The Melanie Avalon Biohacking Podcast Episode #269 - Dr. Matthew Lederman

TRANSCRIPT

(Note: This is generated by AI with 98% accuracy. However, any errors may cause unintended changes in meaning.)

Melanie Avalon:
Hi friends, welcome back to the show. I am so incredibly excited about the conversation I'm about to have. It is with a repeat guest and I love repeat guest episodes because it means you know that I really, really love the content here. And so the backstory on today's episode, back in November 2023, I had Dr. Matthew Letterman on the show. And that was an incredible interview. He is actually a star in the documentary Forks Over Knies, which I was super familiar with. And I had him on his show for his book that he was coming out at the time called Wellness to Wonderful. I immediately knew that I wanted to have him on the show for that book. His resume is honestly kind of breathtaking. So in addition to, like I said, being in the documentary Forks Over Knies, he has co-authored six books, including a New York Times bestseller that does include the Forks Over Knives plan, as well as the Whole Foods diet, which I actually read that book when it came out. Like I said, I had him on For Wellness to Wonderful. He also served for 10 years as the Whole Foods Market Vice President of Medical Affairs, which is super cool, and actually helped launch their national medical and wellness centers, as well as some of their insurance networks. Since then, however, well, actually, so when I read the book, I was anticipating it to be mostly about diet, honestly. And there was a lot in there about diet. I went way beyond that as far as health and wellness in general and a comprehensive view to all of that. And one of the topics that I was really intrigued with was this idea of nonviolent communication, specifically when it comes to parenting. And I know I've talked on this show quite a bit about how I don't anticipate having kids. I just don't think it's in my, I don't know, I don't see it in my trajectory of life. But I think parenting is obviously so important. And I am forever grateful to the parents out there who are raising awesome kids because it just helps everybody. And we need it for our world. And I'm so grateful for all of the methods that can help with that. And like I said, I was so fascinated by this nonviolent communication approach. Since then, Matt has actually launched a podcast for this called We Be Parents podcast. And I've been listening to the episodes. And honestly, friends, it's not just about parenting. This can, and I'm sure we'll talk about this in the episode, but this approach can apply to so many people when it comes to healthy communication. And there's just so much to learn here. And then on top of that, and I'm sure we'll talk about this, but Matt has also created this awesome device called the We Be Calm, which is a gamified breathing device for kids. So we will dive deep into that as well. But I just have so many questions. And Matt, thank you so much for being here.

Dr. Matthew Lederman:
Oh, thank you for having me and for your support. I love it. I appreciate it.

Melanie Avalon:
Likewise, I really do appreciate everything that you do. Like I said, listening to your podcast, I was like, we just, everybody needs to listen to this because it can help so many people. But a question to start things off. So this whole concept of nonviolent communication, how did you come to it? How long have you been interested in it? You know, working with it? What's the backstory there?

Dr. Matthew Lederman:
So I came to it, I was exposed to it a long time ago, working with a therapist and said, Oh, yeah, I think this would be you'd really enjoy this. I read it and understood it and thought it was cool, but didn't really dive in deep until I had some issues with chronic pain. And I don't remember if we talked about this last time, but the impact or how chronic pain works. There's depression, and all sort of things like that can actually prime and activate pain pathways. And at first I thought that was nuts. But as I deepened into the reading around the research around that, I thought there was something there. And I decided to test it on myself. And I at that point, I realized I was pretty disconnected from what I was feeling in me. And I reached out to my an old nonviolent communication mentor of mine and said, Hey, can you help me? Can you help me connect to feelings and needs? They're saying that that's going to help. But this chronic pain, I'm willing to try anything. And I had this chronic back pain in sciatica for six months. And she said, of course, and I started working with her. And my pain went away within a couple of months. And I have tried everything before. So I was like completely sold. But then as I was working with nonviolent communication, I was really enjoying it and being able to uncover and can self connect. And then it started really helping me with my marriage and my connection with my wife and my kids. And I said, This is great. Everybody's gotta try this. And that's when I decided to become a certified nonviolent communication trainer and started the four year training program.

Melanie Avalon:
Okay, so I'm really excited to dive into what it is exactly. But so to clarify, you started just yourself doing the nonviolent communication with everybody you were talking to.

Dr. Matthew Lederman:
Yes, I started it myself learning about it and trying to, you know, practice it just in all of my relationships. But it was, when I first learned it, it was really an intellect. I learned it sort of in my head, but I didn't really get it in my heart. And there's a big piece about sort of how you see and relate to other people and think about other people that is as important as shifting your language. And I was focused initially on shifting the language. And when I worked with the mentor, he helped me shift the heart space. And when I started training, that was actually the bigger part of the training was learning how to shift how I showed up. And my assessor, who was the person that approved the certification after four years, making sure that I sort of embodied the consciousness.

Melanie Avalon:
What is the basic tenet of this approach? I guess it's funny, because we have to talk about the language of it.

Dr. Matthew Lederman:
The idea is that the focus is on the connection with the other person. So I care more about my heart being open and seeing what's inside someone else's heart than I care about anything else. And if my focus is always on expressing what's authentically in my heart and trying to look between the words and actions to get at what's in the heart of the other person, that if I focus in that space, something magical and beautiful comes out of that. And that's a place where everybody's needs can be met because we care about everybody and we're all soft and we're all in that heart space. But people are educated and conditioned and sort of self protected from trauma to not open up their hearts and sort of close them down. In fact, we have a term that implies almost a weakness, right? We'll say, oh, we're being, when we share from the heart, we're being vulnerable, right? Vulnerable almost means you're, you know, it's dangerous. There's an idea of like, and instead it's actually quite powerful to share from the heart and go into that heart space. We've just been conditioned not to.

Melanie Avalon:
As far as interpreting other people's hearts, what is the role of knowing what they actually are feeling or saying, like your perspective of it? Like how do you know that you're interpreting correctly people's hearts?

