Sara Kuburic shares her journey of self-discovery, emphasizing the importance of self-awareness, personal responsibility, and the impact of key questions on personal growth, while host Aaron Pete moves the conversation towards understanding the essence of living a fulfilling life.
Dr. Sara Kuburic, also known as the @millennial.therapist on Instagram, is an existential psychotherapist, consultant, and author of the book IT'S ON ME. A former columnist for USA Today, she is driven by a passion to help individuals embrace change and lead lives that are authentic, free, and meaningful. Drawing on her own experiences of living through wars and navigating complex relationships, Sara is deeply invested in exploring and understanding the intricacies of human existence.
Sara Kuburic shares her journey of self-discovery, emphasizing the importance of self-awareness, personal responsibility, and the impact of key questions on personal growth, while host Aaron Pete moves the conversation towards understanding the essence of living a fulfilling life.
Dr. Sara Kuburic, also known as the @millennial.therapist on Instagram, is an existential psychotherapist, consultant, and author of the book IT'S ON ME. A former columnist for USA Today, she is driven by a passion to help individuals embrace change and lead lives that are authentic, free, and meaningful. Drawing on her own experiences of living through wars and navigating complex relationships, Sara is deeply invested in exploring and understanding the intricacies of human existence.
Welcome back to another episode of the Bigger than Me podcast. Here is your host, aaron Self. Love, self acceptance, self talk these are words we hear all the time, but it's way harder to implement than people realize. Today, I'm speaking with the author of it's On Me. She's known on Instagram as the Millennial Therapist. My guest today is Sarah Kubrick. Sarah, I cannot tell you how long I've been looking forward to doing this interview. Would you please introduce yourself for listeners who might not be acquainted with your work?
Dr. Sara Kuburic:Thank, you so much for having me. I am Dr Sarah Kubrick. I'm often known as the Millennial Therapist because of my handle on Instagram, and I'm an existential psychotherapist that specializes in identity, moral trauma and relationships.
Aaron Pete:You have an incredible book that I highly recommend people check out. It's called, it's On Me, and I'm wondering if we could perhaps start from the beginning, because I found that to be one of the most important parts of the book, because the first step to solving a problem is admitting that there is one, and that can be the hurdle that I felt like you broke down really well For listeners. Would you mind taking us back to your personal life and the challenges you were starting to overcome in your own life and the steps you were able to take from that?
Dr. Sara Kuburic:Yeah, of course I'm really fun writing the book because I'm a pretty private person. People don't know very much about me and it was the first time that I incorporated an autobiographical piece, and I think because I wanted people to know. It's something I have experienced and something I have been through, and hopefully my story will help them. So the book opens up with me being roughly I don't know, in my early 20s in a bar in LA chatting to a friend, and this time I was in grad school, I was married and everything about my life seemed very idyllic, very society approved. I got lots of pats on the back and I was chatting to my friend, who is from college and we were catching up. So I was telling him about my life, and something that's really cool is, instead of saying wow, that's amazing, you must be so happy, which I think is an imposition, I'm telling the other person they should feel happy. He just simply asked like wow, that's a lot going on. Are you happy? And my whole story begins with that one question, because the answer was so obviously no, but it was not an answer that I saw until that very moment, and so during this time of my life I was quite emotionally unavailable. I didn't express my emotion very readily. I was like I'm in LA, crying, bawling my eyes out at a bar where everyone is clearly very uncomfortable, because I don't know what's happening and my friend is clearly very uncomfortable and I just couldn't contain it. I think it's the first time I allowed myself to truly ask that question and answer that question. And then I went into the bathroom because I was like I need to really collect myself, I need to pull it together and I remember like splashing my face and looking in a mirror and then being like who is this girl? Like I understand it's me and I understand like she's mirroring all the things I'm doing, and it wasn't like dissociation, but it was kind of like she's a complete stranger to me. I have no feelings for you except disdain. I very much. I think it was the first time I realized that I hated myself a little bit and that sounds really intense, but it was. And I think the reason I hated myself and we'll talk about this more is because I realized that a big part of why I was so miserable was on me and I think he was in that moment where it's like oh, I am not happy, oh and you're to blame. And so it was this really, really intense moment.
Dr. Sara Kuburic:Afterwards, just like everyone else, I went to my hotel room, I ordered room service, I watched friends and I was like phew, that was like really intense. I'm glad it's over. I was completely like. I was like, wow, how embarrassing, what a journey Like it's, just like wow, I really had a breakthrough and just pretending my life was going to go back to normal and he didn't. So there were a couple of events that happened afterwards and we can, you know, talk about them if that's something you're interested in. But this was one big event that kind of broke me in terms of my denial, my suppression of my childhood trauma of the decisions I was making in the moment that were contributing to me being miserable. All of these things became very clear to me very suddenly, and then my life drastically changed.
Aaron Pete:Yes, I definitely like to dive more into those things, but there's one piece that I'd like to hone in on, and it's the power of a high quality question. That doesn't have like an expectation with it, and as an interviewer, it just interests me because I was thinking about what I love in an interview, and it isn't necessarily just the answer. It's when I get to see the person I'm asking learn something about themselves by being given the opportunity to be asked a certain question that nobody's ever posed before. So what did it mean to have that question asked and what role can that play in people growing I love that.
