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 archive. We've had so many wonderful guests that
Speaker 1: we've decided to handpick one of our favorites that may
Speaker 1: be new to you, but if not, it's definitely worth
Speaker 1: another listen. We hope you'll enjoy this episode with Linda Graham.
Speaker 2: Very often, our attitude is a filter that perception goes through.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the one you feed Throughout time, great thinkers
Speaker 1: have recognized the importance of the thoughts 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, think things that hold
Speaker 1: us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not just
Speaker 1: about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and
Speaker 1: creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast
Speaker 1: is about how other people keep themselves moving in the
Speaker 1: right direction, how they feed their good wolf. Thanks for
Speaker 1: joining us. Our guest on this episode is Linda Graham,
Speaker 1: whose work focuses on helping people strengthen capacities to cope
Speaker 1: with the challenges and crises of their lives, recover an
Speaker 1: authentic sense of self, deepen into healthy, resonant relationships, and
Speaker 1: engage with the world through meaningful and purposeful work. Her
Speaker 1: book is Resilience, Powerful Practices for Bouncing Back from Disappointment, difficulty,
Speaker 1: even Disaster.
Speaker 3: Hi, Linda, welcome to the show.
Speaker 2: Thanks Eric, thanks for having me.
Speaker 3: It's a pleasure to have you on. We are going
Speaker 3: to discuss a really important concept here, Resilience. Your book
Speaker 3: is called Resilience Powerful Practices for Bouncing Back from Disappointment, difficulty,
Speaker 3: and even disaster. So we will jump into that in
Speaker 3: a moment, but let's start like we always do with
Speaker 3: the parable. There's a grandmother who's talking with their grandson.
Speaker 3: She says, in life, there are two wolves inside of
Speaker 3: us that are always at battle. One is a good wolf,
Speaker 3: which represents things like kindness and bravery and love, and
Speaker 3: the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like
Speaker 3: greed and hatred and fear. And the grandson stops and
Speaker 3: thinks about it for a second, and he looks up
Speaker 3: at his grandmother and he says, well, grandmother, which one wins?
Speaker 3: And the grandmother says, the one you feed. So I'd
Speaker 3: like to start off by asking you what that parable
Speaker 3: means to you in your life and in the work
Speaker 3: that you do.
Speaker 2: Well, As I teach about resilience and I teach about
Speaker 2: the neuroscience of resilience, what neuroscience is teaching us and
Speaker 2: what the behavioral scidens are teaching us, is that all emotions,
Speaker 2: the ones we call good and the ones we call bad,
Speaker 2: are signals to act. Their signals to pay attention something
Speaker 2: important is happening here, and to take wise actions. So
Speaker 2: even the emotions that we deem negative or disruptive, like
Speaker 2: anger and fear and hatred and greed, they are still
Speaker 2: motivators to take action. And when we can pay mindful,
Speaker 2: compassionate attention to the emotions that we're having and to
Speaker 2: ourselves for having them, then any emotion will run through
Speaker 2: our nervous system in about twenty seconds unless we feed
Speaker 2: it with stories and with habitual patterns of response. So
Speaker 2: if we can notice the difficult, disruptive, negative emotions like
Speaker 2: anger or fear or hatred and simply allow them. We're
Speaker 2: human beings and have compassion for ourselves for feeling those emotions,
Speaker 2: for going ballistic, for getting upset. Then we're able to
Speaker 2: actually shift the functioning of the brain out of that
Speaker 2: kind of contraction and reactivity and negativity into something more
Speaker 2: receptive and more open and more allowing. And when we
Speaker 2: do that, we can actually sit with the emotion, allow it,
Speaker 2: tolerate it, not necessarily feed it, just let it be
Speaker 2: there and discern what wise action would be. And so
Speaker 2: I often and always teach people to practice a kind
Speaker 2: of mindful self compassion practice that allows them to be
Speaker 2: with their experience in the moment and allows them to
Speaker 2: be with themselves for having that experience in the moment,
Speaker 2: because that will actually shift the functioning of the brain
Speaker 2: to more openness, more receptivity to the bigger picture. The
Speaker 2: direct measurable cause and effect outcome of that practice is resilience.
Speaker 3: That's wonderful. Let's just find resilience real quick though, for
Speaker 3: our listeners.
Speaker 2: So resilience or capacities in eight in our being, because
Speaker 2: they are innate in our brain to bend with the wind,
Speaker 2: go with the flow, to perceive a stressor, to perceive
Speaker 2: our reactions to that stressor, and to be able to
Speaker 2: have response flexibility, to shift perspectives, to shift our attitudes,
Speaker 2: to shift our choices of action, to shift our behaviors.
Speaker 2: So resilience is bouncing back from adversity. It is also
Speaker 2: learning from that adversity, learning what a wise response would be.
Speaker 3: You say that the motto of the book is how
Speaker 3: you respond to the issue is the issue. So explain
Speaker 3: that a little bit more. You've kind of been saying that,
Speaker 3: but let's talk about that a bit.