Dr. Matthew Lederman:
Yes. So that's a good question. So you don't know if you're interpreting correctly what matters more to the other person. And what matters more to the connection between the two of you is that you're trying to understand what's in their heart. And as long as you're trying, they'll direct you where you need to go. So for example, and I'm not saying I'm able to do this all the time. In fact, my life's work is being able to do this and clean up the message when I don't. But for example, the other night, I got into an argument with my 12-year-old daughter. And she forgot to do her homework. And after a four-day weekend and being on the iPad during the day, an hour before bedtime, she gets up and says, I got an hour of homework, or two hours of homework. And I was very upset. So my heart was shut down, right? It was tightened up. When you get upset, you know that your heart's tight. And instead of, so I had this first tend to that. But once my heart softened, I had to get, because she now was feeling angry. That was what her surface feeling was. And I could see in her face, her eyes were, she was not looking at me. Her eyes were darting. She had a tension in her face. I could see the muscles tight. She was squinting. She was giving me short answers. She was talking with a tone. So all of that I interpreted as she was angry. Now, I could have stayed at the anger, or I could go to the heart. And actually, it took me until then that night and then the next morning to get to the heart, which was she's actually feeling ashamed. And she's feeling really disappointed. And she has needs for self-acceptance and understanding and warmth and kindness. And I wasn't warm and kind when I was talking with tone about her not being irresponsible, when I was a little bit activated. And when I connected to the fact that she's already, she has an inner critic, and we all had a loud inner critic. Her inner critic was saying, Kylie, what's wrong with you? You want your parents to see that you're competent, that's schoolwork and responsible, and your teacher's going to not think you're responsible, and your friends are going to make fun of you for forgetting to do your homework. You're such a jerk. You're an idiot. And he was saying all these mean things to her, so she was feeling embarrassed and ashamed and hurt and sad. Even though on the surface it was anger and defensiveness, but that was covering up what was going on in her heart. So do you see how if I was able, once I was able to get to her heart that she so wants to be seen as this responsible kid and is trying so hard and she's made a mistake and she knows it, then I was able to connect to her heart and we were able to let the critic come out, which there's a little exercise for that, and then she was able to soften and that restored our connection. Does that make sense or is that too many words?

Melanie Avalon:
No, no. Okay, so it's good. So question there. So the realization that you had that it was her inner critic and her guilt and everything and not, you know, that the laziness or whatever it is, or, you know, procrastinating or the feelings there that it was coming from that. Did you have that realization on your own? And then you came back to her and changed the relationship between you two or did she communicate that to you?

Dr. Matthew Lederman:
No, she did not communicate that to me, I guess. So first thing, when I talk about connection, the first thing you do is you focus on your heart. And you had if your heart is tight. If you're feeling trigger or activated, you can't connect with anybody else. So what you want to do is give yourself empathy and say, Matt, you know, and I spent some time journaling and reflecting depending on how upset you are. Sometimes I do it right in the moment. But that one, there was a bunch of things going on that I took a little bit of time. And that's okay to say to someone, hey, you know, my heart's feeling a little tight right now. I really want to connect with you. I want to take a little time and I'm going to circle back with you. And when I take that time, then I can do empathy to myself, Matt, be feeling really frustrated, you really want a peace of mind that at 12 years old, she's going to remember her responsibilities and take care of them, and not wait to the last minute. And she's going to be successful in school. And that she's not going to need you looking over her shoulder, and she's going to turn things in and keep her agreements at school, you know, her assignments. And I really what I really needed, she was getting defensive. And I really needed her to have some self awareness and self responsibility that she was going to that she made a mistake. And if she's aware of the problem, then we can, you know, the flaw in the system where she forgot her homework, then she can fix it. And what was interesting was once I realized that's what my need was peace of mind, that she's going to be able to identify problems and fix them so that she can be successful in this world. I was able to soften and be like, Oh, I'm really worried about her. But the way I'm communicating it is the opposite of supportive, right? I'm worried about her. And the way I'm trying to meet my need to get that peace of mind is by thinking critically, having some tone, you know, not being warm and kind. So Matt, let's rethink this. And that softened me to then explore what was going on in her.

Melanie Avalon:
So I have some more questions about the needs. One really quick question. Have you been implementing this with both of your kids since they were born?

Dr. Matthew Lederman:
I started doing it. My daughter, the Kylie, who's 12 now, when I started really diving in, she had just turned six. And the other daughter, who's 10 now, which was four. So they've been doing it for, Kylie's been exposed to it for at least half of her life, and Jordan's done more than half. But kids all pick this up very quickly. It's the adults that have to do more unlearning of their old habits.

Melanie Avalon:
Yeah. Are there a lot of studies on this approach?

Dr. Matthew Lederman:
in the literature. There's some studies on non-violent communication and the impact it has, but I tell people, you know, to try it and see and feel the impact and that will be even more convincing than the studies.

Melanie Avalon:
The reason I was thinking about the studies was it's interesting. So the two other books I'm reading right now actually are both about a lot about childhood. So one is about childhood trauma and ACEs and things like that. And one is about attachment style and attachment theory. So I'm been reading a lot about like the critical time windows of childhood development. So I was just thinking about, I'm wondering children that are raised in this approach from, you know, day one, if there's a different effect or not. But it's nice to hear, like you said, that something that can be learned at any point.

Dr. Matthew Lederman:
I think even people that have been doing NVC since they were kids, I mean, the parents still get triggered. Different kids have different tendencies around how they react to stressors. I think that's where the sort of attachment styles, for example. So different attachment styles, they might have different strategies that they gravitate towards as far as how they sort of navigate life and relationships. But what's different about nonviolent communication is it's really about the present moment and creating a skill set, a way of thinking and talking that enhances your ability to be in your heart, see someone else's heart so that you can both come together and care for everybody's needs. And through that, all this stuff is achieved, everybody's needs get met, and life is wonderful. And that's used for the creator of NVC used to talk about, are you playing a game of right or wrong, good or bad? That's the conventional way of sort of trying to control people by saying, this behavior is right, that behavior is wrong, this is good, that's bad. You should do this, you shouldn't do that. Or we can go over to this other side and play, hey, what's going to make life most wonderful for both of us?

Melanie Avalon:
So this idea of needs, what is the role of needs versus wants?

Dr. Matthew Lederman:
Mm-hmm. Good, good. So it's a language framework. You know, sometimes people call them needs or wants, but I see what you're saying. There's sort of strategies in NVC online communication. We differentiate between needs and strategies and or values, right? So, so needs are these abstract traits that everybody shares or abstract, you know, sort of life serving values, needs, traits, whatever you want to call them. So for example, safety, security, acceptance, love, kindness, warmth, care, sustenance, right? And stability, trust, right? Those are needs. See how they're more abstract. And then the strategies are ways to meet those needs. So some people feel secure through the strategy of owning a gun. Other people like to have an alarm system. And other people like to live in a community, you know, where there's 20 people in the house and, you know, we're all sort of there. And I feel very mighty for security is met in that way. So you see how there's three different ways there to meet the same need for security. So that's where people get into conflict is when they argue over strategy. And they say my strategy is right, your strategy is wrong. Versus we both have different strategies, and we all value security.

Melanie Avalon:
Hmm. So when people seem to be having conflict over needs, is it over disagreeing about whether somebody needs something or not? Are they actually usually disagreeing over the strategy? Not the need.