Dr. Sara Kuburic:You're like a therapist. That's what we love, too is when you ask a question and I love the way you articulated that it's about not having an expectation when it comes to the other person's answer. This is so powerful and most people we do have an expectation and the person knows we have an expectation. So when you ask someone like hey, how's your day, we expect them to say it's fine, it's good, it's whatever, and they expect us to expect them to say that, and then in the end, there's no genuine connection or processing or insight for either individual. So what was your question? Because I got really carried away and excited about what you said and then I forgot your question.
Aaron Pete:It seems like this question was the genesis for so much growth and I'm just wondering what role does that play in helping people take these meaningful steps in their lives? Because it's not always just an internal click. I get it. I read a book, I understand it now. Sometimes it's an external force of a good question that makes somebody go whoa, like you're putting this in this new perspective and now I'm able to take these next steps.
Dr. Sara Kuburic:Yeah, it's a lot about facing the truth. I think we can't create change without self-awareness, and self-awareness comes with a lot of truth and I think the power of that, of having it be external sometimes, is that we can't avoid the answer. Sometimes we can ask questions to ourselves in a way that will feel comfortable answering. So there's a bit of manipulation of the truth. But when someone flat out, point blank asks you a certain question and you have to answer and you're aware that you're either going to lie to them and yourself or you're just going to be honest and you hear that answer organically come out of you, I think that's what I was shocked by. I didn't want to admit, I was unhappy at that moment. I wasn't like, oh, wow, okay, I'll be honest with everyone. I literally heard myself. I don't even think I answered. I think I just started crying and I think that was the really cool thing about my journey with my body.
Dr. Sara Kuburic:I probably, if it was up to just my cognition, would have lied Not to him but to myself. I would have been like, yeah, totally, so many good things. Hashtag, grateful that girl from the bombshell, like you know, shelter she would have killed to have this life, and I think that was for me like I came from a really interesting and intense background. But it's like I should be grateful for these things and society tells me I should be grateful for these things and part of me was grateful for them. So I think if it was just a cognitive response, I would have been like, yeah, you know, yeah, absolutely. So many wonderful things.
Dr. Sara Kuburic:And I felt really betrayed by my body in that moment, because my body answered the question in the most honest way that I cognitively couldn't have and it's kind of ripped that veil and it was like you're crying. So do with that as you will, but the fact that the answer to that question is you uncontrollably crying is a pretty powerful thing. So I think we need to be careful, we need to be really aware of how we're responding to things, and sometimes that's more our body than the words coming out of our mouth. But I think our actions will often point to the truth, which is helpful when you're keeling.
Aaron Pete:Yeah it does speak to the fact that we do have this disconnect between the mind and body, and in those moments you realize that what you're saying isn't always accurate, and I like when people talk about like you don't always know when you're lying to yourself, like that's actually one of the hardest things to be able to define is where you're lying actually to yourself and not to anybody else, and not maliciously but unintentionally accepting things as status quo that you wouldn't want to if you were able to take that step back.
Dr. Sara Kuburic:Oh yeah, and you know a lot of people will get upset and rightly so about individuals lying to them, and I often come from a place of compassion, of like. Chances are they're lying to themselves and unless this is a really, you know, toxic, manipulative relationship, people lie to others mostly because they're lying to themselves and they don't. They don't know how else to express it. If they were to be honest with you then they would have to be honest with themselves and they're not ready to do that, and so it's not really about us. A lot of the times and I think that's not lying to myself was one of the biggest parts of my journey. Taking responsibility for my life and then being brutally, brutally honest with myself was really life changing.
Aaron Pete:It does seem at times that we feel kind of forced to be grateful for everything, and when you compare your life to other people, we kind of go, oh well, I have a way better than these people. So who am I to look at those circumstances? But you do have an interesting upbringing in that it's unique from so many others experiences and I'm just wondering if you mind sharing some of those early experiences you had.
Dr. Sara Kuburic:Yeah, of course. So I was born in Bosnia right before the Bosnian War and then we moved to Serbia and there was the NATO bombings and after the bombings, about a year or so after, we immigrated to Canada. So my early childhood experiences were quite intense, saturated. There was a lot of I mean, I don't know trauma from the wars, but also immigration is not super easy. I don't know how it hits for everyone else, but being an immigrant child and not understanding the culture or the language and feeling like you don't belong and you don't understand was also really difficult.
Dr. Sara Kuburic:And so I had all these super formative experiences that I didn't realize were unusual and I didn't realize how they impacted me.
Dr. Sara Kuburic:Part of the reason is because everyone around me normalized it, so we were hanging out with a sermon community, my family went through the same thing, and so it was very common to be like hey, remember in that bomb shelter when that thing happened, and we thought like that's how we would talk about it, as if it was like hey, remember when I went to Disneyland or when we went to like Starbucks and like this thing.
Dr. Sara Kuburic:So there was nothing to signal to me that like hey, this maybe had consequences and hey, this maybe wasn't a normal or a commonly shared experience, and so I it took me a really long time to realize what impacted truly had on me, and I think part of my resistance to acknowledging that was I already felt like so much damage was done and so many lives were lost and so much sadness and suffering occurred that I I felt like, if I let it impact me, I let them win somehow, like they've taken away so much and this is like my 10 year old, 15 year old brains, like they've taken away so much from me already that if, if I acknowledge how much they really changed me, that means that they took away even more.
