Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the Psychology Podcast with doctor Scott
Speaker 1: Barry Kaufman, where we give you insights into the mind, brain, behavior,
Speaker 1: and creativity. Each episode will feature a new guest who
Speaker 1: will stimulate your mind and give you a greater understanding
Speaker 1: of yourself, others, and the world we live in. Hopefully
Speaker 1: we'll also provide a glimpse into human possibility. Thanks for
Speaker 1: listening and enjoy the podcast. Now, I'm really excited to
Speaker 1: introduce my guest, Susan David. Susan is an award winning
Speaker 1: psychologist on the faculty of Harvard Medical School. She's a
Speaker 1: co founder and co director for the Institute of Coaching
Speaker 1: at the McLean Hospital, and she's the author of the
Speaker 1: number one Wall Street Journal best selling book Emotional Agility,
Speaker 1: Get Unstuck, Embrace Change, and Thrive in Work in Life.
Speaker 1: Susan David, it's so great to have you on the podcast.
Speaker 1: It is great to be here. Thank you for inviting me.
Speaker 1: I've been willing to chat with you for a really
Speaker 1: long time. I'm a great admirer of your work and
Speaker 1: you as a person as well. You know, I hear
Speaker 1: a bit of an accent from you. Where are you from?
Speaker 1: I am originally from South Africa, but I've lived in Australia,
Speaker 1: New Zealand, backpacked around the world for two years, and
Speaker 1: I am now in Boston, So it's not a simple accent. Yeah. Sure,
Speaker 1: And your early childhood experiences certainly shaped a lot of
Speaker 1: the research you do today, right and sort of your
Speaker 1: own theories. Absolutely so. I grew up in a party
Speaker 1: South Africa, and while I was a white South African
Speaker 1: and therefore not subject to so much of the cruelty
Speaker 1: and trauma as so many of my fellow South Africans,
Speaker 1: it was nonetheless a time of great chaos, and so
Speaker 1: from a very early age I became interested in this
Speaker 1: key question, what does it take internally in the way
Speaker 1: we deal with our thoughts, emotions and our stories that
Speaker 1: ultimately helps us to thrive in a world that is
Speaker 1: complex and difficult and often unpredictable, which, as we all
Speaker 1: know even today, you know, no matter where people are located,
Speaker 1: the world is very much like that for pretty much
Speaker 1: all of us, absolutely, and when we're really young that
Speaker 1: unpredictability often triggers anxiety and fear, but it doesn't have
Speaker 1: to trigger anxiety and fear. As we become mature adults. Right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know it's interesting. I mean I just remember from
Speaker 1: a very early age just becoming very curious about these ideas,
Speaker 1: and you know, as you speak to you know, when
Speaker 1: I was slightly older, when I was fifteen, my father
Speaker 1: was diagnosed with terminal cancer, and I experienced so much
Speaker 1: of I think what so many of us do, which
Speaker 1: is people saying, you know, just be happy, just be positive,
Speaker 1: Everything will be okay, everything will be fine. What I
Speaker 1: readness from that experience is that when one goes to difficulty,
Speaker 1: and when one shows up to difficulty and process it effectively,
Speaker 1: that ultimately that can shape a life that feels resilient
Speaker 1: and connected and sometimes richer. Yeah. And I noticed in
Speaker 1: that whole description you didn't use the word happiness once.
Speaker 1: Can you tell me a little bit what the paradox
Speaker 1: of happiness is? Yeah. So I explore this in my
Speaker 1: book Emotional Agility, which is this idea that we live
Speaker 1: in a culture that effectively tells us to be happy.
Speaker 1: We live in a culture that tells us that, no
Speaker 1: matter what's going on in the world around us, that
Speaker 1: if we simply think positive and even if we chase happiness,
Speaker 1: you know, there's so many books, and every which way
Speaker 1: we turn we find information on how we can become happier.
Speaker 1: And so there's so much in the world that tells
Speaker 1: us that chasing happiness and thinking in a way that
Speaker 1: is positive ultimately is what will help us to be happier.
Speaker 1: And yet what I found in my experience, and part
Speaker 1: of this was a very personal experience, and I'll share
Speaker 1: with listeners a little bit about what this was, which is,
Speaker 1: I remember when my father was diagnosed with cancer, and
Speaker 1: I had this very odd situation where I then went
Speaker 1: to school and so many of my peers felt uncomfortable
Speaker 1: with the fact that they knew that my father was
Speaker 1: dying and then dead, and so they dropped all discussion
Speaker 1: about their own fathers from there every day, you know,
Speaker 1: from conversations and so on, and so there was this
Speaker 1: massive avoidance that went on on the one hand, where
Speaker 1: people were basically suggesting that if we just thought positive,
Speaker 1: felt positive, things would be fine. And then I had
Speaker 1: this remarkable, remind pockable English teacher, and she knew what
Speaker 1: was going on for me, and she invited us the
Speaker 1: whole class, to keep journals, and so I engaged in
Speaker 1: what effectively became a secret, silent correspondence with this incredible
Speaker 1: woman where every day I would write about my experience
Speaker 1: and seeing my father dying and the sense of loss
Speaker 1: and regret and guilt and all of the things that
Speaker 1: comes with it, and this woman writing back to me
Speaker 1: asking how are you and helping me to process. And
Speaker 1: what I realized afterwards is it was that it was
Speaker 1: the showing up to my emotion, It was the labeling
Speaker 1: of my emotion. It was the experiencing the experience that
Speaker 1: ultimately helped me to get through it and to be resilient.