Speaker 2: So factors of resilience are the severity of the stressor
Speaker 2: that we're dealing with. So it's more challenging. We can
Speaker 2: deal with a fender bend or car accident, but it's
Speaker 2: more challenging if we caused an injury in that accident.
Speaker 2: It's more challenging still if we cause the death of
Speaker 2: a child in that accident. So the severity of the
Speaker 2: stressor is a factor that impacts our resilience. The strength
Speaker 2: of our external resources. Do we have family and friends,
Speaker 2: Do we have financial resources, Do we have medical resources,
Speaker 2: do we have counseling resources? Those are also a factor
Speaker 2: in how resilient, we'll be able to be. The third
Speaker 2: factor is our own internal resources, our sense of grit
Speaker 2: and determination and courage. And the key factor in the
Speaker 2: brain is response flexibility, being able to see what's happening,
Speaker 2: see our response to what's happening, and change our response
Speaker 2: to be more skillful if we can. So that's what
Speaker 2: allows us to cope with stress and trauma in many,
Speaker 2: many different ways, and over time we learn the ways
Speaker 2: that are the most skillful and the most effective.
Speaker 3: And you make a differentiation between our perception, which is
Speaker 3: kind of our attitude, and our response, which is sort
Speaker 3: of our behavior, and you say, you kind of want
Speaker 3: to look at both of those things. What's our perception
Speaker 3: of the situation and what is our behavioral response to
Speaker 3: the situation?
Speaker 2: Right, And very often our attitude is a filter that
Speaker 2: that perception goes through, so we have a perception of
Speaker 2: what's happening. We can have belief systems and attitudes and
Speaker 2: values that filter our perception, and so we want to
Speaker 2: become aware of what those attitudes and belief systems and
Speaker 2: filters are as well. And part of rewiring our brains
Speaker 2: for resilience is to be able to rewire those patterns
Speaker 2: and those filters when necessary. So I will often teach
Speaker 2: about cultivating a resilience mindset, which is anything that happens.
Speaker 2: Anything that happens is a queue to try to practice
Speaker 2: responding resiliently and flexibly. How we respond to the issue
Speaker 2: is the issue. So anything that happens becomes a queue
Speaker 2: to practice resilience, to practice a growth mindset. What can
Speaker 2: I learn here? What's the silver lining in this disruptive event?
Speaker 2: And so when we cultivate that resilient mindset, we're filtering
Speaker 2: the events through that attitude. Oh what can I learn here?
Speaker 2: One of the phrases I have in the book is
Speaker 2: shit happens, but shift happens too. And so when we
Speaker 2: practice shifting our perspective and trying different options, we become
Speaker 2: more and more resilient, and we learn that we can
Speaker 2: become more resilient.
Speaker 3: You have a line that says you can experience this
Speaker 3: power of shifting your attitude and behavior by refocusing your
Speaker 3: attention from what just happened to how you are coping
Speaker 3: with what just happened. And I think that's a great
Speaker 3: way to think about what that fundamental shift is. There's
Speaker 3: there's I can focus on the event that's happening, and
Speaker 3: then if I shift to how is my attitude and
Speaker 3: behavior in response to this event, that's what we can
Speaker 3: actually do something.
Speaker 2: About, exactly exactly. I love this quote from James Russell
Speaker 2: Lowell when he says mishaps are like knives that cut
Speaker 2: us or serve us as we grasp them by the
Speaker 2: blade or by the handle.
Speaker 3: That's great. I had that quote right up here too.
Speaker 3: It's one I wanted to get in because it's so
Speaker 3: good and I think it's so interesting because you know,
Speaker 3: I'm not personally a believer like in this idea like
Speaker 3: everything happens for a reason or everything happens for the best.
Speaker 3: Like that's just not my personal belief system. It is
Speaker 3: for a lot of people. But what I love about
Speaker 3: that quote is the idea is whether that event ultimately
Speaker 3: becomes something that we turn into an advantage or whether
Speaker 3: it becomes grist for the mill in a positive way,
Speaker 3: really is how do we grab it by the blade
Speaker 3: or the handle. I just love that idea because it
Speaker 3: puts again puts it firmly back kind of in our court.
Speaker 2: So fundamental to resilience is the idea that we have
Speaker 2: a choice we have a choice about how we're going
Speaker 2: to respond, about what we're going to learn. And I
Speaker 2: love another quote somewhere in the book Catch the moment,
Speaker 2: make a choice. Every moment has a choice, and every
Speaker 2: choice has an impact. And that's really the trajectory of resilience.
Speaker 2: So when we notice what's happening and we make a choice,
Speaker 2: and we know that we have a choice and that
Speaker 2: that choice will make a difference, we're choosing to be resilient.
Speaker 2: I think that even applies to as where we wiring
Speaker 2: our brains to become more resilient, and we know there's
Speaker 2: neuroplasticity in the brain. We know we can choose experiences
Speaker 2: that will make the brain more resilient, more flexible, more responsive.
