Speaker 1: There's many, many ways in which these emotions show up,
Speaker 1: and one of the things that psychologists talk about is
Speaker 1: this phenomena that they call disenfranchised grief, which basically means
Speaker 1: that there's a thousand and one versions of these griefs
Speaker 1: and these separations that are not socially acceptable to mourn,
Speaker 1: and so we don't mourn them. We don't even name
Speaker 1: them to ourselves as something that requires mourning because we
Speaker 1: don't think of them that way. Hey, everyone, welcome back
Speaker 1: to On Purpose, the number one health podcast in the world.
Speaker 1: Thanks to each and every single one of you that
Speaker 1: come back every week to listen, learn and grow. Now
Speaker 1: you know how much I like research, how much I
Speaker 1: like psychology, how much I like the mind, and how
Speaker 1: much I love learning from people who deeply take the
Speaker 1: time to understand complexities, challenges, life situations that we all
Speaker 1: go through and sometimes we don't really have deep insight
Speaker 1: on some of the biggest emotional challenges of the journey
Speaker 1: of our lives. And today's guest is someone who does
Speaker 1: just that. And I've been wanting to have her on
Speaker 1: the podcast for a long long time, probably a couple
Speaker 1: of years in the making, and we're finally doing that,
Speaker 1: So I'm very very grateful today. Our guest is none
Speaker 1: other than Susan Caine, the author of Quiet, The Power
Speaker 1: of Introverts in a World that Can't Stop Talking, which
Speaker 1: spent seven years on the New York Times Best seller
Speaker 1: list and has been translated into over forty languages. It
Speaker 1: was named the number one best book of the year
Speaker 1: by Fast Company, which also named her as one of
Speaker 1: its most creative people in business. Her writing has appeared
Speaker 1: in The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Wall Street Journal,
Speaker 1: and many other publications, and her record Smashing Ted Talk,
Speaker 1: which was where I first discovered her, has been viewed
Speaker 1: over thirty million times on ted dot com and YouTube combined,
Speaker 1: and was named by Bill Gates as one of his
Speaker 1: all time favorite talks. Now. Her most recent book that
Speaker 1: I highly recommend you go in order right away, and
Speaker 1: you're going to want to, especially during and after this conversation,
Speaker 1: is called Bitter Sweet, How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole. Please,
Speaker 1: welcome to the show, Susan Kine. Susan, thank you so
Speaker 1: much for being here. Really grateful, really excited to learn
Speaker 1: from you today. And these are actually my favorite conversations
Speaker 1: on the podcast sitting with someone who has studied and
Speaker 1: deeply absorbed a theme, a transition of life that is
Speaker 1: often not spoken about enough. So thank you so much, Well,
Speaker 1: thank you so much, Jay for being here. It's just
Speaker 1: such a joy. I've been a fan for a long time. Well,
Speaker 1: the feeling is very mutual. Let's dive right in because
Speaker 1: I think you know the work that you've done up
Speaker 1: until now on being an introvert and being quiet and
Speaker 1: stillness is really powerful. But this new book, Bitter Sweet.
Speaker 1: What I find really interesting about this is I find
Speaker 1: that as humans, and I'm speaking on my behalf and
Speaker 1: I think a lot of my community feels this way
Speaker 1: as well, is that we've never been taught about what
Speaker 1: to do with pain. We've never really been taught about
Speaker 1: what to do with the feeling of loss or sorrow.
Speaker 1: We don't really know what to do with it. And
Speaker 1: the generic advice we get with is well, it will
Speaker 1: heal with time or it will go away naturally. And
Speaker 1: I wanted to ask you, like, where did you start
Speaker 1: on this journey of figuring out what to do with pain?
Speaker 1: And when you started that journey what surprised you the most?
Speaker 1: I had had experiences in my own life, and the
Speaker 1: generations of my family before I even entered into this world,
Speaker 1: had had experiences in their lives that I think kind
Speaker 1: of set me up to be thinking about these kinds
Speaker 1: of questions. This particular journey really started for me when
Speaker 1: I noticed that I was drawn. I mean, I love
Speaker 1: music of all kinds. I love happy, upbeat dance music,
Speaker 1: but I found myself drawn especially to minor key kind
Speaker 1: of longing, yearning music. And I started to notice that
Speaker 1: that music had this effect on me that wasn't about sadness.
Speaker 1: The only word I could use is love. Actually, I mean, look,
Speaker 1: the music would give me a sense of uplift, and
Speaker 1: I realized that the uplift came from love, and it
Speaker 1: was because the musician composing music like that, they are
Speaker 1: expressing the pain that all humans experience at one time
Speaker 1: or another, and they're basically saying, we all feel this
Speaker 1: some of the time. And I'm letting you know that I,
Speaker 1: the musician, it felt that way. Everybody else listening to
Speaker 1: this has felt this way, and the music is the
Speaker 1: I'm going to take this extra step of turning the
Speaker 1: pain into something beautiful, which I think is kind of
Speaker 1: the call that we all have in this world. And
Speaker 1: so anyway, it was really trying to understand what that
Speaker 1: music was all about that got me started on this
Speaker 1: inquiry of what bitter sweetness is. And I started looking
Speaker 1: at all these different traditions from all over the world
Speaker 1: and across time, and they're all telling us that the
Speaker 1: willingness to accept the fact that life is a mix
Speaker 1: of joy and sorrow is one of the great bonding
Speaker 1: agents we have because we all are humans who are
Speaker 1: in that same state of being. So it's a great
Speaker 1: bonding agent, and it's the source of our creativity and
Speaker 1: it's the source of transcendence. But it all started, It
Speaker 1: all started with music, and it probably started before that,
Speaker 1: you know, with various family experiences that had primed me
Speaker 1: to be thinking in these ways. And do you believe
Speaker 1: that it's aw avoidance of that idea that life is
Speaker 1: both bitter sweet and that life is both joy and sorrow?
Speaker 1: Is it the avoidance that causes us more pain, or
Speaker 1: causes us more stress and pressure? And it is that's
Speaker 1: why we need acceptance? Is acceptance the right word? How
Speaker 1: are you constructing that door process for us? I would
Speaker 1: say acceptance is the first step. We do have to
Speaker 1: accept and acceptance by the way, it looks like many
Speaker 1: different things. You know, it doesn't only look like kind
Speaker 1: of sitting calmly and letting things wash over us. It's
Speaker 1: also understanding that some of the time we're going to
Speaker 1: feel overwhelmed or angry or whatever it is in response
Speaker 1: to anversive event and being okay with all of those
Speaker 1: kind of chaotic emotions that come up. But all of
Speaker 1: that that's only step one. There's a guy named Stephen
Speaker 1: Hayes who's developed this thing called acceptance and Commitment therapy,
Speaker 1: and it breaks down this process acceptance of stage one.
Speaker 1: Commitment is stage two. What commitment looks like is it's
Speaker 1: identifying the source of your pain and realize that the
Speaker 1: only reason you feel pain in the first place is
Speaker 1: because something has happened in an area that matters to you.
Speaker 1: So to use it as a kind of signpost of
Speaker 1: this is what matters to me. You know, maybe just
Speaker 1: had a breakup or a bereavement or whatever it is,
Speaker 1: and you realize, wow, like this this thing that I've lost,
Speaker 1: this matters. So now you want to commit yourself to
Speaker 1: that area of life because now you know how much
Speaker 1: it matters. And we see people doing this in different
Speaker 1: ways all the time, they're just not always aware of it.
Speaker 1: Just as examples, after nine to eleven, suddenly in the
Speaker 1: United States there was a huge rush of people signing
Speaker 1: up to become firefighters, and in the wake of the pandemic,
Speaker 1: there's a rush of people signing up for medical school
Speaker 1: and for nursing school. And you could say both of
Speaker 1: these decisions they're they're kind of counterintuitive. It's kind of
Speaker 1: like people are signing up to be, you know, closer
Speaker 1: to the source of the thing that has brought us pain.