Dr. Sara Kuburic:And so I had to like, reconcile that of like, yeah, it did impact me, but it doesn't mean that they, they get to take more and what you do with that impact is up to you. And so that was kind of my journey of figuring out like my therapist had to be. Like you know, that sounds like trauma literally, and I was, like you may try and like, oh, is it? Which is, you know, ironic, because I was studying to be a therapist. But we need those moments, we need someone else to sometimes act as a mirror.
Aaron Pete:I'm also wondering about the process of becoming conscious. I don't believe that, just as a child you're you're born like really conscious, in the sense that you fully understand everything and that you're able to take it in and relay it and process everything at once.
Aaron Pete:I remember going to movies and loving the movie and not talking about it afterwards and not thinking about it afterwards and not really understanding what it meant that I just saw this person and when you look back on it and I think of watching things like Spider-Man, I was emblematic and looking to Toby McGuire in that movie of like I want to be like you, but I couldn't talk about that. There wasn't a movie club to go discuss what I had taken away, what, what lessons and and life approaches I would go forward with. So I think that journey of becoming conscious is is a process people have to go through. Not everybody does, um, but I'm wondering about your journey. It sounds like it somewhat started there. When do you feel like you started to be conscious of your impact and where you wanted your trajectory to go, rather than being kind of on somebody else's directory of how to live a good life?
Dr. Sara Kuburic:Yeah. So I think, when it comes to awareness, we can be so hard on ourselves and others and be like why aren't you aware? The thing about it is you're not going to be conscious of things that are too threatening, which means you need a healthy degree of inner safety to be able to face the truth, to become fully conscious of what you need to, and so a lot of that journey does take time, because for you to feel safe enough to face some uncomfortable truths takes time, and for me, I think that journey really took a turn when I realized, um, after I had my friends burrito and was like, yay, I conquered this big hurdle, I went. The next morning, I went on a flight and I had my very first panic attack, but I didn't know what it was, and I went into pretty much full body paralysis, and so that was a really horrifying experience, because I thought I was going to die. And in that moment I went. I haven't lived and I'm about to die. What a loss, and I think it's what snapped me out of it, because I was like there is no I, even if I fail really horribly, it's not going to hurt as much as this very moment. And so I took me to hit rock bottom before I did anything about it, and I hope that others don't have to.
Dr. Sara Kuburic:But for me, everything shifted when I was like I'm incredibly unhappy, I'm existentially dead, I'm not actually living my life and it hurts so effing bad that I cannot handle living like this, like I like really the options and this is sounds a bit grim, but it's like you either die or you do anything you can to not feel exactly what you're feeling.
Dr. Sara Kuburic:And I was never suicidal, which is actually quite shocking considering, like the, the panic disorder that I developed at that time and just how it's feeling. But I was like I will do anything to not feel this and that was my motivation was lack of pain, it was not this beautiful like I want to be enlightened, I want to be authentic, I want to live a meaningful life. No, that wasn't it at first, and that's okay If you're listening and this is where you're at the bare minimum. It was like I just want to feel this much less pain, like I'm showing yeah, this is terrible for audio but I want to feel less pain, even if it's like insignificant to the naked eye. I just want to feel less pain and that was my motivation, and then it became about growth, and then it became about healing, and then it became about meaning and purpose and fulfillment. But at the very start it was just about not not being in so much pain.
Aaron Pete:Would you mind elaborating on the brilliant quote? You have changing my life. No longer felt like a suggestion, it felt like a necessity.
Dr. Sara Kuburic:Yeah. So this moment just articulated better because I had time to write it. I think a lot of the times were like, yeah, I could have better relationships, or yeah, I could take care of my health more. Or yeah, it's all suggestions. It's like great, I could do it. But when you realize that you have to do it, otherwise, for me I thought it was dying in that moment with my first panic attack. I think that's a different type of motivation. It's like no one is going to choose to move out or jump out of a moving car. But when you realize it's the only thing that will keep you potentially alive, you're going to jump out of a moving car. So that's what that felt like. It was no longer like, hey, do you want to? Like, it's not going to feel good, but do you want to do it? It's probably going to be good for you. It was like you're going off a cliff. You're going to jump because that's the only thing that's going to keep you alive. And that's how I felt.
Aaron Pete:This really leads in nicely to the armchair metaphor that you wrote about. Would you mind articulating that for people who haven't heard of it?
Dr. Sara Kuburic:Yeah. So the armchair metaphor that I have is imagine that you're in a room and the examples I give are your coffee's cold and you have stale crackers and your books are perfectly new because you didn't bother to read them, and you're just like sitting there and you have a nice lamp next to you, but it's not really illuminating a lot because you don't need it because the room is on fire and you're just chilling there and, although you're about to die, you are answering emails, you are reposting inspirational Instagram posts. I think the irony about why I wrote that particular thing was sometimes you are doing the right things, like, for example, maybe you are reading self-help books, but you need more than that in that moment. So you're doing all these things and you hear this internal scream that's saying you're going to die. You need to get up and leave, you need to do something, you need to extinguish the fire, and you don't.
Dr. Sara Kuburic:You just sit there and you've also normalized the fact that it's really cozy and hot and there's flames all around you and you don't understand how dire the situation truly is, and I think a lot of us function this way in terms of not realizing what a big existential threat it is not to be yourself not realizing that we don't actually live our lives. And I stopped the metaphor before the person died because I thought that would be too morbid. But I want to say there are such severe consequences and just because we've normalized something, just because we're ignoring something, just because you're suppressing something, it doesn't mean that there are no consequences. And so this metaphor was just kind of like an interesting way, using some imagery, to show that we can be functioning and autopiloting through our lives and sleepwalking through our lives and everything seems totally fine, and yet we're in some real danger.
