Speaker 1: Pushkin Hay Slite Changers. When I was thinking about a
Speaker 1: launch event for my new book, The Other Side of Change,
Speaker 1: the person I most wanted to be in conversation with
Speaker 1: was social scientist Brenee Brown. Brene's research has shaped how
Speaker 1: millions of us think about concepts like shame, vulnerability, and resilience,
Speaker 1: and her expertise felt so relevant to the themes of
Speaker 1: the Other Side of Change, and so when I asked
Speaker 1: Renee and she said yes, I was of course elated.
Speaker 1: She hosted a virtual conversation to an audience of early
Speaker 1: readers of the book on the night before it was published.
Speaker 1: We covered so much ground and it truly felt like
Speaker 1: the conversation could go on for hours. It was a
Speaker 1: peak memory for me, and so I wanted to share
Speaker 1: it with all of you in the slight Change community.
Speaker 1: I hope you enjoy. Okay, now over to Brenee. Hey friend, Hey, Renee,
Speaker 1: how you doing.
Speaker 2: I have read, I have learned. I have to tell
Speaker 2: you that I will. Oh, my name's on the front.
Speaker 2: Let's read what I say about the Other Side of Change.
Speaker 2: I say a rare combination of beautiful storytelling, cognitive science,
Speaker 2: and wholehearted wisdom. I am going to confirm this is true.
Speaker 2: I freaking love this book.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much. That means so much to me.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, I love it.
Speaker 2: And let me just tell you that I don't know
Speaker 2: how you thought of this appendix where you go through
Speaker 2: like every chapter, what the science says, what you can do.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm going to make a bot out of this,
Speaker 2: and I'm going to name it my therapist name, and
Speaker 2: then I'm just going to live in the appendix. Okay,
Speaker 2: sorry for everybody that's joined. I'd like to use this
Speaker 2: as my personal therapy session because it's that good. I'm
Speaker 2: going to read an introduction, which is kind of weird
Speaker 2: because Mysen Kursker and we all know her author, podcast creator, host,
Speaker 2: cognitive scientist. Her podcast A Slight Change of Plans one
Speaker 2: of my favorites, named best show of the Year by Apple,
Speaker 2: deservedly like the appendix. She served as a Senior policy
Speaker 2: advisor in the Obama White House, where she founded and
Speaker 2: chaired the Social and Behavioral Sciences Team. She was also
Speaker 2: appointed as the first Behavioral Science Advisor to the un
Speaker 2: She has a BA from Yale, a PhD from Oxford
Speaker 2: as a Rhodes Scholar and completed a post doctoral fellowship
Speaker 2: in cognitive neuroscience at Stanford. Let me just skip to
Speaker 2: the part where she's a total badass but then writes
Speaker 2: in a way that we can actually understand, feel not alone,
Speaker 2: and make great changes. So you want to start with
Speaker 2: a rapid fire, I do. Okay, what have you binged
Speaker 2: lightly that you loved?
Speaker 1: Oh? Heated rivalry. My husband was like, my wife has
Speaker 1: departed the building because I just was watching the show
Speaker 1: obsessively all of last week. I'm like, you know, there
Speaker 1: is a book launched, a prep form, but I'm like,
Speaker 1: there are more important matters here. Okay, I need to
Speaker 1: know how this ends.
Speaker 3: I mean, life made other plans.
Speaker 1: Yeah, very important plan for Shane.
Speaker 3: And yeah, I'm obsessed. I've seen it.
Speaker 1: You know that the real life Ilia is from Texas.
Speaker 1: Yessian accent is Yes, I was so impressed. I really
Speaker 1: thought the dude was Russian.
Speaker 2: So, oh my god, it's so good. It's such I
Speaker 2: love it. It's a great, a great love story. So
Speaker 2: I've seen it twice. I'm with you, Okay, favorite meal.
Speaker 2: I love Mexican food, so Enchilada's.
Speaker 3: Cheese Andilada's chicken.
Speaker 1: Enchiladasila's vegetarian.
Speaker 3: Oh vegetarian, okay, cheese inchiladas.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, what about you?
Speaker 2: I'm gonna get I'm not vegetarian. I don't no heat
Speaker 2: in the chat, but I'm gonna probably have a beefihita.
Speaker 2: But I will join you for a cheese inchilada as well.
Speaker 3: Nice.
Speaker 1: You can have that mine, thank you.
Speaker 2: I'll take it and some welcome oley and chips of course,
Speaker 2: and icy.
Speaker 3: Ideal superpower.
Speaker 1: Sleeping on airplanes. That's how you know you turned forty.
Speaker 1: I turned forty to Zever, it used to be like
Speaker 1: to fly to read other people's minds, and now I'm like,
Speaker 1: I would like to have high quality sleep when I travel.
Speaker 2: Official, if we're gonna, if we're gonna go with that,
Speaker 2: I'll go for risk free hrt oh nice.
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, that is what everyone's talking about these days. Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm that too, Yeah, yeah, okay. One song that would
Speaker 1: have to be on the playlist of your life. Oh
Speaker 1: my gosh. The Alex weren Ordinary song just took my
Speaker 1: breath away.
Speaker 3: That's how I can give you goosebumps a little bit.
Speaker 1: He's like twenty early nighties, I know, and he's the
Speaker 1: oldest soul. So I'm at my brother's apartment. I was
Speaker 1: just dancing to that song with my nephew. So it
Speaker 1: really transcends generations because he's eight and he's like, oh, Maya,
Speaker 1: I love that song. Maya. You and I have such
Speaker 1: similar music taste. And I was like, that's the coolest
Speaker 1: anyone's ever thought. I was in that age group, So
Speaker 1: this is great.