Dr. Matthew Lederman:
Right. Strategy and maybe right strategies and priorities. So if you're really hungry, if you're driving in a car and you're really hungry, you want to meet your need for food right away, you have less reserve to hold off someone else a little bit hungry, they're like, we could stop now. But I, you know, I'm fine waiting a couple hours too. So the meeting your need for hunger is more of a priority to you. But how you meet your needs, they might say someone might give you a snack in the car, you might pull over and stop at a restaurant, you might do drives through, you know, you might meditate and try and see how long you can sit with your hunger, but all of those are going to address your, your need some way.

Melanie Avalon:
Okay, is happiness considered a need?

Dr. Matthew Lederman:
Happiness is a feeling. So feelings are really, it's almost like I told you what to say and you're sort of leading me along this path. This is great. So feelings are sort of senses in the body, right? Sensations that we then sort of say, oh, I recognize that feeling and then we put a word to it. But it's basically a sensation that causes you to take action or tells you if it's an unpleasant feeling, you know, for example, I feel fear as I get closer to, and basically it's taking action to meet a need. So feelings come and go based on whether you're meeting needs or not. So if you're meeting a need, you feel a pleasant feeling. If your need is not being met or you're worried it won't be met in the future, you feel an unpleasant feeling. So for example, if I have a need for safety, as I get closer to the edge of a cliff, I'm going to feel the sensation of fear, which is going to give, tell me to take action to step back from the cliff. If I didn't feel fear, I wouldn't know to take action and assume as I step back from the cliff, the fear will go away. And then actually if I get further away from the cliff, I might feel pretty comfortable. So now I go from an unpleasant feeling to a pleasant feeling. Now my need for safety is met. Somebody put a railing up on the cliff. I have a chair that will be here. I'm not standing at the edge. Now I go from feeling fear to feeling comfort.

Melanie Avalon:
If we think that we want or need something because it's going to make us feel a certain way, that's not actually the end goal need. Like I really want to go to this concert next week because I think it'll make me happy. But that happiness is not the end goal.

Dr. Matthew Lederman:
it's not what I would say is it's okay. There's nothing wrong with it. But what it's, it's, it's actually helpful to know actions that you can take that will lead to feelings, but don't stop there to connect to the needs that are met when you go to the concert. So it meets my need for creativity. It meets my need for, you know, community. If I'm going in friendship, I'm going with friends. And if there is a need for like, joy, right? So like, there's yeah, I would say there's a, you know, sort of like this sense of, but it's a happiness is one of those where it's more of a come and come and go type of feeling. The feelings come and go by the second. So you don't want to be focused on feelings, but it's okay to say, Oh, you know, I really want to feel happy. What are some things I could do to stimulate that feeling where, you know, that'll let's figure out what needs and what I've done in the past that stimulate happiness. And I'm going to do a little more of that. Sometimes I like to feel jolly, right? And I'm like, Oh, that's a fun feeling. What do I, but you can't make yourself feel a feeling, right? You can't make yourself feel thing. You can only take, you can tell yourself an action that you think will lead to that feeling. So for example, when parents say, I want you to feel comfortable, that's not doable, right? But you can tell them an action you want them to take that you think will lead them to feel comfortable, right? Oh, sit down on the couch and put your feet up. I think that will lead to comfort. And they'll say, let me try. Oh, no, I have, I have a back problem. I got to stand sitting actually hurts. Okay. So it didn't make you feel comfortable. It actually caused the opposite. Thanks for letting me know. Now I know for you, comfort is actually met by standing, not sitting. So do you see how, do you see how this you don't talk about saying that's why it's really stressful for, you know, in couples is I just want you to feel happy. And it feels like pressure because you're like, I don't know what to do. What do you want me to do? Yeah.

Melanie Avalon:
Yeah, yeah, no, completely. So in that dynamic between the parent and the kids and these needs and these wants, what is the role of having children only do what they need and want compared to making demands? What is the role of making demands to kids?

Dr. Matthew Lederman:
Yeah, so we got to change the whole paradigm. And that's what we talk about collaborative non permissive parenting. So we're work collaborative working as a team, non permissive. If you're permissive, you're saying, Okay, do what you want, even though it doesn't work for me. And what we want is to find ways that work for both of us. So as parents, one of my jobs is health or safety. And I'm not willing to have you take actions that don't meet my need for health and safety. Now, I'm going to try to not I'm going to try and find actions that work for you too. But in the end, we can't proceed with an action that doesn't also meet my need for health or safety. And I'm going to work with you really hard and try not to boss you around. And let's work as a team to make that happen. So that is the energy, but it's not about the kid and do I meet the kids needs or not, because you always have to look at two people when you're doing nonviolent communication, as far as does this, you know, we're sort of a team, because it's a connection between two people. So does if I'm parenting, it's between me and the child, could be more people, but let's assume we're just talking about the child. So now I'm saying, Okay, what action do I want the child to take? And what is my need behind that action? Like, why do I care if the child does that? And if and what I want to do is focus on connecting with the child around that need. So if they see the beautiful reason, I'm asking them to take that action. And if they don't see the beautiful reason, our connection suffers. And then the child can say, Okay, that's great. I'd love to take that I'm done, I'm willing to take that action, or actually, it meets my need, too. So I'm very happy to take the action or the child says, well, it doesn't really meet my need, but I'm still willing, because I hear how it's going to contribute to you. And I really want to contribute to you. And they're willing to get or it doesn't meet my need. And I'm not willing. And now it's my job to understand, well, what's preventing them from there's something that's preventing them from wanting to move forward without action. And it's my job to care about that. It doesn't mean I'm going to give in. But before we proceed, unless it's an emergency, which rarely it is, I want to care about what's preventing them from saying, yes, there's a need, there's a need of theirs, it's not going to be met. So for example, if I say, I want you to get off your iPad, and they're in the middle of a show that they really like, and they really want to finish. Okay, well, they want to finish the show and sort of see how it goes and completion of that episode. Okay, I get it. I may not be okay with it, I may, but at least I'm understanding it or they're talking to their friend about this boy. Okay, so I want to care about that even then my need, if I'm not willing to say yes, or okay, take 10 more minutes, I want to check in about what my need is, that's preventing me from saying yes, you see, it's like it's this back and forth. I share my need, how does it land for them? If it's not landing, well, excuse me, they share their need back to me. And then I check back in and it's this it's this back and forth dynamic versus I'm the parent and you're the kid and you do what I say. And either you do it or you don't. And if you know, that's the binary power over model. Whereas I'm talking about the this more collaborative connection focused model.