Aaron Pete:I look at other people and the reason that I loved your book so much as I see people doing this in their life. I look at how much they make approximately and how they're spending and how they're approaching their life and they're on a trajectory to bankruptcy. They're on a trajectory off a cliff. Oh, interesting, and I'm seeing it and I'm going like, okay, you make like 20 bucks an hour and you have a $30,000 car and you have three cats and you live in this. The places you're moving to are getting smaller and smaller. You are on a trajectory to a trailer park or to living on somebody's couch, but you're not changing your direction.
Aaron Pete:And if you come in and just look at someone and say that to them, like that wouldn't be well received. But it's so hard to watch people be in the room, be in the space where the room is on fire and you need to do something, and but it's not your place to force other people to. And one of the points I loved that you made in that metaphor was that they start asking questions like why is the room on fire? Who lit it on fire? Who's responsible for the fire? Rather than just getting up and getting out of the situation they're in.
Dr. Sara Kuburic:Yeah, that's the part that's the most frustrating. Sometimes, even with the mental health movement now, it's like let's really make sure that we can pin the blame on someone. That seems to be a lot, of, a lot of what's happening and the narratives that are kind of developing around it. It's like, well, it wasn't really your fault, it was your parents fault, it was your upraising fault, and I do not dismiss that Like and I I understand what childhood stuff does to you. Very much honour in their space for that. But I think when the conversation ends there, it takes away agency. It's going well, you're this way, you're in this burning room because you lived through these things, it doesn't say, but you have the freedom and the responsibility to get up and leave, and it's not going to be easy, like if the flames are high, whatever contributed to that. Like it's going to be incredibly, incredibly difficult. But I just think that it takes away a lot of that empowerment. And so for me, yes, of course you should try to figure out. You know why is it happening, who's doing it, and sometimes we don't have the, the courtesy of time, the plan, you know, and sometimes you just need to act and then you can reflect further. But for me, I had to start doing very practical things to manage my panic attacks and then, with time, I realized why they were happening. I did not do anything for my panic attacks until I figured out why they were happening. So I think sometimes you just need to be more proactive and make sure that our narratives, as much as they're insightful, don't disempower people from being like and now, unfortunately, you are responsible. Your parents can't save you, no one can save you, and that's, I think, the cool thing also about the metaphor is like no one came in and picked you up and ran out. It wasn't your therapist. I was like okay, let's go. You had to do it yourself, and unfortunately it does. At some point you're going to have to realize that, no matter what happened to you, you're the only one that can do something about it.
Dr. Sara Kuburic:Now, and I have an example, I think, in there of Chad. I don't know if you read that part. So Chad is someone who you know. In high school his parents got divorced or he got cheated on by his first love in college, and now he's a 30-something-year-old male and he is mistreating absolutely every partner that he has, and so at what point do Chad's actions become his responsibility? Of course we can validate the trauma, of course we can have an explanation in the past, but does it justify it? And everyone's like, well, of course not. It's like well, that applies to a lot of other things.
Dr. Sara Kuburic:And then the other feedback I get is like, yeah, chad really needs to get his crap together so that he can start treating all his partners better and his partners can start having a better time, a better relationship. And my response is always he's the let's call her Casey. It is on Casey for the fact that she's dating Chad. This is this has nothing to do with Casey. Casey has decided to date someone who mistreats her. This is not on Casey. The reason I want Chad to feel better is because Chad most likely wants connection, wants intimacy, wants love. He deserves to have a fulfilling existence and the only way he can do that is to take responsibility. My rant is over.
Aaron Pete:That is very well said. I'd like to take this information because I'm on council for my First Nation community and so much of what you just said applies to our community. I find that we are in such a difficult position because, on the one hand, we can point to colonization, indian residential schools the 60s school.
Aaron Pete:We can point to all of these things, but working as a native court worker assisting indigenous people through the legal system, I see where people stopped there and they went. Well, the government did this to me, so it's not my fault. They need to come in and give me a First Nations lawyer, a First Nations judge, and I shouldn't be held accountable for this, because I wouldn't be this way had all of these things not happened.
Aaron Pete:And the reality that we have to face with each person is what had happened and what has gone on is horrible and like unexcusable. But you're here today because of your actions and you have to take responsibility for those actions. Today, and wherever direction you go, you can be a beacon of light for the young people in our community, for yourself, for your family, and start to set an example for other people to move in a different direction. This is day one of the new part of your life where you can put all of that in the past and not forget, but forgive what happened and start to take those meaningful steps. But I find so many people right now are telling indigenous people it's not your fault, so you don't have to do anything, and that leaves people, as you described, agentless.
Dr. Sara Kuburic:Yeah, I mean it's. So. I think the work that you're doing is absolutely amazing and it's so hard when you look at something like that and the amount of like injustice that's been done and so much harm that's been done. And it's hard to look at someone in the face and be like, but it's on you, like that feels so heartless and I understand. And when I chose my title, I also understood the risk of that. But because I associate agency with freedom, I actually think it's a gift, it's an opportunity, it's and I love the way that you just described that, because I understand how hard it is to look at someone in the face and be like, but now, fortunately on you and it's such a hard thing to receive.