Speaker 3: He he wants to be cool like you. I love this.
Speaker 2: Okay, we've got to get into the book because I
Speaker 2: have a lot of questions, and then we're going to
Speaker 2: get some audience questions, which is really exciting. So let's
Speaker 2: talk about from the I feel like I know you,
Speaker 2: but I want everybody to know you like I know you.
Speaker 2: So I'm going to back it way up and say,
Speaker 2: tell me about tell all of us about what inspired
Speaker 2: you to write the book.
Speaker 1: So I should start off by saying I never planned
Speaker 1: to write a book. I was happy to go to
Speaker 1: my grave not having written a book. And when I
Speaker 1: started a slight change of plans, I really doubled down
Speaker 1: on this. I was like, the podcast is giving you
Speaker 1: what I need, and so no book, no book, no book.
Speaker 1: And then something happened where I think I had done
Speaker 1: maybe fifty or sixty episodes of a Slight Change, and
Speaker 1: I started to notice these very interesting connections across stories,
Speaker 1: and I wasn't expecting to find them. But there was
Speaker 1: one story in particular I talk about in the book
Speaker 1: where I just interviewed a young thirty something who had
Speaker 1: been diagnosed with stage four cancer, and I'd also interviewed
Speaker 1: a woman who found out that her late husband had
Speaker 1: cheated on her for decades, and they were both reckoning
Speaker 1: with a similar feeling of betrayal. And I was like, oh, wow,
Speaker 1: there is something very universal about the way that we're
Speaker 1: navigating these changes in ways that transcend the exact topic,
Speaker 1: the exact issue. Andre and I just felt like in
Speaker 1: our society, when we're going through hard stuff, people direct
Speaker 1: us towards the area of interest. So I'm like, you know,
Speaker 1: if I'm saying I'm having a tough time at work, Oh,
Speaker 1: I have a friend who you know recently been laid off,
Speaker 1: you should talk to them. I'm going through divorce. Oh,
Speaker 1: actually my friend went through divorce. Oh I've lost a
Speaker 1: loved one. Go to the bereef part of the bookstore
Speaker 1: that's sort of the generic advice, which is you need
Speaker 1: to find people whose stories look like yours. And I
Speaker 1: was having these insights from collecting the wisdom of my
Speaker 1: guests that no, actually we share a similar psychology. You
Speaker 1: don't need to find people whose stories look like yours.
Speaker 1: There are lessons that will emerge irrespective of what you're
Speaker 1: going through, that are relevant for all of us. And
Speaker 1: so I felt like a book was the only medium
Speaker 1: through which I could connect and combine new stories that
Speaker 1: people hadn't heard on the podcast, which is primarily what
Speaker 1: the other side of changes, and then illuminate those universal
Speaker 1: lessons that sat within the stories. And so this was
Speaker 1: truly a passion project because again, like didn't want to
Speaker 1: write a book, but felt compelled to write a book,
Speaker 1: which is sort of the best way to go about
Speaker 1: this process because it is not for the faint hearted,
Speaker 1: as I learned, No, And.
Speaker 2: I think I just have to say, on behalf of
Speaker 2: everyone that's here, I'm grateful that you did that, because
Speaker 2: one of the things I love about your podcast is
Speaker 2: sometimes what I'm in a hard place, especially I mean, yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean I was going to say I was going
Speaker 2: to talk about a hard place that I'm struggling with
Speaker 2: right now because it's I've got a daughter getting married
Speaker 2: and a mom that died, you know, earlier than I thought,
Speaker 2: and I'm wrestling with the fact that she's not going
Speaker 2: to be at the wedding. But none of the stories
Speaker 2: that helped me understand myself in the book were about
Speaker 2: grief and death. They were about other types of losses
Speaker 2: and other kinds of changes of plans. So I'm going
Speaker 2: to say you're a really good qualitative researcher, which might
Speaker 2: hurt your heart, but that.
Speaker 1: Doesn't It really doesn't. I mean, as an academic, to
Speaker 1: your point, people are like quality stuff, narrative storytelling, but
Speaker 1: I have been humbled. I mean, the power of stories
Speaker 1: is immense, and I will I will go to that
Speaker 1: for qualitative research and storytelling. I'm a full on convert.
Speaker 2: Okay, y'all, y'all are hearing it here, first team, heated
Speaker 2: rivalry team, qualitative research. I always used to say that
Speaker 2: stories are just data with the soul, like it's just
Speaker 2: you know, they're really important data. Let's go to your
Speaker 2: childhood dream of being a violinist, share that story with
Speaker 2: everyone and how that changed how you thought about change,
Speaker 2: And I would love for you to speak to something
Speaker 2: that I have learned from you, and I look for
Speaker 2: it immediately in my own life when I'm struggling, and
Speaker 2: I help my kids with it too. How it impacted
Speaker 2: the way you thought of your idea?
Speaker 1: Long story short, My childhood was fully centered around the violin.
Speaker 1: When I was six, my mom went up to our
Speaker 1: attic and brought down my grandmother's violin that she had
Speaker 1: played as a little girl in Burma and India. And
Speaker 1: I was so close to my grandmother. I mean when
Speaker 1: I would go to India in the summers, we were inseparable.