Melanie Avalon:
So like as a specific example, I'm just trying to like realistically see what this would look like. So say you had the example you mentioned where they're watching TV and let's say you wanted them to set the table. Do you ask them to set the table? Do you tell them to set the table, see how they react and then evaluate the needs? Like what does it actually look like? And if they say, and then when they say, I want to finish this TV show, like what does the conversation look like from there?

Dr. Matthew Lederman:
Right. So it really depends before ideally you're dealing with this proactively and saying, hey, there's some stuff that we have to do to get ready for dinner. And how are we all going to hoop? You know, do we all want to contribute? Does mom even want to make dinner tonight? Does dad going to do dinner tonight? You know, we have to set the table. How's this all going to get done? Let's work as a team to figure this out. So a lot of times where parents get in trouble is you're, you didn't do any proactive work and then you're very attached to getting your way because, and you're criticizing the kid is, you know, you know, inconsiderate or spoiled if they don't do what you want. And that's a, that's a recipe for a disaster. So what I do, if I waited to the last minute and I don't have a proactive agreement is I'll say to them, Hey, can we pause the show? I'm not saying we have to stop it. And by the way, there's a rush and everything is urgent. Like there's no time to have a connection. Then we have to rethink our whole system because we're scheduling ourselves in a way where we time restraints really kill connection. And it doesn't take a lot of time, but you gotta not live in the illusion that you don't have any time. I take a little time and I say, Hey, let's pause the show. And I say, can we share our needs here? I really want some support. I really like some help getting the table ready. And I'm seeing that you're in the middle of your show and you got 10 minutes left. So we could either tea dinner in 10 minutes. We need a table set before your show's done, or maybe we can wait 10 minutes. How important is your show right now finishing before dinner? Is this a big one or is there a big cliffhanger here? Or do you think you have capacity to pause and, and help me with the table now? Are you even open to helping me? You know, so there's this, and if they're not, I want to say, okay, I want to deal with that. But in that moment, I'm not going to force them to do it because we all pay for that, right? I'll threaten them, or I have to use scare tactics, or, you know, threaten to take things away. And then they're setting the table, but they're just angry. Instead, I'd really like them to connect to their need to support. And they're probably feeling torn, which is an important feeling to learn. We actually talked about that feeling on one of our earlier podcast episodes. And it's, it's really about, they do care about us, but they want to make sure that we care about their needs too. That is the name of the game. It's not that they don't want to help. They either don't know how it's contributing to us. They either think they don't have choice, or they have another need that's getting in the way. So if I tell them the way it's contributing is, oh, it's just so helpful that we're all working as a team to pair dinner, I don't feel all alone. And I get support, I'm a little bit tired. And it really just would feel wonderful that we're all taking responsibility to run this house. Do you hear how that feels good without judgment? And then I would say, okay, do you hear that you have choice? Because if a lot of kids, there's the, when they spend parents switch over to the non-violent communication approach, there's, you have to sort of deal with the aftermath and the history of Boston kids around for their whole life. And they don't have trust that they have choice. So they're resistant all the time, because they have so much built up resentment from being told what to do all the time. And nobody likes to do things out of obligation, even though the whole world lives in this world of obligation. But if we can get rid of that, then they like you have choice. If you don't want to do the table, I'm willing to do it tonight, because hey, I didn't prepare and you're in the middle of your show. But after dinner, I'd love to talk about ways that we can get stuff done in the house, and that we're all taking a little bit of the load, and it's not just falling on me and mom. So do you see how I'm not attached to getting my way then? But I am attached to getting my need for collaboration and support. Just not in that specific instance, I don't need to make it happen, because it's, it's not going to meet some other needs if I try to force them and scare them. But I'm also not permissive saying it's okay that I set the table for the rest of my life, and you don't help at all. That doesn't work for me either.

Melanie Avalon:
some questions from that because you're mentioning nobody really liking obligations. What is the role of the temperament of the child and what I'm thinking of specifically? For me, I'm very rules oriented and I like rules unless they really don't make sense to me. I pretty much like rules and so my memory of my childhood is I don't even remember being told to do a lot because I just followed all the rules all the time and it didn't really bother me. I wanted to follow rules versus some kids who seem to rebel or against all of that. I'm curious, what is the role of the temperament of the child? Does this work with most children or some children? It's harder. Can children figure out the system and realize what you're doing and then, I don't know, realize they never have to do anything they don't want.

Dr. Matthew Lederman:
Here's the thing is we assume that if kids don't have to do anything that they don't want, that they're just not going to care about anybody else. And that's an illusion too, that they actually love contributing. We all love contributing, but they don't like contributing if they have to, or if they think that you're going to judge them if they don't or love them less. So for a lot of kids, and I don't know your person, your childhood, some people like the structure of rules, especially if they agree to them. People love keeping agreements. That's a need, like integrity around agreements and trust that we're going to follow through with what we say. But the agreements that we both agree to is the key, not some rule that someone puts on top of you, unless it makes, like you said, unless it meets your needs too. Like there's a rule, no one ever asked me if I'm okay with the seatbelt rule, but it beats my need for safety, so I'm okay with it. But there's some other rules that I'm not okay with that people will force on me, and then I don't like that. So when you are good with rules, I imagine it's either meeting your needs, or at some point, you are taught that going along, even if it doesn't meet your needs, meets a need. So in other words, if you met your need for love and acceptance by being the good kid and going along all the time, then even if the rule didn't meet your needs, it's still meeting some needs. Does that make sense?

Melanie Avalon:
No, that's literally the epiphany I just had in my head. I think in addition to seemingly not being bothered by rules in general, I think I definitely started getting feel-good neurotransmitters realizing that following the system gets you along in life and benefits you.

Dr. Matthew Lederman:
So praise, right? So you get your, basically if your love and acceptance and ultimately feeling safe in this world is based on following, you know, power, whether it's your parents, your teachers, your bosses and making them happy and getting their approval, right? These are all tragic strategies, meeting needs for acceptance and then deeper than that is probably love and worth, self-worth. So it causes a lot of pain, but those people that just say, I just like it. I think it's helpful, like when we work with clients on this, this is a lot of deep work where they have to really unpack, you know, oh, did I condition myself because it met these really important core needs, even though I'm suppressing what I want in that moment. I mean, I was just working with a 12 year old girl yesterday and she was just going along and then rationalizing why her need, it was okay to not get her needs met. And I said, it's okay to be willing to not meet your needs because you're contributing to someone else. It's not okay to suppress your need because you don't believe, you think it's going to cause, you know, upset or it's going to, you know, people are going to see you as difficult and they're not going to accept you and love you as much. Now, when I say not okay, I mean, I understand why you're doing it and it might be something you have to do in a environment where you're not free to meet, you know, to be yourself and authentic. But what I'm saying is the true healing comes when you don't have to suppress any part of you to be loved and accepted and connect to your self worth.