Speaker 2: We actually have a responsibility to learn what those experiences
Speaker 2: are and to choose to do them. And so that's why,
Speaker 2: going back to the parable, when we cultivate the positive
Speaker 2: emotions like kindness and compassion and love and joy, those
Speaker 2: shift the functioning of the brain to be more flexible,
Speaker 2: to be more responsive. We can make the choice to
Speaker 2: feed those emotions and we will become more resilient.
Speaker 3: Exactly. I love that. I love that idea. I want
Speaker 3: to real quick spend a couple minutes on why some
Speaker 3: of us are naturally more resilient than others. We can
Speaker 3: sort of look at this and see some people seem
Speaker 3: to be better able to be resilient and cope and
Speaker 3: others aren't. And there are some factors that really affect
Speaker 3: the development of the brain's response flexibility. So I'd like
Speaker 3: to just go through those factors real quick to sort
Speaker 3: of set them up, and then let's move firmly into
Speaker 3: how we change that.
Speaker 2: So one of my favorite quotes of all time is
Speaker 2: from my mentor, Diana Foscha, who says, the roots of
Speaker 2: resilience are to be found in the felt sense of
Speaker 2: being held in the mind and heart of an empathic, attuned,
Speaker 2: and self possessed other. She's speaking to the power of
Speaker 2: attachment conditioning our earliest experiences with our caregivers, where we
Speaker 2: the brain. The brain develops its capacities to regulate the
Speaker 2: nervous system, to regulate our emotions, to be able to
Speaker 2: reflect on our experience and make choices, to be able
Speaker 2: to relate to other people as refugees and resources when
Speaker 2: things go haywire. So the earliest experiences in our childhood
Speaker 2: set up our brains to be resilient to do that, regulating,
Speaker 2: to do that, attuning and empathy to do that response
Speaker 2: flexibility or not. And so the magic of learning about
Speaker 2: neuroplasticity is that we can rewire our brain's responses if
Speaker 2: we have not had that kind of optimal conditioning, and
Speaker 2: we can learn through our own experiences and the experiences
Speaker 2: of other people other relationships later to develop the capacities
Speaker 2: of the prefunctal cortex, which is the CEO of resilience,
Speaker 2: to be more flexible and more resilient in its functioning.
Speaker 2: So we know how resilience can develop or get derailed.
Speaker 2: What's important is learning how to recover it later.
Speaker 3: Yep, I agree. And you bring up the process of
Speaker 3: changing our brain to be more resilient in four sort
Speaker 3: of areas. You talk about conditioning, new conditioning, reconditioning, and deconditioning,
Speaker 3: and so let's really quickly run through kind of what
Speaker 3: each of those are, and then maybe what we can
Speaker 3: do is talk about some practices to do each of
Speaker 3: those things. Does that seem like a good way to
Speaker 3: move forward?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely so. Conditioning is what the brain does all
Speaker 2: the time on its own when we are not directing
Speaker 2: its attention. Any experience. I say this in the book
Speaker 2: Any experience, any experience at all, positive or negative, causes
Speaker 2: neurons in the brain to fire. If you repeat the experience,
Speaker 2: you repeat the neural firing. If you repeat that pattern
Speaker 2: of neural firing enough, that develops new neural circuitry in
Speaker 2: the brain. So that's how our patterns of response get
Speaker 2: developed from experience, and the brain does that all the
Speaker 2: time on its own. Anyway, when we want to create new,
Speaker 2: more adaptive, more flexible patterns of responding, that's the new conditioning.
Speaker 2: It's cultivating a practice like focusing attention or offering yourself
Speaker 2: self compassion, or practicing gratitude. It's cultivating those practices that
Speaker 2: are time will build new neural circuitry in the brain
Speaker 2: to become the new, more automatic responses in the brain.
Speaker 2: The new conditioning new patterns, does not rewire old patterns,
Speaker 2: kind of overlays them. But when we're tired, and when
Speaker 2: we're stressed, and when we're frightened, we revert to the
Speaker 2: automatic patterns that are already there. So in order to
Speaker 2: change those patterns, we do what I call reconditioning, which
Speaker 2: is technically called memory deconsolidation reconsolidation, and the principle of that.
Speaker 2: I mean the neuroscientists can see this in their scanners now,
Speaker 2: but it's been the basis of trauma therapy for decades.
Speaker 2: The principle is when you hold a negative experience in
Speaker 2: negative memory in conscious awareness, so the neurons are firing,
Speaker 2: and then you bring a more positive experience to directly
Speaker 2: juxtapose that, to directly contradict that, and you hold the
Speaker 2: positive and negative in your awareness at the same time.
Speaker 2: That juxtaposition causes the constellating those memories to fall apart
Speaker 2: and to rewire. When the positive is stronger, it will
Speaker 2: rewire the old negative memory. That's the basis of trauma therapy.
Speaker 2: So there are tools where we learn to use that juxtaposition.