Speaker 1: I would stand next to her in the kitchen when
Speaker 1: she was cooking food. I would sit next to her
Speaker 1: in prayer physician when she like meditated and did prayers
Speaker 1: to the Hindu gods for hours. I would sleep next
Speaker 1: to her on the linoleum floor with clothes, our pillows.
Speaker 1: I just felt a natural gravitation towards her. And so
Speaker 1: when my mom, I'm the youngest of four kids, offered
Speaker 1: me the chance to play the violin, I was like, yes,
Speaker 1: that's what our grandmother did. You know. We were separated
Speaker 1: by thousands of miles, so I wanted anything to feel
Speaker 1: close to her, and it was like a magnet because
Speaker 1: my parents had to tell me to do lots of stuff,
Speaker 1: but for some reason, they never had to tell me
Speaker 1: to practice, which was kind of astonishing for them, like
Speaker 1: what six year old wants to practice the violin? Right?
Speaker 1: But I really did and I didn't have to be
Speaker 1: pressured at all, and so I start to develop big dreams.
Speaker 1: I get accepted at Juilliard, the world renowned violinist. It
Speaker 1: saw Pearlman invites me to be his private student. I mean,
Speaker 1: it feels like it was a different lifetime ago, Brene.
Speaker 1: But I think like when Pearlman takes me out as
Speaker 1: a student that I might have the opportunity to go pro.
Speaker 1: It was sort of the vote of confidence that I
Speaker 1: needed to get outside of my imposter syndrome and to
Speaker 1: really believe I had it. And so everything was going
Speaker 1: according to plan until my slight change of plans, acute
Speaker 1: hand injury ended my dreams in a moment. I was
Speaker 1: at summer camp. I was fifteen years old. I was
Speaker 1: also very very stubborn, very much in denial, kept playing
Speaker 1: through pain, had surgeries, alternative treatments, kept performing. I just
Speaker 1: I couldn't let the violin go, and I think I've
Speaker 1: only realized in recent years that the reason for that
Speaker 1: is my entire sense of worth and well being identity
Speaker 1: was entangled with the instrument, and so in losing the violin,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't just be losing an instrument. I would be
Speaker 1: losing myself. And that just felt way too threatening. Not
Speaker 1: only did I feel such deep connection to it, but
Speaker 1: it was also filling these voids I felt in my life.
Speaker 1: So I was teased and bullied a lot as a kid.
Speaker 1: I was one of a few brown kids in a
Speaker 1: predominantly white school. The girls in my neighborhood were so cruel.
Speaker 1: At the lunch table one day, this one girl was like,
Speaker 1: you are so ugly, it's painful for me to look
Speaker 1: at you, and then just got up and left and
Speaker 1: went to another table. By the way. Like a decade
Speaker 1: or two later, she saw my wedding photos and she
Speaker 1: was like stunning, And I'm like, where was that? Yeah,
Speaker 1: when I was in middle school.
Speaker 3: There's two we have in common, folks. I'm going to
Speaker 3: keep it clean, but no.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I digress. This is not relevant to the book.
Speaker 1: I just clearly haven't healed from my childhood with now
Speaker 1: I'm with you, let's go anyway. So I was teased
Speaker 1: a lot, but then when I went to Julia, I
Speaker 1: felt so at home because it was a very international group,
Speaker 1: so they embrace me for my indian ness and like
Speaker 1: it just didn't seem to matter. And So what I
Speaker 1: learned from that experience, and it's taking me a long time,
Speaker 1: is that we so often anchor our self identities to
Speaker 1: what we do, to the roles or labels that we occupy.
Speaker 1: So that could be being a violinist, it could be
Speaker 1: being an athlete, it could be being a mom, head
Speaker 1: of the PTA, whatever it is that tends to be
Speaker 1: how we affiliate, and having those identities can bring our
Speaker 1: lives lots of meaning and purpose and stave off existential angst.
Speaker 1: But the downside is that when life does throw you
Speaker 1: a curveball, it can threaten that thing and that can
Speaker 1: be very destabilizing. And so I have learned that it's
Speaker 1: really helpful to expand our self identity to include not
Speaker 1: just what we do, but why we do that thing.
Speaker 1: So I asked myself, what was it that I loved
Speaker 1: about the violin Emotional connection? That is what I that
Speaker 1: is what makes me light up that's what makes mya tick.
Speaker 1: Just because I lost the violin didn't mean that I
Speaker 1: lost what led me to love it in the first place.
Speaker 1: That part of me was actually still intact. So even
Speaker 1: though I felt I'd lost everything, I actually hadn't, And
Speaker 1: it was just a matter of finding other outlets through
Speaker 1: which to express this very fundamental desire, which was to
Speaker 1: emotionally connect with people. And I have through my book
Speaker 1: the other side of change. I have through my podcast
Speaker 1: a slight change of plans. There are other ways to
Speaker 1: figure out how to express your why, and it'll give
Speaker 1: you a softer landing when you do that, because it
Speaker 1: can serve as a compass. And one thing that was
Speaker 1: so unexpected about the book is the final chapter ended
Speaker 1: up being memoir. It turned out I was going through
Speaker 1: my own unexpected changes as I was writing the book,
Speaker 1: and as I was contending with the fact that my
Speaker 1: hopes of becoming a mom weren't coming true. I actually
Speaker 1: had to ask myself those same set of questions when
Speaker 1: it came to motherhood. What was I craving from parenthood
Speaker 1: and could I find some of those traits and features elsewhere? So, yeah,
Speaker 1: I would encourage everyone who's listening to us right now,
Speaker 1: ask yourself what your why is, because life can't take
Speaker 1: that away from you. You can hold on to that
Speaker 1: in these crisis moments.
