Speaker 1: In case you're just recently joining us, or however long
Speaker 1: you've been a listener of the show, you may not
Speaker 1: realize that we have years and years of incredible episodes
Speaker 1: in our archives. We've had so many wonderful guests that
Speaker 1: we've decided to hand pick one of our favorites that
Speaker 1: may be new to you, but if not, it's definitely
Speaker 1: worth another listen. We hope you enjoyed this episode with
Speaker 1: Susan David. I love this quote from the Buddha. The
Speaker 1: mind hard to control flighty a lighting where it wishes
Speaker 1: one does well to tame. The disciplined mind brings happiness.
Speaker 1: Happiness can often feel like an elusive goal everyone seems
Speaker 1: to strive for and never quite achieves, because we seek
Speaker 1: it outside of ourselves rather than going inward, which is
Speaker 1: something mindfulness teaches us to do. And Jenny, yes, Eric,
Speaker 1: this idea of taming the mind is why you named
Speaker 1: your program The Well Trained Mind, right yep. And I'm
Speaker 1: excited to announce that it's open for enrollment now through
Speaker 1: October eight. In my live Virtue will six week introduction
Speaker 1: to Mindfulness program. Whether you're new to mindfulness and meditation
Speaker 1: or you're looking to strengthen your existing mindfulness practice. I'll
Speaker 1: teach you the foundations of mindfulness so that you can
Speaker 1: live with more ease, create a nourishing and fulfilling spiritual practice,
Speaker 1: Discover how to be a friend to yourself, and strengthen
Speaker 1: your ability to live in a more grounded, connected, peaceful way.
Speaker 1: To learn more about the program, go to when you
Speaker 1: feed dot net slash mindfulness. That's one you feed dot
Speaker 1: net slash mindfulness before October eight. I hope to meet
Speaker 1: you there. When we connect with our emotions, our emotions
Speaker 1: actually help us to adept and thrive, even the difficult ones.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the one you feed Throughout time, great thinkers
Speaker 1: have recognized the importance of the thought we have quotes
Speaker 1: like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you
Speaker 1: think ring true. And yet for many of us, our
Speaker 1: thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity,
Speaker 1: self pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't
Speaker 1: have instead of what we do. We think things that
Speaker 1: hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not
Speaker 1: just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent,
Speaker 1: and creative effort to make a life worth living. This
Speaker 1: podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in
Speaker 1: the right direction, how they feed their good wolf. Thanks
Speaker 1: for joining us. Our guest on this episode is Susan David,
Speaker 1: a psychologist on faculty at Harvard Medical School. Susan is
Speaker 1: also the co founder and code to rector of the
Speaker 1: Institute of Coaching at McLean Hospital and CEO of Evidence
Speaker 1: Based Psychology. Her book is Emotional Agility, Get Unstuck, Embrace
Speaker 1: Change and Thrive and Work and Life. Hi, Susan, Welcome
Speaker 1: to the show. I'm so glad to be here. Your
Speaker 1: book is called Emotional Agility, Get Unstuck, Embrace Change and
Speaker 1: Thrive and Work and Life. And as you and I
Speaker 1: were talking beforehand, there are so many great things in
Speaker 1: here that I think are are right up the alley
Speaker 1: of what listeners are looking for. So we'll get into
Speaker 1: the book in detail in a moment. But let's start
Speaker 1: like we always do. There's a grandfather who's talking with
Speaker 1: his granddaughter and he says, in life, there are two
Speaker 1: wolves inside of us that are always at battle. One
Speaker 1: is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness, bravery,
Speaker 1: and love, and the other is a bad wolf, which
Speaker 1: represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And the
Speaker 1: granddaughter stops and thinks about it for a second and
Speaker 1: looks up at her grandfather and she's or grandfather which
Speaker 1: one wins, And the grandfather says, the one you feed.
Speaker 1: So I'd like to start off by asking you what
Speaker 1: that parable means to you in your life and in
Speaker 1: the work that you do. So I think they're a
Speaker 1: number of interpretations for that in terms of the context
Speaker 1: of my work. But one of the things that I
Speaker 1: think is most critical is the way we view our emotions.
Speaker 1: So often we view and we live in a society
Speaker 1: that tells us that our emotions are good or bad,
Speaker 1: and unlike the parable where I think you you know,
Speaker 1: sometimes the interpretation could be that one should feed only
Speaker 1: the so called good emotions and push aside the so
Speaker 1: called bad emotions. Really, what I think about in the
Speaker 1: context of emotions is that we as human beings are
Speaker 1: big enough, expensive enough to actually hold the full range
Speaker 1: of our emotions. In other words, it is possible for
Speaker 1: those two wolves to coexist. And then we move into
Speaker 1: the space of saying, how do we stop ourselves from
Speaker 1: getting hooked or imprisoned by emotions that feel difficult to us.
