Ok, So You've Got Trust Issues w/ Shannon Sauer-Zavala EP 67

[00:00:00] Shanenn Bryant: I have been talking with Dr. Shannon Sauer-Zavala.

[00:01:02] Shanenn Bryant: She piqued my interest so much. She has been working on a treatment module for trust. I know you're a clinical psychologist. You have spent a lot of your career, really developing treatment to help recover from mental health difficulties and this topic of trust, oh my gosh! I'm so excited to hear what you've found and hear everything that you have to share with us. And I know, the listener is gonna be super excited. Welcome.

[00:01:32] Yeah. Thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited to be here.

[00:01:36] Shanenn Bryant: Yeah. So, what made you choose the topic of trust?

[00:01:40] Shannon Sauer-Zavala: Yeah. Yeah, that's a great question. So, I kind of backed into it. I'm a treatment development researcher so I do clinical trials with cognitive behavioral therapy and basically my overarching sort of goal, I guess, is to make behavioral treatments, more accessible, more potent and more sort of like efficient and personalizable.

[00:02:00] And one of the populations that I work with is um, folks with borderline personality disorder or BPD. And so, there's a lot of there's a lot of like difficulties with relationships and trust that come from either early experiences with caregivers or negative relationships with friends or with partners that kind of inform how people approach new relationships.

[00:02:30] And so working with that population and kind of thinking about like, well, what's, what's kind of left on the table? Like what really isn't addressed and how can we give people skills to, to just feel more comfortable in their relationships? that, that's kind of how I got, I got there. So, working with people with BPD.

[00:02:47] Shanenn Bryant: Oh, my goodness. Yeah, because that's really what I found too in working with clients is they fall in one of those two buckets. One they've had, you know, some dysfunction growing up, or a parent who wasn't really parenting as you said, or they've been in a relationship or a series of relationships where there was infidelity or some, some deceit right? And then they're like, I don't ever want to feel that again. So, then we get into all of these jealous habits, these insecure habits that we're doing, and really putting up walls to not trust. so walk me through even just the beginnings of what you found in your research.

[00:03:28] Shannon Sauer-Zavala: Yeah. Yeah. So, I can tell you a little bit about what the treatment looks like and then I can talk about the effects. So basically, one of the things that I'm really big on in therapy is kind of understanding the function of behavior, and so a lot of times people may engage in like, you know, like you said, jealous behaviors.

[00:03:47] Like they're texting their partner to be like, where are you? Why aren't you home? You know? Or they are maybe picking fights or like breaking up with somebody before they get close enough to get hurt. These are kind of some of the behavioral markers and

[00:04:02] Shanenn Bryant: Or we sabotage, right? We do something negative to kind of like, I'm gonna get you before you get me.

[00:04:08] Shannon Sauer-Zavala: Yeah. Yeah. And so I like to come at that from a place of people don't do things for no reason. So 

[00:04:14] one of the places I recruit for my studies, for my treatment studies is on Reddit and like you post a study about borderline personality disorder and without fail, some wise acre in the comments will be like, oh, I think my ex-girlfriend had that. You know, and I think that people that feel insecure in relationships, they're often told, oh, you're crazy, you're overreacting. Right? feels like kind of gaslighting. And so we spend a lot of time in treatment understanding the function of those behaviors and why they make perfect sense. That doesn't mean that we're not going to work to change those, but like why are you doing that?

[00:04:50] Because you're trying to keep yourself safe. And I bet, if this was something that happened to you, like when you were a kid, I bet those behaviors kept you safe. And safe can be physically safe or it can be emotionally safe, right? It can be like, I don't wanna, like you said, I don't want to feel that again.

[00:05:05] So what can I do to put up these walls? And so, I like people to start from this place of yeah, that makes sense why I am doing that. It may be outdated It may not be serving me the way that it was before, but I'm not going to beat myself up about it because those things happen to me and this is, this is why I'm at this place where I'm, this is my starting point.