Speaker 2: I love the story so much with your grandmother because
Speaker 2: I had a similar relationship with my grandmother. I was
Speaker 2: writing down words when you were telling this story and
Speaker 2: when I was hearing it again. You know, it wasn't
Speaker 2: just identity. It's belonging, yes, history, connection, worth. It's these
Speaker 2: things that are so huge and fundamental to being human
Speaker 2: that we thumbtack to things we can't control. Where those
Speaker 2: things live inside of us, you know, and you thumbtack
Speaker 2: them to an event or an instrument or a role,
Speaker 2: And none of those things, over the course of a lifetime,
Speaker 2: can hold the weight of what we're talking about here,
Speaker 2: Do you know what I mean? Like, yes, they're so
Speaker 2: well said, hold the weight. That's exactly right. I mean,
Speaker 2: I learned this lesson too from Olivia. The first chapter
Speaker 2: turns out she's putting all of her self worth in
Speaker 2: the opinions of others. You and I talked about this,
Speaker 2: and you're on a slight change of plans. We know
Speaker 2: how far that gets you? Yeah, we know how tenuus
Speaker 2: that relationship is.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that is the ultimate thumb sack word.
Speaker 1: Exactly, and she becomes locked in. She is literally unable
Speaker 1: to move any part of her body other than her eyes,
Speaker 1: and she can only blink to communicate with the world.
Speaker 1: Talk about a surrendering to the rawness of who you
Speaker 1: are because you can no longer curate any version of
Speaker 1: yourself for other people that you think is palatable. You're
Speaker 1: literally locked in. And so you're exactly right. You should
Speaker 1: ask yourself how much weight could this thing hold of
Speaker 1: my identity? And is it possible that I can put
Speaker 1: more eggs and more baskets? And is it possible that
Speaker 1: I can diversify the loved? And by the way, it
Speaker 1: can be very uncomfortable to do this. I remember on
Speaker 1: the night of the second miscarriage where my husband Jimmy,
Speaker 1: and I found out that our surrogate and miscarried twins.
Speaker 1: We were just beside ourselves with grief, right, and I
Speaker 1: remember Jimmy came into the bedroom and said, Maya, let's
Speaker 1: just say a few things were grateful for And I
Speaker 1: was like, oh, hell nah, I'm not doing a gratitude
Speaker 1: exercise right now. Jimmy, you take your Instagram nonsense and
Speaker 1: your toxic positivity. You go to the corner and you
Speaker 1: do the gratitude exercise. Okay, I'm lying here, miserable with
Speaker 1: the covers over me. And then he like kind of
Speaker 1: wore me down. I was like, okay, fine, I'll just
Speaker 1: do it. If anything, just like get him off my case.
Speaker 1: And he was like so sweet and earnest. So I
Speaker 1: also felt bad. And what I started to do, actually,
Speaker 1: he's a software engineer. He unknowingly was engaging me in
Speaker 1: a self affirmation exercise. And what is a self affirmation exercise.
Speaker 1: It's when you list all the things that bring your
Speaker 1: life meaning and purpose and value that are not being
Speaker 1: threatened by the chain going through. And what that does
Speaker 1: is it staves off denial. It makes the stakes less high,
Speaker 1: and it makes you more okay with accepting your reality.
Speaker 1: So I start rattling off my list. I'm like, I'm
Speaker 1: so grateful to be an aunt to my sixties's nephews.
Speaker 1: I'm so grateful to host a slight change of plans.
Speaker 1: I have the best listeners in the world. They write
Speaker 1: me these love letters all the time. I'm so grateful
Speaker 1: to gossip about the Bachelor with my fitness trainer, all
Speaker 1: these things. And it was like magic Brene, because I
Speaker 1: felt myself zooming out on my life right sizing what
Speaker 1: I was going through, I realized I developed tunnel vision.
Speaker 1: I was so laser focused on motherhood that nothing else
Speaker 1: that seemed to matter for the last few years. And
Speaker 1: I suddenly saw, Oh my god, my life is so
Speaker 1: full of rich and meaningful identities I'd just forgotten.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, I just love the Jimmy story. It's
Speaker 3: so great that he's still alive.
Speaker 2: I mean, hij hi, Jimmy, we love you, We love you, Jimmy.
Speaker 2: M What is You know what I think of when
Speaker 2: I you know, as a social scientist, you know what
Speaker 2: I think of when I think about what Jimmy did.
Speaker 2: I think about the three p's, Like, this is not
Speaker 2: pervasive in every corner of my life. This is not permanent,
Speaker 2: and this is not personal. What is the what is
Speaker 2: the neuroscience of.
Speaker 3: That?
Speaker 2: Like that swallow us whole hole that we go into
Speaker 2: where we have no periphery at all.
Speaker 3: Yeah, do you know what I mean?
Speaker 2: Where I it seems like what Jimmy had you engage
Speaker 2: in actually created a vision beyond that.
Speaker 1: It's classic focusing illusion from behavioral economics. That's what's happening.
Speaker 1: We've zoomed in our camera.
Speaker 3: That is exactly what's happening, yeah.
