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You do not want to relive any of the things that you have lived, those tragedies.

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What about you has changed because of those things that deep down inside you're glad they happened?

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So I grew up incredibly shy, but probably as a kid could have been diagnosed with selective mutism.

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I didn't talk for years.

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And public speaking would have been my number one fear.

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I gave the eulogy at my husband's funeral.

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And in that moment, I was like, I don't care if I embarrass myself, if I stumble over my words, I don't care how I sound, it's not about me.

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I've been through the worst of the worst.

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Yeah, negative review just doesn't do it anymore.

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Yeah, go ahead and do that.

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I'm okay now.

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The mental health industry is booming.

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There's all kinds of therapists out there, some of them legitimate, some of them not.

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There's all kinds of advice being dispensed across social media.

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But here's a question.

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If all that mental health guidance we were getting was working, wouldn't there be a decline in our anxiety and depression?

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No.

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But there's not.

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It's going up.

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So maybe, just maybe, the advice that we're getting or the advice that we're following is wrong.

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That's why I invited Amy Morin on the show.

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She's a psychotherapist who wrote an amazing book called 13 Things That Mentally Strong People Don't Do.

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And her new book...

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is the Mental Strength Playbook.

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She questions the advice that we're getting and the advice that we're following.

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She views mental fitness as something that we work towards, nothing that we'll ever achieve.

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But most importantly, there are very simple and practical steps that we can take to keep ourselves mentally strong regardless of the ups and downs that we all experience in our professional and personal lives.

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If you like this content and are interested in more, please remember to subscribe.

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This is a bit of optimism.

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This episode is proudly brought to you by SAP.

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Staying at one job for a whole career used to be the norm.

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Now, it's the exception.

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So when it does happen today, I want to know why.

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Is there something wrong with the employee?

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Or is the company doing something right?

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Given how rare a long tenure has become, I was excited to talk to David Robinson.

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He's been at SAP for over 20 years, and I wanted to hear what it takes to continue staying interested and inspired at one company.

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To learn more about SAP, the AI cloud ERP for businesses of all size, head to sap.com slash grow.

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Amy, thanks for joining me and coming in.

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I appreciate it.

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I'm thrilled to be here, Simon.

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Let's talk about mental health.

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Okay.

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I think you and I see the world very similarly.

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You know, I hate the term mental health.

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Yeah.

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I use the term mental fitness.

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Mental health sounds like some goal you have to achieve, which nobody ever will.

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And we're always falling short where mental fitness, like physical fitness, is something you're always working on.

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Sometimes you're ahead, sometimes you're behind, but it's a practice that you commit to your life.

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But you are more qualified to talk about mental health than I am.

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You're actually sort of trained in this stuff.

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It's an obsession right now.

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Everybody's talking about mental health.

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People are dispensing armchair advice all over Instagram and TikTok, which I hope is well intended.

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However, there's a problem with the mental health world in America today.

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Yeah, despite our increased conversations with mental health.

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It's a real topic now.

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Right.

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As you've noticed, we're not getting better.

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That over the years, it seems to be our mental health is struggling more and more.

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Yeah.

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And despite a lot of these superficial conversations, I'm not hearing from a lot of people like, I'm so grateful that the more we talk about it, the better I feel.

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In fact, sometimes it's the opposite.

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Yeah.

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And something I'm seeing in my therapy office is people are now going on a quest to be like, if I can just figure out what happened to me when I was seven and somehow I'm going to feel better today.

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Or they think that mental health is something to be achieved or something you have or something you don't.

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And when you think about it, like nobody walks around and says, well, I'm physically healthy, right?

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Like physical health, there's not a goal.

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Less of a conversation.

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Right.

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But when it comes to mental health, it's like...

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People think, yes, I'm mentally healthy or you're mentally ill.

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But the truth is, if you looked at a scale of how people are on optimal mental health, the CDC at some point said about 17% of people are probably operating at optimal mental health at any given moment.

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And where we fall on that scale varies throughout the day.

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It depends what you ate for lunch, who you've been talking to, whether you're tired.

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So many of these factors, yet we think you either have mental health or you don't.

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Yeah.

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I think we've also confused feelings, like having feelings, like you're sad, you're angry, you're frustrated, you're overwhelmed is not a mental health problem.

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That's just life.

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Right.

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The younger generations are just talking about it more.

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Well, I think we're talking about feelings more, but as you say, now that we're talking about them more, people are thinking that there's a problem with their feelings.

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So the one I hear all the time is, well, I have anxiety.

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Well, we all have anxiety.

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And the problem is, is that an anxiety disorder is just called that.

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So we name it the same thing as the feeling.

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So then people think, well, if I'm anxious before I give a presentation, clearly I have social anxiety or some kind of anxiety disorder.

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And we don't separate those things.

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And we don't talk about how to deal with those feelings.

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I'm finding a lot of people are like, well, what do you do when you're sad?

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And I think our phones and technology could be wonderful tools, but so many people are just reaching for them to escape those emotions.

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And we're not learning how to tolerate them and work through them.

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In your practice, do you teach people how to feel?

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Do you teach people how to have emotions?

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And I think your insight there, which is if the mental health industry was working, there would be less problems and less anxiety and less of everything, but the trend is going up.

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So either...

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The mental health industry doesn't care to get you better because there's a profit motive to keep you sick.

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Or there's a misunderstanding of what it is and we don't know how to ask for help or what help looks like.

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Probably some combination of both, I would imagine.

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So can you tell me a story of somebody from your practice who doesn't see you anymore because they came with a problem and it's fixed, quote unquote.

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It's better.

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They're good.

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Yeah.

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So fortunately, I can think of many people over the years.

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But if I were to think of like a recent one, I had somebody that came for depression.

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And it was really clear.

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And they were actually depressed.

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Right.

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They weren't just sad.

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Right.

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Because what happens a lot these days is people come in and they're trying to like optimize their mental health, right?

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Like, oh, I have an avoidant boyfriend, so I need to work on my attachment issues.

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Well, that's not a mental illness.

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If we're talking about true mental illness, like major depression or generalized anxiety, that's much different.

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So when somebody came in, he had definitely had major depression.

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And it was a matter of let's talk about what strategies work for depression.

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Sometimes it's exercise, it's increasing your social circle, it's about being more active and participating in daily things, managing your diet, a lot of strategies like that, coping skills.

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How do you deal with a bad day when you have depression versus what does it mean to just be sad?

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And so I'm a cognitive behavioral therapist by trade, which means I help people shape the way that they think, which then shifts the way that you feel.

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And then you also change your behavior and it creates a more positive feedback loop.

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So how did you help him change the way he thought about himself?

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So a lot of what he was struggling with was the automatic thoughts that popped into his head.

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So somebody doesn't call you back.

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When you're battling depression, sometimes it's because I'm worthless, because people don't like me, because it's all my fault.

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Or if you don't get picked for a project at work, it's because I'm not good enough.

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And when you really peel back the layers of what kinds of things people are thinking, often boils down to that deep rooted belief of somehow I'm flawed and not good enough and people don't like me.

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And when his depressive episodes would get activated, he had a couple of them throughout his life, but it just got kicked into high gear where he would assume everything was because he was a flawed human being.

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And the more he would think about that, the less he would participate in life.

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And the less he would participate in life.

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Yeah, the worse he felt.

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And so how did you turn it around?

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So we would take a look at those thoughts.

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Like, literally, if somebody didn't call you back, that's one option.

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Maybe they actually don't like you, but what are 10 more?

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Or what can you tell yourself when you wake up in the morning, something he battled was on a really depressed day, he didn't want to go to work?

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Well, you could stay home, but what happens when you stay home, the typical quote unquote mental health day, staying in bed doesn't reduce your depression, right?

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So what can you do when you wake up and you think, actually, I'd like to stay home today?

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What can you then tell yourself?

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And so for him, it was a list of the top 10 reasons why you should go to work when you don't want to.

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And he would leave it on his nightstand.

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So when he would wake up in the morning and think, oh,

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Ah, if I just stayed in bed today, I'd feel better.

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He'd read over that list, try to talk himself into, yep, I don't want to go to work, but it's good for me and I'm going to do it anyway.

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I love this because there is an irony in all of our solutions, which again, well-intended and, you know, supportive environment.

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I need a mental health day.

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Yeah.

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And I'm going to stay home and it'll make me feel worse.

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Right.

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Right.

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Now, you know, if somebody's lying and they go to the beach, I mean, more power to them.

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That's probably really good.

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That's a real mental health day.

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Right.

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Like, play hooky and go to the beach.

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That's awesome.

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Right.

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But there is a great irony in this, which is I'm overwhelmed at work.

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I need a mental health day.

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So I'm going to stay home, sit in bed, eat Haagen-Dazs and watch movies and feel worse at the end of the day.

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Why are we choosing solutions that we think will help that actually either do nothing or make it worse?

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Right.

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A lot of it's about what's going to make me feel better right now.

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So for somebody who says, I don't want to go to work, well, sure, at 9 a.m. when you're watching TV or you're still sleeping, maybe you feel a little better than if you're in that boring meeting in the office or you're faced with a pile of paperwork.

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Of course, though, that coping strategy creates longer-term problems.

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The avoidance doesn't make it go away.

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So on Tuesday when you wake up in the morning, you don't suddenly feel like, I can't wait to go to work today.

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It often becomes more difficult.

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But I think it's really about –

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A lot of the coping skills we reach for sometimes make us feel better in the moment, but then create bigger problems in the long term.

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Let's scale it back a little bit.

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So somebody who's clinically depressed, that's a diagnosis.

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Yep.

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I mean, that's a thing.

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But what we're talking about, I think, is the more pervasive feeling that people have.

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that I am dealing with my mental health or I have mental health challenges, which is there's no diagnosable issue there.

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There's, you know, the ups and downs of life.

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Some of the examples you're talking about, you know, you're overwhelmed, you don't feel like going to work.

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I'm like, wait a minute, I sometimes wake up and I don't go to work.

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Do I have mental health issues?

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Right.

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You know, and now I'm diagnosing myself because I hear that somebody else who does have mental fitness challenges

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again, I'm so fascinated as like, why is your business booming?

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Yeah.

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It's like, it shouldn't, I wouldn't want it to be, no offense.

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I like, I want you to do very well.

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I want you to hang a sign out the door saying, I'll help you with your mental health and nobody knocks, you know?

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Yes.

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And of course, that would be the dream.

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And I think, say 10, 15 years ago, it was really about if you had a mental illness, so your doctor might send you to therapy.

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Right.

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In today's world of social media and influencers who are often talking about these issues and using labels incorrectly, and we're talking so much about mental health.

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Yeah.

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that people are going to therapy, not because they're sick, but because they're, say, have a narcissistic ex-boyfriend that was gaslighting them.

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And so they say, gosh, you know, I'm dealing with this.

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I need to talk to somebody about it.

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And then the problem with my industry is, is your insurance company is going to pay me a pretty small amount to see you.

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But if I charge you out of pocket, I can charge a lot more money.

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So it used to be that therapists only saw people with a mental illness because they were getting reimbursements from insurance companies.

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Now a lot of therapists are charging a private play, so you don't necessarily have to have a mental illness.

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You might just be dealing with something that you saw on social media.

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And I know I'm going to get in trouble for this, but I'd like you to react to it, even if I get in trouble for it.

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There's a financial disincentive for a therapist to get you better.

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Yeah.

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Because most therapists don't make passive income.

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They only make active income.

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I have to work to make money.

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And so getting new clients is hard.

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keeping clients is easier.

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If you come in and say, I need your help for X, then we're going to keep this going.

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I remember my sister, I've talked about it.

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We did a podcast episode on it.

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She went through a real tragedy.

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She lost her husband at a very young age and you can relate.

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And ironically, she was seeing a therapist who was,

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prior because she was dealing with anxiety that she might lose somebody and it just weirdly happened and so she had the therapist already and then like she did all the other things as well in addition to the therapy which you know she pushed herself to go out she spent time with friends she spent time with family she eventually got back on the horse and like really felt good and she said to her therapist i think

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you know what?

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This has been, you've been amazing.

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And I think, I think I'm good.

220
00:13:26.918 --> 00:13:27.258
I'm done.

221
00:13:28.259 --> 00:13:29.860
And the therapist said, I don't think you should stop.

222
00:13:30.241 --> 00:13:32.843
And my sister was like, no, no, I feel really good.

223
00:13:32.903 --> 00:13:36.425
And I've like felt really good for, like I've got less to talk to you about.