[00:05:26] Shanenn Bryant: And I think that's hard because that is what happens, especially like you said, the gaslighting, the things that come, you know, crazy girlfriend or my crazy ex-girlfriend. And then, so then you're like, oh, well if I exhibit any of those things, I'm gonna become the crazy ex-girlfriend. Or that, you know, that label that gets put on this, or even worse, which is again, why people don't want to admit it, why they feel ashamed, because who wants that label? Nobody does. But I think it's important what you're saying of there's no reason. You're not just, we don't just do it because of nothing. It may look different than somebody else who is protecting themselves against something. You know what I mean? People do that all the time, but this just looks different.

[00:06:14] Shannon Sauer-Zavala: Yeah. Right. And you know, you're coming from a different starting point, of how you, how you interpret other people's behavior because of what's happened to you in the past. And that makes really good sense. I always give the example to clients around, like, you're in a park and a puppy comes running up to you and your friend and you are like.

[00:06:37] Oh my gosh, a puppy is so cute, and your friend is jumping up on the park bench and being like, oh no, it's gonna bite me. And that might be factually wrong. Like this is a friendly puppy, it's not gonna bite you. But then you find out that your friend was mauled by a dog, as a child.

[00:06:51] Factually that dog is safe, but like, make sense that you would be freaked out.

[00:06:55] Shanenn Bryant: Yes. I, to this day, am terrified of Doberman Pinchers. I love all dogs, but when I was little, one bit my like almost one, tried to bite my face off my face. So, no, I don't like them. 

[00:07:12] Shannon Sauer-Zavala: Yeah. And that makes good sense. So, so that's kind of like the first piece is really teaching people self-validation and why we do the things that we do and that they, they serve a function for us. And when we, whenever you do something like, say you check in with your partner and you're like, you still love me, right?

[00:07:29] and they say, yeah, of course I do. Right? That anxiety that you feel goes down immediately so it's reinforced and so you do it again. And so, we want people to kind of understand that pattern. Then we start, basically there's three components, like skills that we teach people. So, the first one is cognitive skill.

[00:07:49] And basically that's like how are you thinking about relationships? And so, what we find is that people think about trust in a really black and white way. People are trustworthy, jump into a relationship like I'm all in, or like nobody can be trusted. And you can oscillate really quickly based on very small infractions or changes

[00:08:10] you know that wall comes up. And so one of the exercises that we do is called Dimensions of Trust. And so we ask people to like, identify, you know, people in their lives, maybe a parent, maybe a partner, maybe a best friend or a roommate. and we do it with different people. and its basically rows where you write the people's name and then the columns are different things that we can trust people for.

[00:08:31] I trust you to like keep my information private when I share something with you, I trust you not to talk about me behind my back. I trust you to pick me up from the airport. If you say you're going to, I trust you to pay me back. I trust you to watch my kids. I trust you not to cheat on me, right? Like, and basically what we find is that, I mean, there are a couple things that we can find. Sometimes people are really surprised when they fill it out that they're like, yeah, I guess this, I feel like a lot of like angst and nervousness in this relationship. But when I look at my partner's behaviors, that's really informative to me.

[00:09:06] Like, gosh, it seems like they can be trusted actually. And so just like thinking about that can be really helpful. A lot of times what we find is that, It's like one within one person. Yeah. I totally trust this person to help me move. They will always show up to pick me up from the airport, but when I share something intense or I'm stressed about, they kind of invalidate me and are like, yeah, I don't get what the big deal is, right?

[00:09:27] So I don't trust them to be emotionally safe for me. People vary. And so that's an important nuance that, that we try to help people.

[00:09:36] Shanenn Bryant: Oh, so good. What a great exercise to do. We go so negative, especially if we're insecure. We're needing that reassurance. We're jealous in our relationship.

[00:09:48] We are always, not always, but we are a lot often thinking in the negative about our partner, about the situation, about maybe even the third party about ourselves. That's a really great exercise to go, but not really, and I joke this proves this point so much because I joke and go, we the same person that you don't trust that is going to go to dinner and come home and nothing's going to happen.

[00:10:16] Is the same person that you have that on your, you know, as your beneficiary to like all of your stuff in your life. You know what I mean? Like, wait a second, something doesn't add up. Do you trust them or you don't trust them? So what a great exercise. I think that shows that. A good way to show that

[00:10:33] Shannon Sauer-Zavala: Right. There's a lot of nuance there and that if we do tend to have these negative biases, it can be really helpful to, to. Really examine why, like, do I have any support based on this person's behavior or am I kind of responding to something that happened in the past? Another example that I'll give clients is like, say your partner asks you to empty the dishwasher, or your partner's like, Ugh, you didn't empty the dishwasher.