Speaker 1: To us. Yeah, so when we focus, when we so
Speaker 1: just literally imagine that everyone on this call, you have
Speaker 1: a camera and you press the zoom buttons so far
Speaker 1: it's literally getting blurry. But that's what our minds do
Speaker 1: in this moment of crisis, right, we literally forget that
Speaker 1: there is any background where so laser focused in. And interestingly,
Speaker 1: what happens when we have this focusing illusion where all
Speaker 1: we see is this little spot And for some person
Speaker 1: this is an illness. For another person's the divorce. For me,
Speaker 1: it was the miscarriage. You will assign it massive significance,
Speaker 1: the exclusion of everything else in your life that could
Speaker 1: have meeting. And then something we were talking about before
Speaker 1: this call. It's like the starter kit for roomen. That
Speaker 1: is where rumination begins. You've zoomed in so closely to
Speaker 1: the problem and you just start going over it and
Speaker 1: over it and over it. We both talked about this
Speaker 1: in Advanced Guys. We both have PhDs in rumination. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I devote a whole chapter to it in the book.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I've devoted like thirty years to it personally,
Speaker 2: Like I have every tag on here is like I
Speaker 2: have a rumination question. Wait, define rumination for us. Talk
Speaker 2: about why it's so hard on us, I mean, and
Speaker 2: also the new research are not just emotionally hard, but
Speaker 2: physically hard in our bodies, and then talk to us
Speaker 2: about the relationship between all in rumination.
Speaker 1: Yes, So rumination happens often in the aftermath of change
Speaker 1: because in the face of so much uncertainty, which we
Speaker 1: know our brains are not wired to enjoy. My favorite
Speaker 1: study shows that we're more stressed when we're told we
Speaker 1: have a fifty percent chance of getting an electric shock
Speaker 1: than when we're told we have a one hundred percent chance.
Speaker 1: So we'd rather be sure bad things going to happen
Speaker 1: than to have to grapple with any ambiguity. I resonate
Speaker 1: with this fully. I'm like, bring on the shocks, tell
Speaker 1: me out the story, and I cannot deal with that
Speaker 1: anticipatory anxiety, right, but.
Speaker 3: Lock that shit down, yes, and get it over with,
Speaker 3: Just get it.
Speaker 1: Over with exactly. And so we have these regrets or
Speaker 1: anxieties or worries or catastrophic thoughts about the future, whatever
Speaker 1: it is, and we just start, almost like on a
Speaker 1: hamster wheel, we start just running in circles. That's the
Speaker 1: analogy that Ethan Cross, one of the researchers who studies
Speaker 1: this uses, And you all know this feeling. You wake
Speaker 1: up at three in the morning, let's say you had
Speaker 1: a negative interaction with your coworker. You can't get them
Speaker 1: out of your head, and you keep thinking you're making
Speaker 1: progress as you think through this, but you end up
Speaker 1: in exactly the same place over and over and over again.
Speaker 1: It is so maddening. And I had actually a version
Speaker 1: of this when I was in college. So the final chapter,
Speaker 1: I think people know from a slight change of plans
Speaker 1: one part of my path to motherhood story, which was
Speaker 1: the fertility surrogacy part, they don't actually know the story
Speaker 1: that predates it. And I'm actually very excited for people
Speaker 1: to read this part because I never thought I would
Speaker 1: share that. It was very, very hard for me to write,
Speaker 1: but I actually developed an obsessive worry when I was
Speaker 1: seventeen years old about my future kids suffering, and I
Speaker 1: would just endlessly loop in my dorm room over and
Speaker 1: over again about all the ill fates they could experience.
Speaker 1: It could be you know, what if they, you know,
Speaker 1: one day, experience massive debilitating depression, what if the experience
Speaker 1: of hate crime. Like I was just going through all
Speaker 1: the things, by the way, while everyone else was like
Speaker 1: getting ship faced and go yeah, I was like thinking
Speaker 1: about the future of humanity and how my children might
Speaker 1: hypothetical children would prosper, super cool, super fun friend. You
Speaker 1: guys would have all loved me in college obviously. But
Speaker 1: here's the thing about rumination. We don't get to choose
Speaker 1: what our brains obsess over, and that's what's so annoying
Speaker 1: about it. It will just find you. And then one
Speaker 1: of the reasons I devote a whole chapter to it
Speaker 1: is that there are very effective strategies for us to
Speaker 1: actually break that obsessive loop and to forge what psychologists
Speaker 1: call psychological distance between you and your current preoccupations. So
Speaker 1: one of my favorite, very easy to do strategies is
Speaker 1: to invite awe inspiring experiences into your life, so we
Speaker 1: can feel awe in the presence of anything that is
Speaker 1: vast and that transcends our understanding of the world. The
Speaker 1: obvious ones are music, art, nature, but my favorite one
Speaker 1: that I feel doesn't get recognized enough and deserves to
Speaker 1: be at the front of the line is moral beauty,
Speaker 1: and that's when we just witness other extraordinary acts that
Speaker 1: human beings engage in. It could be their kindness or
Speaker 1: self sacrifice, or their courage, or the resilience in the
Speaker 1: face of illness, whatever it is. It violates our assumptions
Speaker 1: about what humans are capable of and the best way possible,
Speaker 1: and in turn rewires our brains and makes us see
Speaker 1: what maybe we are capable of. It gives us that
Speaker 1: incredible capacity for imagination around our potential. And so what
Speaker 1: aud does is that it dampens the parts of the
Speaker 1: brain that are associated with self immersion, like the ego
Speaker 1: eparts the default mode network, and in doing so, in
Speaker 1: dampening neural activity, it allows us to step outside of
Speaker 1: our individual wants and needs and anxieties. Oh, we get
Speaker 1: the necessary perspective we need. We are able to see
Speaker 1: our problems with a little bit more clarity and objectivity.
