273: Exploring Self-Connection w/ Bob Yamtich

* Rough Transcript *

Ep. 273

Introduction to Embracing Intensity

Intensity, you trust it because you have shared reality. Your contributions are really reaching people. So for me, my flavor of embracing intensity is a sense of trust, a sense of, I know that you’re directed in a life enriching way, a life serving way. The energy that flows from me to you is going to meet needs.

Welcome to the Embracing Intensity podcast. I’ll be sharing interviews and tips for gifted, creative, twice exceptional, and outside the box thinkers who use their fire in a positive way.

My name is Aurora Remember Holtzman. After years of feeling too much, I finally realized that intensity is the source of my greatest power.

Mission to Embrace Intensity

Now, instead of beating myself up about not measuring up to my own self imposed standards, I’m on a mission to help people embrace their own intensity and befriend their brains so they can share their gifts with the world through the Embracing Intensity community, coaching, educational assessment, and other tools to help you use your fire without getting burned.

You can join us at embracingintensity. com.

Hello!

Interview with Bob Yamtich

This week, I get to share an interview with Bob Yamtich, who will be speaking with the community live on Saturday, June 15th, on Nonviolent Communication, or NVC. He’s been on my list to interview for a long time, and we met over 10 years ago at the Seng Conference where he talked about NVC.

Nonviolent Communication (NVC)

We both share an appreciation for the NVC approach, not just to communicate with others, but also to expand our own self awareness.

If you join us live, you’ll get a chance to put it into practice. Make sure you’re in our community or on our mailing list for reminders and login information. You can also find an introduction to NVC in my workbook, From Mental Chaos to Clarity and Connection, in my membership or online shop at embracingintensity.

com. Enjoy!

Welcome to embracing intensity today. I am super thrilled to have Bob Yamtich, who I’ve been wanting to have on the podcast for something like a decade, I think, ever since we met at the SANG conference and he spoke on nonviolent communication, which we’re both passionate about. So super glad to finally have you welcome Bob.

Thank you.

Bob Yamtich’s Background

So tell me a little bit about yourself and what you are intensely passionate about.

Well, I mean, I’m a dad, so nothing compares to that, but professionally, there is something I’m into, and that’s developing self connection with people, people of all ages, but I wrote a self connection coloring book, and that’s my main thing to share.

Awesome. Awesome. That’s right. I saw that. It’s so cool. And I think that’s one of the reasons why I connect with your work on nonviolent communication because I also find it a very helpful tool for self connection, not just interpersonal.

Perfect.

So tell me about your own personal brand of intensity. What does intensity look like for you?

Challenges of Intensity

Yeah, yeah, well, intensity is complicated for me, because I did take it too far, and I lost two, two needs I wasn’t paying attention to well. I wasn’t paying attention to stability, and I wasn’t paying attention to shared reality. So now as I rebuild my life, I can still connect to that passion, that drive, that used to be hypomania, or even manic with a years long psychosis.

So for 20 years, I’m hypomanic. Nobody notices. I’m just totally, you know, peace movements and wild beliefs that all my friends are on a team and we’re doing important work in the world. And that’s kind of true. So you can see how that’s reinforced.

Teaching at San Quentin

I mean, I taught at San Quentin prison for three years because of this work.

It was nonviolent communication that got me in the door or through the gates, I should say.

Awesome. Awesome. And you shared, since I know I’ve followed you for 10 years. And so I kind of know a little bit about That experience that you’ve shared over time, but my audience probably doesn’t know as much.

Do you want to share a little bit more about the shared reality piece?

Yeah. Yeah.

Neurodiversity and Bipolar

Well, as far as neurodiversity goes, I am definitely bipolar. Bipolar with psychotic tendencies. And I know that because I was out of my mind for years and I believed ridiculous things about myself and the medicine worked.

Yeah. And so, a significant fraction of my wellbeing is related to the medicine. I told the doctor, “but Nonviolent Communication and I’m trained as a therapist, and in California, I was a licensed marriage and family therapist.” And he’s like, “you can’t just use coping for this. You need medicine.”

So I’m an outlier because of my bipolar. There are other ways I’m an outlier too.

Giftedness and Executive Functioning

Giftedness, for five years everybody was certain I was autistic. And now my current therapist is thinking, no, but there’s no test I would trust. I think I call it neuro non binary because there’s really just no telling.

Hmm. Yeah. I could see that. And it’s definitely hard to parse out those things because there’s so much overlap in them.

Yeah.

Intensity in Childhood

So how do you think your intensity affected you growing up?