Speaker 1: But what humans want to do ultimately is humans want
Speaker 1: to create meaning. So like if we can accept but
Speaker 1: then also take that extra step of making meaning out
Speaker 1: of the thing that has caused us pain, or making
Speaker 1: a kind of human connection out of it, that's really
Speaker 1: what brings us closer to wholeness. That's such a beautiful answer,
Speaker 1: and I love hearing that from you, especially because you've
Speaker 1: spent so much time in this space. If it's almost
Speaker 1: like acceptance with meaning that turns into action, like some
Speaker 1: sort of as you said, the examples of the firefighters
Speaker 1: and the healthcare workers, of people opting to take action
Speaker 1: because of some meaning that they've gained. I think often
Speaker 1: we're scared of transforming sorrow or loss or pain into
Speaker 1: acceptance or meaning because it means we have to spend
Speaker 1: more time with it, right, Like it's when you open
Speaker 1: up the wound, you have to spend more time with
Speaker 1: the wound, and so it's often easier. How do we
Speaker 1: Is it courage that's needed to look at a painful area?
Speaker 1: And I love what you said about ultimately, if something
Speaker 1: caused you pain, it's because it matters to you. What
Speaker 1: is required to take a closer look at what matters
Speaker 1: to you that's caused you pain? Is it courage? Is
Speaker 1: it curiosity? Like what is that? What have you seen
Speaker 1: that gives people the resilience required? Or is it resilience
Speaker 1: that's required to actually assess that? I mean, I suppose
Speaker 1: it's all those things. But I think one of the
Speaker 1: one of the biggest factors that we overlook all the
Speaker 1: time is connection. There's no pain that exists that many
Speaker 1: other people haven't been through, or that people who have
Speaker 1: been through it could still gather around together. But you
Speaker 1: know there's a reason for example, like with alcoholics, anonymous,
Speaker 1: like what do you do people gather around together to
Speaker 1: lift each other up. They don't do it by themselves.
Speaker 1: Or I think of someone who I talked about or
Speaker 1: who I quoted. Really in Bittersweet, she was describing the
Speaker 1: funeral of her grandfather, and she was describing how she
Speaker 1: had never before seen her father cry. It was her
Speaker 1: father's father who had passed away, and she said, you know,
Speaker 1: it was incredibly sad. And a group of friends gathered
Speaker 1: together and they were like a barber shop chorus, and
Speaker 1: they sang this beautiful tribute in honor of her grandfather,
Speaker 1: and the tears were streaming down her father's face. And
Speaker 1: she says what she remembers of that moment most was
Speaker 1: actually not the pain. It was what she calls the
Speaker 1: union between souls that happened at that moment. And there
Speaker 1: is something about these painful moments that can open us
Speaker 1: up to that union between souls, and I think we
Speaker 1: need to look for that everywhere we can, and you
Speaker 1: see it everywhere around you once you become aware of it.
Speaker 1: This is one of the reasons that I think it's
Speaker 1: such a problem that in our culture we don't like
Speaker 1: to talk about stuff like this. We see it as
Speaker 1: kind of distasteful or maybe a little bit weak or
Speaker 1: something like that. But God knows we need more of
Speaker 1: a union between souls. Right now, we have nothing but division.
Speaker 1: This is actually one of the things that most opens
Speaker 1: us up and most joins us. Yeah, that's such a
Speaker 1: great reminder, and you're so right that we I feel
Speaker 1: a lot of us, including myself. At times in my life,
Speaker 1: I've had the feeling that no one understands me and
Speaker 1: only I'm going through this like only I'm struggling. And
Speaker 1: I think today if we take a look at it
Speaker 1: through the angle of social media or the idea of yeah,
Speaker 1: anything from Instagram, through the TikTok, through the Facebook, or
Speaker 1: whatever it may be, and people are looking at that
Speaker 1: going well, my life doesn't look like that. My life's
Speaker 1: a lot worse than that. And that comparison or that
Speaker 1: judgment constantly makes us feel like we're more own in
Speaker 1: our experience of pain. How do is that unhealthy to
Speaker 1: feel that our pain is unique? Or is it useful
Speaker 1: to feel that your pain is unique to you? I'm
Speaker 1: fascinated by the uniqueness of pain, especially when you're talking
Speaker 1: about the idea that actually pain is what connects us.
Speaker 1: But often our experience of pain is well, no no, no,
Speaker 1: my pain's different, or sometimes it's my pain's worse than yours,
Speaker 1: or sometimes people gain perspective by thinking what someone else
Speaker 1: has it worse off? And so I'm intrigued by is
Speaker 1: pain healthier to see it when you see it as
Speaker 1: unique or when you see it as connecting? Oh, that's interesting.
Speaker 1: I mean. So I would always say every single person's
Speaker 1: life story is unique. And of course there are some
Speaker 1: pains that are more difficult than other pains, for sure,
Speaker 1: But yeah, at the end of the day, understanding the
Speaker 1: connection is the most healing of all it really is.
Speaker 1: There's there's a Japanese Buddhist poet who I talk about
Speaker 1: in Bitter Sweet. His name is isa I Ssa. He's
Speaker 1: one of the great famous poets of Japan, and he
Speaker 1: had this life experience where he kept he married late,
Speaker 1: and he and his wife kept giving birth to children
Speaker 1: who didn't live. They would die like stillbirths. And then
Speaker 1: and then finally they had this daughter, Sato, and she
Speaker 1: was healthy and beautiful and beloved, and then she too,
Speaker 1: at like the age of two or three, she dies
Speaker 1: of smallpox. And he's utterly heartbroken. And he's also trained
Speaker 1: as a Buddhist monk, and so he's trained like in
Speaker 1: the idea of impermanence, you know, in the idea of
Speaker 1: accepting impermanence, and so he writes this poem after his
Speaker 1: baby's death. He writes this poem. He's basically saying, I
Speaker 1: get this world of do is just a world of do,
Speaker 1: you know, meaning just dow drops. I get it. Everything's impermanent.
Speaker 1: And then he says, but even so, but even so,
Speaker 1: and he's basically saying, you know, like even I, who's
Speaker 1: trained in impermanence, even I am going to say, this hurts,
Speaker 1: you know, for my baby daughter to have died this way,
Speaker 1: this really hurts. And you have to ask, like, well,
Speaker 1: why are we why First of all, why did he
Speaker 1: write that poem? And second, why are we reading it
Speaker 1: two hundred years later? And the answer is that he
Speaker 1: wrote it because he knows that everybody has trouble with
Speaker 1: that idea of impermanence. No one fully accepts it. Everybody grieves,
Speaker 1: And we read it two hundred years later because our
Speaker 1: lives are completely different from his, and yet they're exactly
Speaker 1: the same. We would grieve too in the exact same situation.
Speaker 1: And two hundred years later, we'll still read it. And
Speaker 1: that's one of the great sources of uplift that we have.
Speaker 1: It's one of the great truths. You know, that we're
Speaker 1: all in this kind of like amazing state of like
Speaker 1: constant love and loss that together as humans. That is
Speaker 1: that that's our situation, and we're in that together, and
Speaker 1: there's something incredibly beautiful about that. That's why we listen
Speaker 1: to music. It's one reason, one big reason we listen,
Speaker 1: one big reason we consume art is because we're kind
Speaker 1: of allowing our artists and musicians and theologians and everyone
Speaker 1: else to tell us these truths on behalf of all
Speaker 1: of us and join us together that way. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: truly is I'm really glad I asked you that question
Speaker 1: because hearing you deepen that understanding for us around what
Speaker 1: we're looking for in that connection and transitioning to music.