Dr. Sara Kuburic:But I hope that people understand that that statement is a statement of hope and empowerment and freedom, and so I do think, unfortunately, we have to say it. And if we don't say it, it's letting someone stay in that room. And sometimes we see people in that room and we're not like, hey, are you getting out? Hey, the flames are awfully close to you, like, do you plan to do something about it? We're like, well, someone else said it, they're not moving, it's not, it's not my place, right, and I like the approach of like.
Dr. Sara Kuburic:Sometimes it's not going to be received well and I'm not saying it's always our job to even share that message. But if someone around you is about to burn, you know, think of it, think of it in a physical sense, you would do something about it. And I think if we took mental health and our wellness seriously, we would sometimes have those difficult conversations if it was, of course, appropriate and context appropriate. But sometimes, you know, I say those things because I want them to survive and I go yeah, can you get up, can you get out of the room please? You're making me really uncomfortable, I'm worried.
Aaron Pete:The other piece that I find that others lacked, when dealing with vulnerable populations specifically, is the idea that past 25 years old 25 years old, that people could go on and live their dream, that we, at some point in time, stop telling people that you haven't reached your full potential and it would be awfully nice if you did, and that's by your own definition.
Aaron Pete:And we start looking at, like, what did you want to be when you were 15 years old, 20 years old, like, where would you like your life to be? I found that when I'd work with other people in the social sector, they'd be like well, let's get you into counseling to deal with you abusing your wife or abusing your spouse. And then it'd be like okay, well, that's a symptom, but what long term is going to address the alcohol use, the abusive tendencies, the negative attitude, the acting out over the weekend? We need to give this person a shining light, a goal that's bigger than just a few things that are going to get checked off in the next six months. We need to have a trajectory over the rest of your life that's going to inspire you to continue on this journey. When things get tough Do you find this as well that people stop kind of imagining what their life could be if it was its maximum, if it reached its full potential.
Dr. Sara Kuburic:Oh yeah, and I think it's because it feels so out of reach or so unsafe where people have told them they can't accomplish more than what they're accomplishing right now. There are so many narratives that would force someone to think that their reality is the only one in which they can exist, and I think, when it comes to dealing with symptoms, that's one thing I just try to shy away from, like, of course. First, if you're abusing your wife, that needs to stop. How do we make that stop? At the same time, we need to look at the individual and go what is causing it? My entire dissertation was on infidelity, but perpetrators of infidelity, not the victims of infidelity, and I also find that so fascinating, because infidelity was just a symptom, it was just a manifestation, and if you look at someone who has cheated, you'd be like they're a terrible person. They just need to keep it in their pants, they just need to respect themselves and their wives or husbands more, whatever it is, and it just completely misses the human that is doing this thing. And I think sometimes we miss humanity by being so symptom oriented and trying to target the symptoms themselves. And so I think that you're right.
Dr. Sara Kuburic:It's important to dream, it's important to ask the person who do you want to become? This is who you are right now. Let's not lie. I also don't like the whole like well, that's not really who you are. You're behaving this way, unfortunately. That's probably who you are right now, but it does not mean that that's who you need to stay, that you can become whoever you want to be. And I think giving people that hope and that like evoking that imagination, I think is so powerful Because, as you said, they need a bigger thing to dream about. They're probably not motivated enough just to not harm their partner. That, to some extent, is not going to be motivation enough. But if they can understand the future that they can have, that the person they can become, the career they can have, that is going to be so powerful that this is just going to feel like one of the steps that is helping them achieve something so much greater.
Aaron Pete:Would you mind putting that into context for yourself? You're a person at the beginning of the book. You're struggling with your self-identity. Now you're making such a large impact. You have a book out, you're having a global impact on individuals who are able to follow your work and start to find steps, and I love the work that you do because it can be so simple on an Instagram post or a Facebook post that somebody can absorb that and go yeah, you know what. That's what I'm going to do today in a simple kind of format. Would you mind talking about your own trajectory, finding yourself?
Dr. Sara Kuburic:Oh yeah, easy question. No, a lot of it was taking responsibility. I think sometimes people are shocked in. Something I write about in my book is that my early 20s were more painful than my childhood trauma, and I say that tentatively, but what I mean by that is that in my early 20s I was the perpetrator, meaning I made conscious decisions that hurt me. When I was a child, I had no power. I was genuinely a victim as a child. I had no power over politics, I had no power over the bombings, I had no power over anything, and then, as I didn't deal with that, those things started to inform my decisions. And then I started to be intentional or make decisions that actually hurt me, and that was a really, really difficult and difficult pill to swallow, a difficult thing to come to terms with, and so I had to start taking responsibility.
Dr. Sara Kuburic:It is responsibility that changed my life and it's why the book is called it's On you and a lot of it was respecting myself and fulfilling my own needs. I think that was at the very basic start of it. It wasn't like oh, I'm so authentic, I know exactly what I want. I'm a lie to have a higher purpose. At the start it was like how can I start to respect this person, how can I start to trust this person? Then, after those fundamentals, and then how can I meet my own needs? Amazing, we love it. Then it was like okay, now I need to protect this person, so how do I set these boundaries to do so? Okay, Now I have these basic needs met.
Dr. Sara Kuburic:Let's talk about fulfillment. Let's talk about alignment, let's talk about envisioning who I want to become. Where did I go off track? Then I would cycle, then I would go there and I'd be like great vision, blah, blah, blah. Then I would realize that while I was trying to strive for this vision, I wasn't fulfilling my own needs and I wasn't trusting myself.