Speaker 1: So really the context here or the headline is that
Speaker 1: our emotions fundamentally are actually helpful, that they are incredibly
Speaker 1: important guidance systems for our lives. And if we move
Speaker 1: away from trying to battle with them or decide that
Speaker 1: they good or bad, and instead move into the space
Speaker 1: where we recognize that we are able to have all
Speaker 1: of them, then we can learn from, we can be
Speaker 1: guided by, and we can move forward in ways that
Speaker 1: our values congruent. And so we are feeding the particular
Speaker 1: wolf in this case, which is the emotions that signal
Speaker 1: what's important to our lives, and we use that in
Speaker 1: ways that allow us to thrive. And one of the
Speaker 1: themes of the book to me was this idea that
Speaker 1: emotions aren't good or bad. As you said, there are
Speaker 1: a guidance system, and that, however, we want to make
Speaker 1: sure that our emotions we have as you call it,
Speaker 1: emotional agility, so that our actions out into the world
Speaker 1: are what we want them to be. And so oftentimes,
Speaker 1: you know, if we could take this parable almost to
Speaker 1: be about how we behave less about what our emotions are. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so absolutely, a fundamental idea in emotional agidity is the
Speaker 1: idea that our emotions exist for a reason. And I'm
Speaker 1: not the first person who said this, you know, Charles
Speaker 1: Dawin many hundreds years ago describe this idea that emotions
Speaker 1: are core signals, that when we connect with our emotions,
Speaker 1: our emotions actually help us to adapt and thrive, even
Speaker 1: the difficult ones. And so we are able when we
Speaker 1: connect with our emotions to understand more of other people's needs,
Speaker 1: but we can also understand more of our own needs.
Speaker 1: So really, this idea that we have these emotions, these
Speaker 1: emotions have extreme and wonderful benefits to us. But we
Speaker 1: often get into situations in society where we have this
Speaker 1: narrative that there's good emotions and bad emotions, that there
Speaker 1: are negative emotions and positive emotions, and so what can
Speaker 1: happen is we can often feel that unless we feel
Speaker 1: positive and happy all the time, that there's something really
Speaker 1: fundamentally wrong. And we can also move into this where
Speaker 1: we start to then push aside, or hustle with, or
Speaker 1: develop unhealthy relationships with our emotions. And so a core
Speaker 1: part of my work is really about saying, how can
Speaker 1: we be healthy with our emotions and with our thinking
Speaker 1: and learn from those in ways that allow us to
Speaker 1: in action move forwards so that we are values connected
Speaker 1: and congruan. Because ultimately, how we deal with our inner
Speaker 1: worlds drives everything, every aspect of how we love, how
Speaker 1: we live, how we parent, and how we lead. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you see that emotional agility is about loosening up, calming down,
Speaker 1: and living with more intention. It's about choosing how you
Speaker 1: respond to your emotional warning system. So that's emotional agility.
Speaker 1: Talk to us about the opposite rigidity. I'll start off
Speaker 1: by describing what I just think is one of the
Speaker 1: most profoundly beautiful ideas, which is the idea of Victor Frankel.
Speaker 1: Victor Frankel, who survived the Death camps, describes this incredibly
Speaker 1: powerful idea where between stimulus and response there is a
Speaker 1: space and in that space is our power to choose,
Speaker 1: and it's in that choice that lies our growth and freedom.
Speaker 1: So when we are being emotionally agile, there's space between
Speaker 1: stimulus and response, we are connecting with our values and
Speaker 1: who we want to be in that moment, and we
Speaker 1: are moving forward in action. When we, on the other hand,
Speaker 1: are emotionally rigid, often what we are doing is not
Speaker 1: having any space between stimulus and response. So what this
Speaker 1: might look like is being on autopilot. Someone says something
Speaker 1: and we defensively react in the same way time and
Speaker 1: time again, or always believing that voice in our head
Speaker 1: that tells us that we are worthless, or we weren't
Speaker 1: cut out for this career, or we're not creative or
Speaker 1: whatever other stories. Some of these stories were written on
Speaker 1: our mental chalkboards in grade three, and what's wrong is
Speaker 1: not having the story, because these stories are actually normal.
Speaker 1: We all have thousands of ideas, thoughts, and stories and
Speaker 1: emotions every single day. What becomes emotionally rigid or emotionally
Speaker 1: in agile is where we automatically believe the story and
Speaker 1: where we automatically allow that story to drive I have
Speaker 1: our actions. So we feel that we are worthless and
Speaker 1: therefore we don't extend ourselves in a relationship, or we
Speaker 1: are not creative and so we don't put our hand
Speaker 1: up for a particular job or project, even though in
Speaker 1: our hearts we truly want to do it. So emotionally
Speaker 1: in agile people, or when we all react in ways
Speaker 1: that emotionally in agile, what we are tending to do
Speaker 1: is not have the space between stimulus and response. We
Speaker 1: are on autopilot. We automatically believe the fourth the emotionless
Speaker 1: story in a way that takes us away from being
Speaker 1: the person that we most want to be in the world.