[00:10:59] They kind of criticize you in a really minor way. And then you have just this huge reaction and this anxiety about how They're going to leave you now, right? That reaction seems kind of big for that particular feedback that you got. And so like why, why is that happening? And so.

[00:11:17] Shanenn Bryant: We are good at.

[00:11:18] Shannon Sauer-Zavala: Yeah. Right. And so is that because maybe in your previous relationship it seemed like something really minor, but your partner then broke up with you out of the blue. if that happened to you in the past, these little things that maybe mean nothing to your current partner. Right. It's just like at face value, empty the dishwasher more.

[00:11:36] It makes sense that you would have a big reaction. And so we try to get people to, to sort of look at the facts of the people that you're in the relationships with Now. And ask yourself is my big response, is that responding to something from the past or is that relevant for right now?

[00:11:53] Actually.

[00:11:54] Shanenn Bryant: Mm-Hmm. this was like the one time where my husband's like, okay, he put up with a lot of my jealous tendencies for, you know, five, six years. And this one was where he was like, okay, that's really out there. But I used to. Get really upset if he would talk to somebody else on the way home from work.

[00:12:14] 

[00:12:15] Shanenn Bryant: It could anybody like anybody. And I had to go, okay, that is from, absolutely from a previous relationship where they were calling me and then they were calling the other person and talking to them on their drive home.

[00:12:28] so just those little things can show up and you're like, wait a second. I know it seems strange, but it's there and it's real for me. Let me go figure that out.

[00:12:38] Shannon Sauer-Zavala: Right. Right. So that's the cognitive piece. Then the next piece is behavior change, this is a skill that, I'm not going to really sugarcoat it. It kind of sucks, Because the best way to learn that you can trust somebody is to trust somebody, right?

[00:12:52] Shanenn Bryant: Just trust just to trust them.

[00:12:54] Shannon Sauer-Zavala: It's to try. And you might not actually feel like you can trust them, but you have to act like you trust them. And what I mean by that is like, don't like pretend. Right? And if a person's not safe, don't like have them want your kids, but give people a breadcrumb. Give people the opportunity to show you that they are not your mom. Not your ex. Right? 

[00:13:17] Give people the opportunity because when you don't, then those old narratives stick, Because that's the evidence that you have. That's the, those are the memories, the, those are the brain connections that you have. You have to make new ones. And the only way to do that is to go a little bit out on a limb, go out of your comfort zone, and you're in the driver's seat about how out of your comfort zone you wanna go.

[00:13:40] You could. You know, you could be like, you know, ask a coworker for help at work. For some people that's so easy, and for other people that's really hard because it's like, it's like a vulnerability. and so you have to figure out what is the right, what's the bruise that you need to kind of push a little bit to test hypotheses about, you know, people's ability to come through for you.

[00:14:06] Shanenn Bryant: Hmm. Yeah. Almost like baby step okay, let me try this one thing. Okay. They passed that test in a sense. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe I can try something bigger.

[00:14:15] Shannon Sauer-Zavala: Right. Exactly. And so we call that in cognitive behavioral therapy, we call it exposure. and it's basically just putting yourself in situations that are outside of your comfort zone, that are still safe, right? But like that are outside of your comfort zone to test these hypotheses that you have about other people.

[00:14:31] It's the only way you can collect, you know, to kind of stick with the, the experiment. Kind of language. It's the only way you can test that hypothesis. Right? That's the only way you can gather that data is to go out and get it.

[00:14:43] Shanenn Bryant: So let me ask you this while we're on the topic of exposure, because I have been reading a lot about this, and I know it comes up a lot as a possible suggestion for like, overcoming this jealousy or at least sort of getting comfortable with it is okay. Let's say that, you know, I get really uncomfortable, which this happened.