224
00:13:36.746 --> 00:13:38.767
And the therapist was like, no, no, I think you're being foolish.

225
00:13:38.787 --> 00:13:39.688
I think you should keep going.

226
00:13:40.088 --> 00:13:42.270
And I was like, and by the way, good therapist.

227
00:13:42.530 --> 00:13:42.850
Yeah.

228
00:13:42.910 --> 00:13:43.111
Right?

229
00:13:43.631 --> 00:13:44.171
But the...

230
00:13:45.132 --> 00:13:47.393
Where my sister's eye says, I'm healthy, I don't need the therapy.

231
00:13:47.413 --> 00:13:49.394
What the therapist hears is, I'm losing money.

232
00:13:49.995 --> 00:13:54.237
I'm losing a client, rather than, yippee for me, I helped someone get better.

233
00:13:54.877 --> 00:13:55.137
Right?

234
00:13:55.637 --> 00:14:04.542
And so, are therapists part of the problem of our inability to move through some of the struggles we're having?

235
00:14:04.982 --> 00:14:06.183
We're going to get a lot of flack on this.

236
00:14:07.075 --> 00:14:10.458
Well, certainly there, certainly that's- Not all therapists.

237
00:14:10.518 --> 00:14:10.878
Right.

238
00:14:10.978 --> 00:14:12.280
But I understand that.

239
00:14:12.420 --> 00:14:14.061
It's not fun losing a client.

240
00:14:14.101 --> 00:14:18.245
No matter what you do, if you work for an ad agency or a law firm, like nobody wants to lose clients.

241
00:14:18.805 --> 00:14:19.025
Right.

242
00:14:19.766 --> 00:14:21.988
And certainly that's an example of one, right?

243
00:14:22.188 --> 00:14:25.291
And there is the pressure to say, I need an income.

244
00:14:25.371 --> 00:14:28.654
So how do I keep people coming back?

245
00:14:29.355 --> 00:14:30.176
It's not nefarious.

246
00:14:30.196 --> 00:14:31.377
It's not evil.

247
00:14:31.437 --> 00:14:36.704
It's just like, you know, they may genuinely want to help people, but you keep them on the books.

248
00:14:36.804 --> 00:14:40.849
And on the flip side of that, I mean, we get plenty of people too who will be like, you know, I'm better.

249
00:14:40.869 --> 00:14:42.250
I don't need to come back to therapy.

250
00:14:42.431 --> 00:14:47.136
And we'll have that honest conversation of maybe you have bipolar and you're having a good week.

251
00:14:47.937 --> 00:14:49.078
But you're not cured.

252
00:14:49.278 --> 00:14:54.163
And to at least educate them on, you know, or how would you know if you needed to come back in the future?

253
00:14:54.263 --> 00:14:55.504
What do you anticipate next week?

254
00:14:55.944 --> 00:14:57.446
And space out your sessions.

255
00:14:57.506 --> 00:14:58.727
Maybe go ahead.

256
00:14:58.767 --> 00:15:01.269
We'll see you again next month instead of next week.

257
00:15:01.289 --> 00:15:02.170
And we'll see how you're doing.

258
00:15:02.190 --> 00:15:03.892
But if you need me in the meantime, you could call.

259
00:15:03.912 --> 00:15:04.232
Yeah.

260
00:15:04.352 --> 00:15:09.617
So that when people hit the dip, say, in their mood, that they're still prepared and we don't leave them high and dry.

261
00:15:10.198 --> 00:15:13.801
However, obviously, there are cases where therapists will say, you know...

262
00:15:14.181 --> 00:15:19.814
If I keep you on a little longer, if I can convince you, then that's one less person I have to go find and bring in.

263
00:15:19.834 --> 00:15:20.556
Music

264
00:15:25.381 --> 00:15:30.144
Instead of doing a straight ad read, we're pioneering something called an ad with authenticity.

265
00:15:30.264 --> 00:15:34.788
We want our ads to have valuable content for you, the listener.

266
00:15:35.468 --> 00:15:39.070
And this ad with authenticity is brought to you by SAP.

267
00:15:39.591 --> 00:15:43.293
Having a long tenure at one company gets a bad rap these days.

268
00:15:43.934 --> 00:15:46.416
Like it means you've stopped growing or something.

269
00:15:47.116 --> 00:15:53.440
But David Robinson, he's been at SAP for over 20 years, and he'd argue it's the total opposite.

270
00:15:53.980 --> 00:15:56.282
He's growing more now than ever.

271
00:15:57.062 --> 00:15:59.604
Maybe he's onto something.

272
00:15:59.704 --> 00:16:06.828
I've worked with you guys in the past, and I've always been impressed with the tenure of people and the pride that people have.

273
00:16:07.029 --> 00:16:08.690
And I think young people confuse

274
00:16:09.310 --> 00:16:11.571
They were like, I would never stay at a company for a long time.

275
00:16:11.671 --> 00:16:12.731
Why would you ever?

276
00:16:13.071 --> 00:16:19.473
If you feel like the company has your back, if you feel like the company is trying to help you grow, you won't actually notice the time pass.

277
00:16:19.673 --> 00:16:24.995
It should not be seen as a negative to be at a place like SAP for this long.

278
00:16:25.175 --> 00:16:30.017
If you're moving quickly and you have two to three year stints at technology firms, that's great.

279
00:16:30.677 --> 00:16:33.398
If you're able to be at the same firm for 20 years, that's great.

280
00:16:33.458 --> 00:16:36.780
It's about taking the very best of those different types of experiences.

281
00:16:37.080 --> 00:16:46.244
You're showcasing the value of either having lots of experiences at many places, or the experience that you have gathered over time at one place.

282
00:16:46.385 --> 00:16:49.006
If you choose a strategy of jumping, you choose a strategy of staying.

283
00:16:49.666 --> 00:16:52.808
I think the standard should be or has to be, am I growing?

284
00:16:52.928 --> 00:16:54.289
Yeah, I would agree with that.

285
00:16:54.609 --> 00:16:59.072
And it's healthy because it creates that diversity of thought, diversity experience.

286
00:17:00.313 --> 00:17:05.976
And that has to do with not just how tenured you are, but how many opportunities have you been presented over time?

287
00:17:06.037 --> 00:17:09.199
And how well have you taken advantage of those opportunities?

288
00:17:09.219 --> 00:17:10.679
Yes, that's a good standard.

289
00:17:17.127 --> 00:17:18.247
Let's get personal if you don't mind.

290
00:17:18.287 --> 00:17:24.109
One of the things I think that makes you so qualified for this conversation is not because you're a trained clinician.

291
00:17:25.029 --> 00:17:27.670
What makes you so qualified is you've gone through it.

292
00:17:28.350 --> 00:17:29.871
You lost your mother unexpectedly.

293
00:17:31.031 --> 00:17:32.811
A healthy woman who, how did she die?

294
00:17:32.931 --> 00:17:34.072
She had a brain in your zone that ruptured.

295
00:17:34.092 --> 00:17:35.612
A brain in your zone just out of the blue, right?

296
00:17:35.812 --> 00:17:35.992
Right.

297
00:17:36.152 --> 00:17:36.873
Young woman, right?

298
00:17:36.893 --> 00:17:37.633
Yep, 51.

299
00:17:37.973 --> 00:17:40.634
And then you lose your husband at a young age?

300
00:17:40.994 --> 00:17:41.534
Yeah, he was 26.

301
00:17:42.862 --> 00:17:43.863
Just heart attack?

302
00:17:43.943 --> 00:17:44.703
Heart attack at 26.

303
00:17:44.723 --> 00:17:45.304
Healthy guy?

304
00:17:45.444 --> 00:17:45.624
Mm-hmm.

305
00:17:45.924 --> 00:17:46.084
Yep.

306
00:17:46.365 --> 00:17:47.766
Well, he lost his father before that, right?

307
00:17:47.966 --> 00:17:49.907
I got remarried a couple of years later.

308
00:17:49.947 --> 00:17:50.208
Oh, right.

309
00:17:50.228 --> 00:17:53.150
And as soon as I got remarried, my father-in-law was diagnosed with terminal cancer.

310
00:17:53.210 --> 00:17:53.450
Right.

311
00:17:53.991 --> 00:18:02.557
And so, like, you have every reason to be depressed and fear, have a genuine fear of falling in love or loving anyone.

312
00:18:02.577 --> 00:18:07.381
Forget about falling, loving anyone, because everybody you love seems to fall away, seems to die.

313
00:18:07.681 --> 00:18:08.221
Yeah.

314
00:18:08.341 --> 00:18:09.742
There's a very good reasons to...

315
00:18:11.110 --> 00:18:12.591
to not want to get out of bed in the morning.

316
00:18:12.771 --> 00:18:13.071
Yeah.

317
00:18:13.192 --> 00:18:19.236
And so I think what makes you the most credible person to have this argument is that it is not an academic argument.

318
00:18:19.676 --> 00:18:31.045
It's that you found a way to find happiness, to be mentally fit, and followed, I think, fair to say, an untraditional route based on the current standards.

319
00:18:31.725 --> 00:18:32.265
How did you do it?

320
00:18:33.646 --> 00:18:36.849
It was a lot of trial and error, a lot of work.

321
00:18:37.109 --> 00:18:38.510
Why didn't you go the traditional route?

322
00:18:41.732 --> 00:18:43.233
It depends what you mean by traditional route.

323
00:18:44.833 --> 00:18:45.934
All the things we've been discussing.

324
00:18:46.074 --> 00:18:46.394
Okay.

325
00:18:46.734 --> 00:18:51.216
You know, sort of not wanting to go to work or taking your mental health days.

326
00:18:51.916 --> 00:18:57.278
And by the way, everybody would have given them to you and gladly and felt supportive of you because what you went through was awful.

327
00:18:57.498 --> 00:18:57.718
Yeah.

328
00:18:57.738 --> 00:19:03.881
So at any one of those periods, I'm sure, you know, whoever you worked for at the time would have been like, yes, yes, yes, take all the time you need.

329
00:19:04.301 --> 00:19:04.501
Right.

330
00:19:04.521 --> 00:19:05.401
Because that makes sense.

331
00:19:05.701 --> 00:19:07.282
I don't know if you were in therapy at the time.

332
00:19:08.245 --> 00:19:10.966
So funnily enough, I worked for a mental health agency.

333
00:19:10.986 --> 00:19:11.746
I was a therapist.

334
00:19:11.846 --> 00:19:13.746
I was 22 when I became a therapist.

335
00:19:13.766 --> 00:19:15.427
I was 23 when my mom passed away.

336
00:19:15.447 --> 00:19:18.508
And I was able to take two weeks off from work.

337
00:19:18.548 --> 00:19:21.348
It was just so sudden and unexpected, even though I was an adult.

338
00:19:21.449 --> 00:19:26.890
And then when my husband died, it was the three year anniversary to the day of when my mother had died.

339
00:19:27.750 --> 00:19:31.491
And I had three days of bereavement time as a therapist at the mental health agency.

340
00:19:31.531 --> 00:19:33.792
Mental health agency gave you three days off.

341
00:19:33.972 --> 00:19:34.412
Correct.

342
00:19:35.272 --> 00:19:35.812
Right.

343
00:19:36.232 --> 00:19:36.932
And I...

344
00:19:37.093 --> 00:19:37.793
Irony is thick.

345
00:19:37.813 --> 00:19:44.134
...applied for short-term disability and got denied because they don't cover grief.

346
00:19:44.154 --> 00:19:47.475
And was able to go back and see my primary care doctor.

347
00:19:47.495 --> 00:19:56.058
And she diagnosed me with acute stress disorder, which is the precursor to PTSD, because I was there when my husband died.

348
00:19:56.478 --> 00:19:59.919
And that bought me two months of short-term disability.

349
00:20:01.519 --> 00:20:02.920
And then I had to go back to work.

350
00:20:02.981 --> 00:20:04.122
It really wasn't a choice.

351
00:20:04.382 --> 00:20:06.744
I didn't have a fallback plan.

352
00:20:06.764 --> 00:20:07.885
I had a mortgage to pay.

353
00:20:07.925 --> 00:20:10.207
My husband and I had already bought a house.

354
00:20:10.968 --> 00:20:19.476
I don't have wealthy family who could say, you know, we'll pay your mortgage while you and he and I had bought the house, obviously, assuming we were going to have two streams of income.