Speaker 2: Hold the positive very very strongly, and it will we
Speaker 2: wire the old. Now, both new conditioning and reconditioning require
Speaker 2: conscious focused attention. When we're not consciously focusing our attention,
Speaker 2: the brain will go into what neuroscientists now call the
Speaker 2: default mode network, where it's a mental play space. It's
Speaker 2: where the brain makes its own connections, its own associations,
Speaker 2: it makes its own links on its own, and it's
Speaker 2: sort of the basis of our intuition and imagination, and
Speaker 2: we can use guided imagination, guided meditation, guided visualization to
Speaker 2: actually use that mode of processing in the brain to
Speaker 2: create virtual resources to create a wiser self, or a
Speaker 2: circle of support or a compassionate friend. So we can
Speaker 2: create in our imagination those resources that help us be
Speaker 2: more resilient. So the tools that I teach in resilience
Speaker 2: fall under those categories of new re or deconditioning, and
Speaker 2: I also organize them by somatic body based tools, by
Speaker 2: emotional management tools, by tools for relating within ourselves and
Speaker 2: relating to other people, and then our reflective intelligence, our mindfulness,
Speaker 2: and so that's how the tools are organized. They get
Speaker 2: very integrated when we're actually living our lives, and when
Speaker 2: they get integrated, we can be pretty resilient.
Speaker 3: So let's talk about a couple of these practices that
Speaker 3: people can use to do some of this new conditioning,
Speaker 3: reconditioning and deconditioning.
Speaker 2: One of the ones that I often teach right off
Speaker 2: the bat for new conditioning new experience is I'll have
Speaker 2: people identify a moment of kindness that they have received.
Speaker 2: Because Martin Seligman says doing a kindness is the single
Speaker 2: most reliable increase in our sense of wellbeing of any
Speaker 2: exercise we have tested. So when people remember a moment
Speaker 2: of kindness that they've received and then they share that experience,
Speaker 2: they share that story, they share that moment with another person, generally,
Speaker 2: not only do they feel kind the whole mood elevates.
Speaker 2: The whole mood lifts and Barbara Frederickson, in her book
Speaker 2: Love two point zero talks about how this can happen
Speaker 2: when two people are sitting in physical proximity, they're making
Speaker 2: eye contact, there is a sense of positive emotion when
Speaker 2: you're talking about kindness, and there's a sense of mutual
Speaker 2: and concern. She says that the firing of the brain
Speaker 2: waves in both people sinks up and they're in their
Speaker 2: neural chemistry sinks up, and it creates a feeling between
Speaker 2: them that I would call resonance, she calls love. And
Speaker 2: I think what's happening is when two people are engaged
Speaker 2: in a way that feels safe and connected, they're actually
Speaker 2: releasing the oxytocin in the brain. It's the hormone of
Speaker 2: safety and trust. It's the hormone of bonding and belonging,
Speaker 2: of calm and connect And so when two people are
Speaker 2: sharing a positive emotional experience, they're actually getting a bath
Speaker 2: of that oxytocin. Over time, If you repeat that, it
Speaker 2: will create new neural circuitry in the brain that can
Speaker 2: find that sense of calm and ease more easily. So
Speaker 2: I just have people share positive emotion experiences with each
Speaker 2: other to create that new neural circuitry in terms of reconditioning,
Speaker 2: very very similar using the oxytoin. But I always teach
Speaker 2: a practice called hand on the heart because it's so
Speaker 2: powerful it can calm down a panic attack in less
Speaker 2: than a minute. So this is using the positive to
Speaker 2: rewire the negative. So when you put your hand on
Speaker 2: your heart, so you feel the warm, safe touch of
Speaker 2: your hand on your own heart center, and begin to
Speaker 2: breathe a little more deeply, a little more slowly, a
Speaker 2: little more gently, and then even breathe in a sense
Speaker 2: of safety or ease or goodness into the heart center
Speaker 2: and then take a moment. It only takes a moment
Speaker 2: to remember a moment when you felt safe and loved
Speaker 2: and cherished with another human being, not the whole relationship,
Speaker 2: just a moment and it could be a partner or
Speaker 2: a child, it could be a therapist or a friend,
Speaker 2: it could be a spiritual figure, and it could be
Speaker 2: a pet. Pets are great, actually, And so you remember
Speaker 2: this moment of feeling safe and loved and cherish, and
Speaker 2: you kind of let the warm glow of that feeling
Speaker 2: wash through your body. And the oxytocin that's released is
Speaker 2: actually the brain's antidote to the stress home on cortisol.
Speaker 2: So as you release the oxytocin, you're calming down the
Speaker 2: stress response, and you're bringing your whole physiology, your whole
Speaker 2: nervous system, back into a sense of equilibrium and calm.
Speaker 2: So those kinds of tools simple, but when we repeat
Speaker 2: them over and over and over again, actually change our
Speaker 2: brain functioning.
Speaker 3: And I think what you said there at the end
Speaker 3: is very important. Both practices are wonderful, but one of
Speaker 3: the things you'd say is that there are some things
Speaker 3: that accelerate these processes of brain change, right, And one
Speaker 3: of them is little and often works best. And I
Speaker 3: really love that idea because I think what certainly has
Speaker 3: happened to me many times, and I think I know
Speaker 3: from talking to coaching clients and people in our spiritual
Speaker 3: habits workshop that what happens often is we try these
Speaker 3: tools a time to and they don't cause some huge change,
Speaker 3: and so we go, well, I guess that doesn't really work.