Speaker 1: That makes a lot of sense. Do you think any
Speaker 1: part of it has to do with your personality as well? Like,
Speaker 1: are there people who maybe are just naturally because their
Speaker 1: sunny disposition or whatever, you know, gravitate more towards happiness
Speaker 1: as a way of coping. I just wonder that. I
Speaker 1: don't know if that's true. I'm just wondering. Look, I'm
Speaker 1: sure and certainly my research, I mean in emotions research
Speaker 1: about background, and but I trained as a clinical psychologist,
Speaker 1: and you know, as we know, they're different personality genetic
Speaker 1: predispositions that have come together in particular ways. But I
Speaker 1: do feel that a lot of the societal discourse around
Speaker 1: happiness is actually ultimately making us less resilient and more
Speaker 1: avoidant of the reality of our lives. And so, you know,
Speaker 1: I recently had a very interesting and very sad conversation
Speaker 1: with a friend of mine who had been diagnosed with
Speaker 1: stage four breast cancer, and she said to me, it's
Speaker 1: the tyranny of positivity. She said to me, if it
Speaker 1: was just a case of being positive and thinking positive,
Speaker 1: all of the friends in my stage for breast cancer
Speaker 1: support group would be alive today. They are the most
Speaker 1: positive people that I knew. And by everyone telling us
Speaker 1: just be positive, everything will be fine, what that somehow
Speaker 1: does is it actually makes me feel culpable in my
Speaker 1: own debt that I somehow couldn't think my way out
Speaker 1: of it, that I wasn't positive enough to bring good
Speaker 1: energy and good experiences, you know, all the secret to
Speaker 1: my world. And so I do think that, yes, there's
Speaker 1: genetic differences, there are many different things that we know,
Speaker 1: but I also think that there is a cultural discourse
Speaker 1: very often around positive thinking and happiness that doesn't necessarily
Speaker 1: serve us. And this woman's experience, she died recently, and
Speaker 1: she said to me, my experience of people saying to me,
Speaker 1: just think positive. What that did is it took away
Speaker 1: from the authenticity of my experience and the ability for
Speaker 1: me to be in a real way with the people
Speaker 1: that I loved, because I felt that if I was
Speaker 1: scared or fearful, that somehow I was letting people down. Wow,
Speaker 1: that's pretty powerful, and I know that that way of
Speaker 1: that story, it really resonates a lot of people. I've
Speaker 1: seen you in some of your articles right about it
Speaker 1: and gets a lot of views. So there's definitely something
Speaker 1: in this that's resonating with people. And maybe a lot
Speaker 1: of people are fed up with positivity. They're working for
Speaker 1: something deeper. Yeah, I mean, And just to be clear,
Speaker 1: I'm not anti happiness. I actually I am. Are you No,
Speaker 1: I'm joking. I'm joking. I'm just you know, I'm a
Speaker 1: happy person, and I you know, I mean. I wrote
Speaker 1: an end to end, or edited an end to end
Speaker 1: eighty chapter handbook called the Oxford Handbook of Happiness. I'm
Speaker 1: very interested in the ideas of what ultimately helps people
Speaker 1: to be happier. But you know what's written fascinating is
Speaker 1: that when we have a discourse that basically says your
Speaker 1: happiness is completely in your control. What that also does
Speaker 1: is it takes away from our societal responsibility. If you've
Speaker 1: got someone who is traveling two hours a day to
Speaker 1: get to and from work, because that's the only viable
Speaker 1: job away from that person's home, if that place that
Speaker 1: that individual lives is not supported by public transportation and
Speaker 1: by other you know, suddenly this individual is traveling four
Speaker 1: hours a day, which is not unheard of. And you know,
Speaker 1: would that person over a year, two years, three years
Speaker 1: be impacted with their well being impacted of course. And
Speaker 1: so when we start to almost imply that if someone's miserable,
Speaker 1: it's because they haven't been able to think their way
Speaker 1: out of it, that happiness is simply a choice, what
Speaker 1: it does is it abrogates our societal responsibility to also
Speaker 1: think about how our social policies, and our transportation policies,
Speaker 1: and our educational policies can and do, in very real
Speaker 1: ways impact on people's well being. That was very well said.
Speaker 1: Thank you. What do you make of happy people? I mean,
Speaker 1: it seems like happy people are, you know, taking the
Speaker 1: flip side, people who do seem to be happy on
Speaker 1: average in their lives, but doesn't seem to be something
Speaker 1: terribly tied up with a lot of the things we
Speaker 1: think that it would be, like money, or social status
Speaker 1: or lots of other things. You know, when you edited
Speaker 1: this Oxford Handbook of Happy is, what are some key
Speaker 1: things you learned from that book before we dive into
Speaker 1: your emotional agility work. Well, for example, one of these
Speaker 1: being how our social policies and how in many ways
Speaker 1: in our society we have this idea that people can
Speaker 1: simply think their way to happiness. And I think that
Speaker 1: what that does, and certainly the work that I've done
Speaker 1: in emotions and in thinking is what it starts to
Speaker 1: suggest is that we over invest in the thoughts that
Speaker 1: we have, and we over invest in chasing happiness. Now,
Speaker 1: again I'm not anti happiness, but what the research is
Speaker 1: showing us is that people who overly strongly strive towards
Speaker 1: happiness as a goal, you know, they set themselves up
Speaker 1: and they want to be happier. What the research shows
Speaker 1: us over time is that those individuals actually become less
Speaker 1: happy over time. So happiness is something that really comes
Speaker 1: from firstly being able to be with ourselves in particular ways,
Speaker 1: and that's something that I explore an emotion mobility in
Speaker 1: ways that are real, compassionate, courageous, curious, that allow us
Speaker 1: to be able to be with the fullness of all
Speaker 1: our emotions, not just the ones that feel good. And
Speaker 1: then secondly, we know that people who land up being
Speaker 1: happy over time individuals who pursue activities that are intrinsically
Speaker 1: valuable to them and values aligned, rather than I'm trying
Speaker 1: to buy a new house because it's going to make
Speaker 1: me happy. Definitely, Dove tell's the research I've seen as well.
Speaker 1: Thanks for explaining that. So what is emotional agility and
Speaker 1: why is it a better way forward than happiness? So
Speaker 1: one of the key questions that I've been interested in
Speaker 1: my work and particularly in writing emotional agility is this,
Speaker 1: what does it take internally in the way we deal
Speaker 1: with our fortside emotions and our stories that enable us
Speaker 1: to thrive in the world, in the world not as
Speaker 1: we wish it to be, but the world as it is,
Speaker 1: which is often complex and where life's fragility and beauty
Speaker 1: are bound up in one another. You know, we're young
Speaker 1: until we're not. We in jobs, we love until we aren't.
Speaker 1: We have hopes and dreams, and some of those don't
Speaker 1: work out, and so I was really interested in these ideas.
Speaker 1: You know, what does it take internally in terms of
Speaker 1: how we work with and be with our solves that
Speaker 1: ultimately help us to thrive. And so emotional agility is
Speaker 1: effectively the ability to be with our solves in ways
Speaker 1: that are courageous, compassionate, and curious. And each of those
Speaker 1: components courage, compassion, and curiosity are key to emotional mobility.
Speaker 1: And then to ultimately be able to learn from our
Speaker 1: inner experience in ways that help us to forge a
Speaker 1: life that is values aligned, where we can learn from
Speaker 1: our difficulties, where we can learn from our emotions, and
Speaker 1: where we can take steps that are congruent with our values.
Speaker 1: So what's the ultimate goal of emotional agility then, So
Speaker 1: the goal of emotional agility is not to be happier.