Speaker 1: And I want to hear how it worked for you.
Speaker 2: I've tried it twice, and I tried two different things.
Speaker 2: I looked at Steve and I said at the end
Speaker 2: of last year and said I need to go fishing,
Speaker 2: and he's like, and we're big Gulf Coast South Texas
Speaker 2: fisher people, and where the sunset goes on for miles
Speaker 2: and it's just incredible.
Speaker 3: And I was so deep in rumination.
Speaker 2: I was almost having a little bit of a hard
Speaker 2: time getting out of bed, because you tackle, you tackle
Speaker 2: another word that's a really as an emotional someone who
Speaker 2: stays emotional granularity. Despair the belief that today will tomorrow
Speaker 2: will be just like today is the way I define it.
Speaker 3: And so I was in some moderate despair.
Speaker 2: And we went and I watched that sunset and it
Speaker 2: was it literally melted my rumination. This was this was
Speaker 2: deeply meaningful for me. And the second time I caught
Speaker 2: myself ruminating, I couldn't get to the Gulf Coast. But
Speaker 2: I listened to Bergheim, the new album, and yeah, just
Speaker 2: with my headphones on in the dark, and I was like,
Speaker 2: I don't know, there's something about I studied Awe for
Speaker 2: Atlas of the Heart. There's something that is such a
Speaker 2: counterintuitive relief about being small in the vastness of beauty,
Speaker 2: that hey, I have to be honest with you.
Speaker 3: It reminds me of you.
Speaker 2: It does, it really does there's something vast about your beauty,
Speaker 2: so there is. And there's something incredible about how you
Speaker 2: lay out a landscape of pain and possibility that's bigger
Speaker 2: than you. So it's yeah, yeah, we can cry if
Speaker 2: we want. Okay, we're getting we're getting questions, so no,
Speaker 2: I know. Okay, So we've got a question from Andrea.
Speaker 2: What's the best thing we can do to help a
Speaker 2: friend or loved one who's in the midst of unexpected
Speaker 2: change and struggling to get to the other side of it.
Speaker 3: It's a great question.
Speaker 1: That's such a good question. Don't impose your own mental
Speaker 1: framework onto the other person.
Speaker 2: Wa wait, wait, wait, wait, Okay, I'm going to stop
Speaker 2: you because this is so important defined before you go forward.
Speaker 2: What a mental framework is, Yeah, and how you might
Speaker 2: have one and your friend who's in struggle might have one.
Speaker 1: Yeah. We have pretty quickly an immediate vision of what
Speaker 1: would make us feel better if we were in that
Speaker 1: person's situation, and we like empathy to be shown to
Speaker 1: us in a very particular way. We have a clear
Speaker 1: understanding of what we would want, and I think a
Speaker 1: lot of the time we don't do the cognitive work
Speaker 1: of trying to figure out what would pacify or help
Speaker 1: the other person think more constructively given the way that
Speaker 1: their brain is wired, and so providing support for that
Speaker 1: person first requires really deep, deliberate listening. My instinct too,
Speaker 1: is like, let me just throw a bunch of solutions
Speaker 1: your way. Oh you're the other the other fifteen other things.
Speaker 1: And you know, we know there's different types of empathy, right,
Speaker 1: we know there's empathic concern and cognitive empathy and emotional empathy.
Speaker 1: You have to figure out how to step outside of
Speaker 1: yourself and understand that this person has had a totally
Speaker 1: different life experience than you've had. They have a different
Speaker 1: way of responding to trauma. Potentially their needs in this
Speaker 1: moment might even be different from their needs yesterday. So
Speaker 1: first just listen and then try to do the diagnosis
Speaker 1: part or the helping part.
Speaker 3: I think that's beautiful. I had my sister.
Speaker 2: My sister and I have this question we ask each
Speaker 2: other because we really assume the same mental framework because
Speaker 2: we're sisters.
Speaker 3: And so now we just say what does love look
Speaker 3: like right now?
Speaker 2: And she'll say, I don't want any of your bullshit advice,
Speaker 2: but I want you to bring me a cheesy cast
Speaker 2: a role, leave it at the door and don't even
Speaker 2: knock because I don't want to see your face. I'm like, Okay, gotcha,
Speaker 2: I'm interested. Yeah, but it's almost like I never thought
Speaker 2: about it, Untilly, you just said this so smart. I
Speaker 2: almost struggle more with people that I'm closer to because
Speaker 2: I assume more familiarity with mental with the mental model.
Speaker 3: Does that make sense? Oh?
Speaker 1: One hundred percent? And sometimes it's even worse than that.
Speaker 1: For me, I'm prescriptive about it. I want them to
Speaker 1: see their problem in a certain way. I'm so annoyed
Speaker 1: when they don't see it the way I see it.
Speaker 1: So I can be I have to be very careful
Speaker 1: to not be sanctimonious as I'm giving them advice or
Speaker 1: even you know, this is how you should see it,
Speaker 1: and this is the thing that should make you feel better.
Speaker 1: Thank you very much. I'm done.