Speaker 1: I realized that a few years ago, when you know,
Speaker 1: you're traveling all across the world and I know you
Speaker 1: do too, and you're speaking, or you're doing events, or
Speaker 1: you're meeting people, and you realize that everyone's playing the
Speaker 1: same music in every single country often and I know
Speaker 1: every country has its own traditional music as well. Of course,
Speaker 1: which is beautiful, but I also find that often you
Speaker 1: find that music just you know, crosses language, crosses boundaries,
Speaker 1: across his barriers. But I think one of the interesting
Speaker 1: that you that you bring up is that normally people
Speaker 1: would think that we listen to happy music to feel
Speaker 1: happy and sad music when we're sad. But you talk
Speaker 1: about how sad music can transform into something beautiful that
Speaker 1: can uplift someone and bring them closer to a feeling
Speaker 1: of joy. Walk us through that concept. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: so we know this that like the music that reliably
Speaker 1: gives people, you know, shivers and chills and goose bumps,
Speaker 1: it's the it's the sad music. It's the sad slow music.
Speaker 1: And people will tell researchers that when they listen to
Speaker 1: sad music, they feel like connected to states of wonder
Speaker 1: and awe and transcendence. And you know, sad music is
Speaker 1: incredibly uplifting. It lifts the mood, it lifts the spirits.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry I meant happy music. I'm not sure what
Speaker 1: I just said, but anyway, but it's the sad music
Speaker 1: that makes us feel like, you know, we're touching, touching
Speaker 1: something higher. And I think this is because as humans
Speaker 1: we all enter this world. It's it's like part of
Speaker 1: our emotional DNA to feel that we belong in another
Speaker 1: more perfect and more beautiful state. Um. You know, whether
Speaker 1: you use religious terms to express that of like that
Speaker 1: we belong with with the divine, or we belong in
Speaker 1: the Garden of Eden or in Zion or Mecca or
Speaker 1: whatever it is. There's this feeling of we belong somewhere
Speaker 1: else and you know, the Wizard of Oz we belong
Speaker 1: somewhere over the rainbow. That's just that's a state that
Speaker 1: human beings feel on a fundamental level. Sad music minor
Speaker 1: key music puts us in touch with this state. So
Speaker 1: instead of making us feel sad, it's making us feel
Speaker 1: connected with the more perfect and beautiful world to which
Speaker 1: we feel we belong. And you know you're talking about
Speaker 1: different cultures. You can see this music all across the world.
Speaker 1: You know, there's like like in Portugal, in Brazil or
Speaker 1: Portugal is the music of Fotto and Portugal and Brazil
Speaker 1: they both have the idea of sodaje, you know, the
Speaker 1: idea of the longing for like a lost love that
Speaker 1: you may never have experienced in the first place, and
Speaker 1: this is embodied in the music, and as I understand it,
Speaker 1: in Hinduism, there's an idea of viraja, which is the
Speaker 1: same idea of kind of like longing for a lost love,
Speaker 1: and the idea there is that music. The legend has
Speaker 1: it that music and poetry like began with that sense
Speaker 1: of loss. And there's like a a tale of a
Speaker 1: bird that is weeping because its lover was killed by
Speaker 1: a hunter's bow, and and that moment of the bird's
Speaker 1: weeping is said to be the start of all of
Speaker 1: all art and poetry. So there's something very deep in
Speaker 1: us that feels these things but is uplifted by them
Speaker 1: because we're together in that state of exile, and we're
Speaker 1: together in that state of longing for a better world
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Speaker 1: what is that? That's so interesting and I agree with
Speaker 1: you and you're spot on that. Especially in the Bukte tradition,
Speaker 1: there's a statement similar to viraja. It's called vipra lumber bove,
Speaker 1: which means service in separation or love in separation, and
Speaker 1: love in separation or longing is seen as higher than
Speaker 1: love in connection because there's a deeper longing. There's a
Speaker 1: deeper sense of connection and intimacy that is experienced in
Speaker 1: wanting to be reunited with a loved one, whether that
Speaker 1: be the divine in certain traditions, or whether that be
Speaker 1: a person. But what I find really interesting is how
Speaker 1: some of these concepts can be so easily misconstrued or swayed.
Speaker 1: Like the idea that I think a lot of people
Speaker 1: would feel that longing for a better life actually causes
Speaker 1: a lot of pain, as opposed to the idea that
Speaker 1: you're really putting forward is longing of knowing that there
Speaker 1: is more. And I'm just trying to really get into
Speaker 1: that subtlety of like longing for a better life actually
Speaker 1: causes us more pain and stress sometimes, whereas what I
Speaker 1: think you're saying, and I'd love to clarify that more deeply,
Speaker 1: is longing knowing that there is more, There is meaning,
Speaker 1: there is purpose to this experience. Does that help? Is that?
Speaker 1: And I'm really allowing my mind to like connect random
Speaker 1: dots right now, I'm not following my notes or my
Speaker 1: questions at all because I just feel like there's so
Speaker 1: much depth here on cover. I hope you don't mind
Speaker 1: me doing that. By the way, Susan, I apologize. Are
Speaker 1: you kidding? Oh my gosh, I love that. No, no, no,
Speaker 1: I think it's a spot on question. And I think
Speaker 1: that what you might be getting at is the difference
Speaker 1: between longing for, you know, material things or that kind
Speaker 1: of thing versus a kind of more existential longing for,
Speaker 1: you know, that which is beautiful, good, true, longing for
Speaker 1: like perfect love, longing for the divine. Those are very
Speaker 1: different kinds of longings for, you know, like I'm longing
Speaker 1: for a nicer car. That maybe we're using the same
Speaker 1: word to describe two very different states of being. Yeah, no, no,
Speaker 1: that that that clarifies it. I think that's a great,
Speaker 1: great thought that affects that. And for me, I think
Speaker 1: what I love about what you're saying and in this
Speaker 1: book is that, you know, artists and musicians most of
Speaker 1: the time get their inspiration from sadness, darker emotions and experiences,
Speaker 1: and it's often a really painful, traumatic transition in their
Speaker 1: life that creates their greatest art form. You gave the
Speaker 1: example of the bird is just a few moments ago.
Speaker 1: And do you think that the opportunity to transform pain
Speaker 1: into something creative like music or art or poetry is
Speaker 1: possible for everyone or is the right way for everyone?
Speaker 1: When a lot of people would say, well, I'm not
Speaker 1: poetic or I'm not artistic, or I'm not creative. Is
Speaker 1: that still what you've found and discovered to be a
Speaker 1: really healthy form of healing? Oh? Yeah, absolutely. I'm so
Speaker 1: glad that you has that question because I use the
Speaker 1: W when I talk about this, and I do say,
Speaker 1: you know, whatever pain you can't get rid of, make
Speaker 1: that you're a creative offering. But I'm using that word
Speaker 1: creative in in a very loose sense, like it doesn't
Speaker 1: have to be you know, the painting hanging on the wall.
Speaker 1: It could be like the cake you bake, or the
Speaker 1: organization you found, or you know, the time you reach
Speaker 1: out to the friend who really needed to hear the
Speaker 1: thing that you just said at that exact moment. You know,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of different kinds of creative acts. The
Speaker 1: real creativity is the transformation of pain into beauty, and
Speaker 1: beauty can take endless different forms. In the book, I
Speaker 1: talk about a lot of different people who do things
Speaker 1: like this, you know, like the mother whose child is
Speaker 1: killed by a drunk person on a highway and starts
Speaker 1: mothers against drunk driving. You know, there's a thousand examples
Speaker 1: like this. So I was hesitating as you could see
Speaker 1: even to give that example, because I also wouldn't want
Speaker 1: people to feel like, well, it necessitates, you know, starting
Speaker 1: some gigantic, famous organization. It doesn't take anything like that.
Speaker 1: It just takes some kind of act. It could be
Speaker 1: an act of extremely modest and private transformation. But I
Speaker 1: think the transformation is the key. Yeah, I love that
Speaker 1: as a solution. I think what I notice in my
Speaker 1: work is that often for people to get started, even
Speaker 1: when things are somewhat more stable, starting is so difficult.