Speaker 1: And often what this can also look like is even
Speaker 1: our day to day habits. So a habit might be
Speaker 1: a habit of waking up and feeling bad and then
Speaker 1: staying in bit or a habit might be that we,
Speaker 1: you know, want to be present and connected with our children,
Speaker 1: but we feel so stressed that we get stuck in
Speaker 1: our phones. We have dinner every night, but we are
Speaker 1: distracted with our phone rather than being present and connected.
Speaker 1: So some of these are habits that become expressed in
Speaker 1: our day to day lives and that fundamentally are in
Speaker 1: agile because they are not reflections of who we most
Speaker 1: want to be in the world. That idea, the Victor
Speaker 1: Frankel quote and phrase, has been one of the most
Speaker 1: fundamental ideas in my life. I originally encountered it in
Speaker 1: Stephen Covey's Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, which I
Speaker 1: think is a brilliant book in so many ways. And
Speaker 1: you know, obviously Victor Frankel's book Man Search for me
Speaker 1: and his other work is so powerful. But that very
Speaker 1: idea like unlocked something in me years and years ago
Speaker 1: that has always made sense to me, and it's just
Speaker 1: so powerful. I think what it does is it moves
Speaker 1: us away from the idea of because I had a thought,
Speaker 1: the thought is fact and I need to act on it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's so powerful because what it does is it brings
Speaker 1: into our hearts and our lives a sensible autonomy and
Speaker 1: ownership that is just fundamental to our ability to thrive. Yep, exactly.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about one of the things that happens
Speaker 1: to us. You referenced it briefly about getting hooked, you know,
Speaker 1: which you say getting yourself hooked begins when you accept
Speaker 1: thoughts as facts. So let's talk about some of the
Speaker 1: most common hooks and maybe some ways to work with those. So, yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 1: so the hooks that we might have that relate to
Speaker 1: our emotions. It might be a hook like, um, you know,
Speaker 1: I am sad and therefore that sadness, well, that sadness
Speaker 1: might be a truly expressed experience and felt experience. For
Speaker 1: the moment the sadness becomes fact. And I'll describe why
Speaker 1: I think it's a hook is because often what we
Speaker 1: do when we label our emotions with language like I
Speaker 1: am you know, I am sad, I am angry, what
Speaker 1: it us is? It implies that we all, you know,
Speaker 1: the one of us is that one emotion. You know,
Speaker 1: I am sad, I am angry. There's no space for
Speaker 1: anything else. And so often what we do when we
Speaker 1: identify ourselves in full with an emotion, there isn't the
Speaker 1: capacity to pause and to breathe in other experiences, and
Speaker 1: so we can often get hooked by an emotion. And
Speaker 1: because we are not our emotion, our emotion is a
Speaker 1: data source that is valuable, but a data source that
Speaker 1: nonetheless is there for us to understand and evaluate and
Speaker 1: learn from, we don't necessarily need to believe it. We
Speaker 1: can often get hooked into our thoughts. The thought might
Speaker 1: be I'm not good enough, or even you know, my
Speaker 1: boss is an idiot. It might be something that you
Speaker 1: truly experience as fact, and yet it might actually stop
Speaker 1: you from bringing yourself in ways that are open hearted,
Speaker 1: earning oriented and growth oriented to your career or to
Speaker 1: your job. So we can often get hooked into our
Speaker 1: emotions our thoughts, and then often what we do is
Speaker 1: we weave our thoughts and our emotions into stories. And
Speaker 1: our stories are really important, powerful ways that we make
Speaker 1: sense of our world. But often these stories can hold
Speaker 1: us back. So a story might be something like, um,
Speaker 1: you know, I recently was working with a United Nations
Speaker 1: ambassador and his singular focus and singular job was to
Speaker 1: bring vaccinations to children in a particular country in Africa.
Speaker 1: And this person described how, as part of his job
Speaker 1: and as part of his purpose, he needed to negotiate
Speaker 1: with a specific politician who was in office. And he
Speaker 1: described how this politician made him so angry and so upset,
Speaker 1: and he said, you know, this politician treats me like
Speaker 1: my father they used to treat me, and so I've
Speaker 1: started to just avoid his calls. Now, what's in agile
Speaker 1: and what's the hook here is that what this demands
Speaker 1: is that you've either got a new politician in office,
Speaker 1: which is unlikely, or it demands that you have a
Speaker 1: new childhood in which your father did inspect you like that,
Speaker 1: which again is unlikely. And so what's happening in this
Speaker 1: kind of situation is the person is getting hooked into
Speaker 1: a story where the story starts to prison and create
Speaker 1: a structure that hinders the ability to be values oriented,
Speaker 1: or to be expensive, to be curious, to be compassionate,
Speaker 1: to say, well, who do I want to be in
Speaker 1: this situation? And so we often get hooked. And in
Speaker 1: my book, I outline a number of ways that we
Speaker 1: tend to get hooked. You know, we get stuck in
Speaker 1: the business of our mind and what we think is wrong.