[00:15:04] I get really uncomfortable on the beach with women, you know, running having, or, or, People are talking about like, oh, I hate it when there's nudity on tv. And I always change the channel because I don't wanna watch it with my partner. So this exposure piece, like how much should we try that? Or is it good to try to like, okay, I'm gonna try to just sit here and get through this.

[00:15:30] Like how do we determine what we should do?

[00:15:33] Shannon Sauer-Zavala: Yeah. Yeah, I think that's a great question, So. My inclination, is to think about how do I like to drill down to like, what is the worry? So like if I'm on the beach with my partner and there are other women that are not wearing a lot, am I worried that he's gonna compare me to them.

[00:15:54] Am I worried that he's gonna just like look at them, and like find them attractive, right? So.

[00:15:59] Shanenn Bryant: yes, yes, Right. yes. 

[00:16:02] Shannon Sauer-Zavala: of the above. and it might be different for everybody, right? But for you figuring out like what it, what is the thing that you're afraid of, And then setting up the situation to be able to see if the bad outcomes happen, 

[00:16:16] And so like, I might finish the, like if my partner looks at other women on the beach, what does that mean? What does that say about me? What does that say about him? And drill down a little bit more. So, you know, does that mean that he doesn't love me? Does that mean that he doesn't think I'm attractive?

[00:16:35] Does that mean like, what are the things that you're sort of afraid of? what's the dot, dot dot? I think like that becomes informative too, around what you're gonna try and so thinking about the baby steps, and only you will know this, right, but it's like, I would imagine that it would be easier to watch like maybe a sex scene or like a brief nudity on a movie versus like being at a beach for a long time.

[00:17:03] Shanenn Bryant: stuck on a beach, stuck on an island somewhere like, oh yeah. Yeah.

[00:17:06] Shannon Sauer-Zavala: So, so you could start there and kind of like work up to that, right. And at the end of the day, are you worried that the part, your partner is going to leave? And so the only way to really get comfortable in your relationship that my partner always comes home, even in this really extreme situation where these extremely just like model hot people are walking around.

[00:17:30] Like imagine how powerful that is that your husband like, sees.

[00:17:33] what's out there and then is like, and I'm still coming home,

[00:17:36] Shanenn Bryant: Well, I mean, that's already really happening if somebody thinks about it. And it was one of the realizations that I had to have. I'm like, okay, well wait, wait a second. Not all the hot girls are coming out just when I'm with

[00:17:48] him. They're in the world when he's by himself, right? I mean, they're still out there.

[00:17:54] They don't all just come out when Shanenn is with him. And so I think that's really important what you're saying to take note, it's already happening. They're already seeing it, and they're still coming home

[00:18:07] and saying, yes, I still love you. 

[00:18:10] Shannon Sauer-Zavala: Right? Exactly. And

[00:18:12] Right? Yeah.

[00:18:13] That's an important reframe, to think about. Is it about the other person or is it more about how we feel about ourselves? So, you know, going back to the beach example, I have a lot of clients and certainly myself too, before I had my kids, would feel like self-conscious in a bathing suit, 

[00:18:29] And so, the inclination is I'll just keep my shorts on or I'll wrap myself in a towel and you know, one. I told myself, I have daughters and after I had my girls, I was like, I will not pass on. And, I'm gonna use obscenity. And I don't know if this is like a PG.

[00:18:47] 

[00:18:48] Shannon Sauer-Zavala: A messed up relationship with food to my children and to body.

[00:18:52] And so, you know, when we go to the beach or we go to the pool, I look like a person that's had two kids and I, am like, I'm in my bathing suit. I'm out there. And it was uncomfortable at first because it was different for me. But I didn't want to have my kids watch me be self-conscious about my body.

[00:19:09] And over time I just became less self-conscious about my body. 'cause it's just a body. Doing its thing out in the world. 

[00:19:17] Shanenn Bryant: Oh, so good. Yeah. And you know, thank you for explaining the because what you said was probably a little bit shocking. You said before I had kids I was self-conscious about being in the bathing suit, whereas most people are like, no, it was after I had kids

[00:19:30] that, but I love what you're saying is I gotta, I got to show my kids.

[00:19:36] Shannon Sauer-Zavala: gotta get this right. Yeah.