Speaker 1: And the idea of starting anything when you're in trauma
Speaker 1: or pain. And you are right that when you look
Speaker 1: at some of even the greatest careers of musicians or actors,
Speaker 1: often what they create is to heal their trauma. But
Speaker 1: they don't necessarily heal their trauma in that journey. What
Speaker 1: do you think is the difference. There's two questions here.
Speaker 1: Let's start for I'm really getting excited about this topic.
Speaker 1: Let's start first with how does someone start simply when
Speaker 1: they're in so much pain, They've gone through a really tough,
Speaker 1: difficult situation. They're not Buddhist monk trained, they're not exposed
Speaker 1: to feeling that they're naturally creative in what the world
Speaker 1: considers to be creative. I agree with you. This could
Speaker 1: be a business, it could be a it could be
Speaker 1: a painting, it could be a room in your home
Speaker 1: that you redesign. Like, it doesn't need to be an
Speaker 1: entity or a huge charity. But how does someone just
Speaker 1: start when they're actually like, how how can I start?
Speaker 1: I'm just so stuck in my pain? Well, I mean
Speaker 1: the first place to start, remember at the beginning were
Speaker 1: talking about before there's commitment to the thing that you value.
Speaker 1: First there's acceptance, and an acceptance includes kind of like
Speaker 1: sitting with the wash of pain. So it may be
Speaker 1: that you're not really ready to do any kind of
Speaker 1: like grand act or modest act of transformation for quite
Speaker 1: a long time, and that's okay, you know, and to
Speaker 1: accept that also to the extent you start to feel
Speaker 1: like open and ready to it. Connection really is the key,
Speaker 1: you know. And maybe it's one other person who you're
Speaker 1: connecting with, and maybe it's a person you don't ever
Speaker 1: meet in real life, and it's just somebody you're you're
Speaker 1: connecting with over the internet, you know, I hear. I'm like,
Speaker 1: coming from my introverts background of knowing that people have
Speaker 1: very different wishes and how they want to connect, and
Speaker 1: you should be honoring your own wishes. You know, some
Speaker 1: people will want to be in a room full of
Speaker 1: friends or strangers, and some people really don't want that,
Speaker 1: and all that's fine, But I do think that connection
Speaker 1: of one kind or another is always going to be
Speaker 1: the key. It's it's what humans want most of all.
Speaker 1: I'm just thinking of somebody who I am. Can I
Speaker 1: talk to a lot for the book, and I wrote
Speaker 1: about her. This is my a good friend of mine.
Speaker 1: Her name is Lois. She's my sister's mother in law,
Speaker 1: and and she she lost her daughter, Wendy to a
Speaker 1: varying cancer and they were like incredibly close. And Lois
Speaker 1: is an incredibly upbeat, cheerful person by nature. She's not
Speaker 1: a bittersweet type at all. But you know, she kind
Speaker 1: of went into a time of really dark despair. And
Speaker 1: it was something like two years, you know that she
Speaker 1: was like in her house and hardly coming out. And
Speaker 1: she said just kind of like creating a shrine to
Speaker 1: her lost daughter all over the house. She said, like
Speaker 1: she was hanging pictures of her like up at all
Speaker 1: these crazy angles all over the house. Like she didn't
Speaker 1: even have the wherewithal to hang them straight or in
Speaker 1: any way that made sense. She was really in an
Speaker 1: altered reality, and what started to bring her out was
Speaker 1: realizing that she still loved her husband deeply, loves her
Speaker 1: other children deeply, her grandchildren deeply, and feeling that the
Speaker 1: message that she was sending to them was that maybe
Speaker 1: they shouldn't be moving forward with their lives, or maybe
Speaker 1: they didn't matter so much because she was so lost
Speaker 1: in the love for her one daughter, and it was
Speaker 1: that that was one of the things that most pulled
Speaker 1: her out. And it doesn't mean that her grief has
Speaker 1: gone away at all, but there's this incredible way of
Speaker 1: putting it that comes from the writer Nora mcinnerney. The
Speaker 1: difference between moving on versus moving forward. You know, the
Speaker 1: message we get in this culture is, you know, eventually
Speaker 1: you should move on, like get over it. That's the
Speaker 1: message we're getting one way or another. And instead we
Speaker 1: can move forward, which means you do go on with
Speaker 1: your life, but you're carrying the last person with you always.
Speaker 1: You don't ever have to leave them behind. They have
Speaker 1: shaped you, they will shape you forever. They will always
Speaker 1: be a part of you. You're carrying them with you
Speaker 1: even as you move forward, and I think that's a
Speaker 1: much healthier and more manageable way for people to deal
Speaker 1: with their last beloveds. And with all of that, I
Speaker 1: think connection is at the heart of all of these ideas.
Speaker 1: Were there any specific examples you saw of how people
Speaker 1: carry someone with them long term in a way that
Speaker 1: becomes healthier and healthier for them as opposed to more
Speaker 1: and more deabilitating for them where they what were some
Speaker 1: of those examples. I'm intrigued as to how someone who's
Speaker 1: had really like you said, like you were talking about
Speaker 1: people who've lost you know, children or people who've lost
Speaker 1: partners or of course parents, Like, what was the healthiest
Speaker 1: way or methods that you saw people keep people in
Speaker 1: their lives without it impacting their current relationships and their
Speaker 1: current outlook as well. Well with Lois, who I just
Speaker 1: told you about, who who lost her daughter, she often
Speaker 1: talks about how she really wants to still be talking
Speaker 1: about her daughter all the time. And you know, she
Speaker 1: said people around her would very understandably often like not
Speaker 1: talk about her daughter because they were afraid to remind
Speaker 1: her and upset her. But of course, you know, someone
Speaker 1: in that situation doesn't need any reminding. They haven't forgotten
Speaker 1: any way, but much more to the point than that,
Speaker 1: they want the person still to be part of their lives.
Speaker 1: So they want them to they want to be able
Speaker 1: to talk about them in everyday life and just bring
Speaker 1: up their name naturally. Now I'm not saying every single
Speaker 1: person feels that way, and if, like, if you know
Speaker 1: someone like this in your life, it's probably a good
Speaker 1: idea to ask them what their preference is. But but
Speaker 1: I do think many people feel that way. And then
Speaker 1: another example is from Norah mckinnerney who who has this
Speaker 1: idea of moving on versus moving forward, and her situation
Speaker 1: was that she had lost her husband when she was
Speaker 1: still quite young, and she did end up remarrying, but
Speaker 1: she says that the marriage she has now and the
Speaker 1: relationship she has now with her new husband is the
Speaker 1: way it is because of her last husband. You know,
Speaker 1: she is the person who she is, and she is
Speaker 1: the wife and partner that she is because of the
Speaker 1: experiences that she had with her last husband, and so
Speaker 1: he's still present with them and a part of her
Speaker 1: and and it's all integrated. It's not like there doesn't
Speaker 1: have to be this stark delineation, you know, between that
Speaker 1: which was and that which is. It's more like it's
Speaker 1: all one continuous flow. How do we need to adapt
Speaker 1: as a society do you think to allow for this
Speaker 1: kind of healing, this kind of life, because, as you said,
Speaker 1: most often we don't want to talk about it. If
Speaker 1: someone does talk about someone they've lost in their life,
Speaker 1: it can be quite unsettling and uncomfortable. A because I
Speaker 1: think people are not used to talk about these themes,
Speaker 1: as we discussed previously, but also because people are scared
Speaker 1: of saying the right thing or the wrong thing, and
Speaker 1: they'd rather not. And then ultimately it's about well, you know,
Speaker 1: when is it right to talk about it? I think
Speaker 1: there's a lot of aspects of this that make it complicated.
Speaker 1: What are you seeing a good progress? Did you even
Speaker 1: come across any communities or any tribes or societies or
Speaker 1: places in the world or people that you found were
Speaker 1: having healthier conversations around loss. Do those even exist? Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's actually and I don't know if I'll be able
Speaker 1: to give you, you know, names at my fingertips, but
Speaker 1: it's actually fascinating there. I would say there's a movement
Speaker 1: now that has sprung up to talk more about death
Speaker 1: and grief and loss and all of it. That it's
Speaker 1: a broader movement with many different subgroups to it. I
Speaker 1: think we kind of reached a tipping point. You know.