Speaker 1: We often get hooked on stories that really about growing
Speaker 1: their usefulness or purposeful in our lives. Um, we get
Speaker 1: stuck when we move from one situation to another and
Speaker 1: we recognize that the thing that might have served us
Speaker 1: when we were a child or in one job no
Speaker 1: longer serves us. So they are different contexts in different
Speaker 1: ways in which we can start expressing these hooks. What
Speaker 1: are some useful ways for us to get unhooked? And
Speaker 1: maybe that's different depending on whether it's a thought or
Speaker 1: an emotion, but but what are some of the some
Speaker 1: of the steps that people could could start practicing. Now,
Speaker 1: you know, when they recognize like yep, here I am,
Speaker 1: I'm hooked. I know I am that's the first step
Speaker 1: recognizing it. But then once you recognize it, what what next?
Speaker 1: So one of the things that I think is critical
Speaker 1: is often people say, Gee, I get hooked, but I
Speaker 1: don't really realize that I'm getting cooked. You know, I'm
Speaker 1: suddenly defensive, or I suddenly have an argument with my
Speaker 1: spouse and I storm out of the room because I'm
Speaker 1: feeling really upset and it comes off God. But one
Speaker 1: of the things I think if we really show up
Speaker 1: to that is we'll start to recognize that actually a
Speaker 1: lot of our behaviors are very pattern and so this
Speaker 1: defensiveness that seems like it's a spur of the moment
Speaker 1: defensiveness is actually something that very often we've seen in
Speaker 1: you know, other contexts in our lives or that's actually
Speaker 1: very pattern And so when we start to recognize that
Speaker 1: this is what's going on, that we have this way
Speaker 1: of being or have a way of reacting to a
Speaker 1: particular person that's patterned, then we've got a clue that
Speaker 1: this is a sign that I'm hooked. And it's not
Speaker 1: an out of the blue thing. Really, it's somewhat predictable.
Speaker 1: So there are a couple of things that are just
Speaker 1: really really fundamental. The first is what you allude to,
Speaker 1: and it's this idea of showing up and what I
Speaker 1: mean by showing up is not a passive resignation. It's
Speaker 1: not oh my goodness, this is what happened to me.
Speaker 1: It's horrible, it's awful, but there's nothing. It's not a
Speaker 1: passive resignation. Rather, what it is is it's being able
Speaker 1: to say, you know, this is what's going on for me,
Speaker 1: or this is what the hook is, but to do
Speaker 1: so in a way that is um curious and compassionate.
Speaker 1: So when we hooked, but we say I wonder why
Speaker 1: I'm reacting in this way, or I wonder why it
Speaker 1: is that I always give into the story, then we
Speaker 1: adopting a stance of curiosity. And while the curiosity isn't
Speaker 1: going to solve the problem, what you're starting to do
Speaker 1: in scientific terms, is you're starting to take what is
Speaker 1: called a meta view. The meta view is where you
Speaker 1: move from this feeling of being immersed and stuck and
Speaker 1: I don't know what to do and this is awful
Speaker 1: into curiosity. I wonder what's going on for me? Gee,
Speaker 1: isn't that interesting that I react in that way? So
Speaker 1: curiosity is really important. The other aspect of this is compassion,
Speaker 1: because we live in a world that would have us
Speaker 1: believe that we are in a never ending iron man
Speaker 1: or iron woman competition where we need to always be
Speaker 1: hard on ourselves, and the idea that when we are
Speaker 1: compassionate that somehow it's being weak or lazy or letting
Speaker 1: ourselves off the hook is often what's seen as being
Speaker 1: attached to the idea of compassion. But if we recognize
Speaker 1: that we hooked in ways that are maybe not excuseable,
Speaker 1: you know, we might have done something wrong, and recognize
Speaker 1: that we done something wrong, but we also recognize that
Speaker 1: we're doing the best we can or we did the
Speaker 1: best we can with who we are, with what we've got,
Speaker 1: with the resources that we've been given in life, and
Speaker 1: we approach this orientation of being hooked with a sense
Speaker 1: of compassion and kindness to ourselves that we part of humanity,
Speaker 1: were part of the suffering and the imperfection that is
Speaker 1: bound up with humanity. What we then do is we
Speaker 1: move away from the space of trying to focus on
Speaker 1: perfection and we instead move into the space of an
Speaker 1: openness to how can I bring myself in ways that
Speaker 1: are different to the situation. So really, really important aspect
Speaker 1: of being able to unhook is not just about you
Speaker 1: I've got to be positive, what I've got to move forward,
Speaker 1: It's actually about being curious and being compassionate with the self.
Speaker 1: Another thing that I would say to that is that
Speaker 1: often when we are hooked, especially when we're hooked in
Speaker 1: context of anxiety or depression or difficult experiences or discomfort.