355
00:20:20.237 --> 00:20:27.920
So not only did I have to go back to work, but if I didn't want to move and I didn't want to lose my house, I was going to have to figure out what else am I going to do.

356
00:20:28.721 --> 00:20:33.343
And I had encountered this other woman who had to move shortly after she lost her fiance.

357
00:20:33.903 --> 00:20:39.085
And the thought of packing up my house and like the lowest moments of my life and then having to...

358
00:20:39.825 --> 00:20:46.091
also figure out where am I going to live seemed more unbearable than saying, I will work two jobs, I will figure this out.

359
00:20:47.092 --> 00:20:51.236
And that's, I guess, what got me up in the morning is I said, I don't want my life to get worse.

360
00:20:51.316 --> 00:20:52.137
I want it to get better.

361
00:20:52.838 --> 00:21:00.305
And as a therapist, I had seen what happens to people if they went through tough times and they didn't work through the pain.

362
00:21:00.725 --> 00:21:03.128
So many people bought into that live time heals.

363
00:21:03.768 --> 00:21:08.895
And they would come in 10 years after something bad happened and they'd say, Amy, how come I don't feel any better?

364
00:21:09.415 --> 00:21:14.842
It's been 10 years since I lost somebody or 10 years since this traumatic thing happened and my life isn't better.

365
00:21:14.862 --> 00:21:20.889
And I didn't want to be that person who said, yeah, I'm now 36, 10 years after I lost my husband and my life still isn't good.

366
00:21:21.930 --> 00:21:24.391
And so it was a choice every day of what am I going to do?

367
00:21:24.471 --> 00:21:25.892
What kind of a life do I want to build?

368
00:21:26.352 --> 00:21:34.495
How do I let myself feel awful and go through all of the pain, but also then how do I have some hope that life could get better?

369
00:21:34.715 --> 00:21:36.336
And what do I want the next chapter to look like?

370
00:21:37.116 --> 00:21:37.576
Okay.

371
00:21:38.576 --> 00:21:39.857
There's a lot to unpack there.

372
00:21:41.458 --> 00:21:45.779
How do you find hope when the...

373
00:21:49.135 --> 00:21:54.617
The genuine sadness and little d depression are real.

374
00:21:55.377 --> 00:21:58.759
And I say little d meaning not a clinical diagnosis, dealing with a traumatic event.

375
00:21:58.939 --> 00:21:59.239
Yeah.

376
00:21:59.819 --> 00:22:08.662
And the stress of having to like have two jobs, which is not a good option.

377
00:22:08.682 --> 00:22:09.923
It's the lesser of two evils.

378
00:22:09.983 --> 00:22:13.224
It's the less bad option rather than packing up a house.

379
00:22:13.584 --> 00:22:15.585
How did you envision?

380
00:22:15.605 --> 00:22:16.805
How did you imagine hope?

381
00:22:16.885 --> 00:22:18.186
Like where did the hope come from?

382
00:22:19.260 --> 00:22:27.844
I think I had a strong faith and I believed, okay, there was a God and some reason this happened to me and perhaps there's a way to get through it.

383
00:22:28.725 --> 00:22:32.887
And I also thought, maybe this is my opportunity.

384
00:22:33.607 --> 00:22:42.392
Like I can either rise to the occasion and do my best, or I can just stay crying on the bathroom floor and 10 years from now be like, yeah, I'm not feeling any better.

385
00:22:42.852 --> 00:22:45.053
Just felt like that was a choice in life of...

386
00:22:45.673 --> 00:22:49.695
Do I want to make the best of this terrible hand I was dealt?

387
00:22:49.795 --> 00:22:51.756
Not to say, gee, I'm grateful that this happened.

388
00:22:51.837 --> 00:22:53.157
I'm not all these years later.

389
00:22:53.197 --> 00:22:55.238
I'm not grateful that I went through that.

390
00:22:55.859 --> 00:23:02.602
But on the other hand, it felt like, okay, like, for whatever reason, this is the lot you were given.

391
00:23:02.622 --> 00:23:03.663
And I'm not grateful that I went through that.

392
00:23:04.998 --> 00:23:10.241
You can do this if you're going to try to rise to the occasion, turn this into a comeback, try to make something of your life.

393
00:23:10.341 --> 00:23:11.241
It's now or never.

394
00:23:11.762 --> 00:23:20.866
And I think not having that luxury of saying I'm going to wait a while or have family that's going to bail me out or I'm going to take a year off really made me say do it.

395
00:23:21.146 --> 00:23:22.247
And I did it.

396
00:23:22.407 --> 00:23:25.609
And let's be clear, you do need time to do nothing and to grieve.

397
00:23:25.749 --> 00:23:28.930
You know, we're not saying like on day one, this is the attitude.

398
00:23:28.990 --> 00:23:37.215
I mean, there is a time period where you do grieve, you do stay in bed, you embrace sadness, you don't have to be functional.

399
00:23:37.615 --> 00:23:39.276
And I'm assuming it's slightly different for everyone.

400
00:23:39.316 --> 00:23:47.440
But at some point, not two, three, four, five years later, way before that, there's a choice that's made of, I got to move through this.

401
00:23:47.840 --> 00:23:48.180
Right.

402
00:23:48.680 --> 00:23:49.421
And it is a choice.

403
00:23:49.801 --> 00:23:50.221
It is.

404
00:23:50.702 --> 00:23:52.943
And early on, there's that tendency to stay busy.

405
00:23:53.503 --> 00:23:57.446
We even like compliment people when somebody is going through something tough and you say like, how are you doing?

406
00:23:57.946 --> 00:23:59.107
They say, I'm just staying busy.

407
00:23:59.227 --> 00:24:00.388
That's great.

408
00:24:00.668 --> 00:24:02.069
That's avoidant though, right?

409
00:24:02.169 --> 00:24:03.330
Distracting yourself.

410
00:24:03.410 --> 00:24:03.750
Right.

411
00:24:03.810 --> 00:24:05.271
And that's a skill to use.

412
00:24:05.291 --> 00:24:10.134
Sometimes if I were going into my therapy office to be a therapist, I needed to distract myself sometimes.

413
00:24:10.154 --> 00:24:10.955
And I'm really sad.

414
00:24:10.975 --> 00:24:15.657
I have therapy clients coming in in 10 minutes, distracting myself is a wonderful skill in that moment.

415
00:24:15.718 --> 00:24:16.478
But if I did that in my

416
00:24:19.960 --> 00:24:28.763
And so I think it was about allowing myself to be sad when I could come home from work and it's okay to just eat a TV dinner on the couch and let yourself cry.

417
00:24:29.623 --> 00:24:32.744
And then having those other times where I'd say, okay, I'm coming into the weekend.

418
00:24:32.764 --> 00:24:34.625
I have zero plans, nothing going on.

419
00:24:34.645 --> 00:24:36.505
I could stay in bed all weekend.

420
00:24:37.065 --> 00:24:43.367
Or maybe I'll just stay in bed until a little later on Saturday morning, but then I'm going to get up and I'm going to say, what else am I going to do with my day?

421
00:24:43.807 --> 00:24:45.688
Go for a walk, call somebody, go do something.

422
00:24:46.048 --> 00:24:48.409
I love this because it's not an all or nothing plan.

423
00:24:48.649 --> 00:24:48.869
Right.

424
00:24:49.069 --> 00:24:53.610
You're not saying you can't stay in bed, but you're also not saying you are allowed to stay in bed.

425
00:24:53.630 --> 00:24:55.011
What you're saying is, you know what?

426
00:24:55.371 --> 00:24:56.171
I'll meet you halfway.

427
00:24:56.311 --> 00:24:56.451
Yeah.

428
00:24:56.471 --> 00:25:00.652
I'm going to stay in bed a little longer, but then at 11, up and at them.

429
00:25:01.253 --> 00:25:01.553
Yeah.

430
00:25:01.633 --> 00:25:03.113
There's an element of grace in there, right?

431
00:25:03.133 --> 00:25:06.334
Which is you're not giving in to your desires to do nothing.

432
00:25:06.734 --> 00:25:08.615
You're compromising with your desires to do nothing.

433
00:25:09.121 --> 00:25:16.724
Right, because there's a balance to be had between, yes, I'm going to sit with this feeling for a while, but then also I have the ability to change how I feel.

434
00:25:16.744 --> 00:25:20.546
If I stayed in bed all day on a bad day, it's not like at 2 p.m.

435
00:25:20.646 --> 00:25:21.947
I'm like, oh, I feel great.

436
00:25:22.387 --> 00:25:29.210
But if I push myself at 11 a.m. to get up and go for a walk, just changing my environment and doing something different can shift my mood.

437
00:25:29.650 --> 00:25:36.333
And grief is all about that, finding that balance of, okay, do I have the space and the time and the ability to let myself be sad right now?

438
00:25:36.793 --> 00:25:39.095
When I was at work, I couldn't do that in between therapy clients.

439
00:25:39.115 --> 00:25:46.300
I'm not gonna cry in the 10 minutes that I had I had to be functional but in the evenings the weekends I could say yeah, I'm just gonna do something sad.

440
00:25:46.380 --> 00:25:48.081
Is that doable?

441
00:25:48.241 --> 00:25:50.643
Can human beings schedule time for feelings?

442
00:25:51.323 --> 00:25:52.764
Because it does sneak up on you sometimes.

443
00:25:52.864 --> 00:25:53.764
It certainly does, right?

444
00:25:53.784 --> 00:26:00.267
I'll be in aisle seven of the grocery store and I'll see one of Lincoln's favorite foods and I'll think, oh, how sad I could be crying in the grocery store.

445
00:26:00.307 --> 00:26:03.348
And it's not something that I've scheduled or anything like that.

446
00:26:03.468 --> 00:26:10.711
But on the other hand, when that emotion comes over me, if I'm about to walk into a meeting with a therapy client, I can say, this isn't helpful right now.

447
00:26:11.271 --> 00:26:12.392
I'll let myself feel that later.

448
00:26:12.632 --> 00:26:13.612
What am I going to do right now?

449
00:26:13.792 --> 00:26:16.353
And it might be I'm going to do something that makes me happy.

450
00:26:16.373 --> 00:26:19.994
I'm going to call somebody real quick who is going to tell me something uplifting.

451
00:26:20.014 --> 00:26:20.475
I'm going to...

452
00:26:21.735 --> 00:26:27.204
open up my phone and look at happy pictures for a few minutes to try to boost my mood so that I can function right now in the moment.

453
00:26:27.812 --> 00:26:29.873
So I want to be clear why I want to talk to you.

454
00:26:29.973 --> 00:26:35.535
I love extreme examples because in extreme examples, the lessons are just easier to see.

455
00:26:35.555 --> 00:26:36.095
They're clearer.

456
00:26:36.775 --> 00:26:43.277
And I consider what you've gone through and how you've healed and protected your mental fitness a pretty extreme example.

457
00:26:43.397 --> 00:26:45.638
Getting one of those things is pretty awful.

458
00:26:46.078 --> 00:26:50.139
And just getting battered over the course of a very short period of time is unfair.

459
00:26:50.559 --> 00:26:52.000
At least I think that's probably how it felt.

460
00:26:52.380 --> 00:26:55.121
The reason I think these things are so important because if these...

461
00:26:55.681 --> 00:27:06.832
techniques work for you, then they can work for somebody who's struggling with a difficult boss, or thinks that they're unattractive and nobody wants to date them, or they're just not good enough for a promotion.

462
00:27:07.172 --> 00:27:16.440
You know, some of those sort of more everyday anxieties that we're dealing with that people may confuse with mental health challenges, or it feels like a mental health challenge.

463
00:27:16.621 --> 00:27:19.103
I think the thing that I'm really, I'm most...

464
00:27:20.684 --> 00:27:23.827
struck by and drawn to is this very difficult thing to do.

465
00:27:23.847 --> 00:27:24.767
And that's what I want to talk about next.

466
00:27:24.787 --> 00:27:39.578
This very difficult thing to do to lean into the effort, to lean into like when you're lazy and don't want to go to the gym, when you don't want to see people and you're feeling pretty antisocial, like how do you change your mindset to force yourself?

467
00:27:39.598 --> 00:27:45.923
And that's kind of what it is sometimes to force yourself to go do the thing that you really, really, really don't want to do.

468
00:27:46.523 --> 00:27:57.933
And I think this speaks to other things that we do in our lives, having the difficult conversation that you really don't want to have, you know, leaning into attention that you really don't want to lean into.