Speaker 3: And like you're saying here, this little bit but often
Speaker 3: over and over and over really does make a difference.
Speaker 3: It just takes longer than we want it to.
Speaker 2: There's no magic number in neuroscience at all of how
Speaker 2: many times you have to repeat something to create the
Speaker 2: new neural circuitry in your brain. That really depends on
Speaker 2: each individual person and the practice that they're doing. But
Speaker 2: when we do something, I mean, they know if you
Speaker 2: meditate ten minutes every day rather than one hour on
Speaker 2: the weekend, you get more benefit from the meditation. It's
Speaker 2: little and often if you write a list of things
Speaker 2: you're grateful for at the end of every day, rather
Speaker 2: than waiting to the weekend and writing it down all
Speaker 2: at once, you'll get more benefit because that's how the
Speaker 2: brain learns the best. So we break it down into
Speaker 2: small chunks, but we just keep at it and as
Speaker 2: we begin to experience it's a benefit of it. Then
Speaker 2: of course that becomes self motivating and self reinforcing.
Speaker 3: Right yep, I could not agree more. I mean, I
Speaker 3: think that's one of the things we have talked about
Speaker 3: on the show about as much as anything else, is
Speaker 3: this idea of just a little bit but over and
Speaker 3: over and over it adds up in a really phenomenal way.
Speaker 3: But it does just take sort of patient reapplication. And
Speaker 3: I think when it comes to at least for me,
Speaker 3: when it comes to rewiring brain patterns and thought, you know,
Speaker 3: trains of thought that just kind of show up a lot.
Speaker 3: It takes time, but it's absolutely doable. You know. It's
Speaker 3: I think back to the way I was, you know,
Speaker 3: five ten, fifteen, twenty years ago, the way my brain
Speaker 3: worked and the things that thought versus what it does now,
Speaker 3: and I'm like, it's a tremendous shift by just sort
Speaker 3: of consistently working on these things. And I think so
Speaker 3: much of what your approach is talking about, which is
Speaker 3: so important, is becoming aware of, like what is the
Speaker 3: brain actually saying to itself? What are we saying to ourselves?
Speaker 3: What are the thoughts? What are these perceptions and attitudes
Speaker 3: that are coloring everything we do and being aware of
Speaker 3: them and taking some level of control of them is
Speaker 3: so important, right.
Speaker 2: So another exercise that I teach very often is to
Speaker 2: change every should to a could, because our brain has
Speaker 2: patterns of saying should, and that makes the brain contract. Actually,
Speaker 2: it sets us up for performance and failure, whereas could
Speaker 2: implies possibility, and so that it's more optimistic, it's more open.
Speaker 2: And when you learn to say to yourself, change every
Speaker 2: should to a could, you change how your brain is
Speaker 2: perceiving the situation. And so that's a practice that leads
Speaker 2: to more resilience. That's just one simple thought shift that
Speaker 2: can really make a huge difference.
Speaker 3: YEP. One of the other processes that you say accelerate
Speaker 3: brain change is positive emotion shift brain function, and what
Speaker 3: you just describe, there's kind of an example of that.
Speaker 3: Our brain works better when we feel better. And I
Speaker 3: often say this to coaching clients, like, you're going to
Speaker 3: make more change by feeling good about yourself than you
Speaker 3: are by feeling bad about yourself and trying to penalize
Speaker 3: and punish yourself, Like the difference is dramatic.
Speaker 2: Well, that's why I teach them mindful self compassion protocol
Speaker 2: wherever I go, because when we practice self compassion and
Speaker 2: allowing and accepting whatever we're feeling however we're reacting. It
Speaker 2: opens up the functioning of the brain again. And so
Speaker 2: we practice these positive emotions not just to feel better,
Speaker 2: but to do better, because that's the measurable outcome of them.
Speaker 3: Well, let's talk about that mindful self compassion protocol. Can
Speaker 3: you teach us a little bit about that in a
Speaker 3: short timeframe?
Speaker 2: In a short timeframe. So the protocol was developed by
Speaker 2: Kristin Neff who's a psychologist at the University of Texas, Austin, YEP.
Speaker 3: Former guest Okay and.
Speaker 2: Chris Germer who's a psychologist at Harvard, and the two
Speaker 2: of them together developed this protocol and one of the
Speaker 2: key practices is the self compassion break, which sort of
Speaker 2: integrates everything we've been talking about. So you bring mindful
Speaker 2: awareness to your experience. It's important not to just gloss
Speaker 2: over something that's happening and move to fix it right away,
Speaker 2: which is our natural tendency, but to say, oh, wow,
Speaker 2: out this hurts. This is a moment of pain and suffering.