Dr. Sara Kuburic:What I want to show is it's cyclical, it's messy, it's a spiral, but you can either be spiraling up or down, but it's going to sometimes feel like a circle, like you're walking in a circle, but you can also be walking upward.
Dr. Sara Kuburic:So for me, it was a journey that took a decade I would say Genuinely to be in a place where I'm like, I understand who I am, I feel really rooted and grounded and I welcome the fact that life is messy and that I'm going to make a lot of mistakes and that I'm going to fail a bunch, and sometimes publicly, and that's okay too, because I think that's a really important thing about figuring out your sense of identity and your sense of self is trial and error. I think that's something that we don't talk about. We make psych seem really neat and clean and there is nice little progress to all of this, but I think a lot of figuring out who you are and living the life you want is trying things and then being like I don't like it, or doing things and then failing and then going okay, I'm not going to that and it's just not taking it too seriously.
Aaron Pete:I couldn't agree more when you were describing that.
Aaron Pete:It just had me thinking about compound interest that yes, the stock market goes up and down, but over 10 years it has a very clear trajectory and you can get lost on the ups and downs, but if you zoom out as long as you're striving to improve and take those steps, you're going to fall down. You're going to go down a path and say maybe I want to be a painter and realize that's not your calling and then go down this other path, like you're going to have those learning moments. The other piece that stands out to me, that seems really important, that can be such a barrier for people, is the right in group, the right people around you that are going to nurture your growth. I'm wondering what advice you have for people in order to surround themselves with the right people who are going to support their growth and self-development, because so often we can have people go whoa, whoa, whoa. That's not how you are and try and put you back into the box of who you used to be when you're trying to take these steps of redefining yourself.
Dr. Sara Kuburic:Oh my gosh, such a good point. Be so painfully selective, so painfully selective. You are going to be molded and shaped for the people you surround yourself with. That is a fact and that is not something you can avoid. But the only choice you have is who those people are. So take that choice, run with it, make it instead of just passively letting anyone mold you. Because as human beings, we are social and we do get impacted by those around us.
Dr. Sara Kuburic:I really struggled with people not seeing me the way I saw myself. This was really hard for me because I would experience myself a certain way and the way people reflected back to me who I was did not align and I felt crazy. I was like, okay, I don't see myself like this at all. So who's right? And part of my journey at the very start was I dropped 80% of my friendships, 90% of my friendships. I completely set different boundaries. I mean I also got. I mean I left my marriage at the time. I changed my relationship with my family to actually become closer with them.
Dr. Sara Kuburic:But it was a huge, huge, huge shift. And you have to meet people who are willing to actually see you and that doesn't mean that, like when people tell you things you don't wanna hear, you're like they don't see me, you're out. It's not that at all. It's about trusting those individuals to reflect back to you and, when they reflect something that is incongruent, to go okay. Maybe they misunderstood or maybe I'm not really expressing myself or being who I think I'm being, and we need those wake up calls sometimes.
Dr. Sara Kuburic:And so part of my journey was really establishing friendships, really, really meaningful friendships.
Dr. Sara Kuburic:My friend group, a group, became much smaller.
Dr. Sara Kuburic:I'm naturally an introvert anyways, and so I have expanded lately a little bit, but I'm just so incredibly selective and if you think that you can be a certain way and hang out with people that have completely different lives, you're lying to yourself, because you are gonna become who you hang out with, and it's really hard to resist that.
Dr. Sara Kuburic:So, if you're on this journey, find other people who are on this journey, find people who will respect and honor this journey and people who want you to succeed, because lots of people do not want you to succeed, because that means you change, which means your relationship with them changes, or it means it shines a light on what they should be changing. So a lot of people would rather you stay the same, just because you already fit in the ecosystem that you have created, and so people get a bit petty and people don't want things for you that are even good for you. And so finding people that see your success as their success and who are open to being like wow, our dynamic is changing and if this serves you better, like that's awesome. It's hard, but it's possible.
Aaron Pete:There's a great quote and I'm not gonna paraphrase it perfectly, but it was from a UFC fighter who said when I'm in the gym, everybody believed in me because they had the same goals that I had at the time. But once I started to reach those goals, I became emblematic of everything that they didn't actually achieve. And so that there can be that they're there for you when you're on your rise up, but they're not there for you once you actually make it, because then you become a statement of what they're not. May I ask how did the book actually come about? What were those early days of getting this book prepared? How did the meeting start?
Dr. Sara Kuburic:Yeah, I remember my agents who were amazing were like, okay, if you can write about literally anything, anything at all, what would it be? And in my MA and doctoral work I studied moral injury, and a theme that kept reemerging was self-loss, and it was the only thing I found super interesting, and so I kept seeing it in my clients. I started to fully understand that that's what happened to me, because although I was like healing from it and recovering, I never really fully understood what happened. There was no term that fully summarized my experience, and so when they asked, it was kind of an automatic thing.