Speaker 1: Happiness often will come as a byproduct when you are
Speaker 1: with your self in a way that is compassionate, curious,
Speaker 1: and courageous. But emotional agility is simply the ability to
Speaker 1: be effectively with yourself. And the goal then is or
Speaker 1: not really a goal per se, But the end point
Speaker 1: is that one is able to live life in a
Speaker 1: way that is congruant with who one wants to be
Speaker 1: in the world, with the life that you want to have,
Speaker 1: truly based on your values and based on what's important
Speaker 1: to you. So it's not about, oh, my goodness, I
Speaker 1: want to be happier, Let me do all these things
Speaker 1: to get happier. It's much more that we know that
Speaker 1: people who live fulfilling lives are people who are able
Speaker 1: to everyday act in ways that feel congruant with their
Speaker 1: innermost values, with their innermost heart beat. And so if
Speaker 1: we can be with our thoughts and emotions in ways
Speaker 1: that allow us to do that, we ultimately will be
Speaker 1: able to take steps forward in parenting more effectively, and
Speaker 1: leading more effectively, and in forging our careers and so on.
Speaker 1: That sounds great. I just thought of something in my
Speaker 1: head while you were talking. Shouldn't a part of emotional
Speaker 1: agility be also being flexible in your values? Shouldn't we
Speaker 1: be flexible in terms of like being able to be like,
Speaker 1: you know, what my value is different from your values?
Speaker 1: Maybe I should entertain your opinion. Well, so I think
Speaker 1: the two aspects to this personally, there's the evolution of
Speaker 1: one's own values, and I do talk about this very
Speaker 1: significantly in where I talk about, for example, when to
Speaker 1: grit and when to quit. Oh, yeah, I have my
Speaker 1: list to talk to you about. Yeah. The idea that
Speaker 1: you know, sometimes what can happen is we can grow
Speaker 1: up and we have a sense of what our values are,
Speaker 1: and then you know, ten or fifteen years down the line,
Speaker 1: we realize that our values have evolved, We have evolved,
Speaker 1: the context has evolved. And so a very very important
Speaker 1: part of emotional agility is the idea that we have
Speaker 1: a sense of what our core values are and it's
Speaker 1: important to move in the direction of those values. But
Speaker 1: we also shouldn't become so hooked on those values that
Speaker 1: those values then start to hold us back and constrain us.
Speaker 1: So I very much, in my approach, have this view
Speaker 1: that values are fundamental, but that they shouldn't dominate us,
Speaker 1: and we should actually evolve and embrace the changing of
Speaker 1: our values over time as well. Absolutely, and I love
Speaker 1: that section in your book about grit. I suppose I
Speaker 1: interpreted that section more about goals than values, because you
Speaker 1: say explicitly that values are different than goals, and people
Speaker 1: who are in the grid space are soon to be
Speaker 1: obsessed with goals. Has been my experience. But what you
Speaker 1: just said just now makes a lot of sense, and
Speaker 1: I really appreciate you seeing that. Yeah, thank you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it's a really important part. I mean, when
Speaker 1: we think even about the values that we grow up with,
Speaker 1: you know what starts to happen is we start to
Speaker 1: develop what is called clients, which is that our parents
Speaker 1: have a particular value, and we then develop that value
Speaker 1: because our parents have that value. And then over time
Speaker 1: we start recognizing that our maybe even once deeply whold value,
Speaker 1: is no longer something that we feel as connected with.
Speaker 1: And so a really important part of emotional agility is
Speaker 1: being able to embrace the world and ourselves as changing
Speaker 1: and evolving human beings. And when we're able to do that,
Speaker 1: we are able to bring ourselves in ways that are
Speaker 1: much more authentic and connected to our experiences. So a
Speaker 1: lot of this sounds related to acceptance and commitment therapy.
Speaker 1: I was wondering if you were influenced at all by
Speaker 1: that perspective and sort of what connections there are between
Speaker 1: the idea of emotional agility and some of the core
Speaker 1: principles of ACT therapy. So very much so. My background
Speaker 1: is as a clinical psychologist and a lot of the
Speaker 1: work that I did originally was in ACT, so very
Speaker 1: you know, a lot of the ideas in ACT around
Speaker 1: self compassion about not trying to think of thoughts as
Speaker 1: you know, wrong or right, but they just are being
Speaker 1: able to notice our thoughts and our emotions and being
Speaker 1: able to be values and answer. A lot of that
Speaker 1: is very heavily influenced by ACT. And then beyond that,
Speaker 1: a lot of my work is also really influenced by
Speaker 1: much of the research in emotions emotion regulation. What if
Speaker 1: emotion regulation actually looks like? And how to bring effective
Speaker 1: emotion regulation to the context that we face every day,
Speaker 1: you know, when we with our spouse and our relationships
Speaker 1: in our parenting, at work, what are typical ways that
Speaker 1: we might deal with our difficult experiences, for example, pushing
Speaker 1: those emotions aside or dwelling on them. And then how
Speaker 1: might they not actually be serving us? How much those strategies,
Speaker 1: when used in characteristic ways, not serve us? Like it?
Speaker 1: I like it. I can get behind this approach. It
Speaker 1: does seem like emotion regulation is huge, and it does
Speaker 1: seem like emotion regulation is one of the primary factors
Speaker 1: underlining every single form of psychopathology. Maybe not the thought
Speaker 1: disorders as much, but even the thought disorders a little bit.
Speaker 1: But if you look at you know, the emotional mood
Speaker 1: disorders and I mean, motion regulation is just such an
Speaker 1: important core of a lot of mental illness in society
Speaker 1: as well as mental wellness. Yeah, I mean, emotion regulation
Speaker 1: is just so fundamental. And again to what we were
Speaker 1: talking about earlier is that a lot of the societal
Speaker 1: narrative doesn't really help in this respect. A lot of
Speaker 1: the societal narrative tells us to push difficulty emotions aside,
Speaker 1: or you know, we should just be happy, and so
Speaker 1: a lot of times I think, you know, one of
Speaker 1: the things that I explore an emotional augidity is even
Speaker 1: in raising children, we often, with the very best of intentions,
Speaker 1: will when our child comes home from school and says,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm really sad no one would play with me,
Speaker 1: we often, with very good intentions, jump in what I
Speaker 1: call emotional helicoptering, and you know, said our child, don't worry,
Speaker 1: I'll play with you, or let's go back cupcakes. And
Speaker 1: what I'm really interested in is how, even from a
Speaker 1: very young age, we can teach our children that emotions
Speaker 1: are to be feared or emotions are to be pushed aside.
Speaker 1: And what this often does is it takes away from
Speaker 1: the child's ability to learn. Rarely really call emotion regulation
Speaker 1: skills that ultimately are fundamental to self regulation in general.