Speaker 2: I don't like this, But it's noticing. It's noticing that
Speaker 2: something has just gone off the rails. And then it's
Speaker 2: using the compassion practice of accepting ourselves for having that experience.
Speaker 2: May I be kind to myself in this moment that
Speaker 2: interrupts the automaticity of however we might be reacting, or
Speaker 2: whatever names we might be calling ourselves. Can I be
Speaker 2: kind to myself in this moment? May I accept this
Speaker 2: moment exactly as it is. That's the heart of mindful
Speaker 2: most practice. May I accept myself exactly as I am
Speaker 2: in this moment, because that's what allows the brain to shift.
Speaker 2: And then may I give myself all the compassion and
Speaker 2: courageous action that I need. So we're moving toward taking
Speaker 2: wise action, but you're creating a space in the brain
Speaker 2: where it can figure that out and not just automatically
Speaker 2: reacting out of our survival responses.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I love that. I think that is such a
Speaker 3: critical and fundamental way to sort of start. It's a
Speaker 3: place to start from when we notice that we're struggling,
Speaker 3: is to stop and do the things you just said.
Speaker 3: I mean, we've had multiple guests on the show where
Speaker 3: we've kind of talked about those basic steps, you know,
Speaker 3: Kristin Knaff and we had Julie Simon On who wrote
Speaker 3: a book about emotional eating that really talks about those
Speaker 3: similar steps. This sort of recognition you know, ouch, this hurts,
Speaker 3: you know, and then offering ourselves some kindness, understanding and
Speaker 3: compassion for being that way, And like you said, accepting
Speaker 3: that here's where we are and then moving out of
Speaker 3: that place is so powerful.
Speaker 2: So making that pause to notice the experience and the
Speaker 2: pain of the experience and our reactions also creates the
Speaker 2: pause where we can remember that we can be resilient.
Speaker 2: We can remember that we can make a choice, And
Speaker 2: so it actually shifts from the negativity to a more
Speaker 2: resilient perspective. What are my choices? Who are my helpers?
Speaker 2: What do I already know? Who could teach me more?
Speaker 2: It opens us up to seeing ourselves as resilient.
Speaker 4: Does meditating feel like a chore? Another to do list
Speaker 4: item to check off? Or perhaps it's even fallen off
Speaker 4: the list entirely? If you sense that meditating regularly would
Speaker 4: benefit you, but you struggle to find a sustainable place
Speaker 4: for it in your schedule, I can help. There are
Speaker 4: reasons people struggle with creating and maintaining a meditation practice,
Speaker 4: and it isn't because meditation isn't right for them. In
Speaker 4: my free guide the top five reasons you can't seem
Speaker 4: to stick with a meditation practice and how to build
Speaker 4: one that lasts. I teach you why it can be
Speaker 4: a struggle to build a meditation practice that lasts, and
Speaker 4: the small fixes that can have a big impact when
Speaker 4: it comes to getting you where you want to be
Speaker 4: with meditating. Regularly go to oneufeed dot net and sign
Speaker 4: up for this free guide right on our homepage. One
Speaker 4: of the things I think is so interest is how
Speaker 4: sometimes we only hear our thoughts. We are so lost
Speaker 4: in them that on one hand it's all we hear
Speaker 4: and on the other hand, we're not aware of them
Speaker 4: at all. It's this strange sort of moving through life
Speaker 4: where like we're in the thoughts, we're not at all
Speaker 4: aware of them, and we just go through it. And
Speaker 4: I think just being able to stop and make that
Speaker 4: shift out and go hang on a second, like I
Speaker 4: can actually think about whether this thought, this approach, this
Speaker 4: idea is useful to me or not. And you know,
Speaker 4: any of us who've sat down to meditate, we know
Speaker 4: that we're not in control of what shows up. Right,
Speaker 4: Like you sit down to meditate, you learn that really quick,
Speaker 4: like huh boy, that stuff just keeps coming up. I'm
Speaker 4: not causing it to happen here it is, and so
Speaker 4: we can't right away stop what shows up. But like
Speaker 4: you said, if we can pause and stop and go,
Speaker 4: hang on, what is this thought? You know, we've had
Speaker 4: Steven C. Hayes on the show Who's Acceptance of commitment
Speaker 4: Therapy and one of the things they say is is
Speaker 4: this thought useful?
Speaker 1: Not?
Speaker 3: Is it good? Is it bad? Is this thought actually
Speaker 3: going to be useful to me in my life? And
Speaker 3: go in the direction I want? Is such a great
Speaker 3: way to sort of think about it.
Speaker 2: Right. The reflective intelligence in the book and what I
Speaker 2: teach is all about noticing our thoughts, not judging ourselves
Speaker 2: for having them, but noticing our thoughts. And one of
Speaker 2: the exercises is what story am I believing now? It's
Speaker 2: identifying your top ten repetitive thoughts that you tend to
Speaker 2: think over and over and over again, and that allows
Speaker 2: you to get a little bit of distance from them. Oh,
Speaker 2: I see, I do this one a lot. No judgment
Speaker 2: about yourself, but I do this one a lot. And
Speaker 2: so noticing them allows you to shift and make a
Speaker 2: different choice. Then you can ask is it useful? Is
Speaker 2: it skillful?