Speaker 1: And I talk about this in my TED talk The
Speaker 1: Gift and Power of Emotional Courage, we often want to
Speaker 1: do away with those difficulty emotions, so we want to
Speaker 1: push them aside. And again, we live in a society
Speaker 1: that tells us we should be happy all the time,
Speaker 1: and so what we can start to do is we
Speaker 1: can start to try to push aside our sadness and
Speaker 1: just be happy, or push aside our anger. But what
Speaker 1: we know from the research is that that doesn't work.
Speaker 1: When we push aside these difficulty emotions, what psychologists call
Speaker 1: amplifications starts to come up. You know, we push aside sadness,
Speaker 1: and then we ask people not to think of that
Speaker 1: sad thought, and as it would happen in a minute,
Speaker 1: in one minute, people will on average think of that
Speaker 1: difficult thought around forty times. So really important part of
Speaker 1: showing up and of unhooking is to approach our emotions
Speaker 1: with a greater sense of willingness. And by willingness, what
Speaker 1: I mean is an expansiveness or recognition that we don't
Speaker 1: get to live a meaningful life, or build a career
Speaker 1: or raise a family without stress and discomfort, and that
Speaker 1: tough emotions are part of our contract with life. And
Speaker 1: so if we can move away from the idea of
Speaker 1: these are good and bad emotions and instead start to
Speaker 1: just embrace the full range of our emotions, then that's fundamental.
Speaker 1: But I know that you asked for some practical tips,
Speaker 1: and I think one practical tip is really moving away
Speaker 1: from this idea of saying I am sad, I am angry,
Speaker 1: and instead noticing the emotion for what it is. I'm
Speaker 1: noticing that I'm feeling said, I'm noticing that I'm feeling angry.
Speaker 1: I'm noticing the urge to stay in bed, I'm noticing
Speaker 1: the urge to leave the room. What you start doing
Speaker 1: when you start to notice your thoughts, your feelings, your
Speaker 1: stories for what they are, their thoughts, feelings, stories. They're
Speaker 1: not facts. Thoughts, feelings, and stories. What you start to
Speaker 1: be able to do there is create critical space between
Speaker 1: the stimulus and the response, right, you said so many
Speaker 1: things there that that are are so important. I think
Speaker 1: that curiosity, as you mentioned, is so important, and that
Speaker 1: the kindness and the self compassion is critical to being
Speaker 1: able to be curious. There's nothing that tends to shut
Speaker 1: down curiosity or observation faster than judgment, and so being
Speaker 1: able to suspend that judgment by being kind is one
Speaker 1: of the things I think that allows us to be curious.
Speaker 1: We have to be kind to ourselves in order to
Speaker 1: be curious. I often think that idea of balancing accountability
Speaker 1: and kindness to ourselves. How do we be how do
Speaker 1: we sort of stand true for this is what I believe,
Speaker 1: this is how I want to act, this is the
Speaker 1: person I want to be, and also then be kind
Speaker 1: with ourselves, and we don't live up to that. And
Speaker 1: being able to balance those two things I think is
Speaker 1: so important. And your your framework sort of gets to that.
Speaker 1: So the if we look at your framework, you talk
Speaker 1: about showing up. That's kind of what you just talked about,
Speaker 1: which is recognizing what's happening, being curious and kind. Then
Speaker 1: you talk about stepping out, and you say that that's
Speaker 1: the detaching from and observing your thoughts and feelings to
Speaker 1: see that that's what they are, thoughts and emotions. Um
Speaker 1: from there you go into walking your why. So let's
Speaker 1: talk about walking your why. So this is critical and
Speaker 1: you know to what you were saying earlier about compassion
Speaker 1: the idea that you know when you really are compassionate,
Speaker 1: what you're doing is you are fundamentally creating a safe
Speaker 1: psychological space for yourself. And when we feel safe with ourselves,
Speaker 1: it doesn't mean we do everything right. It doesn't mean
Speaker 1: that we never disappoint ourselves. But when we create a
Speaker 1: psychological space for ourselves in which we see ourselves and
Speaker 1: we are kind to ourselves, and we we love ourselves
Speaker 1: regardless of our imperfections. What we know from the research
Speaker 1: is when people do that, they actually tend to be
Speaker 1: more honest with themselves, less lazy, more motivated because they
Speaker 1: know that they are going to be in a context
Speaker 1: where even if they disappoint themselves, that they will still
Speaker 1: like themselves. And so that's the beautiful context in which
Speaker 1: curiosity and experimentation and openheartedness come to the four And
Speaker 1: what that then allows us to do is to start
Speaker 1: bringing in our core values. We're starting to say who
Speaker 1: do I want to be in the situation. And the
Speaker 1: way that I think of values is values often have
Speaker 1: a very cheesy kind of action, you know, it's often
Speaker 1: seen as being very abstract or the kinds of things
Speaker 1: that businesses put on their walls and tell us to
Speaker 1: all to believe in. But the way that I think
Speaker 1: of values is that there are qualities of action. So
Speaker 1: values are not these abstract ideas that qualities of action.
Speaker 1: Every day we get hundreds and hundreds of choice points.