Speaker 1: It's like in the early it was around the early
Speaker 1: twentieth century that we started moving loss and death and
Speaker 1: all of it, you know, completely off stage. It was
Speaker 1: like seen as being completely non appropriate, don't talk about it. Ever.
Speaker 1: This was a period where it also became like out
Speaker 1: of fashion even to talk about bad weather, like you
Speaker 1: weren't supposed to notice anything negative at all. And I
Speaker 1: think there's our reclamation process that's going on right now
Speaker 1: with people realizing we will actually be more whole if
Speaker 1: we can integrate all of this into our daily lives.
Speaker 1: It's it's not about a love of the macab or
Speaker 1: the more a bit or it's nothing like that. It's
Speaker 1: just like tell the truths about being alive, like integrate
Speaker 1: at all. And so, yeah, these movements are springing up,
Speaker 1: and and then I think you see it in other
Speaker 1: ways too, you know, like I don't know, the last
Speaker 1: ten or twenty years, it's become it's become increasingly common
Speaker 1: to talk about things like compassionate leadership. And what does
Speaker 1: compassion mean. We think it means, yeah, be nice. The
Speaker 1: word compassion, it literally means to suffer with someone, That's
Speaker 1: what it means. And so this movement for compassion is
Speaker 1: really talking about making a place for people to be
Speaker 1: able to bring their joys and their pains and for
Speaker 1: other people and colleagues to be there with them. And
Speaker 1: of course it's uncomfortable and messy, and no one has
Speaker 1: the answer yet of exactly like how to do business
Speaker 1: with all our lives and all our emotions out there too.
Speaker 1: It's complicated, but I do think we're starting to wrestle
Speaker 1: with it. Yeah, yeah, absolutely, And I think that at
Speaker 1: least being able to have honest, transparent, non judgmental spaces
Speaker 1: seems to be a good beginning point. Ye. And I
Speaker 1: think that that requires a lot of openness because often
Speaker 1: there's a judgment on how we want to be treated
Speaker 1: about our loss, and then there's a judgment from the
Speaker 1: people on the outside of how you should be reacting
Speaker 1: to your loss, and so there's this mishmash of expectation
Speaker 1: based on judgment, which seems really uncomfortable. Like if you've
Speaker 1: just gone through a loss, but then you're expecting that
Speaker 1: people should deal with you a certain way. That's really
Speaker 1: tough because chances are most people are not equipped with
Speaker 1: the tools to know how to interact with you. But
Speaker 1: then those people are also expecting you to get over it,
Speaker 1: as you said, or move on instead of move forward.
Speaker 1: And so I find that there's often this, yeah, this
Speaker 1: tension between these two sets of expectations that ends up
Speaker 1: causing a bit more stress. So it really requires a
Speaker 1: lot of openness and judgment a non judgment from everyone.
Speaker 1: One of the most moving moments I've ever seen at
Speaker 1: a conference came when the organizer of the conference asked
Speaker 1: everybody to write down on a piece of paper just
Speaker 1: something that they had been through recently or were going through,
Speaker 1: you know, some like life trial. And people wrote these
Speaker 1: things on their pieces of paper and put them in
Speaker 1: a hat, and they all went up to the front
Speaker 1: of the room, and then the organizer sat and on
Speaker 1: the stage and he's just started pulling these pieces of
Speaker 1: paper out of the hat and reading them aloud. And
Speaker 1: it was so profound because it was like, you know,
Speaker 1: one person was going through like a terrible divorce and
Speaker 1: another was dealing with an illness, and you know, it's
Speaker 1: just like one thing after another, and you realize if
Speaker 1: you had looked around at these people, all of them
Speaker 1: cheerfully milling around the conference and you know, like happily
Speaker 1: shaking each other's hands, you'd have no idea of what
Speaker 1: their true stories are because we don't present that particular
Speaker 1: face to the world. That's not what we do. And
Speaker 1: so just the moment of being reminded of all our
Speaker 1: complexities that are existing behind our smiling faces, that was
Speaker 1: very profound. And I think there's probably a lot of
Speaker 1: different ways that we could do that. You know, like
Speaker 1: in schools, they sometimes have what's called a parking lot
Speaker 1: of like a whiteboard where the could write down what
Speaker 1: they're experiencing or feeling or thinking or whatever, and they
Speaker 1: don't have to put their names. You look at the
Speaker 1: whiteboard and you suddenly see like a picture of the
Speaker 1: emotional and experiential state of the class. And I think
Speaker 1: we could be looking for more and more ways to
Speaker 1: do that with each other, so that so that even
Speaker 1: if we're not so skilled yet dealing one on one
Speaker 1: with how do I, you know, how do I talk
Speaker 1: to you about what you personally? You are experiencing collectively,
Speaker 1: we can under we can see each other a little
Speaker 1: more clearly. Yeah, did did you find a difference in
Speaker 1: approach susan to people who lost someone to death? Are
Speaker 1: you passing away, etc? Or losing someone who is still
Speaker 1: alive who may even still be in your life to
Speaker 1: some degree, who who maybe maybe they're geographically distant, but
Speaker 1: they're still present, they still have their own life. You
Speaker 1: may be aware through friends or through social media. What
Speaker 1: was the Was there a difference in approach to dealing
Speaker 1: with those two types of loss? Did you see different
Speaker 1: ways of emotionally regulating or reacting to the different types
Speaker 1: of loss? I think what we've been talking about now,
Speaker 1: especially with the examples you've shared, have been very much
Speaker 1: you know, losing a child or losing in that sense,
Speaker 1: But what about like losing a partner or losing a
Speaker 1: long term friend or someone in that capacity. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: it's funny actually or not funny bit that we went
Speaker 1: in the direction of bereavement, because I mean, I talk
Speaker 1: about bereavement in the book, but that's not really the focus.
Speaker 1: The focus is much more and just like in general,
Speaker 1: the fact of you know, this human condition of there
Speaker 1: being a pain of separation and a desire for reunion
Speaker 1: that animates us in so many ways. So, yeah, to
Speaker 1: your question, of course, it depends on each individual circumstance,
Speaker 1: but people do go through quite profound losses and separations.
Speaker 1: There's many, many, many, many ways in which these emotions
Speaker 1: show up. And one of the things that psychologists talk
Speaker 1: about is this phenomenon that they call disenfranchised grief, which
Speaker 1: basically means that there's there's like a thousand and one
Speaker 1: versions of these these griefs and these separations that are
Speaker 1: not socially acceptable to mourn, and so we don't mourn them.
Speaker 1: We don't even name them to ourselves as something that
Speaker 1: requires mourning, because we don't think of them that way.
Speaker 1: You know, if you broke up with somebody, Yeah, everybody
Speaker 1: knows that you might have a few tissue boxes out
Speaker 1: for a few days or something, that nobody thinks of
Speaker 1: it as a subject of mourning, and other people aren't
Speaker 1: primed to react that way. You know, your colleagues aren't
Speaker 1: prime to support you in the way that they would
Speaker 1: if you were having a classic bereavement. So I think
Speaker 1: the real difference has to do much more with our
Speaker 1: expectations for ourselves and what we expect of each other
Speaker 1: in terms of how we process. Yeah, I think as
Speaker 1: I'm talking to you and I'm listening and thinking about
Speaker 1: some of the areas I saw in the book, what
Speaker 1: I'm always fascinated by is the balance of how do
Speaker 1: we encourage people and ourselves to talk about our pain,
Speaker 1: to discuss it as we're encouraging here, and to be
Speaker 1: more transparent about it. What is the balance that allows
Speaker 1: you to use that to then turn it into something
Speaker 1: creative or action based or meaning or moving on and
Speaker 1: becomes like a form of self expression. And when does
Speaker 1: it actually limit you? Because I think we experience both right, Like,
Speaker 1: so you see people build empires out of their pain
Speaker 1: and no one knows they're going through anything, So they
Speaker 1: can build something really phenomenal coming from a place of
Speaker 1: lack during their childhood or their pain or whatever it
Speaker 1: may be, and no one even knows, and no one's unaware.