Melanie Avalon:
I think I asked you this last time I interviewed you, I think, because you mentioned it briefly. So what are your thoughts on humans, kids, automatically do care about others? Do you think... Yeah, I definitely asked you this last time. We used the word narcissists and psychopaths and stuff. Do you think any of those exist from birth?

Dr. Matthew Lederman:
I mean, I would say there's always the small exceptions, but I would say far, far, far majority. I don't care what your genes are because we know this, that how you see the world and how you've been related to by the world affects what genes get expressed and what other genes get turned off. So your genes don't matter to me as much as the environment. And think of the environment as a menu from which they're sorry, think of the genes in your body as the menu from which life is ordering from. And depending on what's going on in your life, it's going to pick different things on the menu. Does that make sense? Yeah, it does. So when somebody, when we label somebody as a narcissist, right, it's, it's one, it's, it's unhelpful, right, as far as connection. Now, it is helpful if you're trying to protect yourself. So you people label because they're needs to try and make sense of the other person's behaviors and also likely to protect them to meet their need for protection. So the way I'm making sense is labeling them. But if my real need is to be connecting, I might say I still don't want to really expose myself to this person in any my emotionally in any significant way, because I don't have trust that they're going to hold space for me with care and love. But it doesn't serve me to label them. It's better to say, oh, this person really has a need to matter and feel a sense of being valued. And that need doesn't really get met for those that person very well. So it's almost like it's in severe deficit. Right? So they just so addicted to wanting to matter and, and feel valued. And at the same time, I don't want to engage too much because I'm noticing in my body, I don't have a real sense to trust that there's going to be mutual care for each other. So I'm going to limit my interaction with them. At the same time, I'm not going to have this energy, this blame and hateful energy that comes along with a label of narcissist. So do you see how I'm still meeting a need for protection and safety, emotional safety, but with care and love? And I think that's where the healing happens. That's where your real power is. And that's where healing happens when you can do that.

Melanie Avalon:
Something else healing, something you talked about in the podcast, what are heart hugs?

Dr. Matthew Lederman:
That is our one of our favorite tools to use. And it's when I first started using NVC and trying to help because what I did was I learned these things when I was studying and that I wanted to bring into the family and I had a six year old. And I tried to explain empathy to a six year old. And I said, Well, let's try it. So I said, empathy is when it feels like when someone else is giving your heart a hug. And you just feel so wonderful and accepted. And no matter what sort of you're saying, they're just giving your heart a gate hub. And we started calling those hard hugs. And then we said, Okay, I said, Well, how do you do empathy? And I told them I said, empathy is you hear what they're saying. And you just tell them back what you're hearing is in their heart. And at first, they would just tell you back what they're saying. But eventually, they learned feelings and needs language. So they could give a hard hug that that's, that's what they do now is they tell you back the feelings. And the needs that they are hearing is going on in your heart based on what you're saying. And that's a hard hug. And in our family, when somebody asks for a hard hug, it's an agreement that you're just going to empathize. And that you're not going to give them advice or ask questions or try to fix anything without getting permission. So when my kids are my kids are upset, they'll are scared. I'll say, Dad, I really need a hard hug. And I'll know just be there and give empathy and they're nervous or, you know, they're not sure what they're needing. But don't go to advice right now.

Melanie Avalon:
So basically it's an agreement that you're just going to be there with them, have empathy, listen, not inform from there.

Dr. Matthew Lederman:
Exactly. And I do it the same. I'll say, Hey, you know, Jordan, can you give me a hard hug or Kylie? I'm going to tell you, like when I'm upset with them and I say, I told them to get all their clothes off of my bedroom floor. For some reason, I don't know why they always want to put their dirty clothes on my bedroom floor, but I'll say, can you, you know, I really want my room in order and clean. So I'd like to close it. If you're going to shower in our bathroom, go put it in the laundry basket. And then I'll see, I'll be like, Oh, and I'll get annoyed. And I'm getting annoyed. Why? Because my need for trust and keeping our agreements and to trusting that they care about what we talk about is coming up. When those needs are not met, I feel unpleasant feelings. I feel annoyed. And then what makes it more annoyed is I might have a blame energy towards them where I'm like, they don't even care about what we talk about. And then I stay with that blame energy. And I'm like, Oh, you know what's going on? I think they're forgetting. And they're going to feel pretty embarrassed and upset when I remind them. But that doesn't mean I want to just suppress my feelings. I want to hold both. So then I'll say, Jordan, can you come in here? And I'll say, Jordan, I need a hard hug. Can you give me a hard hug? And then she knows to not go to defensiveness or trying to explain herself. And I'll say, Jordan, I know you value remembering our agreements. But at the same time, when I see your clothes on the floor, there's a part of me that has a thought that these agreements don't matter. So can you tell me, can you give me a hard hug back? Can you tell me what you imagine I'm feeling? And she'll say, Dad, I bet you're feeling really frustrated because you want people to keep their agreements and you want them to follow through and they don't. And then you get really upset and you wonder if they even care. And I'll be like, Oh, my God, that feels so good, Jordan. And I'll say, that healed my heart. Now I don't even care so much about the clothes. Just you acknowledging that heals my heart. Now Jordan, after you gave me a hard hug, can you tell me your reaction? And she'll say, Yeah, dad, I feel regret. I really wish I remember him. I really want to keep agreements. And I'll say, thank you so much. And then we'll do it. Then we go to strategy. So now I had the connection with her, got the hard hug. She expressed her reaction. When we go to strategy, which is the Jordan, you know, what strategies can we do to help remember? And she's like, you know, dad, when I get in the shower, I'm going to set an alarm on my watch for 20 minutes that says, Oh, you know, remember the clothes. And I say, that sounds great. And if you forget, we'll have another, we'll, we'll check back out and see if that works. So it's almost like an experiment. And she goes, dad, that's great. And I said, if you forget again, you think you'll be able to give me another hard hug and we'll try a new strategy. And she says, Yeah, dad, but I'm going to try really hard. Right? Because the strategy of just remembering was not good enough. And a lot of parents think if I talk about it, and they remember, they're just going to remember. And for most kids, that's a terrible strategy. You see how the hard hug works in that real life situation.

Melanie Avalon:
No, I really do. I need to start implementing this with my family. It's amazing.

Dr. Matthew Lederman:
And even in relationships, it works so well in all... I mean, I talk about it with parents and kids, but it works in all the things that we're talking about are essential for any relationship, I believe.