Sadly, I think it led to a little bit of loneliness because I took things to a level that nobody else was like, even with coin collecting, my dad hooked me up with somebody he worked with. Who had two suitcases full of Buffalo nickels and they wanted me to go through them to see if they were any special.

And then, I have intensity mixed with executive functioning challenges. So I’m overwhelmed and I just feel guilty. And it’s my, my first experience of real guilt is like every time I see the nickels, I’m assessing, it’s not a feeling, it’s an assessment, it’s a thought, but that the thought, the story I’m telling myself is that I am a failure because I have not processed these two suitcases full of nickels, a ridiculous task for a 12 year old.

And how’d that turn out?

 I didn’t find anything like worth hundreds of dollars or I didn’t find that rare error or rare dates. And I gave him the nickels back. He gave me some coins as a gift or a fee and it just went away. But intensity, I was identified early as Intensity, so I was in the Gifted program.

Gifted Program Experience

So, by the time I was in 7th grade, I was doing well with making friends. There, maybe from like 3rd to 7th grade were some of my years of struggle. And this is what I hope for people, like I see these adult diagnosed gifted people, and I’m like, it’s so much easier when you can handle that when you’re 10.

Like, so yeah, I, I had some really good programming.

That’s great to hear because I know even those who do get identified early, sometimes their programming isn’t great or the, you know, there’s that pressure or did you feel like you said the programming is great? What do you think made it great for you?

Well, it was standalone fourth and fifth grade with significantly gifted kids, like probably At least highly gifted. And just, and I tell people and I tell kids, you, you don’t have to have this, the same passion. You just have to both have passion as far as having a friend. So, so not everybody was into what I was into and I barely made the relay team for the track and field day, but that.

Help get me into sports and yeah just, and then accelerated coursework through all the way through high school. And yeah, I was the glory child. It wasn’t until my PhD program in environmental engineering that I left without a degree. I didn’t even get a master’s, even though I did all the coursework.

And I was just looking at the laboratory. So this is, we weren’t going to go there, but this is more executive functioning challenge than than anything else. But there’s, let’s say a piece of equipment that’s a hundred thousand dollars and it has a computer that’s 3, 000. Well, I’m using that computer to play spider solitaire.

I don’t know if you remember spider solitaire. From 20 years ago. It was right up there with Minesweeper. It was its own game. But I also once played 30 hours a week of World of Warcraft, but that might’ve been because of some tension in my first marriage.

Mm-Hmm. . Yeah. Got it. Talking about the programming thing, I had a similar where for me, my middle school years were, there was only. Three to four of us in my grade in that program through middle school, and then I got to high school and they, it was a larger group, but it definitely made my middle school years a lot better than I think a lot of people’s middle school years were to have that.

Yeah.

So do you think there were any cultural factors that might have Might’ve affected how you expressed yourself?

Cultural Influences

Well, I’m certain I haven’t even yet process the fullness of how culture has impacted me. But the nonviolent communication community is a little more socialist than I am, I think. I was raised by two Republican parents, a man, woman, couple, and they weren’t into fancy ideas.

This is, I hate to bring another sad thing, I don’t want to be overly sad, but in high school, I was asked to stop telling stories at the dinner table.

Just because it was dominating or just they didn’t like the ideas.

Yeah, just two out there content, I think. I don’t think it was that I was using too many minutes, because they were going for zero minutes, which is not sharing time.

Yeah, yeah.

Channeling Intensity

So did you have a channel for that elsewhere?

I journaled, and in one of my first manic events, when I was 23, when I was in that PhD program, I published some of my journals, and I was certain it was going to be a big deal.

And I went on a book tour, and it turns out nobody cared. These were just the journals of a 23 year old.

Self Connection and Journaling

But I still journal sometimes just to help me be a witness to myself to hold myself with care.

So did you ever try to tone yourself down or tune yourself out?

Toning Down Intensity

Undoubtedly. I would have a lot more movements If our culture were more free, like I get to pace back and forth as a day job, I bag groceries, which I can still think about whatever I want to think about, but mostly I just get in the flow.

And I’m really just thinking about the groceries and that’s almost a contemplative practice for me. And but yeah, I have a lot of very strong beliefs and I don’t know, I haven’t found a way to share them. Really, I think professionally, I’m actually ready for more work in the world, because I’ve had this humble day job for eight months.

So I shook loose a lot of pride and a lot of grandiosity.

Mm hmm. Yeah, I saw you sharing about that and I was curious what brought you to the location that you’re at now.