Speaker 1: Resilience writ almost every attribute that we see that is
Speaker 1: critical from an educational perspective, you see the makings of
Speaker 1: that in how the child is able to ultimately regulate
Speaker 1: or not his or her emotions. So, breaking down these
Speaker 1: different aspects of becoming an emotionally agile individual, one of
Speaker 1: the first steps is we tend to get hooked on
Speaker 1: our thoughts. I was wondering if you could tell me
Speaker 1: what are some common hooks, and then how can we
Speaker 1: get unhooked? Sure? Absolutely, so the idea of being hooked
Speaker 1: is really that our thoughts and emotions and the stories
Speaker 1: that we tell ourselves. So for example, thoughts like I'm
Speaker 1: not good enough or I'm not cut out for that job,
Speaker 1: emotions things like sadness, fear stories, larger stories of you know,
Speaker 1: I'm not deserving of love, or I would really love
Speaker 1: to be involved in this particular career, but actually I
Speaker 1: don't think that I've got what it takes. So we
Speaker 1: all have these thoughts, emotions, stories, and there's nothing wrong
Speaker 1: with them. Again, you know, society tells us that we
Speaker 1: need to think positive thoughts because our thoughts make us,
Speaker 1: But we have tens of thousands of thoughts every day,
Speaker 1: and that's our brains just doing the job that our
Speaker 1: brands were evolved to do, which is try to protect
Speaker 1: us and look after us. And the same goes for
Speaker 1: our emotions. So what I talk about in emotional augidity
Speaker 1: is the idea that these thoughts, emotions, and stories there's
Speaker 1: nothing inherently wrong with them. However, what can start to
Speaker 1: happen is they can start to dominate our actions in
Speaker 1: ways that our values incongruent. So, for example, my husband's
Speaker 1: about to start in on the finances, I'm just going
Speaker 1: to leave the room. So even if my value is
Speaker 1: having a clean relationship with that person, and I know
Speaker 1: that actually coming to a place of honesty around our
Speaker 1: finance is important, I might let my thought, my emotion,
Speaker 1: my story drive me. Or I would really love to
Speaker 1: partake in this particular career, but I'm just not going
Speaker 1: to try because there's no point. So there's nothing hearing
Speaker 1: be wrong in these thoughts, emotion, stories, but when they
Speaker 1: start to dominate our actions in ways that take us
Speaker 1: away from our values, that's when we are hooked. That
Speaker 1: is the idea of being hooked. So we caught like
Speaker 1: a fish on the line, and I'm able to get free.
Speaker 1: So I talk about this idea and you know, really
Speaker 1: really lovely within this is that listeners will have heard.
Speaker 1: Is this beautiful idea from a Victor frankl This idea
Speaker 1: that between stimulus and response there is a space and
Speaker 1: in that space is our power to choose. And it's
Speaker 1: in that choice that comes our growth and freedom. So
Speaker 1: when we are hooked, there's no space between stimulus and response.
Speaker 1: I think or I feel, and I act. And the
Speaker 1: different process is very very practical that I talk about
Speaker 1: an emotional mogidity. Are processes that are key to enabling
Speaker 1: us to get off the hook and to ultimately be
Speaker 1: effective with ourselves in situations that are important to us
Speaker 1: in every aspect of how we love, live, parent, and lead. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So you mentioned the stepping out stage a little bit
Speaker 1: already as a way to get unhooked, So I guess
Speaker 1: that's the way of getting hooked. It's all very Buddhist,
Speaker 1: by the way, Yeah, and a lot of background, and
Speaker 1: of course a lot of a lot of therapies for example,
Speaker 1: DBT act and so on. There is because emotion regulation
Speaker 1: is a core aspect of a lot of those therapeutic approaches,
Speaker 1: and of course in Buddhism, there is a particular approach
Speaker 1: to noticing our emotions and thoughts as emotions and thoughts.
Speaker 1: In other words, our emotions are data, not directions, and
Speaker 1: being able to notice that and recognize that is fundamental.
Speaker 1: One of the things that I talk about in emotional
Speaker 1: agility is the idea of what I call showing up,
Speaker 1: and what I mean by showing up is the idea
Speaker 1: that we so often enter into space with ourselves where
Speaker 1: we say things like I'm unhappy in my job, but
Speaker 1: at least I've got a job, so let me just
Speaker 1: forge forward, or you know, I've got this thought, but
Speaker 1: I shouldn't have it, And so we spend so much
Speaker 1: time often either trying to push our thoughts, emotions, and
Speaker 1: stories aside, or we hold onto them so tightly in
Speaker 1: a ruminative way, and neither of those can be helpful
Speaker 1: because all of them basically use a whole lot of
Speaker 1: cognitive resource to work with. What just is there. And
Speaker 1: so a core part of what I talk about when
Speaker 1: I speak to this idea of showing up is to
Speaker 1: enter into the space of willingness with oneself where we
Speaker 1: can open our hearts to the fact that you know,
Speaker 1: when my dad was dying, I felt regret or I
Speaker 1: felt guilt, and that those emotions are what fundamentally helped
Speaker 1: to make us whole and rich as human beings, and
Speaker 1: that even beyond that, we can often beneath our difficulty,
Speaker 1: emotions are signals to things that we care about. If
Speaker 1: someone is feeling guilty because they're traveling too much from
Speaker 1: their kids, that emotion, that feeling of guilt is a
Speaker 1: sign that you know what is important to you is
Speaker 1: presence and connectedness, or if you upset that you ideal
Speaker 1: was stolen. At work underneath that emotion is often a
Speaker 1: core value, which is about equity and fairness. And so
Speaker 1: instead of moving into a space where we grappling with them,
Speaker 1: trying to push stuff aside, if we can instead show
Speaker 1: up to that and do this simplest but least expected thing,
Speaker 1: and that is nothing. In other words, my thoughts and
Speaker 1: my emotions just are, and I can be with them
Speaker 1: in ways that are curious and compassionate. Then what that
Speaker 1: does is it gives me so much more energy and
Speaker 1: space to think about how I want to shape the
Speaker 1: situation effectively. Where does this put cognitive behavioral therapy then?
Speaker 1: Because now there's mindful cognitive MCBT, which I've talked to
Speaker 1: Tim Beck about and he seems to like. But where
Speaker 1: does the original cogniti your therapy stand Like? Is there
Speaker 1: still value in cognitively identifying your cognitive distortions and trying
Speaker 1: to actively work on changing the meaning and interpretation of
Speaker 1: them and stuff? So it's it's I mean, the literature
Speaker 1: on this is fairly complex, and of course there's almost
Speaker 1: no pure, pure CBT, you know, there's so many at
Speaker 1: this point different aspects of CBT, ones that integrate mindfulness
Speaker 1: and ones that integrate different philosophies around these types of things.