469
00:27:57.953 --> 00:28:09.784
Because avoidance and ignoring and ghosting and pretending or quitting is just easier, which is why I think it's a common strategy, because in the short term, it works just fine.

470
00:28:09.944 --> 00:28:10.164
Right.

471
00:28:10.204 --> 00:28:11.506
It absolutely works easily.

472
00:28:12.046 --> 00:28:18.850
You know, ghosting the ex after dating for six months for the next month, two weeks.

473
00:28:20.010 --> 00:28:21.591
Absolutely perfect strategy.

474
00:28:21.791 --> 00:28:21.971
Yep.

475
00:28:22.231 --> 00:28:22.932
Dot, dot, dot.

476
00:28:23.878 --> 00:28:31.982
So please wax philosophical about both those things, which is what are we understand the short term benefits of some of those strategies?

477
00:28:32.222 --> 00:28:33.463
What are the long term liabilities?

478
00:28:33.643 --> 00:28:35.284
Why don't we recommend those things?

479
00:28:35.664 --> 00:28:40.887
The leaning out, the giving up, the not having the conversation, the ghosting.

480
00:28:41.147 --> 00:28:43.548
Why do we not advocate those things if they work in the short term?

481
00:28:45.348 --> 00:28:46.649
Things don't go away.

482
00:28:46.729 --> 00:28:52.816
So a lot of times we forget to differentiate between like solving the problem or versus solving how we feel about the problem.

483
00:28:53.517 --> 00:29:00.704
So if I have a stack of bills on the table, maybe it makes me anxious to sit down and open the envelopes and pay the bills.

484
00:29:00.724 --> 00:29:01.525
Yeah.

485
00:29:01.645 --> 00:29:06.288
But if I don't address them, then obviously the bills are still going to be there tomorrow.

486
00:29:06.968 --> 00:29:09.249
My tendency might be, yeah, but I feel anxious right now.

487
00:29:09.549 --> 00:29:12.391
So I'm going to address how I feel and I'm going to solve my feeling.

488
00:29:12.971 --> 00:29:14.852
So then I'll just push that away.

489
00:29:14.872 --> 00:29:17.293
I'm going to go watch some Netflix and pretend it doesn't exist.

490
00:29:18.214 --> 00:29:24.977
And I think when we tackle issues in our life from the wrong angle, we don't ask ourselves often enough, do I need to solve how I feel or solve the problem itself?

491
00:29:24.997 --> 00:29:27.759
And when we take the wrong approach, I'm going to go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and

492
00:29:28.358 --> 00:29:29.279
everything gets messed up.

493
00:29:29.319 --> 00:29:31.021
And sometimes we do it the other way around.

494
00:29:31.082 --> 00:29:33.404
So somebody will say, my husband drinks too much.

495
00:29:35.175 --> 00:29:39.577
In that case, you might want to say, okay, that causes me some anxiety.

496
00:29:39.637 --> 00:29:40.857
But what is it I try to solve?

497
00:29:41.057 --> 00:29:44.158
Well, I tell him not to I pour the alcohol out, we're trying to solve the problem.

498
00:29:44.559 --> 00:29:54.342
And it's not our problem to solve, as opposed to I'm going to learn how to manage my anxiety about this, or I'm going to try to approach this from something I can control, which is my own behavior.

499
00:29:54.382 --> 00:29:58.004
Instead, I'm going to focus on what I can't control, which is how somebody else behaves.

500
00:29:58.024 --> 00:30:00.825
Because if I can control you, then I have to control my feelings.

501
00:30:01.416 --> 00:30:04.158
Okay, I have to highlight this and double click this.

502
00:30:04.178 --> 00:30:05.839
This is so good, right?

503
00:30:06.179 --> 00:30:21.789
This is so good, which is when we have feelings for things we can control, I think your Bill's example is a great example, we work to solve the feeling and not solve the problem, which is, and I think breakups are the same and stuff like we solve the feeling.

504
00:30:22.189 --> 00:30:22.730
I want out.

505
00:30:23.840 --> 00:30:40.774
check but we don't solve the problem of closure and narrative and clinging on to things and all you do is talk about every time you go out with your friends to the point they don't want to hear it anymore so i love this if you can solve the problem solve the problem not the feelings and if you can't solve the problem literally it's out of your control manage your feelings and

506
00:30:40.934 --> 00:30:42.175
Because you can't solve the problem.

507
00:30:42.475 --> 00:30:43.935
This is huge.

508
00:30:43.955 --> 00:30:49.117
And that confusion, it's like light bulbs are popping up for me when people talk about their mental health challenges.

509
00:30:49.357 --> 00:30:50.898
So we've talked about how you found hope.

510
00:30:50.918 --> 00:30:56.960
We talked about confusing our feelings for solutions and how we have to solve one and manage the other.

511
00:30:57.460 --> 00:30:57.981
Narrative.

512
00:30:58.621 --> 00:30:58.861
Yeah.

513
00:30:59.510 --> 00:31:03.854
The stories we tell ourselves, this is probably one of the biggest ones of all.

514
00:31:05.036 --> 00:31:16.327
And when I turn on social media, what I hear is people giving advice, reinforcing that you can tell yourself these stories that actually aren't helping you.

515
00:31:18.205 --> 00:31:27.931
And perpetuating, to your point, what we made right at the beginning, which is, with all this mental health advice we're getting, why isn't mental health getting better?

516
00:31:28.672 --> 00:31:29.813
Mindset is essential.

517
00:31:30.193 --> 00:31:30.413
Yeah.

518
00:31:30.973 --> 00:31:38.138
And faith in something, belief in something, whether it's God or a positive future or my friends or my family.

519
00:31:38.518 --> 00:31:39.299
Can you tell me...

520
00:31:40.942 --> 00:31:49.307
The story you told yourself when you were in despair and you were shattered, what was the story?

521
00:31:50.187 --> 00:31:58.312
And then how did you change to the new story when the time was right to start leaning into healing rather than mourning?

522
00:31:58.612 --> 00:31:59.433
Oh, good question.

523
00:32:00.293 --> 00:32:12.683
I think for several years, the story was kind of like, isn't this a tragedy that you in your 20s lost your two favorite people and life will probably never be good again.

524
00:32:12.703 --> 00:32:16.826
And there was a time where I believed that and I thought, how do you make life good again?

525
00:32:16.846 --> 00:32:18.587
And it felt like I was going through the motions.

526
00:32:20.003 --> 00:32:27.348
And at some point I thought, or this could be an amazing comeback story of the new life that I'm going to create.

527
00:32:28.089 --> 00:32:31.351
But in order to do that, like I better get out of bed and go do those things.

528
00:32:31.391 --> 00:32:34.113
I better figure out what would I want the next chapter to look like.

529
00:32:34.133 --> 00:32:35.174
And it's not just going to...

530
00:32:36.682 --> 00:32:40.264
land on my table, I'm going to have to actually create a new life.

531
00:32:40.644 --> 00:32:44.186
And so I started to do things, I got a motorcycle license and a motorcycle.

532
00:32:44.246 --> 00:32:46.987
And I thought, Oh, this is different.

533
00:32:47.007 --> 00:32:48.989
And Lincoln and I have been foster parents.

534
00:32:49.009 --> 00:32:51.990
So it was a question of do I still want to be a foster mom if I'm by myself?

535
00:32:52.130 --> 00:32:54.812
Like, which things do I want to continue in my life?

536
00:32:54.832 --> 00:32:56.192
And what things do I want to give up?

537
00:32:57.033 --> 00:33:00.455
And ultimately decided I'll be a single foster parent at some point.

538
00:33:00.515 --> 00:33:01.135
And I did that.

539
00:33:02.035 --> 00:33:17.759
And I wanted my story, the next chapter of my story to be of somebody who had been through tough things yet created this beautiful life and was able to go out and do incredible things that I probably wouldn't have done otherwise.

540
00:33:17.839 --> 00:33:23.220
And while it wasn't the life I chose, it was like a new life that I created despite what I'd been through.

541
00:33:24.020 --> 00:33:24.281
Why?

542
00:33:24.921 --> 00:33:26.441
I mean, I don't mean to be flippant about that.

543
00:33:26.461 --> 00:33:26.601
Yeah.

544
00:33:26.981 --> 00:33:30.162
But like, why did you want that to be your story?

545
00:33:31.008 --> 00:33:34.071
Because I think the alternative felt like I'm 26.

546
00:33:34.091 --> 00:33:40.798
Am I going to just sit around till I'm 86 and think, that's a long life to live.

547
00:33:41.058 --> 00:33:43.020
And I just felt like I had two choices.

548
00:33:43.121 --> 00:33:52.130
I can either create something completely different from what I had, what I had hoped for, or I could just keep clinging to, isn't it sad I didn't get the life I wanted?

549
00:33:52.671 --> 00:34:05.295
I love this idea of I'm going to make the best comeback story ever, which is different from I'm going to sabotage my work, my ex-boyfriend, my ex-girlfriend's life so I can feel better.

550
00:34:05.795 --> 00:34:12.657
There's an accountability, which is it's going to be my comeback story about how I choose to live my life as opposed to ruining their lives so I can feel better.

551
00:34:12.677 --> 00:34:13.757
That's not the comeback story.

552
00:34:13.937 --> 00:34:14.177
Right.

553
00:34:14.437 --> 00:34:16.958
The problem is the mindset of I'm going to make this the greatest comeback ever.

554
00:34:18.138 --> 00:34:19.800
could go in slightly different directions.

555
00:34:20.241 --> 00:34:21.582
You're absolutely right.

556
00:34:21.722 --> 00:34:27.849
And I think the comeback story sometimes isn't about you get rejected for something.

557
00:34:27.869 --> 00:34:38.480
Well, maybe you're never going to be a famous actor or never you're going to do the thing that you wanted, but your comeback story could still be, I did this other thing and still created a wonderful life for myself in a different way.

558
00:34:39.094 --> 00:34:48.421
I love this, which is if you're writing your own movie, like if you're just unhappy the whole time, it's a boring movie, right?

559
00:34:48.782 --> 00:34:51.804
Like all judgment aside, that's a boring movie, right?

560
00:34:52.144 --> 00:35:02.952
But what we wanna watch a movie about is somebody who's gone through it and takes it upon themself and inspires us, the viewers, and makes us sort of find a way through the difficulty.

561
00:35:03.293 --> 00:35:07.176
And again, yours is an extreme example, but you lose a job.

562
00:35:07.958 --> 00:35:09.019
You lose a relationship.

563
00:35:09.379 --> 00:35:10.980
Something just doesn't go the way you want it to.

564
00:35:11.000 --> 00:35:13.402
The project doesn't hit the numbers that you were hoping for.

565
00:35:13.422 --> 00:35:16.804
I mean, there's a million things that we can beat ourselves up about.

566
00:35:17.185 --> 00:35:21.968
But I'm going to make this the greatest comeback story, which goes, then I want to ask you, it's an uncomfortable question.

567
00:35:21.988 --> 00:35:24.490
And I apologize for that.

568
00:35:26.172 --> 00:35:32.274
However, you do not want to relive any of the things that you have lived, those tragedies.

569
00:35:32.514 --> 00:35:32.794
Right.

570
00:35:32.954 --> 00:35:33.394
Clearly.

571
00:35:34.054 --> 00:35:41.097
You wish they'd never happened and you definitely do not want any of them to happen again, nor do you wish them upon anyone else.

572
00:35:41.317 --> 00:35:41.497
Yep.

573
00:35:42.397 --> 00:35:52.640
However, what about you has changed because of those things that deep down inside, even though the words are uncomfortable, you're glad they happened?

574
00:35:53.111 --> 00:35:55.392
Oh, good question too.

575
00:35:56.513 --> 00:35:59.435
So I grew up incredibly shy.

576
00:35:59.455 --> 00:36:06.219
And I mean, socially anxious for sure, but probably as a kid could have been diagnosed with selective mutism.

577
00:36:06.419 --> 00:36:12.022
I didn't talk for years and I really had no desire.

578
00:36:12.122 --> 00:36:15.704
College, grad school, even I really didn't talk much at all.

579
00:36:15.764 --> 00:36:20.807
And I surrounded myself with people who love to talk and that made it really easy to be the quiet person in the room.

580
00:36:22.136 --> 00:36:25.538
And I think I would have stayed that way.

581
00:36:25.558 --> 00:36:27.559
I had friends who talked for me to this day.