Speaker 1: And we've seen that play out in unhealthy ways. But
Speaker 1: you also see the opposite where or you see two
Speaker 1: other ways where someone is expressing their pain but they're
Speaker 1: constantly in their pain. They don't they can't find a
Speaker 1: way out of the cycle. What is the balance between expressing, accepting,
Speaker 1: finding meaning, and discussing your pain on a daily basis
Speaker 1: versus being able to transform it as you're encouraging into
Speaker 1: me that what have you've seen? Is that difference maker?
Speaker 1: Because I think we are encouraging people to share more
Speaker 1: and that's massively needed. But I guess what is that
Speaker 1: what creates momentum towards a shift? And like you're saying,
Speaker 1: there's this tyranny of positivity, right, it's not about just
Speaker 1: what we should just be positive or you should look
Speaker 1: at the bride side like that's that. We know that
Speaker 1: that's out of date and that should not be amplified
Speaker 1: across the world. But what is the balance? I think
Speaker 1: it's a common concern. It's like, well, if we let
Speaker 1: this in, maybe it'll take up all the oxygen, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe there won't be space for anything else. Maybe maybe
Speaker 1: I'll kind of like never come out of it again.
Speaker 1: And and I guess that's where I think that the
Speaker 1: the bittersweet view of life is so helpful because it's
Speaker 1: the bittersweet view of life is saying life will include pain,
Speaker 1: life will include sorrow, but it also will always include
Speaker 1: joy and beauty and so the you know, the job
Speaker 1: is to like never forsake one for the other. You know,
Speaker 1: So if you if things happen to be going amazingly
Speaker 1: for you, don't forsake the fact of the tragedies in
Speaker 1: the world that exist now and may one day exist
Speaker 1: for you. But by the same token, if things aren't
Speaker 1: going well, don't forsake the miracle of this world. Don't
Speaker 1: forsake that either. And I think that that's really useful.
Speaker 1: And I'll tell you this one parable that I came
Speaker 1: across that I found so helpful for framing all this.
Speaker 1: This one comes from the Kabbalah, which is the mystical
Speaker 1: side of Judaism. And the parable is that all of
Speaker 1: creation was originally and intact and divine vessel that then shattered,
Speaker 1: and that the world that we're living in now is
Speaker 1: the world after the breakage. So it's a broken world,
Speaker 1: but it's also a world in which scattered all around
Speaker 1: us are the shards of light from this vessel. And
Speaker 1: the job for all of us is to bend down
Speaker 1: and pick them up and like, and you're going to
Speaker 1: notice different shards of light from the ones that I notice.
Speaker 1: But we each have the capacity you know, to be
Speaker 1: aware of the breakage and to turn in the in
Speaker 1: the direction of beauty. Like those those two things always
Speaker 1: can and must coexist, you know. And the idea of
Speaker 1: this parable is is to kind of like bring bring
Speaker 1: more of the divinity into into this kind of lower
Speaker 1: realm in which we live. And you know, whether and
Speaker 1: takes that in literal religious terms there as a metaphor,
Speaker 1: I think makes no difference in terms of it's how
Speaker 1: helpful it can be in how to live. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: that that is the hardest part. I find that from
Speaker 1: people I speak to when they look at what's happening
Speaker 1: in the news and happening around us and happening all
Speaker 1: across the world, I mean, it just feels bit, a bit,
Speaker 1: a bit, a bit a bitter, like there's there's not
Speaker 1: really much sweetness, or the sweetness feels very fleeting, or
Speaker 1: the sweetness feels very short lived, and the sweetness is
Speaker 1: more ephemeral than the bitter, and the bitter feels so
Speaker 1: bold and large and big that it just overshadows. I'm
Speaker 1: sure you have the same conversations and and and I've
Speaker 1: found that getting to that balance of seeing both and
Speaker 1: recognizing the light, it's it's it's tough. It's I find
Speaker 1: that it's tough for people to understand that, and that's
Speaker 1: just a reflection based on what you're saying. I agree
Speaker 1: that the balance is useful and powerful and recognizing where
Speaker 1: we can support and help. To me, that's always been
Speaker 1: the greatest lesson I think I learned was you know,
Speaker 1: in times of uncertainty, don't look for certainty, look for service,
Speaker 1: like look for meaning, look for purpose, because you will
Speaker 1: always find meaning and service and purpose in life. You
Speaker 1: will not always find pleasure and happiness and joy, which
Speaker 1: are not, you know, possible. And when I look to
Speaker 1: I think the work of Edith Eager in her book
Speaker 1: The Gift or Victor Frankel in Mansearch for Meaning, and
Speaker 1: you know, two people who lived through incredible atrocities, like
Speaker 1: they turned towards finding meaning and finding purpose. And so
Speaker 1: I loved what you said at the beginning, and so
Speaker 1: to me, that's that's always been what creates the balance
Speaker 1: is you can't just look for joy. I think looking
Speaker 1: for joy or expecting pain are both really tough places
Speaker 1: to live because if you look for joy you may
Speaker 1: not always find it, and if you live in pain,
Speaker 1: that's really difficult, and so looking for meaning, service and
Speaker 1: purpose seemed to be parts forward to me at least
Speaker 1: I agree with that, And I would say to each
Speaker 1: individual person listening, to use the word and the ideal
Speaker 1: that speaks most to you. You could speak of truth,
Speaker 1: you could speak of beauty, you could speak of love.
Speaker 1: But basically it's talking about, like, look for the higher
Speaker 1: ideals because those kind of like transcend whether you happen
Speaker 1: to be in a state of joy or sorrow at
Speaker 1: any given moment, there's still the higher ideals on top
Speaker 1: of all of that for which we can live. And
Speaker 1: I'll tell you, like, just for me personally, one exercise
Speaker 1: I found myself doing over these last few years, and
Speaker 1: I just kind of stumbled into it. But I start,
Speaker 1: or I try to start most of my days, especially
Speaker 1: my work days, with an act of beauty. So I
Speaker 1: look at a lot of art on social media, and
Speaker 1: almost every day I share art on my social media feed,
Speaker 1: and it's like one of the first things I do
Speaker 1: and I working that morning, and it's attracted all these
Speaker 1: other people who love that too, and it's become a
Speaker 1: kind of community based around that shared ideal. And it's
Speaker 1: a small act, you know, It's like, here's a piece
Speaker 1: of beauty to start our day with. It's not going
Speaker 1: to save the world, but there's something about stepping in
Speaker 1: that direction that I think is it is just incredibly
Speaker 1: helpful and uplifting. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely, how do you think
Speaker 1: we can? What I love about this book is that
Speaker 1: you're obviously talking about the individual, but you're also talking
Speaker 1: about organizations and companies and systems. And one of the
Speaker 1: things that fascinates me is this idea that you bring
Speaker 1: up about how do you think we can end the
Speaker 1: you know, the whole winners and losers idea and tell
Speaker 1: us a bit about that. I thought that was really interesting.