Speaker 1: But one of the things that I do find really
Speaker 1: interesting when it comes to this question is when you
Speaker 1: do look at this idea of trying to, for example,
Speaker 1: push our thoughts and emotions aside, you know, do away
Speaker 1: with those thoughts and emotions, what we do start to
Speaker 1: see is an amplification effect. So this idea that when
Speaker 1: we push our difficult thoughts and emotions, aside that those
Speaker 1: thoughts and emotions actually boomerang back. You know, we try
Speaker 1: not to think of chocolate cake because we are on
Speaker 1: a diet and we dream of chocolate cake, and so
Speaker 1: in the emotion regulation literature, what becomes really interesting is
Speaker 1: when this process is happening, So when people are doing
Speaker 1: what we call early intervening strategies around their thoughts and
Speaker 1: their emotions. So for example, you know, I'm upset with
Speaker 1: this person, but let me perspective, take what do I
Speaker 1: think they feeling? Or where are they coming from? And
Speaker 1: so this is what we call an early intervening strategy.
Speaker 1: It's early on in the timeline, if you like, around
Speaker 1: this difficult thought and emotion. And I use that as
Speaker 1: just one example that kind of navigating thoughts and looking
Speaker 1: for meaning an interpretation early on tends to be more successful. However,
Speaker 1: when we are late intervening. So for example, I'm already
Speaker 1: fully angry, really upset, really dissatisfied with this particular situation,
Speaker 1: and now I'm just going to try to rationalize my
Speaker 1: way out of it or to not think about it.
Speaker 1: We know that those late intervening strategies tend to be
Speaker 1: less less effective, and of course you know with CBT,
Speaker 1: their data showing CBT can be very effective for some
Speaker 1: aspects but not necessarily for others. So the literature is
Speaker 1: complex on this. But what's really just fascinating is I
Speaker 1: think this mergence and emergence of being able to think
Speaker 1: about our inner world in very different ways that maybe
Speaker 1: you know, ten or fifteen or twenty years ago were
Speaker 1: much more purest. But certainly, you know, the approach via
Speaker 1: ACT is not an approach where one spends a lot
Speaker 1: of time trying to dispute a thought. It isn't no, no,
Speaker 1: trying to push the thought aside. It's much more about
Speaker 1: noticing the thought with compassion, recognizing the thought, recognizing the
Speaker 1: humanity of the fact that you've had something that feels difficult,
Speaker 1: and then making choices that are values aligned. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: but as you said, the research literature is comp and
Speaker 1: I think the jury is out on which approach of
Speaker 1: therapy is most of you know, that's an empirical question.
Speaker 1: I've seen research showing that CBT is about as effective
Speaker 1: as ACT. They're kind of on par when it comes
Speaker 1: to certain things, you know, anxiety, depression, But you know,
Speaker 1: CBT is more helpful. The thing with mindfulness based CBT,
Speaker 1: which is becoming a little bit a bit hot. It's
Speaker 1: a bit hot these days. It seems like anything that
Speaker 1: has mindfulness in it is hot these days, is what
Speaker 1: I've noticed. Everyone jumps on that bandwagon. The thing with
Speaker 1: mindfulness based CBT is that it's if you show up
Speaker 1: enough in your model, you know, the showing up part.
Speaker 1: If you show up enough, you start to see these patterns,
Speaker 1: these cognitive distortions, and so showing up is very beneficial
Speaker 1: for eventually kind of noticing reoccurring patterns that maybe that
Speaker 1: knowledge of those cognitive distortions can be valuable and being
Speaker 1: able to recognize them. And I think it dovetails with
Speaker 1: your research and what you talk about about the parts
Speaker 1: of labeling your emotions. So I think these things is
Speaker 1: very compatible with each other. Absolutely, absolutely, And you know
Speaker 1: it is. I think when one looks at the principles
Speaker 1: around emotional augility, which is how do you create space
Speaker 1: between your thoughts and your emotions and actions? So how
Speaker 1: do you create that space and how do you then
Speaker 1: allow yourself and enable yourself to act in ways that
Speaker 1: are ultimately you know, values a larned and congruent with
Speaker 1: the person that you want to be. If you are
Speaker 1: constantly in a space where you are pushing aside, jostling,
Speaker 1: arguing with yourself, rationalizing with yourself, you often aren't entering
Speaker 1: into a space with yourself where you're saying, what is
Speaker 1: this emotion telling me? You know, this emotion is telling
Speaker 1: me that I'm less secure in my job than I
Speaker 1: thought I was. What is like? What is this emotion
Speaker 1: telling me? Again? Our emotions are data, not directions. You know,
Speaker 1: who's in charge the think Who are the thought? Who's
Speaker 1: in charge the emotion? Or me the person who can
Speaker 1: feel the emotion and still make choices. But when we
Speaker 1: enter into space with ourselves, that's noticing and accepting. We
Speaker 1: able to use that going forward. So we recognize the
Speaker 1: patterns we get into, as you mentioned, we notice that
Speaker 1: they're particular things that trip us up. We notice that
Speaker 1: there's specific times when we get defensive. Because now instead
Speaker 1: of getting defensive and getting hooked into the space, we
Speaker 1: can observe the thought. We can notice the doesn't it
Speaker 1: ever get a can't mindfulness get exhausting too? Though? Like
Speaker 1: if I'm constantly like being mindful of all my thoughts
Speaker 1: are sometimes I just want to like just be, you know,
Speaker 1: sometimes I just want to like skydive. I don't want
Speaker 1: to like, oh, let me be, let me think about
Speaker 1: you know, can't that get exhausting too? So just to
Speaker 1: be clear, in emotional agility, I talk about this idea,
Speaker 1: you know, I talk about this fact that like a
Speaker 1: lot of people will promote mindfulness as the you know,
Speaker 1: absolute panasier to everything, and you've got to brush your
Speaker 1: teeth mindfully, and you've got to puff mindfully, and you know,
Speaker 1: you've got to do all these things, and I you know,
Speaker 1: number one, that's exhausting. Number two, you know, we don't
Speaker 1: actually know from an empirical perspective that being mindful all
Speaker 1: the time twenty four seven is actually helpful. So what
Speaker 1: I'm talking about is a very very specific type of mindfulness.