Speaker 1: A choice point is a decision do I move in
Speaker 1: the direction of my values or do I move away
Speaker 1: from my values. So in an organizational context, the choice
Speaker 1: point might be do I contribute to this meeting even
Speaker 1: though I feel scared, or do I just shut myself
Speaker 1: down once again? And that's your choice point. Your choice
Speaker 1: point when it comes to health or exercise might be
Speaker 1: do I move towards the fruit or do I move
Speaker 1: towards the muffin, And the choice point might be that
Speaker 1: towards the fruit is towards my values, and the muffin
Speaker 1: is away from my values. So we get these really
Speaker 1: really important So we get these really really important choice
Speaker 1: points every single day. And what is just so fundamental.
Speaker 1: I think, especially in a world where there's so much
Speaker 1: social comparison that goes on, we are inundated with our
Speaker 1: Twitter feeds and with Instagram, and with comparing ourselves to others,
Speaker 1: and so what starts to happen is all of us,
Speaker 1: as human beings, start to become subject to what psychologists
Speaker 1: call social contagion. Social contagion is the idea that we all,
Speaker 1: often without even realizing it, catch other people's emotions and
Speaker 1: other people's behaviors. So, for instance, if you are trying
Speaker 1: to be healthier and you go on an airplane and
Speaker 1: your seat partner, your seat mate, even if you do
Speaker 1: not know the person buys candy, your likelihood of buying
Speaker 1: candy increases by seventy A large scale epidemiological studies show
Speaker 1: that if someone in our social network gets divorced or
Speaker 1: puts on weight, even if we do not even know
Speaker 1: the person, there might even be two or three degrees
Speaker 1: of separation from us, we are more likely to get
Speaker 1: divorced or put away. Now, listeners might say, how does
Speaker 1: that work, But we've all had that experience of getting
Speaker 1: in an elevator and someone takes out their cell phone
Speaker 1: and we take out our cell phone, or we guard
Speaker 1: to dinner and one person orders dessert, and now we
Speaker 1: order dessert. What starts to happen is we start to
Speaker 1: in really profound, powerful and frightening ways catch and I
Speaker 1: use that word purposefully because it is social contagion. We
Speaker 1: catch other people's behaviors, and we catch other people's emotions.
Speaker 1: And this, of course is particularly salient when we are
Speaker 1: spending time with a particular group of friends all the time,
Speaker 1: or in a situation with colleagues all the time where
Speaker 1: everyone's cynical, we become cynical and so on, and so
Speaker 1: we start to set ourselves what is it that actually
Speaker 1: protects me from social contagion? And what we know is
Speaker 1: that the most powerful way that we can be in
Speaker 1: the world when it comes to our own psychological health
Speaker 1: and well being, but also when it comes to our
Speaker 1: behavior and our careers and our parenting, the most powerful
Speaker 1: way we can be in the world is where we
Speaker 1: have a straight line of sight to our values, regardless
Speaker 1: of what everyone else is doing. What is it that
Speaker 1: is important to me in work? It might be learning
Speaker 1: and growth, or it might be at home learning and growth.
Speaker 1: Because our values tend to be values across these situations.
Speaker 1: So let me give you an example of what this
Speaker 1: looks like. If you are clear that growth and learning
Speaker 1: are fundamental to who you are as a person and
Speaker 1: their core, core core values, you can start to apply
Speaker 1: these values even when you feel uncomfortable. So you might say, well,
Speaker 1: I was invited to social event and I would love
Speaker 1: to go, but actually I feel a little bit anxious
Speaker 1: to go to that social event. When you bring your
Speaker 1: values front of mind and you say, I feel anxious,
Speaker 1: and my value is learning and growth. So I'm keeping
Speaker 1: this value front of mind, and I'm going to say
Speaker 1: yes because this is something that's important to me. Or
Speaker 1: in a work situation, I want to put myself down
Speaker 1: and not put my hand up for something, but learning
Speaker 1: and growth are important, so I choose to say yes
Speaker 1: even if it feels uncomfortable. And in my TED talk
Speaker 1: I use this phrase. I say discomfort is the price
Speaker 1: of admission to a meaningful life. What I mean by
Speaker 1: that is that sometimes our emotions and our thoughts and
Speaker 1: our stories are going to say no, shut down, turn away,
Speaker 1: close off. And yet if we can keep front of
Speaker 1: mind the two or three things that are fundamental to
Speaker 1: who we want to be in the world. We can
Speaker 1: often choose to move forward even in the context of discomfort.
Speaker 1: We've had a couple of the founders of acceptance and
Speaker 1: commitment therapy on and that's one of the things that
Speaker 1: shines so through in that particular modality is this choosing
Speaker 1: to live by your values even when you're uncomfortable. You
Speaker 1: know that these emotions, these emotions don't have to go
Speaker 1: away for us to live by our values. And that's
Speaker 1: where we often get We get caught up. Oh well,
Speaker 1: if I just didn't feel so anxious, I would do it.