582
00:36:27.699 --> 00:36:32.062
If we go to a restaurant, they will still ask like for something for me, my childhood friends, my sister.

583
00:36:32.442 --> 00:36:33.523
And that worked really well.

584
00:36:34.083 --> 00:36:36.084
And public speaking would have been my number one fear.

585
00:36:36.865 --> 00:36:38.966
I gave the eulogy at my husband's funeral.

586
00:36:39.806 --> 00:36:45.269
And in that moment, I was like, I don't care if I embarrass myself, if I stumble over my words.

587
00:36:45.369 --> 00:36:46.350
I don't care how I sound.

588
00:36:46.370 --> 00:36:47.070
It's not about me.

589
00:36:47.851 --> 00:36:51.333
It's about a couple of stories about him that I wanted people to hear.

590
00:36:53.143 --> 00:36:57.847
And let me tell you now, I'm like, oh, public speaking, not the biggest fear in the world anymore.

591
00:36:58.847 --> 00:37:03.991
And I can do it without being so concerned about how I look, how I sound.

592
00:37:04.312 --> 00:37:07.294
So many of my insecurities are no longer there.

593
00:37:07.374 --> 00:37:11.157
I think, well, I've been through the most painful things ever.

594
00:37:11.397 --> 00:37:14.278
I would have ever imagined losing two of my favorite people.

595
00:37:15.039 --> 00:37:16.259
Go ahead, insult me.

596
00:37:17.040 --> 00:37:18.520
It's not going to sting.

597
00:37:18.540 --> 00:37:20.001
I've been through the worst of the worst.

598
00:37:20.041 --> 00:37:22.022
Yeah, negative review just doesn't do it anymore.

599
00:37:22.042 --> 00:37:23.362
Yeah, go ahead and do that.

600
00:37:23.442 --> 00:37:24.363
I'm okay now.

601
00:37:24.463 --> 00:37:32.507
But years ago, those little things would have been something I dwelled on and I would have thought about and I would have rehashed and ruminated on, even as a therapist.

602
00:37:32.527 --> 00:37:34.007
It would have really bothered me.

603
00:37:34.087 --> 00:37:37.769
But I can say now I don't really sweat those small things anymore.

604
00:37:38.900 --> 00:37:46.082
Again, I'll ask the question, sort of, I never want those things to happen again, but I'm glad they happened because...

605
00:37:47.735 --> 00:38:01.548
because I am now a much more brave and confident person who was able to say, I'm not going to let life be passive, but I'm gonna create the very best life that I can for myself.

606
00:38:01.828 --> 00:38:03.770
And I take more risks.

607
00:38:03.870 --> 00:38:06.532
I'm the kind of person who says, if it doesn't work out, that's okay.

608
00:38:06.732 --> 00:38:11.216
Like I don't need to have all the answers because I'll figure it out along the way.

609
00:38:11.637 --> 00:38:12.678
And I wasn't like that before.

610
00:38:13.698 --> 00:38:13.979
This is,

611
00:38:15.097 --> 00:38:23.442
One of the things I think leaning into hardship is, I think, the greatest gift, which is life is balanced always.

612
00:38:23.922 --> 00:38:28.064
Nature abhors a vacuum and seeks equilibrium whenever possible.

613
00:38:29.024 --> 00:38:33.747
And so all good things have some sort of cost associated with them.

614
00:38:33.967 --> 00:38:37.649
Congratulations, you're fabulously wealthy and you have no relationship with your children, right?

615
00:38:37.709 --> 00:38:38.650
Like whatever the cost is.

616
00:38:38.830 --> 00:38:40.691
And for some people, those costs are worth it.

617
00:38:40.771 --> 00:38:42.152
It's not for me to judge, right?

618
00:38:42.612 --> 00:38:44.273
But there is a cost for the things we get.

619
00:38:45.754 --> 00:38:47.756
But there's also benefits to the things we lose.

620
00:38:48.277 --> 00:38:54.364
My practice is to always, I always play the equation.

621
00:38:55.225 --> 00:38:59.250
So when something great happens to me and I'm like, I'm the best, I'm amazing, look how awesome I am.

622
00:38:59.771 --> 00:39:01.833
I always remind myself, okay, what was the cost for this?

623
00:39:01.934 --> 00:39:02.634
It keeps me humble.

624
00:39:03.475 --> 00:39:05.815
But also just reminds me, don't take it for granted.

625
00:39:06.816 --> 00:39:10.976
And if you want this again, then you're going to have to pay that.

626
00:39:11.737 --> 00:39:13.157
You know, there's no entitlement here.

627
00:39:13.777 --> 00:39:14.857
So I always remind myself that.

628
00:39:15.097 --> 00:39:20.658
And when bad things happen, even though it sucks in the moment, and I can't play this game right after it happens, it's too soon.

629
00:39:21.058 --> 00:39:26.719
I have to allow for anger or frustration or sadness or whatever the feeling I have towards the thing is.

630
00:39:27.599 --> 00:39:30.340
And at some reasonable period of time, say, okay, okay.

631
00:39:31.748 --> 00:39:32.688
What am I grateful for here?

632
00:39:32.768 --> 00:39:33.149
Yeah.

633
00:39:33.629 --> 00:39:42.232
To me, my mental fitness is good because I keep that equation balanced at all times.

634
00:39:42.793 --> 00:39:43.613
Let's talk about victim.

635
00:39:46.489 --> 00:39:51.930
I'd love you to wax philosophical based on the clients you see, but also just you're a consumer of the world and social media.

636
00:39:52.350 --> 00:39:53.271
I see it more.

637
00:39:53.371 --> 00:40:00.313
And maybe I'm just more sensitive to it because mental health is such a topic and everybody, they confuse mental health problems with having feelings.

638
00:40:00.613 --> 00:40:02.953
But this idea of being the victim, playing the victim.

639
00:40:03.313 --> 00:40:05.654
I spoke to a social worker recently.

640
00:40:06.734 --> 00:40:08.275
And they said something that really surprised me.

641
00:40:08.295 --> 00:40:08.996
I wrote about this.

642
00:40:09.056 --> 00:40:10.316
They said something that really surprised me.

643
00:40:10.336 --> 00:40:16.840
They said, playing the victim is very powerful and feels great.

644
00:40:17.300 --> 00:40:19.421
Let's not confuse playing the victim and being a victim.

645
00:40:19.561 --> 00:40:21.542
Being a victim is when you are targeted by someone.

646
00:40:22.043 --> 00:40:23.143
They do something to you.

647
00:40:23.984 --> 00:40:26.005
Abuse, a crime, something like that.

648
00:40:26.865 --> 00:40:30.447
Or you are the victim of some hurricane.

649
00:40:30.708 --> 00:40:31.468
You are a victim.

650
00:40:31.768 --> 00:40:32.869
Then there's being a victim.

651
00:40:32.909 --> 00:40:34.290
Then you are playing the victim.

652
00:40:35.230 --> 00:40:36.491
The world is doing this to me.

653
00:40:36.531 --> 00:40:41.915
That person is doing this to me when, you know, my boss is out to get me, which it does exist.

654
00:40:42.955 --> 00:40:46.278
But I wouldn't say it's the majority of the time that somebody is targeting somebody.

655
00:40:46.898 --> 00:40:57.705
Wax philosophical if I'm overreacting or there seems to be a correlation with the mental health challenges that so many people are facing today with the.

656
00:41:00.007 --> 00:41:04.410
Is it insensitive to call it a trend of playing the victim?

657
00:41:05.110 --> 00:41:06.171
You're absolutely right.

658
00:41:06.211 --> 00:41:11.194
We see it more on social media than ever in terms of relationship ends.

659
00:41:11.214 --> 00:41:13.355
Well, it's because my ex was a narcissist, right?

660
00:41:13.675 --> 00:41:16.317
It's amazing how many exes are narcissists, by the way.

661
00:41:16.377 --> 00:41:17.217
Suddenly, right?

662
00:41:17.497 --> 00:41:19.739
Like, I know narcissism is a diagnosable thing.

663
00:41:20.279 --> 00:41:22.701
And what percentage of the population are narcissists do we know?

664
00:41:23.121 --> 00:41:24.262
It's probably pretty small.

665
00:41:24.482 --> 00:41:25.322
It is tiny.

666
00:41:25.602 --> 00:41:29.044
You know, 5% maybe that are diagnosable narcissists.

667
00:41:29.545 --> 00:41:31.506
But my goodness, there's an explosion of narcissism.

668
00:41:32.126 --> 00:41:35.830
Exactly, because it feels better to say it's somebody else's fault, right?

669
00:41:35.870 --> 00:41:37.932
I was a victim of somebody who took advantage.

670
00:41:38.793 --> 00:41:51.706
And whenever we get into this victimhood, it correlates with self pity and just thinking, I don't have the skills, tools and resources to get through something, we underestimate ourselves, we overestimate a challenge, we overestimate ourselves.

671
00:41:52.046 --> 00:41:53.247
how difficult things were.

672
00:41:53.788 --> 00:41:57.210
We tell ourselves that story of, well, I didn't have a choice.

673
00:41:57.610 --> 00:42:00.833
I couldn't make things better then, and I still don't have a choice now.

674
00:42:01.353 --> 00:42:07.678
And the more that we get stuck in that cycle, the more we find excuses to say, and so I don't have to change.

675
00:42:08.198 --> 00:42:14.503
So whether it's I call a friend and I just complain about my boss all day long to my friend, so they're like, wow, you shouldn't be treated like this.

676
00:42:14.523 --> 00:42:15.844
This must be awful to be you.

677
00:42:16.144 --> 00:42:17.585
Like, yeah, that's right.

678
00:42:17.625 --> 00:42:17.665
It

679
00:42:19.947 --> 00:42:20.167
Right.

680
00:42:20.327 --> 00:42:23.870
It's empowering for a moment to think, and I'm justified to stay stuck.

681
00:42:24.551 --> 00:42:26.853
And that's what we say, then people just stay stuck.

682
00:42:26.893 --> 00:42:30.235
And I'll see it in my therapy office, people come in and they say, you know, this is awful.

683
00:42:30.556 --> 00:42:31.596
Here's my situation.

684
00:42:32.617 --> 00:42:35.279
And they don't really want to solve any of the problems in their life.

685
00:42:35.299 --> 00:42:38.482
They want to come back next week and tell me again, and see how awful it is.

686
00:42:39.483 --> 00:42:39.883
And there's...

687
00:42:41.104 --> 00:42:45.187
Definitely value in talking about your feelings, being heard to say, yes, that is awful.

688
00:42:45.207 --> 00:42:46.908
It's unfair that you're in this situation.

689
00:42:47.929 --> 00:42:49.910
But some people just want to stay stuck there.

690
00:42:50.010 --> 00:42:51.071
Why do people want to stay stuck?

691
00:42:51.271 --> 00:42:52.011
We're not seeking help.

692
00:42:52.031 --> 00:42:53.632
We're seeking validation for our narrative.

693
00:42:53.972 --> 00:42:54.213
Right.

694
00:42:54.233 --> 00:42:56.414
And if my narrative is validated, then I must be right.

695
00:42:56.874 --> 00:43:00.677
So I'm going to stay here because it helps me feel better, kind of.

696
00:43:01.783 --> 00:43:02.123
Right.

697
00:43:02.263 --> 00:43:03.164
And it's uncomfortable.

698
00:43:03.204 --> 00:43:05.085
I don't have a problem with people being the victim in the short term.

699
00:43:05.145 --> 00:43:05.325
Yeah.

700
00:43:05.485 --> 00:43:06.605
Because it's like mourning.

701
00:43:06.646 --> 00:43:07.226
It's like anger.

702
00:43:07.326 --> 00:43:07.946
It's a feeling.

703
00:43:08.346 --> 00:43:09.047
It's a venting.

704
00:43:09.367 --> 00:43:10.648
I don't have a problem with people venting.

705
00:43:10.668 --> 00:43:11.828
You want to call somebody like, I hate my boss.

706
00:43:11.848 --> 00:43:12.208
I hate work.

707
00:43:12.569 --> 00:43:13.769
Healthy venting is a good thing.

708
00:43:13.969 --> 00:43:15.010
We're not talking about that.

709
00:43:15.030 --> 00:43:15.250
Right.

710
00:43:15.530 --> 00:43:18.211
We're talking about, okay, got it.

711
00:43:18.291 --> 00:43:21.413
It does feel better when the relationship collapses to blame the other person for it.

712
00:43:21.993 --> 00:43:22.854
And you should do that.