Speaker 1: Is it wise?
Speaker 2: And wholesome? You can reflect on it once you know
Speaker 2: what your top ten list is.
Speaker 3: When we talk about that, I think about when I
Speaker 3: got sober. I've actually gotten sober two separate times and
Speaker 3: had a significant amount of time. But when I got
Speaker 3: sober this most recent time, about thirteen years ago, what
Speaker 3: I noticed was there was a thought that would come
Speaker 3: up that would say, I need a drink. It was
Speaker 3: that clear, I need a drink. And so then I
Speaker 3: was able to sort of go, all right, there's a
Speaker 3: repeat offender that shows up. And then I was able
Speaker 3: to sort of go, well, what situation causes that? And
Speaker 3: I was able to sort of see, like any time
Speaker 3: that I found myself in a particular kind of stress, boom,
Speaker 3: there it would come. And so by knowing it, I
Speaker 3: was able to work with it. And then I kind
Speaker 3: of watched it sort of more from that to another
Speaker 3: slightly less destructive thought pattern there. But I do think
Speaker 3: it's so helpful to catch those sort of greatest hits,
Speaker 3: you know, your greatest hits of your mind that you
Speaker 3: can recognize over and over and go, oh, there it
Speaker 3: is again, there it is again.
Speaker 2: And this feeds into what Dick Schwartz in the internal
Speaker 2: family systems program teaches about trigger's become trailheads. And when
Speaker 2: you notice the trigger noticed a queue, then you have
Speaker 2: a gateway. You have an opening to explore what could
Speaker 2: be different, what your choices could be. So rather than
Speaker 2: treating the triggers as a problem, you know it's a
Speaker 2: que it's a queue to practice. And Kelly McGonagall in
Speaker 2: her book The Upside of Stress says something like stress
Speaker 2: is a response of your nervous system that allows you
Speaker 2: to learn from experience. It's a queue to learn from experience.
Speaker 2: So the stress doesn't have to be the enemy. It's
Speaker 2: a queue to open up to learning.
Speaker 3: That's so good. Triggers or trailheads. Wow, I love that.
Speaker 3: I really love the way you just put that. And
Speaker 3: we're quoting a lot of other people here, but your
Speaker 3: book really brings together so many of the ideas that
Speaker 3: are out there in a really coherent and organized way.
Speaker 3: And you have so many wonderful practices to sort of
Speaker 3: do all these things, and I love the way that
Speaker 3: you've organized them. As you said, we sort of talk
Speaker 3: about new conditioning, reconditioning, deconditioning, and then the practices are grouped,
Speaker 3: like you said, into somatic practices and emotional intelligence practices,
Speaker 3: and they're further grouped by how disruptive the stressor is. Right,
Speaker 3: you say, you know, you've got three levels. One is
Speaker 3: barely a wobble, right, like the stressor hits us, but
Speaker 3: we can pretty much, we pretty much got it right,
Speaker 3: and then glitches and heartaches, sorrows and struggles, and then
Speaker 3: the last is like too much. And I love that
Speaker 3: the practices are grouped that way. So I really think
Speaker 3: you've done a wonderful job of organizing a lot of
Speaker 3: really powerful practices into a coherent framework.
Speaker 1: Thank you.
Speaker 2: I tried to be very streamlined and have one step
Speaker 2: build on another so that the practices get more sophisticated
Speaker 2: as the difficulties people are dealing with become more complex
Speaker 2: and become more intense.
Speaker 3: I think you did a great job of it. I
Speaker 3: want to talk about another you have that I thought
Speaker 3: was a really useful and it was a gratitude practice.
Speaker 3: But it's a gratitude practice where you extend your gratitude
Speaker 3: beyond the most immediate blessings, to the larger web of life,
Speaker 3: to the people who keep your life going, even though
Speaker 3: you may never have met them. Can you tell us
Speaker 3: a little bit more about that practice.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that came from doctor Robert Emmons at University of
Speaker 2: California Davis, who pioneered a lot of the original research
Speaker 2: on gratitude in the first place. So we have him
Speaker 2: to thank for twenty five years of research. And the
Speaker 2: idea of the web of life is to go beyond
Speaker 2: the personal and to connect more with the larger feeling
Speaker 2: held by the universe. However you want to talk about that,
Speaker 2: but our lives are kept going all the time by
Speaker 2: the people who grow our food and pick up our
Speaker 2: recycling and fix the potholes in the street and man
Speaker 2: the emergency rooms, and our life is held in this
Speaker 2: larger web. When we become aware of that and there's
Speaker 2: gratitude for that, then our entire perspective of ourselves and
Speaker 2: our life becomes much larger. We're moving out of the
Speaker 2: contraction into more openness and the bigger picture, and that's
Speaker 2: what allows us to become more resiliently optimistic. That's what
Speaker 2: allows the optimism to come in. So it's a really
Speaker 2: important practice to go beyond the personal to almost a
Speaker 2: spiritual perspective of being held in the larger.
