Love as a Verb: Risk, Generosity, and Slowing Down

Love as a Verb: Risk, Generosity, and Slowing Down

==Media Links== website: delvepsych.com instagram: @delvepsychchicago youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@DelvePsych20 [https://www.youtube.com/@DelvePsych20] substack: https://delvepsych.substack.com/ [https://delvepsych.substack.com/] ==Participants== Ali McGarel Adam W. Fominaya ==Overview of Big Ideas== * Ethan Hawke’s quote becomes a springboard for thinking about love as something you do, not just something you feel. * Unrequited love can be painful, but loving openly is not inherently foolish; chasing someone who is not participating is a different problem. * A relationship is built through mutual agreements, not private fantasies or one person selecting the other into a prewritten life. * “Falling out of love” can be a thin explanation when love is treated only as a feeling rather than an ongoing commitment. * Guardedness may protect against heartbreak, but it can also prevent the very intimacy people are seeking. * Generosity, complimenting, helping, giving, and noticing others can be a real salve for loneliness and low mood. * In conflict, urgency is often misleading. Anything truly worth fighting over will probably still matter in three days. ==Breakdown of Segments== * Opening and Delve updates: social links, Substack reflections, and the Baader-Meinhof frequency illusion. * Ethan Hawke and unrequited love: “the one who loves wins” as a statement about aliveness, risk, and generosity. * Love versus chasing: how to love freely without begging, self-erasing, or trying to force reciprocity. * Dating and agency: why “are they interested back?” is the first dealbreaker. * Love as a verb: commitment, care, negotiation, and the difference between liking how someone makes you feel versus caring about them. * The yard-work example: how small conflicts can reveal larger values, shared dreams, and relational cooperation. * Guarded dating: how past hurt can make people closed off, and why that can sabotage new connection. * Fantasy versus negotiation: imagining a future is normal; building one requires conversation and consent. * Everyday generosity: compliments, soccer stories, Ali’s first goal, and the lasting power of being seen. * Conflict pacing: “drop it, but don’t drop it forever”; waiting before sending the text; slowing down when emotionally activated. ==AI Recommended References (APA)== Brown, B. (2012). Daring greatly: How the courage to be vulnerable transforms the way we live, love, parent, and lead. Gotham Books. Fromm, E. (1956). The art of loving. Harper & Brothers. Gottman, J. M., & Silver, N. (1999). The seven principles for making marriage work. Crown Publishers. Post, S. G. (2005). Altruism, happiness, and health: It’s good to be good. International Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 12(2), 66-77.

If You Do What You Love, You Might Lose the Love

Website: delvepsych.com Instagram: @delvepsychchicago YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DelvePsych20 [https://www.youtube.com/@DelvePsych20] Substack: https://delvepsych.substack.com/ [https://delvepsych.substack.com/] ==Participants== Ali McGarel Adam W. Fominaya ==Overview of Big Ideas== * “Do what you love and you’ll never work a day” sounds wise, but work remains work, even when it involves something meaningful. * Turning a beloved activity into a job can change its psychological texture: money, status, proof, performance, and output start to crowd out intrinsic joy. * Self-determination theory offers a better map for job satisfaction: autonomy, growing competence, and social connection. * External rewards can produce short-term compliance while weakening long-term motivation. * Good management often means setting clear standards, then giving people room to think, play, relate, and improve. * Loving your work is possible, but it requires protecting the conditions that keep motivation alive. * Material goals, status objects, and “base-building” often promise happiness while diverting people from connection, experience, and growth. * Relationship skills cannot be “jinxed”; the task is to keep practicing, noticing, repairing, and acting with agency. ==Breakdown of Segments== * Delve updates and calls to action: share the podcast, follow Delve on Instagram, and reach out for therapy services in Illinois. * The familiar quote: Ali and Adam question the maxim “If you do what you love, you’ll never work a day in your life.” * Acting, therapy, and the cost of proving yourself: how career pressures can alter the experience of a once-beloved vocation. * Behaviorism, capitalism, and reward logic: why it feels obvious that rewards should increase motivation, and why psychology complicates that assumption. * Self-determination theory: Adam introduces autonomy, growing competence, and social connection as core ingredients of intrinsic motivation. * Extrinsic rewards and lost love: examples include basketball, grades, pizza-for-reading programs, and the shift from curiosity to performance. * Managing for motivation: retail stories illustrate how social connection, autonomy, and play can make work more effective and less deadening. * How to keep loving your work: distance from dollar-for-dollar thinking, meet basic financial needs, preserve autonomy, and invest in people. * Owning less, connecting more: a critique of materialism, housing/status consumption, and the fantasy that things will deliver lasting happiness. * Relationship skills and agency: a closing reflection on trusting skills, not catastrophizing relationships, and continuing to practice. ==AI Recommended References== Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (1985). Intrinsic motivation and self-determination in human behavior. Plenum. Deci, E. L., Koestner, R., & Ryan, R. M. (1999). A meta-analytic review of experiments examining the effects of extrinsic rewards on intrinsic motivation. Psychological Bulletin, 125(6), 627-668. Kasser, T. (2002). The high price of materialism. MIT Press. Kohn, A. (1993). Punished by rewards: The trouble with gold stars, incentive plans, A’s, praise, and other bribes. Houghton Mifflin. Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2000). Self-determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic motivation, social development, and well-being. American Psychologist, 55(1), 68-78.