[00:19:37] Shanenn Bryant: Yeah. So good. Okay.

[00:19:39] Shannon Sauer-Zavala: And I'm sure other people like, I mean, I've seen, I mean certainly I've seen other people on the internet say this, but like I look back at pictures of myself from when I was younger and was like, what a shame. I thought I was fat then. And how powerful and really empowering it is to just be like, yeah, like I do not have a perfect body, but I usually don't care.

[00:19:56] And that is like,

[00:19:57] Shanenn Bryant: Yeah. Where you wanna get to,

[00:19:59] Shannon Sauer-Zavala: yeah, like there, I'm, 

[00:20:01] Shanenn Bryant: is who I'm,

[00:20:01] Shannon Sauer-Zavala: I'm where I am. It's fine.

[00:20:03] Shanenn Bryant: I mean, that is true. We know especially, That they're not looking at all the things that we're looking at that we're worried about. You know what I mean? Like when we're naked and having sex and all that. Like, they're not looking at the things that we're worried about.

[00:20:15] They're not. They're not. That's not where their focus is.

[00:20:18] Track 1: So, yeah, so it's changing your thinking. Changing your, you know, changing your behavior and then paying attention to the outcomes. And then the last piece is mindfulness, So a lot of times when you think about mindfulness, it's like, just watch your breath, watch your emotions, see what's going on in your body.

[00:20:34] Shannon Sauer-Zavala: But we actually have a mindfulness meditation that's specifically to relationships. And so we ask people to bring up a, a recent ish conflict and kind of imagine, you know, kind of set the scene with that and then do a mindfulness exercise that guides you through, imagining and really paying attention with just the facts without any of your sort of like, analytic, embellishment on top.

[00:20:58] What was their tone of voice? What was their facial expression What was their body language? How did my body feel? Did I notice any changes? Did what were my thoughts? Did that change my face? Did that change their face? Right? So it becomes a lot to pay attention to, and it's kind of training up that skill because a lot of times what happens is we come in, we see a look on our partner's face, and we just.

[00:21:22] Go and we assume they're mad, they must be mad at me. They're quiet. What does that mean? Right? And so then we do things like, Hey, are you okay? Are you okay? I use that example because that, like, I don't, it used to really irritate my husband. 'cause he is, well, you know, when, when he is had a rough day, he's just as like much more quiet.

[00:21:41] And I'm like, are you mad at me? Is it me? What did I do? And so noticing that. Noticing that I'm putting this narrative on just a neutral facial expression that he's making and then I'm doing something and then that actually does kind of piss him off, right? And so being more aware of those patterns is basically the last, the last scale.

[00:22:02] Shanenn Bryant: Yes, and be because we, we may tend to have a habit of like making things a little bit bigger than what they probably are. I think two, what you're saying is let's slow down even just a little bit. One, give them an opportunity, like can they just be different some for a minute? Maybe sometimes

[00:22:25] Track 1: and. 

[00:22:25] Shanenn Bryant: and that be okay. Right. Dang it. Yeah. We think we are, but maybe not so much. Yeah. Gosh, so good. So, informative and I love what you're doing. I have a super new girl crush on what you're doing. I could talk to you about this all day long. So I know that my listeners are going to want to get in touch with you.

[00:22:54] How can they reach you?

[00:22:55] Shannon Sauer-Zavala: I have, a new website that has actually, so some of the forms that I talked about, like dimensions of trust and how to change your thinking and how to, how to, analyze your relationship behaviors, those are all available for free to download on my website

[00:23:09] n - 

[00:23:14] Shanenn Bryant: I will link to it in the show notes 'cause I know people are gonna wanna go there and download those resources. Amazing. Thank you so much and thank you for doing this research on trust. 

[00:23:28] Shannon Sauer-Zavala: pleasure. 

[00:23:28] so needed. 

[00:23:29] Yeah. Thank you so much. Thank you for having me, Shanenn. It's always nice to meet another Shanenn.

[00:23:33] Shanenn Bryant: Oh yeah. Right. I didn't even think, I didn't even say that at the beginning. Like, by the way, you also have a very cool name. All right. Thanks so much.

[00:23:41] Shannon Sauer-Zavala: Yeah, my pleasure.