Dr. Sara Kuburic:And the writing process was really interesting because, as you know, to explain something to someone you need to understand it really well. You can like half-ass understand it if you're like trying to just get through the world, but to teach someone else you must really understand it. And so it was a lot of reading and a lot of learning for me too to really like solidify and discern things. And then it almost felt like a bit of therapy for me to relive everything and to try to express my own experience in a way that would be helpful to others, and so it was intense, but it kind of came in massive like spurts, like I would write three chapters in like two weeks and then I would like struggle to write one chapter for like four months. And then I knew it was interesting because I got to learn about myself, where I was like the fact that it's not coming means it's not fully aligned. That was my takeaway and it means I'm forcing this chapter, I'm forcing this point, when I don't find this point interesting or like it's kind of irrelevant, and I know that they want me to write about it. But I couldn't care less. And there were certain topics that I was like everyone's written about this, everyone and their mother has written about boundaries. Do you know what I mean? But it's like how can I make sure that I'm portraying it in a way that still feels fun and exciting and different for me? And so it was really cool.
Dr. Sara Kuburic:I got to learn a lot about myself as a creative, as a writer, as a human being. And it was a very personal book. As I said, it's the first time I've ever spoken about my life experiences. And so, right, a couple of days before I got out, I wasn't even scared about like will people like the content? It was more. Although some may not. It was more like wow, this is so vulnerable. I think writing a book is an extra level of vulnerability that people assume I would be accustomed to, given that I run a social media page and write all the time, but it really felt very, very vulnerable and that was one of the biggest surprises for me. And now it's out there in the world living its whole life.
Aaron Pete:It's out there in the world. Would you mind defining self-loss?
Dr. Sara Kuburic:Yeah. So I have two definitions. One is lack of it's self-restrangement, lack of alignment or congruency with ourself. And then my favorite definition is self-loss, is our failed responsibility to be the self. Self which essentially means you have participated and you are not yourself because of you, and I think that so many of us are an autopilot or sleepwalking through life. I think a lot of us don't understand why we're not ourselves, and this definition kind of highlights why that might be happening for us.
Aaron Pete:Would you mind talking a little bit about the brilliance behind the cover and the circle?
Dr. Sara Kuburic:So the circle is actually a mirror, which I think is really fun. And I don't even I don't remember how this came about, but I always go like just look at yourself and face yourself and I think my I think it was my publishers that were like that's great. And then I don't want to mis-credit someone but we ended up with a mirror and we were so excited because it's almost clear enough to see yourself and I think when you pick up and you go, it's on me and you see the me you're talking about. It's pretty powerful and I'm so happy that the US trans or not translation, but the US edition has the mirror on it. It's very special to me.
Aaron Pete:I couldn't agree more. I didn't fully understand it when I saw the audiobook because it is not in fact a mirror, but it looked kind of like an egg. But then, once I got the copy, I was looking at it and I was like, wow, that is such a thoughtful way of raising it to the person when you are trying to figure these things out, to really put it back to the person that it is on you. So it all kind of came together in a really thoughtful way.
Dr. Sara Kuburic:Thank you. One of my princes like I thought it was a giant period, like really making a point, and I was like, okay, it does sound a little like Sarah, but like it wasn't that aggressive. No, it's not a giant period, it's just, it's a mirror.
Aaron Pete:What has the impact of the book been in your unique circumstance? I would say you have a better relationship with an audience than other people might have, who are authors, who don't have social media pages. That reaches many people, so it seems like you might have a better opportunity to kind of see the impact of the book can have. What has that experience been like?
Dr. Sara Kuburic:It's interesting to see the experience because I get just the most overwhelmingly like vulnerable, raw, beautiful DMs and emails about this book. But yet it's also a book that's really like private to people and that's really intense for people and so seeing how the audience reacts to it forward facing versus like private DMs is really fascinating. Everyone is super positive but they're like that's book recommend and then in the DMs of like this is all that it's done for me and I think it's because it's so vulnerable and private that people don't are not like writing out their life story on the recommendation when they're like tagging me in their story. But I thought that that was an interesting discrepancy. It's the same thing when I write a really intense post, people will save it so much but they won't like it. Sometimes that's because they don't want others to know that like that really resonated with them or that's what they're struggling with, and I always find that the most hard hitting things it's like lots of saves, lots of DMs, and then I'll look at it.
Dr. Sara Kuburic:I were just to look at the likes and like wow, this really bombs, like why doesn't anyone care? And then it's like completely different and this was interesting to see, like the amount of DMs I've received has just been like life changing for me and it fills my heart and I have the best community ever and they're outwardly obviously supportive as well. But when I get those details, that's really what like melts my heart. When someone sits down is like I'm going to tell you exactly how this changed my life. That to me is just like even if I got one of those DMs, I think it would have made the whole process worth it. But the fact that I'm privileged enough to get many of those is really humbling and I love my community and it's been really positive, and so I hope there'll be another book one day.
Aaron Pete:A few more quick questions and I just I can't thank you enough for your time. The next one is around the reference list at the end for other books people can get. One of the pieces that I really loved about it was they weren't all just about like self help or books that are sort of similar. Some of them were really deep books that just kind of walk you through the human experience, for lack of a better word, can you talk about the references and the recommendations for books?
Dr. Sara Kuburic:Yeah, I think not. How do I say this? Self help books are not the only books that can be helpful, and I don't always enjoy self help books, and some of the books that have changed my life the most weren't self help, and so I think there are lots of ways we receive information. For me, I love receiving it through narratives, and so I had some of my favorite like philosophers or novelists that impacted my work very personally, but they weren't psychologists, and so I just wanted to give a variety, because I don't know what's going to resonate with someone, and I think it's important not to make it one dimensional, like here's self help on the self, and just read that. I think it's really nice to expand to different disciplines, such as philosophy, and so I just wanted people to know the books that have impacted me, some of my favorite books, the books that have fed into my book, and then also something that might be helpful for them.