Speaker 1: You know, people say, well, why do we have this
Speaker 1: whole toxic positivity thing in the first place? And I
Speaker 1: kind of went back and looked at our history, and
Speaker 1: I think a lot of it has to do with
Speaker 1: the fact that around the nineteenth century, when became very
Speaker 1: focused on business, people started asking the question, if somebody
Speaker 1: is a success or failure at business, is it because
Speaker 1: of good luck or bad luck? Or is it because
Speaker 1: of something in the person? And increasingly the answer became
Speaker 1: it's because of something inside the person, And so we
Speaker 1: started looking at people and characterizing people as either winners
Speaker 1: or losers, and over time, the use of the word
Speaker 1: loser has increased astronomically over time. And if you think
Speaker 1: about it, if we're all afraid to be losers and
Speaker 1: don't want to be associated with being a loser, then
Speaker 1: of course we're going to avoid any discussion of anything
Speaker 1: that has to do with loss or pain or sorrow
Speaker 1: or longing or like anything that we're talking about. You
Speaker 1: would want nothing to do with it. Basically, what it's
Speaker 1: meant is we're existing in this false dichotomy. So we
Speaker 1: have to get to a place where collectively in our
Speaker 1: organizations we can just kind of be more comfortable with
Speaker 1: integrating all of these things together. And that's so tough, Susan,
Speaker 1: because like, and I've worked in the corporate world for
Speaker 1: a few years and I felt that they were really
Speaker 1: trying to develop that culture and investing in it, and
Speaker 1: they did a pretty good job. And that was around
Speaker 1: nine years ago now where they were doing a good job,
Speaker 1: which I'm sure it's improves even since then. But I
Speaker 1: think that it's tough because, like you said, when you're
Speaker 1: chasing promotions and pay rises and career growth, turning around
Speaker 1: and saying, hey, I'm really struggling at home. It's very
Speaker 1: hard for an untrained manager or leader to recognize that
Speaker 1: those things can be connected but also disconnected. I have
Speaker 1: a team today, and I know that I have team
Speaker 1: members that could be going through something at home, but
Speaker 1: actually being at work is what lets them get away
Speaker 1: from that and channel channel their pain into work. So
Speaker 1: what they're doing what you're saying, which is they have
Speaker 1: a painful environment, whatever that it may be, but they're
Speaker 1: fueling their work with that passionate momentum to say, I'm
Speaker 1: going to be more creative, I'm going to love this.
Speaker 1: So it's not necessarily that because they have a troublesome
Speaker 1: home that they're going to perform less at work. But
Speaker 1: I think that that requires a lot of emotional maturity
Speaker 1: from leaders and managers to recognize that work performance is
Speaker 1: not directly correlated with home situation and that it's a
Speaker 1: lot more complex than that. So is there something that
Speaker 1: leaders and managers and people who lead people, even if
Speaker 1: it's two people or one person, like even if it's
Speaker 1: leading your family, you know, it's like, how do you
Speaker 1: how do we help people develop that emotional maturity Because
Speaker 1: most of us, And I know I would say that
Speaker 1: if I told my boss that I you know, even
Speaker 1: if you told you boss, like, oh, I'm feeling like
Speaker 1: I've got a headache this morning, that would feel like,
Speaker 1: oh no, no, I can't say that to them, because
Speaker 1: if they think I have a headache, then they won't
Speaker 1: challenge me, or they won't think I'm reliable, or they
Speaker 1: won't think that I'm someone they can trust because they're
Speaker 1: worried about me. Does that make sense, Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: it makes perfect sense. And you're reminding I used to
Speaker 1: be a corporate lawyer before I became a writer, and
Speaker 1: I remember so much this feeling of like, I mean,
Speaker 1: I did this in the nineteen nineties. I stopped in
Speaker 1: two thousand and one. It was actually really before anyone
Speaker 1: was talking about this stuff. But I so remember the
Speaker 1: feeling of walking into work and feeling like I had
Speaker 1: to put on a kind of emotional superhero costume, like
Speaker 1: you know, everything had to seem like completely together all
Speaker 1: the time, and there was a way in which that
Speaker 1: would make you feel really good in the short term
Speaker 1: because you because you were wearing the superhero costume and
Speaker 1: that feels good. But in the long term, you get
Speaker 1: kind of burned out from it. So what can leaders do?
Speaker 1: As with everything, it's so helpful when leaders go first,
Speaker 1: you know, like for leaders to model being able to
Speaker 1: talk about something that's going on with them at the
Speaker 1: same time that they're equally committed to their work. That's
Speaker 1: opening the door, that's showing other people how to do
Speaker 1: it and that it can be done. And I do
Speaker 1: want to say, and again this is me wearing my
Speaker 1: introvert hat here, I want to say, like a lot
Speaker 1: of people don't want to show up to work and
Speaker 1: divulge everything that's going on in their private lives. So
Speaker 1: I'm not talking about some kind of expectation or obligation
Speaker 1: to be able to do that, but rather for all
Speaker 1: of this to just become a more matter of fact,
Speaker 1: no big deal way in which we relate to each
Speaker 1: other on a daily basis. You wouldn't hesitate because why
Speaker 1: would you any more than you would hesitate to say
Speaker 1: that you're moving from one house to another, Like there's
Speaker 1: no real reason that's so much that these topics have
Speaker 1: to be so loaded. Yeah, I really feel you're encouraging
Speaker 1: is really healthy and powerful. And I went in my
Speaker 1: own subjective experience you know, when I trained to be
Speaker 1: a coach many years ago, and today I do a
Speaker 1: lot of coaching, whether it's private clients or exact coaching
Speaker 1: or corporate coaching. And I find that the greatest skill
Speaker 1: that I gained through my month time and in my
Speaker 1: coaching work is the ability to hear someone's experience without
Speaker 1: projecting my own value onto it. So the challenge with
Speaker 1: the human mind is when you hear someone has a headache,
Speaker 1: you think, well, when do I have headaches? How does
Speaker 1: that affect my performance? Oh? Not good? That means their
Speaker 1: performance won't be good or even in a positive sense.
Speaker 1: If we feel we are trustworthy people, when someone says
Speaker 1: something that sounds trustworthy in our vocabulary, we project that
Speaker 1: they are trustworthy. And so it works both ways, like
Speaker 1: we give people benefit of the doubt because of our
Speaker 1: projected self valuation, and then we also project our negativity
Speaker 1: or flaws onto other people as well. That if we
Speaker 1: would lie in a situation, we're more likely to think
Speaker 1: someone else is lying in that situation as well. And
Speaker 1: so there's this projection mechanism that's going back and forth,
Speaker 1: and so it really requires so much emotional stillness to
Speaker 1: hear someone's experience and to truly believe that that is
Speaker 1: just what they're going through, and that we need to
Speaker 1: almost be investigators not interrogators, curiously of what that means
Speaker 1: for them. And I think that's that balance that I'm
Speaker 1: trying to do as a coach. But even through the
Speaker 1: Monk tradition was like I think often in the corporate
Speaker 1: space especially, there's an interrogation versus a intrigue around someone's
Speaker 1: current experience. So you know, it's say, if someone's not
Speaker 1: performing well, we interrogate them why are you not performing well?
Speaker 1: What's going wrong? Like why haven't you shown up? Like
Speaker 1: why are your numbers down? Right? Like there's that interrogation,
Speaker 1: but because we are thinking, well, oh, if if I
Speaker 1: was performing badly, then there must be something wrong, rather
Speaker 1: than the intrigue of like, well is there something happening,
Speaker 1: like is there some way we can help you? Or
Speaker 1: or do you want to talk about anything, which is
Speaker 1: far more of that intrigue versus interrogation. So but that
Speaker 1: requires a lot, Like it's so easy to slip into
Speaker 1: interrogator mode, isn't it. Yeah, I think this is one
Speaker 1: place where culture can really help. And here I'm thinking
Speaker 1: of one organization that I looked at in the book.
Speaker 1: It was a University of Michigan case study by Jane
Speaker 1: Dutton and others, and it looked at this organization called
Speaker 1: Midwest Billings, and Midwest Billings was basically they were bill
Speaker 1: collectors for a hospital. So their job was to collect
Speaker 1: the unpaid bills of people who had been in the hospital.