Speaker 1: Where it's kind of the reverse. I'm going to do
Speaker 1: it even though I feel anxious, because sometimes those thoughts
Speaker 1: and emotions don't go away, and we have to act
Speaker 1: sort of almost in spite of them sometimes. But you're
Speaker 1: right that that keeping our values is the foremost thing
Speaker 1: that we look at is such a key idea. And
Speaker 1: I love the idea of choice points. I think that
Speaker 1: life is just filled with them. That's what life is
Speaker 1: is all these choice points, and and we don't have
Speaker 1: to get them all right, but if we get enough
Speaker 1: of them right, that leads to a good life. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a critical way of being able to recognize that,
Speaker 1: you know, we don't learn how to ride a bicycle
Speaker 1: by studying a manual. We learn how to ride a
Speaker 1: bicycle by getting on it and moving forward. And the
Speaker 1: same applies to all aspects of our lives when it
Speaker 1: comes to our values. We move in the direction of
Speaker 1: our values when we move in the direction of our values.
Speaker 1: And you know, to what you mentioned earlier, this idea
Speaker 1: that we can do that even in spite of difficulty
Speaker 1: emotions and experiences. But that's not the same as trying
Speaker 1: to push them aside or pretend that they don't exist.
Speaker 1: It's actually about a capaciousness and an openness to them,
Speaker 1: are breathing into them, an acceptance that is just so fundamental.
Speaker 1: And also, I think you know, really important part of
Speaker 1: this is recognizing that our values are often contained in
Speaker 1: our difficulty emotions. What I mean by this is that often,
Speaker 1: you know, when we experience a difficulty e motion, these
Speaker 1: difficulty emotions don't just come out of nowhere. You know,
Speaker 1: we we tend not to get upset about something if
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter to us. We tend not to get
Speaker 1: angry about something if it doesn't matter to us. So often,
Speaker 1: beneath our most difficulty emotions are signposts to the things
Speaker 1: that we care about. When I'm working with people, sometimes
Speaker 1: you know they might say or realize over time that
Speaker 1: oppression for them might be a fundamental value, which is
Speaker 1: I want to be more in the world. I've never
Speaker 1: met someone with social anxiety who isn't at some level
Speaker 1: concerned about how do I better connect. I've never met
Speaker 1: someone in the workplace board or frustrated with their job
Speaker 1: who isn't at some level concerned about how do I
Speaker 1: better grow and how do I better use my talents
Speaker 1: and skills. I've never met, you know, a guilty parent
Speaker 1: who isn't at some level concerned about how do I
Speaker 1: connect better? Or how do I be more present with
Speaker 1: my children? So often, beneath our most difficulty emotions are
Speaker 1: actually signpost to our values. And when people say, you know, well,
Speaker 1: what are my values? How do I work this out?
Speaker 1: Often the source is to say, what is the emotion
Speaker 1: telling me? What is the function of the ocean? In
Speaker 1: my book, I call this, you know what the funk?
Speaker 1: What is the function of the emotion? What is the
Speaker 1: emotion trying to signal to me about what's important here? Yeah, indeed,
Speaker 1: that's so powerful. Let's talk for a minute about something
Speaker 1: that you write about in the book. And I love
Speaker 1: the idea of this, which is that part of our
Speaker 1: rigidity comes from something called premature cognitive commitment. Can you
Speaker 1: explain what that is, because I think that is such
Speaker 1: a big thing. Yes, So this is really the idea
Speaker 1: that very often we decide before we've actually slowed down
Speaker 1: and thought about. So we will often jump to conclusions
Speaker 1: and these you know, these conclusions are conclusions about you know,
Speaker 1: we do it with the news, we do it with politics,
Speaker 1: but we also often jump to conclusions about ourselves. And
Speaker 1: you know, some of these conclusions have foundational elements in
Speaker 1: our childhood or in prior relationships or experiences. But often
Speaker 1: what we're doing is we are jumping to the sense
Speaker 1: of who am I? What am I good at? G
Speaker 1: I don't dance, or I'm not creative, or I no
Speaker 1: longer do X, or you know, whatever it is. I mean,
Speaker 1: the list is as long as many as the diversity
Speaker 1: of people on the planet. And yet there's nothing wrong
Speaker 1: with these There's nothing wrong with these stories. Again, I
Speaker 1: think this is what's really important here. Stories help us
Speaker 1: to make sense of our world. When I'm lying in
Speaker 1: bed one morning and my son comes and jumps on
Speaker 1: the bed. The story is, oh, this is where I am,
Speaker 1: and this is my son, and I am in Boston, Massachusetts,
Speaker 1: and I'm no longer in South Africa. And we have
Speaker 1: a narrative that gets woven together. And this is really
Speaker 1: really critical to us as human beings because the narrative
Speaker 1: helps us to hold what is important and to have
Speaker 1: that front and center. This is my son on the bed.