Speaker 1: I'm talking about that when you are hooked, when you're
Speaker 1: noticing yourself so trapped, so crawling into a story, that
Speaker 1: that story has started to become a prison around you,
Speaker 1: that it started to own you. That it's often around
Speaker 1: those more difficult thoughts and emotions and stories that mindfulness
Speaker 1: is helpful. So I talk about mindfulness in a very
Speaker 1: very specific way, and it's not the broad brushstroke, you know,
Speaker 1: mindfulness for everything type of approach. You know, I think
Speaker 1: that it gets fairly you know, ridiculous when you are
Speaker 1: taking the trash up monthly, of course, except for if
Speaker 1: it works for you. If it works for you, if
Speaker 1: it serves you, if it serves your life, if it
Speaker 1: helps you to live in ways that are more compatible
Speaker 1: with how you want to live, then that's helpful. So
Speaker 1: it's not a dogmatic approach. But what I very much
Speaker 1: talk about any emotional agility is the idea that it's
Speaker 1: mindfulness for a specific purpose. It's targeted mindfulness around our emotions,
Speaker 1: thoughts and stories. That's great. And you I see another
Speaker 1: samary with cognitive heal therapy, and that's you know, what's
Speaker 1: the funk thing or what's the functional value of this?
Speaker 1: I mean it seems related to identifying cognitive distortions, right yeah,
Speaker 1: and the same that what the funk is both about
Speaker 1: our thoughts, but it's also about our emotions because so
Speaker 1: our emotions research about background. And what's really interesting is
Speaker 1: emotions have had bad press. I mean in manyeutic endeavors,
Speaker 1: emotions are seen as the very bad buy or end
Speaker 1: product of interventions, you know, we'll change our thinking and
Speaker 1: then we'll feel better. But as an emotions researcher, what
Speaker 1: I was really interested in is our emotions have evolved
Speaker 1: to help us as a species to survive. You know,
Speaker 1: it is really important that you recognize that the person
Speaker 1: who you thought was about to give you a bear
Speaker 1: hug is really about to attack you. And so this
Speaker 1: idea that we it happens to me all the time,
Speaker 1: all the time, all the time. So we again in society,
Speaker 1: we tend to treat emotions as these bad things, that
Speaker 1: these who were phenomenon that we need to push away.
Speaker 1: And yet our emotions have evolved to help us shape
Speaker 1: our lives. If I know what I feel guilty about
Speaker 1: and what the value is that is underneath that emotion.
Speaker 1: If I know that I'm upset because my idea was
Speaker 1: stolen at work and it's around issues of equity and fairness,
Speaker 1: what that ultimately helps me to do is to shape
Speaker 1: my world, to look for a new job, to be
Speaker 1: more present with my family. And so those emotions are fundamental,
Speaker 1: and this idea of what the funk is not only
Speaker 1: about our cognitions but also around what is the function
Speaker 1: of the emotion. What is the emotion trying to get me?
Speaker 1: And is that thing that it's trying to get me
Speaker 1: again serving me or not? Is it me avoidance? And
Speaker 1: actually that avoidance is taking me away from something that's fruitful. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: it sounds good. Before we move on, I want to
Speaker 1: ask you this. One of the things that I talk
Speaker 1: about in emotional geneity is this idea that we all
Speaker 1: ask subject to social contagion. So the idea that you know,
Speaker 1: you might be trying to lose weight, for example, and
Speaker 1: you in an aeroplane and your seat partner buys candy.
Speaker 1: We know statistically that around about thirty percent more likely
Speaker 1: to buy candy based on what your seat partner does,
Speaker 1: even if you don't know that person. So we all
Speaker 1: know that we all subject to social contagion. We see
Speaker 1: this in epidemiological studies around obesity and around depression, for example.
Speaker 1: And so one of the things that I explore in
Speaker 1: in this idea of values is that values are so
Speaker 1: often seen as being abstract let's just move on from them.
Speaker 1: And yet we know in values affirmation exercises, we know
Speaker 1: that when people spend even a little bit of time
Speaker 1: thinking very explicitly about why am I doing this? You know?
Speaker 1: Why am I a first generation college goer? Why am
Speaker 1: I a woman in a completely male dominated profession? Why
Speaker 1: is this thing important to me? We know that when
Speaker 1: people spend a little bit of time thinking about their
Speaker 1: values in an explicit way, that that protects them from
Speaker 1: social contagion. It protects them from the kind of biases
Speaker 1: that can actually become turned upon oneself. You know, I've
Speaker 1: got a set back at work and I'm a first
Speaker 1: generation you know, or I've failed a test and I'm
Speaker 1: a first generation college goer. We know that people are
Speaker 1: more likely to drop out of college at that point,
Speaker 1: But if they've done an exercise where they've thought about
Speaker 1: why am I at college to begin with, then it
Speaker 1: helps them to stay the course so very much. You know,
Speaker 1: value are seen as being cheesy. Oh I don't think
Speaker 1: they're cheesy. Yeah, but you know, think no. But often
Speaker 1: in businesses, you know, values are seen as being things
Speaker 1: on walls and businesses about what the company believes, what
Speaker 1: the organization believes. But what I talk about in emotional
Speaker 1: agility is how values are qualities of action. Every single day,
Speaker 1: we get to make moves that are towards or away
Speaker 1: from those values in really critical ways. I think that
Speaker 1: the values are, of course extremely important. But you talk
Speaker 1: about something interesting. You say that it's possible to have overcompetence. Yes,
Speaker 1: what in the world is what is that? And does
Speaker 1: it mean to be whelmed? So in emotional agility I
Speaker 1: explores then, you know, I've explore these four critical movements
Speaker 1: around emotional agility, showing up, stepping out, walking your wine,
Speaker 1: moving on, and in moving on that focus a lot
Speaker 1: on how our brands are wired for comfort. Our brands
Speaker 1: are to be in jobs that are predictable, be in
Speaker 1: relationships that are predictable, and even those relationships that we
Speaker 1: truly care about. You know, our child comes home from
Speaker 1: school and sometimes without even looking up from our cell phone,
Speaker 1: we'll say, how was your day, and my sixteen year
Speaker 1: old son, without looking up from his might say fine.
Speaker 1: And there's nothing inherently wrong in that, except if it's
Speaker 1: your precious interaction time that is day in and day out,
Speaker 1: day in and day out, then what you've gotten into
Speaker 1: is a habit that doesn't necessarily serve your values and
Speaker 1: serve the way you want to be in that relationship
Speaker 1: with that person. So in emotional agility. I talk about
Speaker 1: how as human beings, and we know this from the
Speaker 1: cognitive research, is that we so wirede for comfort, but
Speaker 1: sometimes in ways that don't serve us. And so I
Speaker 1: explore these different ideas that we don't want to be overcompetent.