Speaker 2: You're up in my number one ineogram, like, not only
Speaker 2: do I have the solution for your problem, but I'd
Speaker 2: like to define the problem for you. Okay, this is
Speaker 2: from Elizabeth. How do you distinguish between healthy real time
Speaker 2: emotional processing and maladaptive rumination? Damn, Elizabeth, as I'm gonna
Speaker 2: read it again, how do you distinguish between healthy real
Speaker 2: time emotional processing and maladaptive rumination, and what evidence based
Speaker 2: practices help people day On the productive side of that line,
Speaker 2: her sign off is great, and you're already in our club. Sincerely,
Speaker 2: a chronic intellectualizer.
Speaker 1: Elizabeth is smart AF That's a fantastic question. And the line,
Speaker 1: by the way, is very, very blurry. And I have
Speaker 1: found myself in my adult life not always knowing. So
Speaker 1: let's say you get an unexpected health diagnosis. There's some
Speaker 1: amount of productive thinking and research that you should be doing,
Speaker 1: and yet you'll pass some line in the sand, at
Speaker 1: which point it becomes obsessive and it stops being productive. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: there isn't kind of a one size fits all for
Speaker 1: any given circumstance other than you notice it is massively
Speaker 1: degrading your well being. The telltale, though, in terms of
Speaker 1: just generalized patterns, is you find yourself returning to the
Speaker 1: same thought, exact thought loops over and over again. So
Speaker 1: you are asking yourself a novel question. So you think
Speaker 1: it's new. You think you're on the brink of having
Speaker 1: this profound insight about this problem that's been plaguing you.
Speaker 1: And if you could just crack the code on that,
Speaker 1: then you'll feel better. If I could just get reassurance
Speaker 1: that you know, I've been talking about these examples of
Speaker 1: the book. It's like, if I could just figure out
Speaker 1: why they stopped loving me, if I could just figure
Speaker 1: out why I lost this job, if I could just
Speaker 1: figure out all the things that could plague my family,
Speaker 1: I'll be able to keep them safe. Right, we have
Speaker 1: all these If I could just questions, But then what
Speaker 1: will happen is we'll get that reassurance and then the
Speaker 1: next day we'll wake up and will be something else
Speaker 1: that we're seeking. And so I think that reassurance seeking
Speaker 1: is a very good indicator that you're in the obsessive
Speaker 1: space when you don't feel calm in the face of
Speaker 1: really good evidence, because you almost resistant and it's not enough.
Speaker 1: It's not enough, it's not enough. I remember I was
Speaker 1: actually just talking this morning. I did CNN with boll
Speaker 1: Flizer and Pam and Pamela was like, I had this
Speaker 1: OCD postpartum where I just kept needing to know if
Speaker 1: my baby was alive, Like every second I was worried
Speaker 1: that like maybe like I needed to check on the
Speaker 1: health of my baby, and that is that OCD space
Speaker 1: where there's no amount of reassurance that feels acceptable.
Speaker 2: It reminds me, and you know, I have twenty eight
Speaker 2: years of sobriety. It reminds me of something that I
Speaker 2: learned in AA very early on, as saying you can
Speaker 2: never get enough of what you don't need. And it's
Speaker 2: almost like it's for me. I never thought about to
Speaker 2: this split second when you were defining it that one
Speaker 2: of the lines for me might be with rumination. Is
Speaker 2: it healthy thinking and intellectualizing or is it rumination? Is
Speaker 2: it something that I can never get enough of? And
Speaker 2: it's driving me deeper and deeper in this whole, like
Speaker 2: the focus in the hole.
Speaker 1: Because the opposite of rumination is actually productive critical thinking.
Speaker 1: And so one thing I want to reassure Elizabeth about
Speaker 1: is that I share a lot of stories on I
Speaker 1: share a lot of strategies. It's really important for people
Speaker 1: to pay attention to the emotions they're feeling in their
Speaker 1: body when they're having these thoughts. When you're having like calm,
Speaker 1: deliberate thinking, you feel a certain way when you're having
Speaker 1: anxiety driven like obsessive. If I don't find this out,
Speaker 1: my life is going to crumble. That's usually a sign
Speaker 1: that you're on the wrong side of it.
Speaker 2: Helpful, Okay, Last question, I can't believe we're out of time,
Speaker 2: like this is a nuts.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 2: Last questions from Beverly. What was the biggest surprise you
Speaker 2: encountered during your research and your writing journey.
Speaker 3: I love that question.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh. You know it's interesting. I'm deeply optimistic
Speaker 1: about humans, so I tend to see the good in people,
Speaker 1: and I tend to assume the best in people, which
Speaker 1: I'm really glad about. But I also don't believe the
Speaker 1: universe has my bad in any way at all. And
Speaker 1: I don't really have strong religious or spiritual leanings, and
Speaker 1: so there's no safe landing. I have like safety net
Speaker 1: that I fall into when a really shitty thing happens
Speaker 1: in my life, and that is hard. And for that reason,
Speaker 1: I am very skeptical. When I hear someone say something like, oh,
Speaker 1: there's a silver lining to like a negative change, I'm like, really,
Speaker 1: is that just something you told yourself to make yourself
Speaker 1: feel better about it? Like I often say, I'm allergic
Speaker 1: to two things, soy and platitudes, because there can't handle
Speaker 1: either one and so one thing I was shocked to
Speaker 1: discover through writing this book was how grateful people who
Speaker 1: had been through harrowing change were about who they became
Speaker 1: on the other side. They would never have willed their
Speaker 1: change to happen again. Who would Why would you ever
Speaker 1: invite illness or loss or heartbreak into your life? But
Speaker 1: they felt that they had emerged transformed, that the change
Speaker 1: had affected them, had transformed them, had left lasting change
Speaker 1: within them in ways that unlocked new found mental freedom
Speaker 1: and confidence and new capabilities, a renewed relationship with a
Speaker 1: family history that was troubled, just a new way of
Speaker 1: seeing themselves in the world around them. And I was
Speaker 1: so moved by this because I just didn't know there
Speaker 1: was going to be some element of redemption in all
Speaker 1: of these people's stories, and then I had to experience
Speaker 1: it for myself, and that was the best proof. Like
Speaker 1: I was still a little skeptical until all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: I realized that I was transforming, going through my own change,
Speaker 1: which I detail in the final chapter. And I realized, Brene,
Speaker 1: if you had asked me on the night member when
Speaker 1: Jimmy came in the room, if you had asked me
Speaker 1: on that night. Will you ever find true happiness again?