The Seduction of Ridicule

==Media Links== Website: delvepsych.com Instagram: @delvepsychchicago YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DelvePsych20 [https://www.youtube.com/@DelvePsych20] Substack: https://delvepsych.substack.com/ [https://delvepsych.substack.com/] ==Participants== Ali McGarel Adam W. Fominaya ==Overview of Big Ideas== * Ridicule can feel powerful because it moves shame outward: if I can criticize you, I do not have to feel what hurts in me. * Some people turn shame inward through self-attack, depression, or perfectionism; others turn it outward through blame, criticism, and contempt. * Projection can make the world look crueler than it is: if I constantly judge others, I may assume everyone is judging me too. * Self-deprecation can also be seductive because it feels like beating others to the punch. * The antidote is not simply “be nicer.” It is becoming more able to sit with shame without fleeing, attacking, or collapsing. * Owning what feels embarrassing can reduce its power. Comedy and improvisation become examples of practicing shame-tolerance. * Meditation offers a related lesson: noticing distraction is not failure; the second injury is shaming yourself for having wandered. ==Breakdown of Segments== * Opening and Delve updates: Ali and Adam invite listeners to share the podcast, follow Delve on Instagram, and tolerate a little human imperfection along the way. * Therapists as imperfect people: they discuss the fantasy that therapists are all-knowing, and the reality that clinicians often study what they themselves are still trying to understand. * Why therapists specialize: the conversation turns to how personal struggle, referral patterns, and repeated clinical exposure shape what therapists become good at. * The seduction of ridicule: Ali and Adam explore criticism as a way to evade vulnerability, shame, and self-scrutiny. * Self-blame versus other-blame: they distinguish people who reflexively attack themselves from those who reflexively attack others, while tracing both back to shame. * Projection and confirmation bias: Adam describes how people who ridicule others may assume others are doing the same to them. * Self-deprecation as defense: Ali notes that criticizing yourself first can feel protective, even when it deepens shame. * Shame, enemies, and acceptance: they discuss the impossibility of being liked by everyone and the need to tolerate some disapproval. * Comedy, improv, and ownership: Ali’s standup example shows how naming embarrassment can transform it from a weapon into something owned. * Meditation and the second arrow: the episode closes with distraction, self-shaming, and the choice not to compound pain with ridicule. ==AI Recommended References== Brown, B. (2006). Shame resilience theory: A grounded theory study on women and shame. Families in Society, 87(1), 43-52. Freud, A. (1936). The ego and the mechanisms of defense. Hogarth Press. Gilbert, P. (1997). The evolution of social attractiveness and its role in shame, humiliation, guilt and therapy. British Journal of Medical Psychology, 70(2), 113-147. Neff, K. D. (2003). Self-compassion: An alternative conceptualization of a healthy attitude toward oneself. Self and Identity, 2(2), 85-101. Tangney, J. P., & Dearing, R. L. (2002). Shame and guilt. Guilford Press.