Speaker 1: When we are overcompetent, where we can do our job
Speaker 1: with our eyes shut, or where we go out to
Speaker 1: dinner with our spouse and we know exactly what they're
Speaker 1: going to order and what the conversation is going to
Speaker 1: be about over dinner. Then what that's showing very often
Speaker 1: is a lack of growth in that particular sphere of
Speaker 1: our lives where we comfortable but not necessarily learning or growing.
Speaker 1: By the same token, we don't want to be over challenged,
Speaker 1: you know, we don't want to always be where do
Speaker 1: I stand in this relationship? Or oh my goodness, you know,
Speaker 1: have I got a job today? What's going on? So
Speaker 1: I talk very much about this idea of living to
Speaker 1: the edge of our ability, this state of wealm where
Speaker 1: you're not overwhelmed, you're not underwhelmed, you're just in the
Speaker 1: state of welm and moving towards the edge of ability.
Speaker 1: Often in practical terms, what that looks like is a
Speaker 1: greater level of breadth where you are doing doing new
Speaker 1: and different things for example with your partner, with your spouse,
Speaker 1: in your job, or greater levels of depth where you
Speaker 1: are exploring, you know, having new conversations. But again, this
Speaker 1: is not just for the sake of adding more to
Speaker 1: our lives. It's again these values in action coming here.
Speaker 1: It's like, is this thing with the life that I want? Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: I love that perspective. I mean, I think that's conducive
Speaker 1: to well being. You know, it's fundamental. It's fundamental to wellbeing.
Speaker 1: You know, there's all this work around job engagement, and
Speaker 1: I do a lot of job engagement and employee engagement,
Speaker 1: but this is fundamental to life engagement. You know, how
Speaker 1: do we stay connected with growth and journey in our
Speaker 1: lives in ways that are really fundamentally important to our
Speaker 1: flourishing and thriving. And now we come full circle because
Speaker 1: you can see very much that ultimately these processes are
Speaker 1: pivotal to flourishing and thriving and happiness, but a lot
Speaker 1: about setting those up as goals. Absolutely well. Then this
Speaker 1: actually obviously has applications for work and education. In the work,
Speaker 1: you hinted at this idea of job crafting. Just now
Speaker 1: you're talking about sort of setting up the conditions of
Speaker 1: who you want to be. So what does job crafting
Speaker 1: look like in the workplace? So job crafting in moving
Speaker 1: on again, I talk about how do we make these
Speaker 1: tiny tweaks to our habits that our values aligned. And
Speaker 1: one of the things that I find I'll work a
Speaker 1: lot with large organizations around people's strategy, and so in
Speaker 1: my day to day work, what I often come across
Speaker 1: is this idea that so often we think of changes,
Speaker 1: for example, a change in career or a change in job,
Speaker 1: as being something that needs to be major. You know,
Speaker 1: I need to give up everything and find something else.
Speaker 1: Very often for practical purposes, because you've got to put
Speaker 1: dinner on the table, or for other reasons, those means
Speaker 1: are neither desirable nor accessible. And yet we all can
Speaker 1: find ways that we can make tiny tweaks, values aligned
Speaker 1: changes to our job. So, for example, what this might
Speaker 1: look like is, you know, what are things that are
Speaker 1: gratifying to you that do connect with you in your job,
Speaker 1: but that you might not get an opportunity to do frequently?
Speaker 1: How do you put your hand up for those more,
Speaker 1: or you know, what are other relationships that you can pursue.
Speaker 1: So often in job crafting it's how do you change
Speaker 1: or can you find ways that you can tweak the
Speaker 1: actual structure of the tasks, or of the relationships or
Speaker 1: of the context itself. So you know who you interacting
Speaker 1: with or which meetings you go into. For example, you
Speaker 1: know you aren't in the sales department, and yet you
Speaker 1: really love connecting with ideas around sales, So how can
Speaker 1: you find ways that you can bring your expertise to
Speaker 1: a sales meeting? So I talk about this idea in
Speaker 1: very practical ways, but that ultimately again are incredibly beneficial
Speaker 1: to people because we know from psychology that you know,
Speaker 1: change is not an event, change is a process, and
Speaker 1: change so often comes about through making small but incredibly
Speaker 1: meaningful shifts to our day to day lives and habits. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, you do a really good job talking about that,
Speaker 1: about how we make these You call them tweaks, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: I call them tiny tweets. You know, all values aligned changes,
Speaker 1: and so that's relieving that they don't have to be
Speaker 1: these monumental life changes, but that these small tweaks add
Speaker 1: up and I think relate to this. Well, you already
Speaker 1: talked about that. We didn't call it the teeter titter principle,
Speaker 1: but you already talked about it when you're talking about
Speaker 1: overcompetence and growth aspects, so that seems to be related
Speaker 1: to that as well. I would like to end. We've
Speaker 1: chatted for so long, and I want to be respectful
Speaker 1: of your time. But education is like our area of
Speaker 1: mutual yes, one of our I think we have many
Speaker 1: areas of mutual interest. But it seems like your work
Speaker 1: has such strong implications for children. How can we raise
Speaker 1: emotionally agile children? So these are this is critical and
Speaker 1: I actually recently was interviewed for an article in the
Speaker 1: New York Times. If listeners are interested in just a
Speaker 1: quick read on this called Teaching your Child Emotional Agility,
Speaker 1: and I explore this in one full chapter in the book.
Speaker 1: And really the idea behind this is that again, we
Speaker 1: so often our kits have come home from school and
Speaker 1: that's set about something, and we can inadvertency do what
Speaker 1: we call teach display rules. We can teach our child
Speaker 1: that you know, when you angry, go to your room
Speaker 1: and come up when you've got a smile on your
Speaker 1: face or sadness is to be feared. And so when
Speaker 1: we do this, when we, with the best of intentions,
Speaker 1: rush in to save our children or to strip away
Speaker 1: difficult experiences, we also strip away their capacity to learn
Speaker 1: a couple of key things. Firstly, that emotions and thoughts pass.
Speaker 1: This is fundamental when we experience depression, our thoughts and
Speaker 1: emotions are here to stay. That is, you know, from
Speaker 1: an experiential perspective, often that is what it feels like.
Speaker 1: And yet a critical aspect of learning about thoughts and
Speaker 1: emotions is that they are transient. There can be value
Speaker 1: beneath them. They data, not directions, and they pass. So
Speaker 1: it's only when we allow our children to be with
Speaker 1: their difficult experiences that our children learn. Gee, I was
Speaker 1: feeling sad five minutes ago, but now I'm not sad
Speaker 1: any longer. So that's first, really very very important. Another
Speaker 1: aspect that's critical to raising emotionally agile children is helping
Speaker 1: our children at a very young age to label their emotions.
Speaker 1: So we know that at age two three years old,
Speaker 1: children have the ability to differentiate between sad versus mad.