Speaker 1: So this is not a fun job. No one likes
Speaker 1: this job. The turnover in the industry is really high
Speaker 1: because no one wants to do it. But at Midwest Billings,
Speaker 1: they somehow develops this culture of compassion where everybody just
Speaker 1: like got really into helping each other, like in this
Speaker 1: joyful way. And you know, so if somebody showed up
Speaker 1: with a cold, like they were running to CBS to
Speaker 1: get the box of tissues, you know. And if somebody
Speaker 1: was going through domestic violence, they were like, you know,
Speaker 1: gathering round to support them. There's this one amazing quote
Speaker 1: from a woman who had lived all her life with
Speaker 1: her mother. Her mother was her best friend, her everything,
Speaker 1: and then her mother died unexpectedly and it was like
Speaker 1: the worst, you know, the worst time of her life.
Speaker 1: And she says she remembers how she felt like when
Speaker 1: this happened, she's like, I have to get back to
Speaker 1: the office. I have to get back to the office.
Speaker 1: And she said it was partly because she knew it
Speaker 1: would take her mind off things, but she said, she's like,
Speaker 1: to this day, I'll never forget the look of love
Speaker 1: on Latitia's face. Letitia was her colleague, and she's like,
Speaker 1: you don't expect that from your co workers. I will
Speaker 1: never forget that love. And this unit, their turnover it
Speaker 1: was something like two percent. It was like nothing compared
Speaker 1: to the rest of the industry. They got their bills
Speaker 1: collected in record time. And it was because they had
Speaker 1: this culture where it was like pro it was proactive compassion.
Speaker 1: It was like they were all looking for the chance
Speaker 1: to do it. So as opposed to the the attitude
Speaker 1: you were talking about of an attitude of interrogation and inquiry,
Speaker 1: it was more like, yeay, when we get the chance
Speaker 1: to be helpful to each other. And that's just it's
Speaker 1: a very different emotional starting place. Yeah, I mean, that's
Speaker 1: that's beautiful. That's beautiful, and I can only hope and
Speaker 1: wish that more and more we can move towards that.
Speaker 1: And I think the best thing you've just said now
Speaker 1: as well, is that it's something we have to create
Speaker 1: in our families, in our communities, in our towns. It's
Speaker 1: it's not something we can expect from leaders or decision makers.
Speaker 1: It's something we're going to have to bring to the
Speaker 1: spaces where we have influenced Susan. I could I could
Speaker 1: speak to you for hours and hours, because I feel
Speaker 1: like the work that you do and the way you write,
Speaker 1: and even this conversation, like, I feel like you've really
Speaker 1: given me permission to kind of really reflectively have a
Speaker 1: conversation with you rather than you know, systematically interview you.
Speaker 1: And I appreciate you for that and being able to
Speaker 1: go there as well. But we end every podcast, an
Speaker 1: on purpose episode with a final five. So I'm going
Speaker 1: to ask you a final five, and this is called
Speaker 1: the fast five, where we answer every question in one
Speaker 1: word to one sentence maximum. Okay. I'm terrible at okay,
Speaker 1: no problems. I'm terrible at sticking to it myself, but
Speaker 1: let's try. So the first is, what is the best
Speaker 1: thing you can say to someone who's going through something painful?
Speaker 1: I love you, that's beautiful. What is the worst thing
Speaker 1: you can say to someone that's going through something difficult,
Speaker 1: get over it or you know, or some variation or
Speaker 1: anything that you do that that signals that third thing.
Speaker 1: What's the first thing you do every morning and the
Speaker 1: last thing you do every night. I'm laughing at myself
Speaker 1: because I want to say the first thing that I
Speaker 1: do every morning is listen to music. But honestly, the
Speaker 1: first thing I do every morning is look at my phone,
Speaker 1: and I'm really trying to get out of that. What
Speaker 1: music would you do? What music would you like to
Speaker 1: wake up to? I like that answer. That's beautiful. Oh
Speaker 1: you know, I just kind of like, go to my playlist.
Speaker 1: I should say, By the way, I have this Bitter
Speaker 1: Sweet playlist that I created. It's on Spotify and it's
Speaker 1: on Apple Music. If people want to go there, so
Speaker 1: lately sweet. Yeah. Yeah, Like if you google my or
Speaker 1: look in Spotify under Susan Kane and bitter Sweet, you'll
Speaker 1: find I love that. That's so cool. I hope everyone
Speaker 1: goes in downloads the place. That's that's great. I love that.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, question on before how would you define
Speaker 1: your current purpose? Yeah, telling the truth of what it's
Speaker 1: like to be alive, you know, like hopefully like and
Speaker 1: talking about the things that people don't feel like you
Speaker 1: can chit chat about at the grocery store, but the
Speaker 1: things that matter the most. That's beautiful. I love that.
Speaker 1: And fifth and final question, if you could create one
Speaker 1: law that everyone in the world had to follow, what
Speaker 1: would it be. I don't know what to say, because
Speaker 1: I'll tell you the very first thing that I thought
Speaker 1: of is be kind But I'm really I'm resisting that
Speaker 1: only because I think that when you start mandating or
Speaker 1: regulating kindness, that's often like the road to hell. So
Speaker 1: it is my highest value, but I don't like to
Speaker 1: associate it with law or you know, or a compulsion.
Speaker 1: It has to come from a different source than that. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: absolutely well, Susan, thank you so much for your time,
Speaker 1: your energy, your presence in this conversation, your vulnerability, and
Speaker 1: for everyone who's been listening and watching. I hope you
Speaker 1: go and grab a copy of Bitter Sweet, How Sorrow
Speaker 1: and Longing Make Us Whole. We will put the link
Speaker 1: to this in the caption in the comments. Please please
Speaker 1: please go and grab a copy of the book. If
Speaker 1: you enjoy today's conversation, if you want to learn more
Speaker 1: about how to deal with loss, how to deal with sorry,
Speaker 1: how to deal with pain in the workplace, in your
Speaker 1: life when you're seeing it all around you, And the
Speaker 1: book evolves into the conversation we actually started, which is
Speaker 1: also dealing with death and loss in that way. So
Speaker 1: I really hope that you enjoyed this conversation, Susan, and
Speaker 1: I would love to see what resonated with you, what
Speaker 1: connected with you, So please do tag us on Instagram,
Speaker 1: on Twitter, or on Facebook, on whatever platform you use.
Speaker 1: Please do let us know what were the insights that
Speaker 1: you're going to practice or remember, what's going to change
Speaker 1: the way you think about something. And I'm hoping that
Speaker 1: this episode makes you reach out to someone and say,
Speaker 1: how you doing? How are you doing? Really? What is
Speaker 1: it that I don't know about you? What is this
Speaker 1: something that we haven't spoken about in a while? So
Speaker 1: please do share this conversation with the loved one as well, Susan,
Speaker 1: any last words or anything you'd like to share with
Speaker 1: our community. No, I mean, thank you so much for
Speaker 1: having me so wonderful and unique to talk to you,
Speaker 1: and I don't know to the community. I guess I would.
Speaker 1: I'll repeat something I said from the very beginning, but
Speaker 1: it really is to me. One of the biggest takeaways
Speaker 1: of this whole quest that I've been on for these
Speaker 1: past seven years of writing this book is the idea
Speaker 1: of that whatever pain you can't get rid of, make
Speaker 1: that you're creative offering that. Yeah, and I hope that
Speaker 1: we can stay attached through social media. And I have
Speaker 1: a newsletter which is Susan Kane dot net. You can
Speaker 1: find it. But yeah, this has just been wonderful to
Speaker 1: spend this time. So thank you. Yeah, and I love that.
Speaker 1: I'm so glad you ended on that, Susan. I think
Speaker 1: that's such a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, practical, actionable takeaway for
Speaker 1: all of us is any pain we're going through, turned
Speaker 1: it into something creative, turned it into something beautiful, turned
Speaker 1: in to something transformative for yourself and others. So, Susan,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for your time. Thank you so
Speaker 1: much for being here, and for everyone who's been listening
Speaker 1: and watching. I appreciate you. I'm grateful to you, and
Speaker 1: I hope you'll pass this on to someone else as well.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much.