713
00:43:23.816 --> 00:43:29.201
But there's a point at which, again, okay, now I need to like take some accountability.

714
00:43:29.562 --> 00:43:30.703
Is that really what it is?

715
00:43:31.524 --> 00:43:36.309
Is playing the victim easier because then I don't actually have to look at myself and be like, you know what?

716
00:43:36.429 --> 00:43:37.410
I'm not such a great catch.

717
00:43:37.873 --> 00:43:38.353
You know what?

718
00:43:39.054 --> 00:43:41.275
I wasn't such a great partner in my relationship.

719
00:43:42.095 --> 00:43:43.896
Maybe I poured gas on this fire.

720
00:43:44.276 --> 00:43:45.897
Is that the reason we don't like it?

721
00:43:46.337 --> 00:43:48.058
Yeah, the other person was at fault.

722
00:43:48.078 --> 00:43:52.340
So therefore, I'm the victim versus, ooh, how did I get there?

723
00:43:52.640 --> 00:43:55.061
And let's say you were in a really bad relationship.

724
00:43:55.081 --> 00:43:57.742
What were the steps along the way that made you stay?

725
00:43:57.882 --> 00:44:00.203
Or there had to have been some red flags along the way.

726
00:44:00.824 --> 00:44:03.965
What was it about me that decided that I'll tolerate it one more day?

727
00:44:04.005 --> 00:44:05.926
I'll stay in this situation for...

728
00:44:06.366 --> 00:44:09.008
for longer, and then I get mad at the end, and I'm resentful.

729
00:44:09.628 --> 00:44:13.110
So I think it's really about acknowledging what's my personal responsibility.

730
00:44:13.190 --> 00:44:16.312
And if I want to do something different, I'm going to have to be uncomfortable.

731
00:44:17.113 --> 00:44:20.555
You will usually choose familiar pain over the unknown.

732
00:44:21.338 --> 00:44:23.721
every single time unless we get proactive about it.

733
00:44:23.741 --> 00:44:27.426
Like, I know what this is, and I'm used to it.

734
00:44:27.507 --> 00:44:32.093
So therefore, I'll keep tolerating it versus, okay, I'm gonna try something else.

735
00:44:32.153 --> 00:44:33.715
It's going to be painful as well.

736
00:44:33.735 --> 00:44:36.579
And I don't know what that pain is going to feel like or how painful it's going to be.

737
00:44:36.639 --> 00:44:37.921
But I'm willing to try.

738
00:44:38.359 --> 00:44:41.881
I know somebody who is very attracted to very wealthy men.

739
00:44:43.461 --> 00:44:47.743
And some of them are wonderful human beings and they're great connections.

740
00:44:48.364 --> 00:44:53.986
And every time she starts dating, they're always the perfect person, which we all have that when we first meet somebody, which is great.

741
00:44:54.987 --> 00:44:57.508
And it doesn't work out.

742
00:44:58.968 --> 00:45:00.929
And then she blames them.

743
00:45:01.249 --> 00:45:02.250
And I see this pattern.

744
00:45:02.630 --> 00:45:03.551
I've known her for a long time.

745
00:45:04.111 --> 00:45:06.172
And it's the same pattern over and over and over and over again.

746
00:45:07.072 --> 00:45:14.775
And when you talk about staying in a relationship, and I've been there, I mean, this is not, again, there's no judgment here because I've done the same thing.

747
00:45:14.895 --> 00:45:17.876
I've been in something and I knew all the red flags.

748
00:45:17.916 --> 00:45:21.097
It's like it was freaking semaphore every day of my life.

749
00:45:21.257 --> 00:45:22.897
Somebody standing in front of me waving red flags.

750
00:45:22.938 --> 00:45:23.878
I'm just like, yeah, but hold on.

751
00:45:24.618 --> 00:45:25.778
Just look how hot they are.

752
00:45:25.818 --> 00:45:27.759
Look at their lifestyle that I love being a part of.

753
00:45:27.779 --> 00:45:28.459
Look at their wealth.

754
00:45:28.739 --> 00:45:29.299
Hold on a second.

755
00:45:29.319 --> 00:45:31.920
There's so many other things that I superficially prefer.

756
00:45:32.140 --> 00:45:37.241
Let's just not look, you know, but it's so much easier to talk about how they were toxic and they were this and they were that.

757
00:45:37.541 --> 00:45:40.322
But deep down inside, I knew I shouldn't have been dating them.

758
00:45:40.342 --> 00:45:43.542
And I stayed in it because let's be honest, I was a superficial ass.

759
00:45:44.083 --> 00:45:45.323
And I wanted all that stuff.

760
00:45:45.363 --> 00:45:49.344
And until I can take accountability for the fact that that's what I was attracted to.

761
00:45:49.384 --> 00:45:50.904
And I wasn't really attracted to the person.

762
00:45:51.524 --> 00:45:54.225
You know, I'm going to keep repeating this pattern.

763
00:45:54.625 --> 00:45:54.846
Yeah.

764
00:45:55.466 --> 00:45:56.648
How do we do that, though?

765
00:45:56.668 --> 00:46:00.572
I mean, it's all fine and good for you and me to sit in an armchair and talk about all these.

766
00:46:00.893 --> 00:46:03.195
But like, how do we break our patterns?

767
00:46:03.215 --> 00:46:12.306
Like, what practical steps can we take to learn how to be accountable, to learn how to stop playing the victim when it feels so good?

768
00:46:12.326 --> 00:46:12.426
Yeah.

769
00:46:12.755 --> 00:46:15.236
So it starts with first recognizing the pattern.

770
00:46:15.256 --> 00:46:16.316
Some of these people are like, you know what?

771
00:46:16.336 --> 00:46:19.957
My life isn't going very well and I'm struggling to really figure that out.

772
00:46:19.977 --> 00:46:21.357
Or I've had some bad relationships.

773
00:46:21.997 --> 00:46:23.437
I'd sit down and I'd write it down.

774
00:46:23.697 --> 00:46:24.558
What are we looking at?

775
00:46:24.638 --> 00:46:27.518
Maybe you've had five relationships that ended abruptly.

776
00:46:27.678 --> 00:46:29.379
The other person ghosted you five times.

777
00:46:29.419 --> 00:46:30.659
Well, let's take a look.

778
00:46:30.759 --> 00:46:32.919
Maybe might there be something else that's going on?

779
00:46:32.939 --> 00:46:34.820
Are you attracted to a certain kind of person?

780
00:46:35.420 --> 00:46:39.684
So anything we can get out of our heads and put on a piece of paper helps us see things differently.

781
00:46:39.724 --> 00:46:40.665
We see it more clearly.

782
00:46:40.725 --> 00:46:49.353
So if you can get out a journal and do some writing, and I'm talking about writing by hand, that affects our brain differently than when we're typing, causes us to slow things down and really look at it.

783
00:46:50.274 --> 00:46:53.016
And to just identify, like, what are some patterns in my life?

784
00:46:53.677 --> 00:46:56.979
And then you might go back to and think, when did this start?

785
00:46:57.319 --> 00:46:57.619
Right?

786
00:46:57.699 --> 00:47:02.722
I don't think we have to necessarily dissect our childhoods and go through everything moment by moment.

787
00:47:02.742 --> 00:47:05.724
But you might find, when did I feel that before?

788
00:47:05.944 --> 00:47:08.146
So maybe I'm attracted to people's lifestyles.

789
00:47:08.186 --> 00:47:10.807
So I find these people with really exciting lifestyles.

790
00:47:10.947 --> 00:47:12.688
And then I overlook all the red flags.

791
00:47:13.168 --> 00:47:18.492
So you might think, well, when I was a kid, was there something that maybe I was attracted to the excitement back then?

792
00:47:19.212 --> 00:47:20.994
Was there something in my life?

793
00:47:21.074 --> 00:47:24.517
Maybe I had a mom who used to date men who also had exciting lives too.

794
00:47:25.398 --> 00:47:30.823
And sometimes just connecting those dots is helpful to say, okay, this is maybe an emotional wound.

795
00:47:30.923 --> 00:47:32.205
And it's not blaming the mother.

796
00:47:32.225 --> 00:47:32.545
Right.

797
00:47:32.565 --> 00:47:34.807
It's simply recognizing it has an origin.

798
00:47:35.127 --> 00:47:35.468
Right.

799
00:47:35.488 --> 00:47:35.688
That's it.

800
00:47:35.728 --> 00:47:36.689
It's just an origin story.

801
00:47:36.829 --> 00:47:37.089
Exactly.

802
00:47:37.109 --> 00:47:37.790
Not a blame story.

803
00:47:37.810 --> 00:47:37.910
Yeah.

804
00:47:38.150 --> 00:47:40.973
And then to figure out, is there an emotional wound from my childhood?

805
00:47:41.434 --> 00:47:42.415
Just keep revisiting.

806
00:47:42.435 --> 00:47:45.298
Am I trying to heal something that I haven't healed yet?

807
00:47:45.598 --> 00:47:48.081
And I try to heal it by reliving it over and over.

808
00:47:48.141 --> 00:47:51.605
Like this next relationship can work out, then I'll be good.

809
00:47:51.645 --> 00:47:52.806
Or I will have figured it out.

810
00:47:54.035 --> 00:48:00.198
And when people can connect some of those dots, and we can do this on our own, you know, necessarily have to be in therapy, just opens your eyes.

811
00:48:00.538 --> 00:48:04.080
So then when you meet the next person, you might think, oh, am I doing it again?

812
00:48:04.100 --> 00:48:07.161
Or is it or is this somebody I'm really attracted to?

813
00:48:07.901 --> 00:48:15.725
And then to be cautious of those labels, if we just label ourselves something like, oh, I'm always attracted to assholes, or I'm the asshole who's always attracting people.

814
00:48:15.965 --> 00:48:16.145
Yeah.

815
00:48:16.365 --> 00:48:18.907
Like it's the label that then makes it true.

816
00:48:19.128 --> 00:48:24.211
If I label myself as something, I'm going to live up to that label, chances are.

817
00:48:24.692 --> 00:48:29.576
So if I say I'm the kind of person who sometimes does X, Y, or Z rather than I am.

818
00:48:29.596 --> 00:48:31.057
I have a habit or I have a, yeah.

819
00:48:31.517 --> 00:48:35.218
Then to just recognize, all right, this is my tendency, but it's not who I am.

820
00:48:36.038 --> 00:48:37.858
And so how might I change that next time?

821
00:48:38.599 --> 00:48:43.440
And if I'm somebody who ignores red flags in a relationship, well, what will I do differently next time?

822
00:48:43.960 --> 00:48:45.700
Just be more aware and start thinking about that.

823
00:48:45.740 --> 00:48:47.520
Like, what's a red flag I've ignored before?

824
00:48:48.301 --> 00:48:53.542
And if I spot that red flag again, how will I know that I'm trying to push it under the table?

825
00:48:53.702 --> 00:48:58.883
Or how will I know that I'm trying to convince myself that I don't need to pay attention to those red flags?

826
00:48:59.863 --> 00:49:06.288
And it is helpful sometimes when we have a trusted friend in our life who can say, you're doing it again, Simon, right?

827
00:49:06.588 --> 00:49:09.070
The person who can say, have you thought about this?

828
00:49:09.090 --> 00:49:10.771
The person that can ask you the question of...

829
00:49:10.791 --> 00:49:11.812
Shut up, you don't know me.

830
00:49:11.952 --> 00:49:12.893
Right, right.

831
00:49:12.973 --> 00:49:17.916
And that's why it's important to make sure it is somebody that you trust, somebody who has that.

832
00:49:17.936 --> 00:49:22.279
Because when the emotion isn't attached to it, they can sometimes see things that we can't.

833
00:49:22.359 --> 00:49:23.820
Our emotions cloud our judgments.

834
00:49:23.861 --> 00:49:28.464
When I meet somebody and they're so exciting, I can easily overlook their red flags.

835
00:49:28.724 --> 00:49:38.794
the bit that I want to underscore in there, which is to not use the being verb, which is I am dot, dot, dot, but rather I have a tendency to, or I have a habit or I have a pattern.

836
00:49:39.134 --> 00:49:40.195
It's not who you are.

837
00:49:40.235 --> 00:49:41.036
It's something you do.

838
00:49:41.356 --> 00:49:42.697
Those are very different things.

839
00:49:43.258 --> 00:49:52.186
And so I think that that's a phenomenal piece of advice, which is go ahead and beat yourself up and talk about your attachment problems and your childhood trauma, blah, blah, blah.