Speaker 1: You know, are you sad now or you're feeling angry?
Speaker 1: And helping our children to label emotions turns out to
Speaker 1: be fundamentally important again to lifelong well being, because what
Speaker 1: this does is it helps them to develop the ability
Speaker 1: to notice an emotion, to observe that emotion, but to
Speaker 1: also see it for what it is, to basically be
Speaker 1: able to develop a meta view around the emotion. So
Speaker 1: they are these critical skills that are again very very practical,
Speaker 1: but extremely important to grit. You know, how do you
Speaker 1: persevere with something unless you're able to recognize your frustration,
Speaker 1: understand who you want to be in that frustration, and
Speaker 1: move forward. Critical to resilience, critical to well being, critical
Speaker 1: to lifelong success. And so I think these skills are fundamental,
Speaker 1: and of course there's skills that we can help both
Speaker 1: in education but also in day to day parenting, you know.
Speaker 1: And I always want to say, you know, I'm not
Speaker 1: the paragon of virtue with us. I give lots of
Speaker 1: examples of how I you know, that's okay with my
Speaker 1: own children, because of course, as parents or teachers or educators,
Speaker 1: we are just trying to do the best we can.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, And I think that that's really important
Speaker 1: to recognize them and notice as well well that was
Speaker 1: a very authentic comment you made, so I appreciate it
Speaker 1: and vulnerable comment. Do you do talk about the importance
Speaker 1: of autonomy and encouraging autonomy and children as well? Do
Speaker 1: you want to give maybe one or two ways you
Speaker 1: can encourage autonomy? Yeah, absolutely, So encouraging autonomy is really critical.
Speaker 1: We again in education and even you know creeps in
Speaker 1: in different ways in parenting is we so often become
Speaker 1: focused on extrinsic markers for success. So you know, if
Speaker 1: you peer in the potty, I'll give you five prizes,
Speaker 1: and if you know, I'll give you EM and MS
Speaker 1: and you know standard US testing and so there's this
Speaker 1: whole world in children that effectively gets structured around extrinsic validation.
Speaker 1: And what is really actually fundamental is that the child
Speaker 1: learns to recognize his or her own Why who am I?
Speaker 1: Who do I want to be in the world? What
Speaker 1: can I be proud of? And again, just to be clear,
Speaker 1: I'm not saying, you know, giving your child a treat,
Speaker 1: as you know, there's new ones around us that's really
Speaker 1: really important. But there are a couple of ways that
Speaker 1: we know we can encourage our child's autonomy. So firstly,
Speaker 1: wherever possible to give them a choice wherever possible, give
Speaker 1: them a choice. Where we can't give them a choice,
Speaker 1: wherever possible, give them a rational So, for example, with
Speaker 1: my three year old daughter, I don't give her a
Speaker 1: choice as to whether she wants to cross the road
Speaker 1: by herself or holding my hat, because that is an
Speaker 1: issue of safety. But a rationale around you know, cars
Speaker 1: can see me but they can't see you helps the
Speaker 1: child to develop a sense of the reasoning behind decisions.
Speaker 1: And then another aspect of autonomy is helping the child
Speaker 1: to also understand their own why. So we know that
Speaker 1: from a very early age if we say things to
Speaker 1: kids like you know, you have to invite that person
Speaker 1: to your birthday party, even if you don't want to,
Speaker 1: because that's what good people do. That what we're starting
Speaker 1: to do is we're starting to create what I spoke
Speaker 1: about earlier on, which is a sense of clients, which
Speaker 1: is forcing children around particular values without helping them to
Speaker 1: understand who they want to be. And so a conversation
Speaker 1: that's around we have to invite this child to the
Speaker 1: birthday and that's what we have to do. Is not
Speaker 1: necessarily as effective around developing autonomy than a conversation like
Speaker 1: what kind of friend do you want to be? Who
Speaker 1: do you want to be as a person? What does
Speaker 1: it feel like when you get invited or you don't
Speaker 1: get invited to birthday parties? Now? Who do you want
Speaker 1: to be in the situation in sending out your invitations? So,
Speaker 1: what we're doing with autonomy is we're trying to give
Speaker 1: as much choice as much rational and also help the
Speaker 1: child to develop a sense of who they are, what
Speaker 1: their character is, what their values are within the situation.
Speaker 1: And just to be clear, this is not about you know,
Speaker 1: not having expectations of children or not being clear around
Speaker 1: those expectations. It's rather about how do you help children
Speaker 1: to develop fundamental character and emotional agility in the context
Speaker 1: of expectations. Wow, that's some really good advice for parents.
Speaker 1: So last question, how can I become real? How can
Speaker 1: you become real? I want to be real? You want
Speaker 1: to be real? You want to be real? I'll give
Speaker 1: you so are There are a couple of aspects to
Speaker 1: my mobility that I think are really important. We've spoken
Speaker 1: a lot, but firstly, showing up to yourself and not
Speaker 1: punishing yourself or invalidating yourself when you have difficult thoughts
Speaker 1: and emotions, being able to be compassionate towards yourself, recognizing
Speaker 1: that you are doing the best that you can in
Speaker 1: the circumstances that you face and with the resources that
Speaker 1: you've got in life. This is fundamental learning how to
Speaker 1: hear the heartbeat of your own why. So we live
Speaker 1: in a world which encourages us to be in a
Speaker 1: never ending iron man or iron woman competition, and we
Speaker 1: often lose sight of who do I want to be
Speaker 1: in the space, what is meaningful to me? Who is
Speaker 1: the leader, the parent, the person that I most want
Speaker 1: to be here? So connecting more with what is your
Speaker 1: why and then looking for ways that you can develop
Speaker 1: greater sense of living at the edge of the ability habits,
Speaker 1: mindsets and goals that are values aligned. So those are
Speaker 1: some fundamental aspects of emotional agility, and I think the
Speaker 1: reason that they're part of being real is because they
Speaker 1: care to humanity and effectiveness and success. But success that's
Speaker 1: not just about a goal and achieving a goal, but
Speaker 1: just very broadly about living a life that feels well lived.
Speaker 1: I want to stop there because I want to live
Speaker 1: a life well lived. Thank you so much, Susan, really
Speaker 1: appreciate you chatting, and I think you've written a really
Speaker 1: powerful book. Thank you so much, Thank you for inviting me.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to The Psychology Podcast with Doctor Scott
Speaker 1: Barry Kaufman. I hope you found this episode just to
Speaker 1: stop for booking and interesting as I did. If you'd
Speaker 1: like to read the show notes for this episode or
Speaker 1: hear past episodes, you can visit the Psychology Podcast dot
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