Feelings: Handle Them Before They Handle You by Mandy Saligari (Transcript)

Here is the full transcript of addiction and parenting expert Mandy Saligari’s TEDx Talk on Feelings: Handle Them Before They Handle You at TEDxGuildford conference. This event took place on April 13, 2017.

Listen to the MP3 Audio: Feelings- Handle them before they handle you by Mandy Saligari at TEDxGuildford

 

Mandy Saligari – Founder and Clinical Director of CHARTER

I’m an addictions therapist. I’m also a recovering addict. I’m a parent and I do a lot of work now in the field of recovery and looking at addiction, looking at mental health, and most importantly, looking at early intervention and what is the one thing that we could really home in on, that will be the best preventative measure. And I think that that falls into those two little words: self-esteem.

But self-esteem is a very well-known phrase, but what actually is it? And I think that in its kind of core, self-esteem is how I feel about myself, and therefore how I treat myself, therefore how I behave.

When I say to people, “I’m a recovering addict,” they say things like, “What were you addicted to?” And I kind of yawn, you know? It’s not about what I’m addicted to or was addicted to, this is about why would I use something outside of myself, in an attempt to fix how I feel, to the detriment of myself?

So my first message to you, really, is that addiction isn’t the drug of choice, of which, I believe, there are probably 15 or 16 regular manifestations of addiction. But it is the pattern of delegating, of outsourcing your emotional process on to something else that backfires.

So there’s nothing more normal than any of you, or indeed anyone who might be sitting next to me at a dinner party who’s having a drink, and they’re having a nice time and relaxing, and they turn to me and say, “What do you do for a living?”

And I say, “You might want to finish your drink first” because my experience is that you will get really defensive when I say, “I’m an addictions therapist!” I either get, “Oh, do you know what? I think that I’ve been drinking quite a lot” or “I’m worried about my daughter,” whatever, or I get, “I don’t usually drink this much, I’ve just had a really big week.”

We’re very defensive about being seen, really being seen. You know, when you walk down the street you trip over, the first thing you don’t do is go “Ow,” the first thing you do is say, “Oh, who saw that?”

My experience of my vulnerability, my experience of what it’s like for me to be in the world and to be seen is exactly what makes me want to defend myself, control a little bit what you think of me, how you see me, your access to me. And that’s normal.

But if you’re like me or like millions of other people like me, and you have had, if you like, an upbringing or an experience in your life that means that very early on, your experience of vulnerability was one that left you afraid and uncertain, and actually, what you wanted to do was get out of your skin, leave that behind, and be someone else. And maybe, in that kind of naught to six years, you might want to be a ‘good girl.’ Let’s just say that in the environment where there is a family and there is somebody of high need — it’s nobody’s fault — but there’s somebody who has high need in that family, they’re depressed, or they’re anxious, or they’re angry, or they’re unhappy, or they’re ill in some way.