Life Changes and Stability

Yeah, after my second divorce, I returned to Indiana and I’ve been living with my parents for a number of years off and on for eight years.

I was in Atlanta for a little while, but I mean, you want to talk about intensity. I dug a hole with my son and his mom kicked me out and she said, Lock yourself up and never come out again. And we’ve since repaired our relationship. But we were splashing mud. I think I even created quicksand because I was guiding the flow of the water.

But really I dug a hole where nobody wanted me to dig a hole. Like I was just making this up. And yeah, I got in big trouble. I got kicked out of Atlanta.

Shadow Side of Intensity

So that’s the shadow side of intensity for me. So I, like I said, the needs for me, Stability and shared reality. My son is visiting. He lives on Maui.

He’s visiting in three weeks and I’ve saved up enough money for this visit. So my whole my whole world, my whole year has been preparing for this visit. And I have money on three different accounts. I have cash, I have dollars and five different envelopes. So I have safety plans, backup plans, but yeah, this visit.

And I was aware that we were going to talk and The way I made sense of that was in the background, my career is progressing, and I am still talking to people, and I am still meeting new people, and I am still sharing the work, because it could be lonely. I don’t know if the work is ever lonely for you, but like…

and I’ve trained some people locally. So even my local life is pretty rich in abundance, but it didn’t start out that way.

Building Deep Connections

Anybody who’s going to be my friend has to go through a lot of training.

And what does that look like? I’m curious.

Well, self connection. Just knowing the need that you care about. Shared reality and ease and observation language, one of the other NVC concepts. Yes.

Oh, I want to tell you one thing. Just while I have it, I jotted down a note that intensity, you trust it because you have shared reality. Your contributions are really reaching people. So for me, my flavor of embracing intensity is a sense of trust, a sense of, I know that you’re directed in a life enriching way, a life serving way.

The energy that flows from me to you is going to meet needs. That’s where intensity, if it’s in the shared reality and you have to be really careful who is going to be close enough to you to check on your shared reality, it might be best to have a therapist because it might be a little too intense for a friend.

You have to decide how deep you want to be with your friends. But I have some pretty deep connections with friends. So we do therapy talk all the time, but it’s not for everybody.

Yeah, that’s so true. And I know my best friend here locally, we actually did a short little course on nonviolent communication together.

 Was like a one or two time thing, but we both have that shared language. And one of the things I really appreciated about it is that it it kind of put to words. It’s sort of the way that I naturally communicate that’s just been one of the, one of my gifts since I was little is just kind of perspective taking and understanding the other person’s point of view and communicating in a way that understands that.

So I really, that’s one of the things I appreciate about nonviolent communication, but I definitely can emphasize that question of like some stuff is heavy for another person to carry who’s not a professional. And that’s definitely true. Oh, and the ease thing, that was another piece that triggered is like trying to find more ease in relationships and it’s one of the things that I’ve been really aware of exploring you know, kind of getting back out there myself and meeting new people, and that’s something that is when you find it is just so great.

And. Sometimes it comes naturally and sometimes, you know, there’s work to get to that point.

Yeah.

Skills for Ease and Flow

There are skills though. There are skills that lead to ease, ease and flow and a sense of choice for all involved. Like people talk about wanting freedom, but the, a little bit of extra investments in language skills just helps you negotiate.

So, okay. This is a perhaps off topic and I’m willing to hear if it is, but I want a with more agreements. And here’s my example. I don’t like advertising. I don’t like when people bother people. I want to be able to ask somebody at a pizza restaurant, if I could buy a slice for two bucks, because what’s the odds that they want the whole thing, and I would love just to have that one slice, like I I’m on break.

I have a 15 minute break. I can’t order my own pizza, but we don’t live in a world where we make that many requests or that level of request. That’s just forbidden for, I guess, for ease, I guess the need is ease. So I’m wanting a little more. negotiation to happen a little more business deals, more writing deals, more podcast deals, like everybody’s making deals, everybody’s making agreements, everybody’s getting their needs met.

And if I could make the language easier, there’s an increased chance that those conversations will happen.

Yeah, absolutely.

Transactional vs. Connection

And that interesting that you’re talking about the deal question though, because that, that brings to mind My experience, especially navigating in the online space and some people who have like really big platforms and some people who don’t and I like the size of a platform has no bearing on my interest in speaking to someone.

But one of the things I’ve noticed, especially with people with bigger platforms, is that I have a hard time with what I see as more transactional. Communication or transactional interactions versus that connection. And so when you brought up the term deals, it sounds transactional to me, but also the way you’re describing it doesn’t necessarily.

