no further.” ⁠
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And in my terror, I get on my knees, prepared to beg for their return. ⁠
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But the energy in me shifts. A thundering in my cells. A voltage in my spine. A lightning in my throat. ⁠
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And instead I pray, “Thank God. Take my fear and set it on fire. Burn me from the inside out." ⁠
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Like a priestess preparing for the ascension, I rise toward the only thing I ever wanted anyway: The Truth of My Own Life. ⁠
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And I know now: I am the one I have been waiting for.

The protective patterns that we created in our childhood are so often the very thing that becomes our undoing as adults.

In my childhood, I learned to keep my mouth shut. Today, I have no idea what I want to say.

In my childhood, I learned to stuff my feelings so other people could feel theirs. Today, I don't control my emotions; my emotions control me.

In my childhood, I learned that the way to get approval was to be right. Today, I am self-righteous and interpersonally aggressive.

To unclench from the pattern in your life that no longer serve you, it's important to be tender to yourself. I'm a neuropsychologist and your brain cannot heal under conditions of shame.

Too often, we say to ourselves "I will love you after the pain."

"I will love you after you're better."

"I will love you after you're more successful."

"I will love you after you're more organized"

"More fit."

"More beautiful."

But neither the changing of the human brain nor the human spirit works like this.

Ironically, when you give radical tenderness to the anguish inside of you--the panic, the rage and the longing--you teach ourselves about the depths of love and the profundity of grace.

And this--this right here--is how the game changes.

Brains on; Souls Open.

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It’s late when she crawls into my bed. “Where did you come from?” I whisper.

“It’s a secret,” she giggles.

“Tell me?” I ask.

“You wouldn’t understand,” she replies.

She’s probably right.

It’s been a few years, but I still have no idea where these children—the ones who destroyed my flesh only to emerge from it—came from.

One appeared when she fell from me on a snowy winter night, and the other was traumatically torn on a hot summer day. Though they stand right before me, I know they are still very much inside.

The shredding of my flesh merely reflects the shredding of my soul. Over and over again, motherhood has shattered me with its radiant agony, taking from me so much that I deeply loved: My freedom, my solitude, my spontaneity, my body, and, on plenty of days, my sanity, too.

All it has returned is the fiercest bond and the most healing love I have ever known.

It turns out it's not just the trauma that’s painful; it’s the healing, too.

And in the early days of their lives, I was overwhelmed by the unrelenting relentless of it all. Motherhood lit anew ancient wounds from my early life as I remembered the endless needs of people I could never really satisfy.

But motherhood is itself evidence of the impossible made possible. I figured, s**t, if my body could figure out how to convert cytoplasmic goop into one child who talks endlessly about Spiderman and another who never gets tired of my lap, I could figure out how to bring myself back to life.

And so the rising began.

Occasionally, my mind is still overwhelmed by the task of teaching so many lessons in such little time: How many playdates is enough playdates? How much sharing is enough sharing? How many times can a person be asked to get in the car and what in the world is now wrong with broccoli?

Each night, after I tuck small children into tiny beds, I leave the brittleness of my mind and flow into the brilliance of my body. From the primordial sounds of my own breathing arises the most powerful Knowing of my life: I can only give what I already have.

And now I know. I really know.

I know I can only trust you to the degree I trust myself. I know I can only believe in you to the degree I believe in myself. I know I can only protect your sacred individuality to the degree I express my own. I know that every time I abandon myself, I show you how to betray yours.

Parenting is the greatest paradox of my life—a bond so deep it suffocates as it expands. These children who destroyed me with their coming will soon devastate with their leaving. Although it seems like years away, the future always come too soon. And at the moment when they leave me again, only 1 question will matter: Did I teach you to love yourself?

Fortified by this Knowing, I bear down like a Mother and rise more powerfully than ever because I know, sweet child, it will be how I love my life that teaches you how to love your own.

*****

Check out my latest Psychology Today article: https://www.psychologytoday.com/.../the-power-and-the...

Have you ever heard the story about the unworthy lion?

Yeah, me neither.

It is the energy of Life itself that imbues your worthiness.

Listen closely: If there is a single situation that can confer your worthiness, then you are at perpetual risk of losing your worthiness. Because you never know: it could be this day or that thing or those people or this woman or that guy that takes it from you.

And if your worthiness is really on the line, then you better hustle like hell because you cannot be well and be unworthy.

And believe me, I already know how much you've tried. The trying and the proving and the chasing and the amassing. And after all that, you're still not full.

You cannot build big dreams with broken thoughts.

If nothing external can confer your worth, then the flip side is equally true: Nothing external can take it from you.

This is what it means to be unconditionally worthy.

Have you ever spent too much time looking for your keys only to find you already had them in your hand?

The minute you stop wasting your life looking for the thing you're already holding is the moment of your emotional conversion.

Welcome to the powerhouse.