Speaker 1: I would have said no. Is there anything good that's
Speaker 1: going to come of this? I would have said no.
Speaker 1: Will you ever feel whole not having children? I would
Speaker 1: have said no, And yet here I am. It's going
Speaker 1: to make feel little emotional. Three years later, I am
Speaker 1: the happiest that I've ever been. I'm the most hopeful,
Speaker 1: I'm the most whole. I've had to do a lot
Speaker 1: of work kind of unpacking why I'd anchored so much
Speaker 1: of my self worth to motherhood. That was a whole
Speaker 1: cultural like, oh my god, I need to challenge the
Speaker 1: societal norms and why is society so cruel towards child
Speaker 1: free women? Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. But I
Speaker 1: felt myself developed new values and perspectives and abilities, and
Speaker 1: it was such a beautiful process that was unfolding within
Speaker 1: me subconsciously. And I just like I'm beaming because I
Speaker 1: it was like it was one thing to see it
Speaker 1: and all the people I was writing about, but then
Speaker 1: I just didn't expect to see it in myself.
Speaker 3: I mean, this.
Speaker 2: Takes me to a line that you wrote in your preface.
Speaker 2: I just highlighted this. I made a post it note
Speaker 2: that had it. I wrote a quote and I hung
Speaker 2: it in my study. This is what you write? Can
Speaker 2: I quote you to you please? A negative change can
Speaker 2: feel like an apocalypse, as if the world we knew
Speaker 2: has now been destroyed. But apocalypse comes from the Greek
Speaker 2: word apocalypsis, which actually means revelation. This etymology is instructive.
Speaker 2: Change can upend us, but it can also reveal things
Speaker 2: to us. What if we saw the hardest moments in
Speaker 2: our lives is a chance to reimagine ourselves rather than
Speaker 2: just something to endure. What potential change could be could
Speaker 2: be unlocked within us. In going on this journey with others,
Speaker 2: I've become far more curious about who I can be
Speaker 2: on the other side of change. I hope that after
Speaker 2: reading this book you'll come to feel the same way.
Speaker 2: I think you've done that for us.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, Thank you, Brenee. I so appreciate
Speaker 1: you blessing this book with breneis and I'm was so
Speaker 1: thoughtfully read it and it really moves my heart. How
Speaker 1: many people signed up to join this conversation, It's okay,
Speaker 1: of ninety eight percent of you signed up because Brene's
Speaker 1: name is on the flyer. I'm not taking it personally,
Speaker 1: I'm really not, but no, truly, I am so moved
Speaker 1: by the passion you have for the topic and for
Speaker 1: the work, and I'm just so happy that we could
Speaker 1: all be together on this Monday night. So thank you.
Speaker 2: I love this and I just want to say that
Speaker 2: one of the things I've taken away and my final thing,
Speaker 2: is that there have been things in my life that
Speaker 2: were unexpected, and there's also been a world that I
Speaker 2: live in right now that is not the world that
Speaker 2: I expected. And I have found your lessons here as
Speaker 2: valuable in the macro negotiations of life, a life that
Speaker 2: I didn't in a world that I didn't have in
Speaker 2: my bingo card, as much as the personal. So you're
Speaker 2: making us better and I think I think of you
Speaker 2: what I think of moral beauty.
Speaker 1: So thank you, Hey, thanks so much for listening. If
Speaker 1: you're curious about the other side of Change, you can
Speaker 1: pick up a copy at the link in the show
Speaker 1: notes or wherever you buy books. And if you're looking
Speaker 1: for more Brenee on a Slight Change of Plans, you're
Speaker 1: in luck. Brenee was on the show a couple of
Speaker 1: seasons ago for a conversation about identity and how we
Speaker 1: can find ourselves picking up and holding on to different
Speaker 1: ones over the course of our lives. You'll find a
Speaker 1: link to that episode in the show notes as well.
Speaker 1: Back in a week with another episode of A Slight
Speaker 1: Change of Plans. I'll see you then. A Slight Change
Speaker 1: of Plans is created, written, and executive produced by me
Speaker 1: Maya Schunker. The Slight Change family includes our showrunner Alexander Garatin,
Speaker 1: our editor Daphne Chen, our lead producer Megan Lubin, our
Speaker 1: associate producer Sonya Gerwit, and our sound engineer Erica Huang.
Speaker 1: Luis Scara wrote our delightful theme song and ginger Smith
Speaker 1: helped arrange the vocals. A Slight Change of Plans is
Speaker 1: a production of Pushkin Industries, so big thanks to everyone there,
Speaker 1: and of course a very special thanks to Jimmy Lee.