You Are Allowed to Keep Doing What You’re Doing

==Media Links== Website: delvepsych.com Instagram: @delvepsychchicago YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DelvePsych20 [https://www.youtube.com/@DelvePsych20] Substack: https://delvepsych.substack.com/ [https://delvepsych.substack.com/] ==Participants== Ali McGarel Adam W. Fominaya ==Overview of Big Ideas== * The 50th episode opens with Ali and Adam reflecting on the podcast itself: the pleasure of dialogue, public thinking, and watching ideas become sharper over time. * The central claim: insight does not automatically require change. Understanding why you do something does not mean you must stop doing it. * Psychodynamic work can reveal how childhood strategies were adaptive in their original context, even if they now create friction. * Change and non-change both carry consequences. The question is not “What is the correct choice?” but “Which consequences are you willing to live with?” * Client autonomy matters. Therapists can notice, question, and challenge, but they should not coerce clients into the therapist’s preferred values. * A therapist can “fight” for a client’s stated goals, but that is different from imposing goals the client has not chosen. * In relationships, repeatedly asking someone to change may eventually require accepting that they have declined. Then the question becomes what you will do with that reality. ==Breakdown of Segments== * 50th episode reflection: Ali and Adam exchange appreciation, discuss the podcast’s growth, and reflect on dialogue as a way to build clearer ideas. * Why insight is not the same as change: Adam distinguishes psychodynamic awareness from behavioral change; Ali names the missing step of choosing whether to act. * Childhood adaptation and adult context: emotional guardedness may have once helped someone survive their family system, while later frustrating a romantic partner. * The right to remain the same: the hosts explore a person who understands their emotional avoidance but still chooses not to become highly emotionally expressive. * Consequences either way: changing can cost something; not changing can cost something; neither path is consequence-free. * Autonomy in therapy: a testing anecdote illustrates that clients can stop, refuse, or choose against the clinician’s preference. * When challenge is ethical: Adam describes challenging clients when their behavior conflicts with goals they have clearly stated. * Fighting for the client’s values: the therapist’s pressure is framed as legitimate only when it serves the client’s own chosen direction. * Relationship impasse: the closing quote turns the theme outward: if someone keeps declining your request that they change, your remaining task is deciding what you will do. ==AI Recommended References== Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (1985). Intrinsic motivation and self-determination in human behavior. Plenum. Miller, W. R., & Rollnick, S. (2013). Motivational interviewing: Helping people change (3rd ed.). Guilford Press. Prochaska, J. O., Norcross, J. C., & DiClemente, C. C. (1994). Changing for good. William Morrow.

The Backwardness of Behavioral Change

==Media Links== website: delvepsych.com instagram: @delvepsychchicago youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@DelvePsych20 [https://www.youtube.com/@DelvePsych20] substack: https://delvepsych.substack.com/ [https://delvepsych.substack.com/] ==Participants== Ali McGarel Adam W. Fominaya ==Overview of Big Ideas== * Most behavior-change advice assumes awareness: put the phone away, choose your words carefully, notice activation, use the right script. * The problem is that people often need help precisely when awareness has already vanished. * Autopilot is not moral failure; it is a normal feature of human attention. * The useful question is not, "How do I prevent this perfectly?" but, "Once I notice, how quickly can I respond?" * Behavioral change often works backward: start at the moment you become aware, then gradually shorten the lag. * The "notice and respond" pathway can move from months, to minutes, to seconds. * Repair still counts, even if it comes late. Going back teaches people: "I may get lost, but I will return." * In relationships, if something matters to your partner, it matters to the relationship. * Caring does not mean capitulating. It means getting curious before explaining, defending, or dismissing. ==Breakdown of Segments== * Opening and Delve updates: word-of-mouth support, services, Substack, and Katherine's post on clients wanting therapy that goes beyond validation. * Directive therapy vs telling people what to do: exploring ideas, perspective, and the difference between being challenged and being instructed. * The lay model of behavior change: why advice like "put your phone away" or "use better communication skills" quietly depends on awareness already being present. * Human attention is fickle: airline safety, crisis information, distraction, and why attention cannot simply be commanded on demand. * Relationship safe words and the "pancake" problem: if someone is aware enough to use the safe word, they may already be aware enough to slow down. * Autopilot and phone scrolling: the familiar moment of waking up several videos deep and wondering how you got there. * Minute zero vs minute four: why people may be more capable of change after awareness returns than at the very beginning of the behavior. * Responsibility after noticing: once awareness arrives, the task is to act toward goals, needs, and values. * Emotional preconditions: boredom before scrolling, anxiety before fighting, and learning to tolerate the feeling that precedes the habit. * Set state and hard rules: preparing the mind before high-risk situations, while recognizing that activation can still overwhelm intention. * The notice-and-respond pathway: stop trying to be perfect at prevention; get faster at repair. * Shaving off the end: reduce a two-hour fight to four minutes, then two minutes, then twelve seconds, then one. * The go-back approach: even a six-month latency can become a meaningful repair if the person returns and takes responsibility. * Relationship needs and curiosity: when a partner brings up a need, the first move should be interest, not rebuttal. * Stop explaining, start listening: defending the status quo can make partners feel alone together. ==AI Recommended References (APA)== Gollwitzer, P. M. (1999). Implementation intentions: Strong effects of simple plans. American Psychologist, 54(7), 493-503. Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, fast and slow. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Lally, P., van Jaarsveld, C. H. M., Potts, H. W. W., & Wardle, J. (2010). How are habits formed: Modelling habit formation in the real world. European Journal of Social Psychology, 40(6), 998-1009. Wood, W., & Neal, D. T. (2007). A new look at habits and the habit-goal interface. Psychological Review, 114(4), 843-863.