So, I was just curious your thoughts on in terms of communicating in a way that where it there’s connection rather than being just transactional.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I want to put the meaning back into the transaction. I want to put the meaning back into money, a flow of energy. So you arrived at an agreement and if you’re meeting the needs, so agreements, there’s a few things you do with care.

And this is from my old training. You form agreements with care, you honor agreements with care, and if necessary, you renegotiate agreements with care. But there’s something that the whole theory in this work of making agreements, is it a transaction?

Joyful Transactions

Yes, but it’s a joyful transaction. It’s full of joy.

It’s full of choice. It’s done with the energy you would feel by feeding a hungry cat.

I like that.

Intensity Out of Control

So, you already shared a little bit, but can you tell me about a time when you, it felt like your intensity got out of control?

Well, I told you about digging the hole. I didn’t tell you I buried treasure in four states.

And I had some silver also in a safe deposit box an hour outside of Vegas. So the the story is that I went to Vegas and then I left and I left treasure in a safe deposit box and I buried that treasure map. And really, this had nothing to do with enriching my son’s life. He would have been better off with four pepperoni pizzas than four safes with buried treasure.

So I. I didn’t have shared reality then. I wasn’t checking. Is there really an impact here?

So literal buried treasure.

Yeah.

And you, you said you hid the map or buried the map.

Yes. In a in a glass water bottle, because I snuck into the elite room at the hotel where they have free bottles of water and yeah, I use that bottle to put the paper in

Now everyone’s going to go looking for that bottle.

Using Fire for Good

So tell me a little bit about how you use your fire for good.

Well, I told you about that self connection coloring book. And there’s a lot of young people I work with at the grocery store, ranging from 19 years old. And a number of them and some older people are, I’m Are going to check out my self connection coloring book. So if they read it and they get something out of it, I might have like a real local practice group.

So I look for deeper meaning and I think I am being a good older person for these younger kids that I work with, I think I’m doing right by them. And I ask them questions sometimes, but I’m not too, I’m not too over, overbearing, but yeah, they’re going to check out my stuff.

Awesome. It’s very cool.

Developing In-Person Connections

I love that you’re developing that in person connection. Cause I know that’s something that’s difficult for a lot of gifted and neurodivergent people is finding that connection in person. Sometimes they find people online, but. It’s hard to find that connection in person.

And I know to it’s can be hard. Just in the general population, like finding those points of connection, I think, and that’s something I tend to do as well as finding points of connection with most people. But I’m curious from your perspective in terms of taking that step and working in a setting that you hadn’t been working in a long time and connecting with the people in that. If you had any thoughts on like things that have helped you make those connections where you might not have thought you’d find it.

Acceptance and Social Skills

I think I’ve always been pretty high in acceptance. So people liked being around me, especially people who were going through something. I used to think I drew depressed people because of my mania, but now I think it’s just anybody who had something going on some kind of complexity and the inner therapist in me, the inner life coach, they just they wanted that in their life and that’s a little transactional.

That’s a little, but it’s true, it’s my skills. My skills have helped build my social life.

Yeah, I can relate to that too. I saw this real off to share it with you. It was talking about how when you’re one of those people that people just. naturally are vulnerable with and just without you doing much, except, you know, just being accepting and being yourself.

Sometimes they feel more close to you than like you, you may not feel as seen as they do in those interact in those have you found things that have helped you to feel more seen?

Therapy and Healing

Well, I’ve done more therapy than the average bear. And there was a period before my I’d been doing really well for about four to five years.

And before that, sometimes my therapist was the only person I would talk to. I was just, I had bonfires going nonstop, because if it’s a big enough pile, there’ll still be a little bit left for you in the morning, and then

I could start burning again, like, this was not just a little intensity, this was healing mania, this was I mean a years long manic psychosis, years long slow healing, maybe, you could argue whether I was depressed or not, I was so on the manic end of things, that I thought I was the cure all for depression.

I thought my way of seeing the world just was inconsistent with depression. I’m not saying I cured depression. I’m saying I have a worldview that just, it just doesn’t match.

Hmm. That’s interesting.

Harnessing Intensity

So what do you think has helped you the most with harnessing the power of your intensity?

Self connection. You know what you care about? If I could jump to another question, The best advice I’ve ever received was at a retreat, and in 2007, I did four week long retreats, and Inbal Kashtan, who has since passed away would say to the group, take a moment for self connection. And I’m 25 at the time and married to my first wife.

And I don’t, I think I know how the world works, but I’m still young. And when she says, take a moment for self connection,

I thought she was talking about masturbation. I just thought these California people took things way further than me.