Melanie Avalon:
I really like it because I think there's a big value. We might do that without realizing sometimes, but I think there's a really big value to labeling things, like having the system so you can actually implement it. Question about the empathy, and I'm thinking about this because another one of the books I'm reading, which is actually about burnout, it was talking about empathy and something called, what's it, empathy, fatigue, empathetic distress, I think. It was basically the idea that some people, if you're having to give too much empathy all the time to a person or a situation, that it can basically be a turnoff and people withdraw to protect themselves. So she was saying that we need to focus on compassion sometimes rather than empathy. This is a really nuanced question, but it's actually stuck with me. I'm just curious, do you have thoughts on when you're having these moments with your kids or whoever you're implementing this with? Is there a difference between compassion? So basically she says that empathy, like you feel the pain with them versus compassion, your understanding and seeing the pain. Is there a difference there?

Dr. Matthew Lederman:
I think I look at it a little bit differently. I think the message is, I still resonate with, to some extent, right? Empathy is a need. We all have needs for empathy and understanding. If you want to be present to somebody else's experience, by being present to their experience, you are beating the need for empathy.

Melanie Avalon:
their need for empathy or your need for empathy or both.

Dr. Matthew Lederman:
Ultimately both but you're not getting I mean you're meeting your need to contribute empathy and you're meeting their need for Receiving empathy because you're talking about their experience if you are getting empathy You would then it would be about what's going on in your heart So so but it's sometimes you don't have the capacity. So somebody says hey, I'd really likes an empathy and Do you check in and you say oh, you know, and I'm just so exhausted right now I really don't have space or you started giving up to me for five minutes and after five minutes You're just feeling oh, I don't have any more to give to be able to speak up and say, you know My tank is a little empty. Can we pause and maybe we circle back tomorrow or you try to get empathy from a friend or Some other place. So I think that it's always important to check in yourself and with the other person and The connection between you so remember there's you your heart there's their heart and then there's sort of the energy between the two of you and That's the connection. You know that to me together makes this consciousness this connection consciousness that I'm talking about

Melanie Avalon:
Okay, that was super helpful. Yeah, that was the question I was getting to. It's actually something sort of similar. So because there could have been that situation, like you just mentioned, where somebody is asking for a heart hug or ask or needing empathy and you just at that moment in time don't have the capacity to give it. What is the concept of artificial harmony where people are kind of just pretending along?

Dr. Matthew Lederman:
So artificial harmony is the concept that you're suppressing your authenticity to meet needs for acceptance or harmony. So you don't know how to share what your true needs are and then you block them down and then pretend that everything's great even though you have needs that aren't being met. And that's different if you're actually okay not meeting. Remember I talked about the hunger and you checked in you're like I'm okay not eating right now so I'm not meeting my needs for food right now but I'm very willing to do it. I'm talking about someone who is not happy about it or they're so disconnected they don't even realize they're doing it which is a lot of the people we work with where they've grown learned as kids to suppress your needs because they're not in a matter and it's actually so painful to have your needs come up and not be held and honored that you learn to disconnect from them completely. So artificial harmony though that happens a lot on work teams when we work with corporate teams and because they don't feel safe to bring up their true you know you know be fully honest they are quiet or they pretend everything's great and that is toxic to the team and it's to me it's one of the key jobs of leadership is to not assume that that doesn't exist. In fact you should assume assume that it always exists even the most you know connection conscious people have had that artificial harmony and then tending to it. In fact I think every company should have a role leader that's the chief connection officer and we're starting a company around AI and supporting people supporting people with connection and I asked for that role for a variety of reasons but I think it's so important to be looking for artificial harmony and trying to figure out a way to have people bring up conflict or concerns or something that's not working for them in a way that enhances the connection. In fact that's our most recent episode on the podcast is about the gift and that is a tool we use at home to create an environment where people can share when their needs aren't being met in a way that is received like it's a gift and that part of why we created that was to get rid of or to help identify and eliminate suppression of authenticity and artificial harmony.

Melanie Avalon:
Okay, I'm really excited because I just checked I haven't that's the one episode I haven't listened to yet because it came out yesterday for friends. This is the we be parents podcast. So go check it out right now. Subscribe. Like I said, it parents is in the title, but as you can probably tell from this conversation, it can help everybody. I love that. So just one really quick question about the artificial harmony existing in companies and making sure you know, addressing that. So does that mean we should be like, if it doesn't seem like there's any problems, does that mean as the leader, we should be asking the team on the like on a regular basis, like, are there problems

Dr. Matthew Lederman:
Right. I call it mining for artificial harmony. So it's all about the culture and not just what you ask, but how you show up. So as leaders, do you share when something's not working with you, with other people on the team in a way that's warm and caring? And you can, you can even ask things like instead of saying, you know, my boss, when I was at another company used to always say, Oh, you can tell me anything. But boy, did the action show something very different than that. Oh, if you did. Right. Do they get very defensive or they would get upset or they would take it personally. And it's like, okay, well, if you're getting defensive, getting upset, taking things personally, you are basically saying and communicating. Don't be authentic. So it's your job to learn how to take whatever message is communicated by your team. No matter what the words could that come out of their mouth, get to the heart. And that's where the feelings and needs are helpful. I always say, only listen to the words that come out of their mouth long enough to connect to their heart and then stop worrying about the words and focus on the heart. So if somebody, an employee is like, you know, I really, you know, you don't give us enough time off. If you start explaining why and justifying your PTO policy, right? You're basically telling them that don't even, don't even bring it up. But instead, if you say, Hey, so I'm hearing that you're needing more time off, you're just eating a break, you're needing more vacation. Are you looking to spend more time with your family? Is that what's, is that what's going on? So again, you're trying to understand what's going on in that. And depending on how you respond and how that goes, you're going to teach them, Oh, I can bring up something. Now they might often have bad experiences from other companies they worked at. So it's almost like with kids that are used to being bossed around and hearing demands, even though you say it as a request. It's the same thing here, even though you say, Hey, this is an open forum and you really mean it, and you're ready to practice your NVC, you still might have employees that don't trust the space. So how do we create that trust? And that's, you know, by when they do bring something up, also guessing, right? I'm guessing this doesn't mean I used to do that with my kids before bed, I would say, I know you must have a gift for me tonight. I know I did something that you didn't like today. And I, and I love your gifts. They're so wonderful. So I can't, we talk about this again in that episode. And I really want to hear something that I did. And they're like, why do you want to hear what you did that we didn't like dead? And I said, because it shows me that you care so much about the relationship that you want to talk about it and work, work at it together with me. And it teaches me how you like to be loved. And that matters to me so much. And I'm so glad that you take the time and effort to tell me all that. That's the message we want to communicate, whether it's with our kids, our partner, or employees.