Speaker 3: Web, right, And that is a spiritual perspective, I think,
Speaker 3: because we often in spirituality talk about interconnection, and that
Speaker 3: can be sort of nebulous, But if you actually want
Speaker 3: to think about it in a concrete way, like I've
Speaker 3: got an apple here in front of me. If I
Speaker 3: start tracing everything that had to happen for this apple
Speaker 3: to arrive here, it's staggering. It's staggering. You know, somebody
Speaker 3: had to plant the seed, somebody had to harvest it,
Speaker 3: somebody had to ship it somebody and those people were
Speaker 3: supported by somebody else who fed them dinner or breakfast
Speaker 3: so that they went out and did it that day
Speaker 3: and the sun. And you start tracing that out and
Speaker 3: all of a sudden, you're like, holy mackerel, Like everything
Speaker 3: around me that I look at in this room has
Speaker 3: has tendrils that stretch out in directions to all sorts
Speaker 3: of people and processes and things. That is really remarkable.
Speaker 2: And to realize that we are part of somebody else's web, right.
Speaker 3: Indeed, the other thing that you said in there that
Speaker 3: I've been thinking about is you use the word contraction.
Speaker 3: And I've been thinking about this idea of contraction and expansion,
Speaker 3: and I've talked about it on the show before, but
Speaker 3: I kind of keep coming back to it as this
Speaker 3: idea The spiritual teacher Adia Chanti said once that I
Speaker 3: heard him say. He said, ego is just a contraction,
Speaker 3: that's all it is. And we can debate whether that's
Speaker 3: true or not, but I thought it was a really
Speaker 3: helpful idea. And Richard Rore in his Life Dates book
Speaker 3: says something to the effect of anything that is causing
Speaker 3: you to move outwards from yourself in a bigger, positive
Speaker 3: way is effectively acting as God for you in that moment.
Speaker 3: I like that, and I love that idea that anything
Speaker 3: that feels like we're moving out or up or bigger
Speaker 3: is really good, and anything that feels like contraction or
Speaker 3: shrinking is harmful to us. And what I love about
Speaker 3: that is I can feel it so clearly. I don't
Speaker 3: have to think a whole lot about it. I can
Speaker 3: tell is my state right now in expanding outflowing state
Speaker 3: or is it collapsing and contracting.
Speaker 2: Okay, So Eric, let me say something right here. When
Speaker 2: I've talked at the beginning about the parable, and we
Speaker 2: were juxtaposing emotions that we might call good, like lover kindness,
Speaker 2: and emotions that we might call bad like fear or
Speaker 2: hatred or great Similarly, in a way, with contraction and expansion,
Speaker 2: the heart pumps by pumping and relaxing, pumping and relaxing.
Speaker 2: We breathe by taking air in and exhaling it back out.
Speaker 2: The open closed rhythm is really essential to life and
Speaker 2: part of my tools for coping with trauma. When things
Speaker 2: are really too much, too many disasters, things have happened,
Speaker 2: piled right on top of each other. Sometimes the way
Speaker 2: to be resilient is really to crawl under the covers
Speaker 2: and just take a nice nap for a few hours,
Speaker 2: because we need to regroup. We need to regroup so
Speaker 2: that we're able to expand again. And I want to
Speaker 2: give people permission to do the contraction as well as
Speaker 2: the expansion, because it is part of the rhythm of
Speaker 2: being resilient.
Speaker 3: That's very well said, and I think is a point
Speaker 3: for me to really ponder and think about more, because
Speaker 3: I think you're right. There is a place for everything,
Speaker 3: There is a season.
Speaker 2: And that's what allows us to have a big spiritual perspective,
Speaker 2: because probably the most disastrous thing that happens in a
Speaker 2: human life is losing someone we love or losing our
Speaker 2: own life. And when we can somehow open up to
Speaker 2: this rhythm of contraction and expansion, I think it opens
Speaker 2: us up in a more open way to death and
Speaker 2: dying as well as being alive and thriving. And we
Speaker 2: need to be able to come to terms with that
Speaker 2: part of the rhythm of life too. That's being resilient too.
Speaker 3: I think that's really powerful and I think that is
Speaker 3: a great place for us to wrap up this conversation.
Speaker 3: You and I are going to do a post show
Speaker 3: conversation where I'm going to ask you to lead us
Speaker 3: through a couple more resilience practices. Listeners. If you're interested
Speaker 3: in the post show conversation, AD free episodes, many episodes
Speaker 3: for me, and just being an all around happy person
Speaker 3: who supports the show, you can go to one ufeed
Speaker 3: dot net slash support. Thank you so much Linda for
Speaker 3: coming on. I've really enjoyed the conversation and I really
Speaker 3: enjoyed the book.
Speaker 4: Thank you, Eric.
Speaker 2: I've enjoyed the conversation too immensely, and I hope the
Speaker 2: book is helpful to people.
Speaker 3: Wonderful. Okay, thank you, bye bye.
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