Have you ever seen 30 rock? Yesterday, I was just watching the episode where Tracy thought Googling.

And when he asked him, he could Google himself in her office. He’s like, Oh, no wonder you were so cool with that. That’s great.

So do you think there are any personal habits that have helped you to use your fire in a positive way?

The way I talk to myself in my journal is the way I want to talk to myself always. I’m able to access another level of perspective, another level of care for self. So, and this is the first time I’m saying this, but yeah, I don’t talk much about self love in my work.

That’s not a big, that doesn’t come up with me and my clients. We talk about love as a need and love from oneself as a strategy to meet that need, but it’s not super, super heavy in my work, but yeah, I would say self love. came from self connection.

So how do you help others use their own fire?

Well, I don’t provide empathy anymore. I coach people to provide their own self empathy because that’s more sustainable. And I’ll offer an empathy guest sometimes if they’re not, if they’re not seeing the needs. Because they’ve probably learned like 40 needs and my vocab, my need vocabulary, I might know like 300 different expressions of a need and maybe I’m grandiose there.

I’m just making that up. But I know a lot of needs language.

Yeah. Awesome. Well, I think that’s very helpful.

Can I add one thing?

Yes, please.

Can I add one thing to the what do I do for people?

Yes,

it’s not just coaching their own self empathy. It’s also, I have them come up with the top three needs that are alive for them. And this is all in the self connection coloring book, but three needs, because I want a broader picture, you can get hyper focused in an unhelpful way.

If you’re only looking at one need at a time. So I always want three needs and then for each need, three different strategies to help fulfill the need. So that means there at any given moment, there’s always nine things you could do. It’s going to help you have a better life.

Awesome. I love that. Very cool.

So is there anything else you would like to share with the Embracing Intensity audience?

I just a blessing of self connection and why have I been pushing this so hard?

Self Connection and Power

Like, what is self connection? And knowing your needs is a starting point, and then you start to trust that you’re holding your needs with care. So you’re also connected to yourself and your power.

So self connection is connected to power. Self connection is connected to everything. And it’s one of three parts of nonviolent communication. There’s also empathy and honesty, or sometimes honesty is called self expression. But yeah, Self connection is the starting point because empathy and honesty flow so easily once you know what you care about.

So the work always starts with self connection. And I hope the concept resonates for you as something you want for yourself. And if it doesn’t, I hope another avenue can meet the same needs.

Awesome.

Live Conversation Invitation

And I’m looking forward to talking more deeply about the nonviolent communication.

Is there anything you’d like to share for those who might be interested in joining us for our live conversation about it?

I struggle to sell the work because I want people to experience the work. And I think what are people going to walk away with? People are going to walk away with a sense of being, well, can I promise that they’re going to walk away with a sense of being fully heard? Are there any chatting options on this call?

There is the discussion part for those who join live.

Okay. Well, at least a couple of volunteers who are open to being heard. Like that’s what I want to offer. I want to show how this language works because we’ve done a good job covering some of the underlying theory. And and I found that people really benefit by seeing it applied.

So I’m hoping to have some live work.

Awesome. Very exciting. Well, I look forward to it.

Finding More About Bob Yamtich

And how can they find out more about you?

Yeah, my, my website is BobYamtich. org, and that has my blog, but all of my writing, nothing compares to the Soft Connection coloring book, so I’m a couple weeks away from having a link to that.

To the hard copy, but I could give anybody a soft copy and I have a PDF and it’s a new version that’s coming out where for some of the exercises, they’re even allowing like seven sheets of paper. So you could do it one day every week. So it’s really a guided journal. So, yeah, I mean, all of my promotion is just being funneled into this book because I think it’s the best starting point.

Awesome. Very cool. Well, thank you so much. I’m glad we finally got to do this and I’m really looking forward to our next call.

Yeah. Thanks. Thank you. This is so fun. And I look forward to chatting in a couple of weeks.

Conclusion and Community Invitation

Looking for ways to embrace your own intensity. Join our embracing intensity community@embracingintensity.com where you’ll meet a growing group of like-minded people who get what it’s like to be gifted and intense and are committed to creating a supportive community as well as access to our courses and tools to help you use your fire without getting burned.

There’s also a pay what you can option through our Patreon where you can increase your pledge to help sustain the podcast or. Or join us at a rate that better fits your needs. You can also sign up for my free Harnessing the Power of Your Intensity, a self regulation workbook for gifted, creative, and twice exceptional adults and teens.

All links can be found in the show notes or on EmbracingIntensity. com.