Speaker 1: And it also helps us to move away from or
Speaker 1: ignore all of the sensory information that is unimportant. You know,
Speaker 1: I can ignore the washing machine that might be going
Speaker 1: on in the background, or I can ignore, you know,
Speaker 1: the book that I read the night before that might
Speaker 1: be but unsettling, because I've got the story that is
Speaker 1: really important. And so stories, there's nothing wrong with a story,
Speaker 1: even if the story is a so called negative story,
Speaker 1: even if it's a so called bad story, there's nothing
Speaker 1: wrong that help us to make sense of the world.
Speaker 1: Where the story starts to become problematic is not about
Speaker 1: the content of the story. Rather, it's about whether the
Speaker 1: story serves us or doesn't us it take us away.
Speaker 1: Are we believing in it and acting in it? In
Speaker 1: a way that takes us away from our values or not.
Speaker 1: That's the fundamental litmus. You know. Is this story something
Speaker 1: that I'm attaching to so strongly and so quickly that
Speaker 1: it's hindering my ability to thrive? Or is it a
Speaker 1: story that I've got that I'm able to hold. But
Speaker 1: I recognize that I'm more than my story. And just
Speaker 1: to give you an example of what I mean by this,
Speaker 1: you know, if listeners say, well, I'm a parent, Yes,
Speaker 1: I'm a parent, but I'm also more than a parent.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm I'm a worker, or I'm a father,
Speaker 1: or a sister or brother. We all recognize that that
Speaker 1: we we are someone who has multiple identities, and at
Speaker 1: any one point in time, we might be acting out
Speaker 1: of particular identity, we might be being a part, but
Speaker 1: we also recognize that we more than that single identity.
Speaker 1: And in the same way, if we take that idea,
Speaker 1: we can apply to our stories are more than a
Speaker 1: single story. Yes, I might be the story of someone
Speaker 1: who's not creative or someone who's unlovable, but I'm also
Speaker 1: other stories. And so if we can start recognizing that
Speaker 1: there are other stories there, or that their stories, that
Speaker 1: we can start moving into in ways that are again
Speaker 1: connected with our values, or we can start creating other narratives.
Speaker 1: That becomes really powerful. So you know, really importantly, there's
Speaker 1: nothing wrong with any one story. It's when the story
Speaker 1: becomes a prison and a poor reflection of who we
Speaker 1: want to be in the world, that's when our behaviors
Speaker 1: need a change and our attachment to the story needs
Speaker 1: to start being pride loose a little bit, right, And
Speaker 1: you talk in that context, use the words habitual inflexible
Speaker 1: response to ideas, And I think that's so much of
Speaker 1: what it is is it's recognizing that stories are stories,
Speaker 1: and it's back to that stimulus and response. It's about
Speaker 1: being able to step into that space and not always
Speaker 1: react the exact same way. Like you know, the image
Speaker 1: of being hooked is a really good one. Like you know,
Speaker 1: if you're hooked on the line right, every time that
Speaker 1: line yanks, you get yanked too. And I think that's
Speaker 1: what's so useful in that concept of premature cognitive commitment,
Speaker 1: recognizing when we're taking shortcuts, and particularly when these shortcuts
Speaker 1: stand in the way of us being the person we
Speaker 1: want to be. Yeah, and we can also we can
Speaker 1: also to that end, we can also help our human
Speaker 1: need for shortcuts to work for us, so we can start,
Speaker 1: for instance, to name our story. We can say, gee,
Speaker 1: you know, that's my I'm never good enough story, or
Speaker 1: that's my poor me story, or that's my I'm just
Speaker 1: not gonna get what I need in this job story.
Speaker 1: And being able to sometimes even a flyt habitual shortcuts
Speaker 1: is important when we're doing it intentionally and when it
Speaker 1: is something that is values congruent. Right exactly, Well, we
Speaker 1: are at the end of our time here, but Susan,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for taking the time to come on.
Speaker 1: I found your book really helpful. Your ted talk is wonderful,
Speaker 1: and these ideas. I think you've done a really great
Speaker 1: job of synthesizing a lot of ideas that I've seen
Speaker 1: in other places, but really into useful form. You're you're
Speaker 1: a great communicator at that. We're going to continue the
Speaker 1: conversation you and I by talking about the difference between
Speaker 1: bottling our emotions and brooding, the difference between bottlers and brooders,
Speaker 1: and then we're also going to talk about how for
Speaker 1: some of us these negative emotions actually are helpful. We're
Speaker 1: going to talk more specifically about instances of negative emotions
Speaker 1: and how they might help us think more clearly about
Speaker 1: the world, so that will be in the post show conversation.
Speaker 1: Listeners you can get access by becoming a member going
Speaker 1: to when You Feed dot net slash Support. So thank
Speaker 1: you so much Susan for coming on. Thank you, it's
Speaker 1: been a pleasure. Okay, bye bye. If what you just
Speaker 1: heard was helpful to you, please consider making a donation
Speaker 1: to the One You Feed podcast. Head over to one
Speaker 1: you Feed dot net slash Support. The One You Feed
Speaker 1: podcast would like to sincerely thank our sponsors for supporting
Speaker 1: the show.