840
00:49:52.206 --> 00:49:52.507
Fine.

841
00:49:52.547 --> 00:49:53.668
But just don't use a being verb.

842
00:49:53.948 --> 00:49:54.228
Right.

843
00:49:54.969 --> 00:49:56.950
And we'll see this even with emotion.

844
00:49:56.970 --> 00:49:58.951
Somebody will say, I am an anxious person.

845
00:49:59.672 --> 00:50:01.413
Let's just try to have anxiety sometimes.

846
00:50:02.014 --> 00:50:05.056
Or when it comes to relationships, somebody might be like, well, I'm an avoidant.

847
00:50:05.756 --> 00:50:12.180
Maybe I avoid people in some of my relationships, or I push people away sometimes, but that's not who you are.

848
00:50:12.240 --> 00:50:14.602
You can choose to be different in the next relationship if you want.

849
00:50:14.742 --> 00:50:16.123
And the word sometimes is great.

850
00:50:16.683 --> 00:50:18.383
Like, I'll never meet somebody yet.

851
00:50:18.664 --> 00:50:21.445
Like, you know, like I haven't found the person I want yet, you know?

852
00:50:21.885 --> 00:50:30.228
And because I think what sometimes and yet do at the end of a sentence, and this speaks directly to narrative, which is it allows for, and it goes right back to what you're saying before, it allows for hope.

853
00:50:30.508 --> 00:50:34.250
It allows for bright future simply by the sentence we construct.

854
00:50:35.470 --> 00:50:35.990
So clever.

855
00:50:36.091 --> 00:50:41.233
It's so funny how when we talk about these things, none of these are very complicated.

856
00:50:41.533 --> 00:50:41.733
Right.

857
00:50:42.515 --> 00:50:45.256
Like these are relatively simple things to do.

858
00:50:45.776 --> 00:50:50.617
I want to write down all the little lessons that we've gotten here because it's a good checklist.

859
00:50:51.277 --> 00:50:55.978
If you're in a bad place or feel like you're stuck, like, you know, go through something, go through the emotions.

860
00:50:56.018 --> 00:50:57.619
And at some point you pull a little checklist out.

861
00:50:57.639 --> 00:51:00.579
I'm like, okay, can I say sometimes, am I using being verbs?

862
00:51:00.919 --> 00:51:02.040
You know, what's my narrative?

863
00:51:02.500 --> 00:51:05.480
Can I compromise with myself and stay in bed a little longer, but not all day?

864
00:51:05.500 --> 00:51:09.661
Like, I love that mental health or let's call it mental fitness.

865
00:51:10.121 --> 00:51:12.262
Actually, the minute you call it mental fitness,

866
00:51:12.642 --> 00:51:12.922
Yeah.

867
00:51:13.982 --> 00:51:17.264
The whole thing, we're talking about checklists.

868
00:51:17.484 --> 00:51:18.524
I mean, it's like having a workout.

869
00:51:18.624 --> 00:51:20.164
First, I'm going to do arms, then I'm going to do legs.

870
00:51:20.965 --> 00:51:22.165
I don't feel like doing core today.

871
00:51:22.405 --> 00:51:23.065
I'll do it tomorrow.

872
00:51:23.365 --> 00:51:24.766
You know, it's a checklist.

873
00:51:25.406 --> 00:51:26.687
And you go through the checklist.

874
00:51:26.747 --> 00:51:29.007
And what happens is you get fit.

875
00:51:29.407 --> 00:51:29.667
Right.

876
00:51:29.928 --> 00:51:30.988
There's no magic to it.

877
00:51:31.801 --> 00:51:32.121
You know?

878
00:51:32.141 --> 00:51:32.722
Right.

879
00:51:32.762 --> 00:51:38.647
And when people talk about mental health, it's often about what they feel versus mental strength or mental fitness is about what you do.

880
00:51:39.167 --> 00:51:44.391
So if I wake up sad, I could be like, well, I have poor mental health today versus I woke up sad.

881
00:51:44.411 --> 00:51:45.852
What am I going to do about that?

882
00:51:46.393 --> 00:51:50.076
Maybe it's stay in bed a little longer, but maybe I'm going to get up and go do something differently.

883
00:51:50.096 --> 00:51:51.477
And that's about a choice that you have.

884
00:51:51.895 --> 00:51:58.380
And recognizing like our regular physical fitness or our diets, it's not good or bad or right or wrong.

885
00:51:58.420 --> 00:51:59.281
It's ahead or behind.

886
00:51:59.601 --> 00:51:59.822
Right.

887
00:51:59.882 --> 00:52:00.582
Like I'm on it.

888
00:52:00.742 --> 00:52:01.623
I'm doing the things.

889
00:52:01.663 --> 00:52:02.584
I'm checking off the things.

890
00:52:02.604 --> 00:52:03.465
I'm eating the right things.

891
00:52:03.925 --> 00:52:04.325
You know what?

892
00:52:04.966 --> 00:52:06.047
I have not been doing it.

893
00:52:06.507 --> 00:52:09.490
I'm off the wagon right now, which is okay.

894
00:52:09.730 --> 00:52:09.830
Yeah.

895
00:52:09.850 --> 00:52:09.970
Yeah.

896
00:52:10.130 --> 00:52:11.512
It's so funny talking about language.

897
00:52:11.532 --> 00:52:17.680
The minute we call it fitness or strength, it instantly becomes something I can work on.

898
00:52:18.622 --> 00:52:22.046
Where the minute we call it health, it's actually kind of like, you know what?

899
00:52:22.126 --> 00:52:23.208
I think I'm just going to stay in bed.

900
00:52:24.642 --> 00:52:25.002
Right.

901
00:52:25.042 --> 00:52:26.984
That seems like the right strategy.

902
00:52:27.845 --> 00:52:28.265
Right.

903
00:52:28.365 --> 00:52:33.010
And when we feel like we're taking action, it automatically starts to make us feel better.

904
00:52:33.150 --> 00:52:33.330
Yeah.

905
00:52:33.510 --> 00:52:36.473
So if I say, all right, I'm kind of going through a rough patch in my life.

906
00:52:36.513 --> 00:52:39.736
Maybe I've been feeling kind of discouraged down lately, but you know what?

907
00:52:40.036 --> 00:52:43.919
Reading a book for 15 minutes a day kind of helps pull me out of it.

908
00:52:44.119 --> 00:52:44.320
Yeah.

909
00:52:44.340 --> 00:52:45.741
So I put that on my agenda.

910
00:52:45.901 --> 00:52:46.822
Put that on the to-do list.

911
00:52:47.042 --> 00:52:53.628
And then I think, okay, well, I'm going to do this and maybe it'll work and maybe it won't, but at least I'm doing something as opposed to thinking I'm going to wait for this to pass.

912
00:52:53.668 --> 00:52:53.889
Yeah.

913
00:52:54.109 --> 00:53:03.778
What is one of your bad habits that therapist you, if you were your own patient, would be like, you should do this?

914
00:53:03.818 --> 00:53:06.701
Like, where are your bad habits that you sort of don't follow your own advice?

915
00:53:07.240 --> 00:53:07.621
Oh, yeah.

916
00:53:07.681 --> 00:53:12.206
Well, we could certainly do a whole episode on things that... And we're out of time.

917
00:53:12.226 --> 00:53:12.526
Right.

918
00:53:12.786 --> 00:53:13.427
Exactly.

919
00:53:13.467 --> 00:53:15.810
The things I struggle with.

920
00:53:15.830 --> 00:53:19.634
You know, scrolling at night, that's one of those things.

921
00:53:19.654 --> 00:53:23.638
I know that people feel better when they don't sleep with their phone in their room.

922
00:53:23.658 --> 00:53:26.181
And when you put your phone in another room, your anxiety goes down.

923
00:53:26.381 --> 00:53:26.922
I know that.

924
00:53:27.022 --> 00:53:27.703
So good, though, right?

925
00:53:28.003 --> 00:53:28.403
It is.

926
00:53:28.683 --> 00:53:31.885
So then when I go to bed at night, I think, oh, let me just check something real quick.

927
00:53:31.905 --> 00:53:33.545
And then I can easily go down the rabbit hole.

928
00:53:33.965 --> 00:53:36.626
Simple, tiny thing I could easily fix in my life.

929
00:53:37.367 --> 00:53:38.647
But I often don't.

930
00:53:38.987 --> 00:53:42.388
Yeah, it's like, I know that being on my phone at night is bad.

931
00:53:42.408 --> 00:53:42.829
Do I do it?

932
00:53:42.929 --> 00:53:43.169
Yes.

933
00:53:43.629 --> 00:53:46.370
Do I know that it'll keep me up later than I want to go to bed?

934
00:53:46.510 --> 00:53:46.770
Yes.

935
00:53:47.590 --> 00:53:49.111
Will I get less sleep because of it?

936
00:53:49.211 --> 00:53:49.411
Yes.

937
00:53:49.431 --> 00:53:51.112
Will I wake up in the morning fully aware?

938
00:53:51.552 --> 00:53:51.792
Yes.

939
00:53:52.092 --> 00:53:52.932
Will I regret it?

940
00:53:53.192 --> 00:53:53.532
Yes.

941
00:53:54.073 --> 00:53:54.813
And will I do it again?

942
00:53:55.213 --> 00:53:55.533
Yes.

943
00:53:57.714 --> 00:54:02.056
And that's why, you know, when we look at other people's habits, we think, oh, it's so easy to change.

944
00:54:02.076 --> 00:54:10.579
And then when you really dive deep into your own life of the things that we do and the things that we know is bad, like insight doesn't change behavior, right?

945
00:54:10.619 --> 00:54:12.840
Like we think, oh, if something's bad for me, I won't do it anymore.

946
00:54:13.181 --> 00:54:14.201
Obviously, that's not the case.

947
00:54:14.461 --> 00:54:20.043
I think this is very funny, which is sometimes something bad has to happen for us to actually, like we have to lose the relationship.

948
00:54:20.643 --> 00:54:25.424
We have to go through the depression because we are becoming antisocial because of the addiction.

949
00:54:25.625 --> 00:54:25.785
Yep.

950
00:54:26.205 --> 00:54:27.265
And this is what addiction does.

951
00:54:27.285 --> 00:54:28.105
You know better than I do.

952
00:54:28.485 --> 00:54:30.526
You know, addiction, it causes social problems.

953
00:54:30.586 --> 00:54:32.467
It causes problems in your career and your social life.

954
00:54:32.547 --> 00:54:36.628
That's why we know it's a problem as opposed to just something you enjoy doing.

955
00:54:37.196 --> 00:54:40.939
Yeah, the pain of staying the same has to start to outweigh the fear of change.

956
00:54:41.220 --> 00:54:42.060
We've talked about a lot of things.

957
00:54:42.080 --> 00:54:43.702
We've given a lot of really practical advice.

958
00:54:44.362 --> 00:54:57.734
Any other top tips that you would offer for how to help somebody stay mentally fit, mentally strong in this crazy, insane world that literally every pressure on us is trying to keep us mentally unfit?

959
00:54:58.020 --> 00:54:58.361
Yeah.

960
00:54:58.781 --> 00:54:59.101
Yeah.

961
00:54:59.162 --> 00:55:00.023
That's a good question.

962
00:55:00.083 --> 00:55:03.888
And I think one of the things we touched on earlier was like, can you schedule feelings?

963
00:55:04.288 --> 00:55:04.389
Yeah.

964
00:55:04.409 --> 00:55:07.032
Well, there is actually research that you could schedule time to worry.

965
00:55:07.753 --> 00:55:15.163
And that's one of my favorite exercises and I'll do it with my therapy clients and the ones who do it will sometimes look like the weight of the world has changed.

966
00:55:15.403 --> 00:55:18.205
literally been lifted off of their shoulders in a matter of a couple of weeks.

967
00:55:18.826 --> 00:55:24.470
There's so much to worry about that a lot of people don't even really realize how much they're worrying.

968
00:55:24.490 --> 00:55:25.812
I'm worrying about the weather.

969
00:55:25.832 --> 00:55:27.793
I'm worrying about what's going to happen after work.

970
00:55:27.813 --> 00:55:29.114
What's going to happen in the next meeting.

971
00:55:29.655 --> 00:55:38.742
People's heads are just so filled with worry all the time, not to mention that we consume so much media that we're off in this heightened state of alert and then our anxiety is high.