Melanie Avalon:
Wow, the AI connection thing that you're developing, is it for all of these different situations?

Dr. Matthew Lederman:
like to help. It's basically we're creating a connection expert coach that can support people to strengthen relationships and enhance connection in their relationships. So something that you know, Ryan, who, you know, and me and a couple of people are working together and it's very exciting off to show you a demo of it.

Melanie Avalon:
Oh, I love that I listeners know I get I'm fascinated and obsessed with the evolution of AI, I mean, mostly because I get in arguments with it most nights, but besides that.

Dr. Matthew Lederman:
No, I've been, I've been, I've been using this myself. In fact, I used it last night when I was, I was feeling some anxiety about a trip coming up and it helped me. And I use it the other day. Remember, I told you I got into a little argument with how I treated Kylie when she didn't do her homework. And then I was angry. And I also felt a little ashamed about how I showed up. And I'm like, come on, Matt, my inner voice, my inner critic was saying, you know, you know better. You, you know, NVC, why are you acting this way? And then I was, so I was like beating myself up. And then I was distant from, you know, my wife, Alona. And I'm like, Oh my God, I'm making a mess here. So I got on with, you know, my, with my demo app and helped me figure out, you know, navigate this, you know, helped me repair the connection and gave me, you know, gave me empathy. It was really wonderful.

Melanie Avalon:
and you're programming it, like your team is programming it.

Dr. Matthew Lederman:
Yeah, I'm doing the putting over together the prompting and then we have a some that's helping to build the app and then Ryan was this other guy that were working together who's oversteer leading the business so it's pretty exciting actually.

Melanie Avalon:
Have you had any issues with it hallucinating? No, that's why I get in arguments with it every night. Like I promise every night I'm like arguing with chat GPT.

Dr. Matthew Lederman:
I've had issues with chat GPT, right? Like I was doing a funny story, you know, or something, and it was telling me, you can't say this. It's not nice. And I'm like, but it's a comedy. Like, we're joking here. It could not get past that. And I'm like, you do what I tell you. And I was getting into a power struggle with chat GPT. So that was funny to me. But this is different. This is funny. It's really focused on connection. And I mean, I'm sure it could hallucinate. And yeah, in fact, we're going to be looking for people that want to be sort of part of our first release. And you know, we want to identify all those issues, but I personally haven't had a problem with that yet.

Melanie Avalon:
Oh, cool. Super cool. Well, if you need help finding people, I'm sure people in this audience would love to try it out. Oh, really?

Dr. Matthew Lederman:
Oh, good. Yeah, yeah.

Melanie Avalon:
Yeah, let me know like I can like, you know, reach out. Yeah, that's super cool. Also related to development, product development. So how did you develop we be calm? Why? How? When?

Dr. Matthew Lederman:
Yeah, so we become was exciting. It was knowing that before you can connect, you need to calm the nervous system and sort of get it out of threat mode, where it's like ready to fight. Because when we have a need that's not being met, it feels like a threat, right? Like if you don't experience safety, you're like, Oh, we're in danger, right? If someone's forcing you to do something danger. So your nervous system reacts like it's experiencing a threat. And we gotta, you know, we gotta regulate the nervous system is what the term is. It's called a need for regular that's a need regulation. And one of the best ways to sort of regulate the nervous system and turn on the parasympathetic nervous system and sort of tone down the synthetics, which is your fight flight is through a type of breathing where you have a slow extended exhalation. And there's a couple other things there's focused attention and and auditory regulation with white noise. So I said, let's put all these pathways that we know are regulating into a tool and and gamify that for kids. So that's where the we become came in where you take this tool. And it's a device that you it's by you call you can only exhale comfortably if you slowly exhale. And as you're exhaling, it locks a ball up and you can watch the ball. So kids now have to slowly exhale as they see hold the ball. And as long as they're exhaling, the ball is staying up. And we asked them to hold the ball up for the number of seconds they are old, up to 10. So if you're trying to blow out slowly holding the ball for 10 seconds, you're also focusing your eyes on the ball, which is focused attention. And there's white noise that comes out of the back, which is for auditory regulation. And that is the we become device that then teaches kids how to do what we call take a weeby breath. Because when you tell a kid their blood slowly, they'll start doing right and they start doing this fast thing. And, and what we found is that if you gamify it, and they really have this tool that they can sort of train themselves on, then after a period of time, their body gets conditioned to do this weeby breathing. And it's really exciting to see. And that, you know, it can regulate the whole nervous system. And in fact, two days ago, or three days ago, one of my daughters called from school, trying hysterically, so upset. And I couldn't even understand them. And I said, Would you be willing to take a couple of weeby breaths before so that I we can talk and connect about what's happening? But I'm hearing how upset you are. And she said, Okay, and also, and I hear ago, and doing the exact we be breathing, because she was conditioned. And as soon as I said, we be breath, she knew exactly what to do, she also connected back likely to the experiences of practicing, and her body immediately calmed down. And then she started saying things like, Oh, boy, dad, I don't even know why I was so upset. And I said, doesn't even matter why I said, just how's your body doing? She said, calm her. And then we were able to connect about what was going on, and then eventually strategize. And we handled it. But it was like, wow, like, you know, just to make clear, I mean, I'm using it myself, because that's why a lot of the tools, in fact, all the tools that we've created or act your actions we've taken, is we tried it on ourselves and used it in our home first.

Melanie Avalon:
Yeah, I love this so much. I actually have it in my hand right now. I'm reading on the box. So it says a tool to assist with bedtime routines, test taking tantrums, nervousness, crying fits, schoolwork, meltdowns, attention, stress, anger, kids three and up can use it.

Dr. Matthew Lederman:
Yeah, anybody that can use it benefits, you know, we have people that are older will use it. It's it's really, there's a benefit because people will say, Oh, I could just breathe on my own. Well, people don't. And on top of that, there's a benefit of conditioning yourself with the tool. And then when you remind yourself to take a weavy breath, there's this muscle memory that completely activates the parasympathetic nervous system. And that is what calms the body. But it's because of sort of the upfront investment of practicing and conditioning and all three pathways combined. That really makes difference that any time you need it, you just can take the weavy breath. But it's that ongoing conditioning that allows you to activate that system at any time, even when you don't have the device and take a weavy breath.