Aaron Pete:Recommendation, if you're open to it, would be a music list of recommendations for music that is insightful, like. One of my favorite rappers of all time is NF, and he hits on a lot of these deep topics of figuring out who you are, like his four albums where they outline the journey he's been on, and this most recent one on hope and finding himself and being comfortable in his own skin and letting the dark side of him go. These are things I think that are vulnerable to people. I don't hear a lot of people talk about their favorite music or music that inspires them but that can just motivate you when you're at the gym or it's where you go when you're crying on a bad day, and I would be fascinated to hear some of your favorite artists that help you get through those tough days and help you keep on that track when you feel so misunderstood by the world.
Dr. Sara Kuburic:Oh my gosh, this is hard, you know. It would be fun to have a little playlist because what happens in my brain is, when I hear a song, it's always associated with a period of time in my life or with a person almost immediately, and so it'd be interesting to transition from like early 20s into like 30s, to be like here are all the songs I love. Okay, I mean, I don't know impacts, but people I love is like Bruno major, not sure if you've heard of him. He's a jazz guitarist who now sings and I just thought a concert of his. I'm always inspired by people who have so much meaning behind their lyrics and I obviously am very impacted by music. A lot of my piano here, but a lot of my family. There are musicians, and so that's something that's really close to my heart. I love Taylor Swift now because I feel like I grew up with her and it's interesting to like be 15 and figuring out your first love and then hear someone else say it. I think there's something really powerful about human connection. But I have a really wide like.
Dr. Sara Kuburic:Now I'm more into just listening to a lot of classical music, a lot of cello concertos, so I've been through everything, but I I love a good throwback if I'm at the gym or like really frustrated, or I sometimes to help me. Actually it's interesting, I have a playlist. I'm just thinking of this and it's a rant and you can edit it, but for each chapter I had a playlist on Spotify, because I would try to like get back into that head space. So it would be like Rihanna, you know in my 20s, or it would be like Eminem, or it would be someone I was listening to at the time, and then I would listen to that song to try to be like okay, sarah a 22, sarah a 22, and just like channel that energy. And so I listened to a lot while I was kind of writing. And then now I'm very eclectic, so I didn't give you an answer, but that's an answer.
Aaron Pete:That was a very good answer. How, where do you hope to take things into the future? Do you have any goals for 2024, the next five years, any big, lofty goals that you can tell us about?
Dr. Sara Kuburic:Not that I can tell you about, but I did start something called the Phenomenological Society. It's an existential society and that's just like a fun passion project. It hasn't been hard launched or anything and that's for anyone who's interested in just kind of exploring their existence from a philosophy lens. I co created it with one of my best friends. We write weekly essays and we just try to kind of give a bit of education about existentialism and how we implement something that seems so theoretical into our everyday lives.
Dr. Sara Kuburic:And so if you're kind of a philosophy nerd and you're into the, you know absurdity and the abyss of existence, this is where I go a little dark, right, because, like in psych, I try to keep it like yay. And then I was like, to be honest, there's a part of me that that is not that optimistic all the time and I wanted to find a way to be true to her and give her a voice. And so this is not that I find existentialism depressing, but it is a lot more challenging and when I want to sit with that kind of darkness or that void or or those questions are really intense. This is kind of where I express myself. So I started this club and it's really fun. I mean, it's like one stop stack. Check it out if you want to.
Aaron Pete:Brilliant. Would you mind telling people how they can follow you on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook?
Dr. Sara Kuburic:Yeah, of course. So Instagram is my main platform because that's where I'm the most engaged and that's at millenialtherapist. My website is Sarah dash Kubrickcom. You can get my book anywhere books are sold. It's currently being translated, I think, to 16 languages. So it's going to be everywhere is the hope. And if you are interested in psych content, that's longer form than my Instagram. I do have a newsletter notes from my phone on sub stack and then if you're interested in the philosophy side of things, it's called the phenomenological society, also on the sub stack.
Aaron Pete:I love it. I love the book so much. I really enjoyed the the audio book version and I was so grateful that you narrated it yourself because it just adds that personal connection and I thought that was so valuable. I highly recommend people go check out your book, listen to the audio book. I think it just adds that extra personal element to it that I think is really important when you're going through such vulnerable topics. It gives you that real world understanding. Sarah, I can't thank you enough for being willing to do this. I've been looking forward to this since your book dropped. Since I was able to read it, I've been getting excited, so I really appreciate you being willing to take the time to do this.
Dr. Sara Kuburic:Oh my gosh, it's my pleasure anytime. It was really fun. You asked questions I couldn't answer, which is always which I always look forward to, like the music one, no idea, but I I absolutely had a blast and thank you so much for having me.
Aaron Pete:Brilliant. I have to do one more shout out, and it's to a woman named Kylie Bartell, who knew you during your time in school and she was the one in our first interview together. She mentioned your work and she said I go to her Instagram page for inspiration and insights when I'm working with clients and I was like who is this? Person went and searched you and I've been a fan and that was two years ago, I believe, so I'm going to follow you and work with you.
Dr. Sara Kuburic:Oh my gosh, what, what. That is so sweet. Thank you so much. She's. That's really kind, amazing, how cool.
Aaron Pete:Absolutely.