972
00:55:38.782 --> 00:55:40.984
So then we're looking for danger all the time.

973
00:55:41.744 --> 00:55:48.909
But research will show when you set aside just 15 minutes a day to worry that you sit down and you got to put it in your calendar.

974
00:55:48.929 --> 00:55:49.970
You got to actually schedule it.

975
00:55:49.990 --> 00:55:50.390
Set an alarm.

976
00:55:50.571 --> 00:55:50.771
Yep.

977
00:55:51.011 --> 00:55:54.333
And you sit down and maybe just sit at your kitchen table at seven o'clock at night.

978
00:55:54.874 --> 00:55:56.715
Write down whatever you're worried about.

979
00:55:56.795 --> 00:55:57.635
Maybe you just sit and think.

980
00:55:57.655 --> 00:55:59.337
You don't even have to write it down necessarily.

981
00:55:59.917 --> 00:56:00.998
When your 15 minutes is up.

982
00:56:01.879 --> 00:56:02.279
It's okay.

983
00:56:02.440 --> 00:56:09.229
As you're saying that, it reminds me of a story of a guy I know who was in a, he was riding his bicycle and was hit by a car and like bad news, right?

984
00:56:09.589 --> 00:56:14.897
Very badly mangled in hospital and was in excruciating pain and...

985
00:56:16.822 --> 00:56:17.462
I hate my life.

986
00:56:17.482 --> 00:56:17.963
I hate this.

987
00:56:18.123 --> 00:56:19.183
Why does this have to happen to me?

988
00:56:19.343 --> 00:56:19.984
All of this stuff.

989
00:56:20.784 --> 00:56:32.550
And it got to the point where it became so overwhelming, like he was doing it too much, that he, I don't know how he came up with it, but he had the wherewithal to be like, this is not healthy, like for me doing this.

990
00:56:32.830 --> 00:56:35.911
I'm going to schedule the time to feel sorry for myself and be in pain.

991
00:56:36.211 --> 00:56:42.274
And whatever time it was, 20 minutes, he set a timer and like he was allowed to be a victim and hate life and why does this have to happen to me?

992
00:56:42.314 --> 00:56:43.515
And I'm in pain.

993
00:56:43.775 --> 00:56:45.996
And then after the alarm went off, he's like, okay, now I have to go do the therapy.

994
00:56:46.016 --> 00:56:46.116
Yeah.

995
00:56:46.256 --> 00:56:50.259
You know, like I have to go do physical therapy like that's it.

996
00:56:50.359 --> 00:56:51.720
And I found that fascinating.

997
00:56:52.120 --> 00:56:57.464
And he credits that with having helping him have the right mental attitude towards recovery.

998
00:56:57.924 --> 00:56:59.545
Because and I think this is really important.

999
00:56:59.925 --> 00:57:07.350
And I think we've confused being mentally strong and mentally fit with denying or suppressing bad feelings.

1000
00:57:07.570 --> 00:57:07.891
Yes.

1001
00:57:08.680 --> 00:57:09.781
We've confused those two.

1002
00:57:10.581 --> 00:57:15.344
And what I love about your strategy is we're not denying or suppressing anything.

1003
00:57:15.544 --> 00:57:18.986
We're allocating time for all of that nonsense.

1004
00:57:19.986 --> 00:57:21.507
Very healthy nonsense, I might add.

1005
00:57:21.967 --> 00:57:22.988
You know, be the victim.

1006
00:57:23.028 --> 00:57:23.328
Go ahead.

1007
00:57:23.348 --> 00:57:23.948
It feels good.

1008
00:57:24.228 --> 00:57:25.549
So have, it's like eating ice cream.

1009
00:57:26.149 --> 00:57:26.570
Go ahead.

1010
00:57:26.710 --> 00:57:28.851
And for 20 minutes, you get to be the victim.

1011
00:57:29.271 --> 00:57:32.493
You know, he's an asshole, you know.

1012
00:57:33.873 --> 00:57:38.516
And then after 20 minutes, you have to go back to accountability, focusing forwards and moving through it.

1013
00:57:39.125 --> 00:57:43.248
And this whole idea of mental toughness, I think, has convinced people.

1014
00:57:43.388 --> 00:57:44.649
You just shove it all down.

1015
00:57:44.749 --> 00:57:45.870
You suppress everything.

1016
00:57:46.410 --> 00:57:50.373
I'll have a lot of people that come into my therapy office thinking they're going to shove it down forever.

1017
00:57:50.613 --> 00:57:53.015
And I'll convince them it's going to come up.

1018
00:57:53.135 --> 00:57:54.376
Yeah, they'll shove it down for now.

1019
00:57:54.436 --> 00:57:54.676
Right.

1020
00:57:54.736 --> 00:57:55.977
And when you least expect it.

1021
00:57:55.997 --> 00:57:56.958
And those are the people that break.

1022
00:57:56.978 --> 00:57:58.519
You start yelling at people for stupid things.

1023
00:57:58.559 --> 00:57:58.899
Correct.

1024
00:57:58.939 --> 00:58:04.623
And nobody's aware, including you, that the reason you're yelling at somebody and you're so short-tempered is for something that happened four months ago.

1025
00:58:04.877 --> 00:58:07.197
And they'll say, well, no, I was fine for the last four months.

1026
00:58:07.217 --> 00:58:09.218
So I dealt with it and I've healed from it.

1027
00:58:09.278 --> 00:58:12.918
And it didn't affect me because there's that pressure to bounce back.

1028
00:58:12.958 --> 00:58:13.819
We use resilience.

1029
00:58:13.859 --> 00:58:15.579
Like I'm going to bounce back the next day.

1030
00:58:15.679 --> 00:58:17.839
And people are like, wow, you came back even stronger.

1031
00:58:18.459 --> 00:58:20.780
But people didn't really work through the pain.

1032
00:58:21.740 --> 00:58:29.021
One of the things I've learned from people like you, which is when the feelings show up, you know, there's a time and place, right?

1033
00:58:29.041 --> 00:58:33.422
Like there are certain places if it shows up when I don't want it to, I'll suppress it for a little bit, you know.

1034
00:58:33.862 --> 00:58:34.002
Yep.

1035
00:58:34.917 --> 00:58:40.161
but it's shown up in healthy places to just let it be, you know, you know, overwhelmed by something.

1036
00:58:40.181 --> 00:58:46.024
And I just feel like sitting and crying and I'll usually call somebody.

1037
00:58:46.825 --> 00:58:48.566
My rule with my friends is no crying alone.

1038
00:58:49.167 --> 00:58:49.487
Yeah.

1039
00:58:49.627 --> 00:58:53.149
I'll just call somebody and be like, I, I, I'm not, this is not working.

1040
00:58:53.569 --> 00:58:55.411
Just spend with a little bit of time on the phone with me.

1041
00:58:55.791 --> 00:59:03.376
That has been the greatest gift that I've learned in recent time, which is if I am having really bad feelings, um,

1042
00:59:03.796 --> 00:59:07.760
to invite someone that I love to sit in the mud with me.

1043
00:59:09.281 --> 00:59:20.210
And the reason I say invite them, it's because having been on the receiving end, either offering to sit in mud with somebody or been invited to sit in mud with somebody, as a friend who loves somebody, it's an honor.

1044
00:59:20.670 --> 00:59:20.971
Yeah.

1045
00:59:21.131 --> 00:59:23.112
To get down and climb into the mud with someone.

1046
00:59:23.513 --> 00:59:27.896
Not to fix them, but just to make them feel not alone when they're going through whatever they're going through.

1047
00:59:27.916 --> 00:59:28.917
It is such an honor to...

1048
00:59:29.898 --> 00:59:33.059
to be invited to sit in mud with someone and to be there with them.

1049
00:59:33.379 --> 00:59:34.999
The whole idea is I didn't want to bother you.

1050
00:59:35.939 --> 00:59:37.439
You know, I have a friend who did that to me.

1051
00:59:37.539 --> 00:59:39.920
Like they were going through something and they said that I didn't want to bother you.

1052
00:59:40.240 --> 00:59:41.640
You're so busy, all this nonsense.

1053
00:59:41.980 --> 00:59:43.140
I wasn't like, no, no.

1054
00:59:43.360 --> 00:59:44.221
I got angry.

1055
00:59:44.701 --> 00:59:45.841
I'm like, how dare you?

1056
00:59:46.221 --> 00:59:48.361
How dare you deny me the honor to be your friend?

1057
00:59:48.921 --> 00:59:52.262
How dare you deny me the honor to like sit in the mud with you when you're going through it?

1058
00:59:52.282 --> 00:59:53.422
Like, how dare you?

1059
00:59:53.822 --> 00:59:55.022
You selfish bastard.

1060
00:59:55.463 --> 00:59:55.783
You know?

1061
00:59:55.943 --> 00:59:56.223
Yeah.

1062
00:59:56.503 --> 00:59:57.403
So yeah, I've learned that.

1063
00:59:58.423 --> 01:00:00.544
I too have the feelings of I don't want to bother people.

1064
01:00:00.884 --> 01:00:02.805
And I'm just feeling sorry for myself.

1065
01:00:02.905 --> 01:00:06.006
And, you know, but I've learned my friends want to be there for me.

1066
01:00:06.447 --> 01:00:07.507
You're absolutely right.

1067
01:00:07.567 --> 01:00:14.070
And we know from the research, social support, one of the biggest indicators of how we emerge from tough times.

1068
01:00:14.530 --> 01:00:18.692
Difficult to do, especially when you're not used to it, to call somebody and say, having a bad day.

1069
01:00:18.772 --> 01:00:20.953
And like all these things, I think it's a muscle.

1070
01:00:21.093 --> 01:00:21.353
Yeah.

1071
01:00:21.413 --> 01:00:22.213
Really hard to do.

1072
01:00:23.134 --> 01:00:24.114
Start with something small.

1073
01:00:24.334 --> 01:00:24.494
Yep.

1074
01:00:25.155 --> 01:00:25.935
Whining about something.

1075
01:00:25.955 --> 01:00:27.256
Can I just whine to you for five minutes?

1076
01:00:27.296 --> 01:00:27.496
Sure.

1077
01:00:28.656 --> 01:00:32.457
And if you work that muscle, you can get to the point where, can I just call you up and cry?

1078
01:00:32.597 --> 01:00:32.878
Yeah.

1079
01:00:33.058 --> 01:00:33.358
You know?

1080
01:00:33.858 --> 01:00:34.018
Yep.

1081
01:00:34.318 --> 01:00:34.578
Yeah.

1082
01:00:35.018 --> 01:00:35.758
Amy, you're the best.

1083
01:00:35.979 --> 01:00:36.619
Oh, thank you.

1084
01:00:36.699 --> 01:00:38.319
Thanks for coming on.

1085
01:00:38.559 --> 01:00:40.500
It's been absolutely insightful.

1086
01:00:41.300 --> 01:00:51.564
And I really, really do believe that the work you're doing and the message you're spreading and the books you're writing are genuinely, genuinely helping people navigate the stuff properly, healthily.

1087
01:00:52.244 --> 01:00:55.545
And I have to believe that the people who consume your work

1088
01:00:56.245 --> 01:00:59.569
actually don't need your work as much because of your work.

1089
01:01:00.550 --> 01:01:01.431
Thank you so much.

1090
01:01:02.752 --> 01:01:03.773
Working yourself out of a job.

1091
01:01:04.054 --> 01:01:04.654
I hope so.

1092
01:01:04.774 --> 01:01:05.355
I hope so.

1093
01:01:05.615 --> 01:01:06.216
Thanks for coming.

1094
01:01:06.276 --> 01:01:07.117
Thanks for having me.

1095
01:01:12.738 --> 01:01:14.219
As always, thanks for listening.

1096
01:01:14.839 --> 01:01:20.382
And if you liked this episode, please do remember to subscribe to A Bit of Optimism wherever you enjoy listening to podcasts.

1097
01:01:20.742 --> 01:01:23.183
And remember, new episodes drop every Tuesday.

1098
01:01:23.803 --> 01:01:32.207
A Bit of Optimism is a production of The Optimism Company, lovingly produced by our team, Lindsay Garbenius, Phoebe Bradford, and Devin Johnson.

1099
01:01:32.828 --> 01:01:37.930
And if you want more cool stuff or just to find out what I'm up to, visit simonsynic.com.

1100
01:01:38.470 --> 01:01:42.132
Until next time, take care of yourself, take care of each other.