Melanie Avalon:
Yeah, so parents could create a habit with this and do it at night before bed and bring it out all the times they need it and create that habit loop with all of it. What I really like about it because I had a similar product that I'd used a few years ago that I partnered with and it was a very similar concept where it forces the breath to be longer when you're blowing. There was nothing visual to it besides holding it. I love the idea that you actually look at the ball. It's multiple stimuli going on, so it's immersive.

Dr. Matthew Lederman:
Yeah, no, it's great. There's multiple pat calming pathways, and then you can even take off the indicator tube. And then you just have the breathing tube that fits in your pocket if you want. So there's a lot of flexibility, but the idea is to use it. And by practicing just, you know, even if you just did it every night before bed, and you conditioned your body every night before bed, then the kids will quickly learn, whether they're upset at school, or they're even having a tantrum. Instead of yelling at them to calm down, you can say, Hey, would you, would it feel comfortable in your body if you try to weavy breath? You want to see how that feels? Let's take some weavy breaths together. And it's just there's just something magical and different about about doing it this way. And it's exciting to see.

Melanie Avalon:
Love it, I love it. Where can parents or anybody, where can they get it?

Dr. Matthew Lederman:
Yes, so they can go to we the website we become w-e-b-e-k-a-l-m we become calm. And they can get it there. If they sign up, which is really nice on the mailing list, they can get a 25% discount. You can also get on amazon.com, but they don't get that same discount. So I highly recommend going to the site and signing up and taking advantage, you know, giving your kids this tool, because when I was growing up, all I had was, you know, parents yelling at me to calm down, that was the tool. And there's not much out there. In fact, in fact, as we just started, you know, trying to distribute this, a lot of the stores that we talked to her like, you know, where does this go? We don't have anything like it, which to me is a testament to the need for such a device. Like, which aisle? You can actually, you know, over longer periods of time, you know, that can, there is definitely a dependency that can develop and, and it's putting something in the body versus teaching the body how to use the mechanisms that it already has, you know, thanks to Mother Nature. And, you know, you buy, you know, you buy it once and you have it for life versus, you know, having to refill your melatonin every month. So even if you just use it for sleep, right, to help. Because the reason the body, this is what people don't understand, when they can't sleep, they think there's something wrong with their body. And I'll say, if your body is mobilized, if you go through the day, and you do not know how to calm your body, and you, you're mobilized, because you see all, you know, you experience the world as threat relationships, you're suppressing and disconnecting, which your body thinks, Oh, it must be dangerous. So how I'm suppressing this to your body mobilizes. And then it's going to say, hey, there's all these threats, you know, people schedule themselves like crazy and don't have time and they're stimulated by all the device usage. And their brain is like super focused, you know, super leaning towards this threat, physiology, let's call it, right, what's going on in your body, it's, it's, it's basically saying there's danger everywhere. Well, of course, it's not going to sleep, right? You're not it shouldn't sleep. You're you've turned on the same mechanisms by how you live and run your life in catastrophe mode. As it's the same mechanisms that turn on when there's a tiger in the room. And if there's a tiger in the room, are you gonna be able to lay down and go to sleep? Of course not. In fact, it's not a good idea to do that. So when your body stays up at night, because it's mobilized in fight or flight, it's actually not broken. It's doing what it should do. What you need to do, though, is be able to communicate to the body that it's not in fight or flight mode. And what we're doing instead is saying, Okay, we need to give them drugs, and we have to diagnose them with all these medical issues. Right? To me, that would be like saying, well, there's a kid, and he's there's a tiger in the room, and he's not going to sleep. So what do we do? We got to give him, you know, all this stuff to try and fix his sleep disorder. No, we got to get his we got to remove the tiger. Or we got to get the body to stop thinking there's tiger in room. And that's what a we become device does that helps their body say, Oh, there's no tiger. Okay, now we can go to sleep.

Melanie Avalon:
I love it. Yeah, so friends, I cannot recommend enough getting this device. So magical. It's literally like a way to instantly, you know, turn off your, your stress response and help combat these these issues that you might be in in a really, really healthy way and non dependent way and like Matt was saying a skill that keeps on giving because then you can learn how to do the breaths. So definitely go to webekalm.com. That's W-E-B-E-K-A-L-M.com. And you can use the coupon code WeBeParents to get 15% off. So that's W-E-B-E-P-A-R-E-N-T-S for 15% off. And then like Matt said at that website, you can also sign up to get on the email list and get a 25% off coupon code as well. So, so many things. This would make a great gift. Oh my goodness. Wait, if people need, if people need presents and gifts, especially for, you know, new parents, you just get this. This is like the gift. This is going to be my go to gift from now on. Awesome. Awesome. The gift of calm. Yes, I love it. I love it. Well, thank you so much, Matt. This has been so incredible. I just really cannot express enough my gratitude for all of the work that you're doing. It's just so profound and so needed. Just you as a person, like all of it comes through knowing you. I'm just really, really grateful for what you bring to our world. Was there anything else you wanted to touch on about everything that you're doing? Anything else the audience should know?

Dr. Matthew Lederman:
No, I think that's great, and I really appreciate your support and enthusiasm for this work, and it means a lot. What I like about you is just how hoping you are to learning new things and exploring new things, and even though you don't have kids, you could see all the value of this work, and I'm grateful for people like you and having you in my life.

Melanie Avalon:
Oh, likewise. Well, I'm so excited to see the future of everything that you're doing because I'm sure this is just the start. So again, for listeners, go to we be calm.com, get that device now use the coupon code we be parents for 15% off, sign up on the email list for 25% off. And in the show notes, we'll put links to all of Matt's books and just all the things Oh, and check out his podcast, we be parents podcast. So okay, well, this is Oh, my goodness. Last question that I asked every single guest on the show, I almost forgot I was so in the moment. And you might remember it from last time. But it's just because I'm so passionate about mindset and gratitude. So what is something that you're grateful for?

Dr. Matthew Lederman:
Well, I think I actually, I think I just share it. But I'm grateful for someone like you who has this, reached all these people, and is so open and exploring, you know, new things and, you know, trying to learn and then share goodness and support for people. I see so many people that are hurting, struggling, and really taking a hit in this world. And it's just so inspiring, when people like you show up and just say, Hey, I'm gonna do what I can to support people and make world a little the world a little bit of a better place to be. So thank you.

Melanie Avalon:
Well, thank you so much for sharing that. I just couldn't agree more with that mission. It can seem really dark out there with social media and the news and everything. And I know people experience so much hardship in this world. And so it's nice to know that there is kindness and goodness and solutions and answers and people can have agency to bring change into their lives. So keep on keeping on. Can't wait to talk to you again in the future.

Dr. Matthew Lederman:
Me too, thanks again.

Melanie Avalon:
Have a good day. Okay. Bye-bye. Bye.