Speaker 1: The first step in working through big feelings is trying
Speaker 1: to not see them or label them as necessarily negative
Speaker 1: or positive. Hello, and welcome to the Psychology Podcast. Today
Speaker 1: we welcome Molly wes Duffy to the show. Mollie is
Speaker 1: experienced in designing talent processes and systems, as well as
Speaker 1: organizational structures and behaviors, cultural values, and learning and development programs.
Speaker 1: Mall is the author of the Wall Street Journal best
Speaker 1: selling book No Hard Feelings At Our most recent book
Speaker 1: with Wiz Fosseline is called Big Feelings, How to Be
Speaker 1: Okay When Things Are Not Okay. In this episode, I
Speaker 1: talked to Molly west Duffy about how to navigate big feelings.
Speaker 1: Our emotion phobic society has a lot of misconceptions about
Speaker 1: dealing with difficult emotions and what they mean. According to Mollie,
Speaker 1: big feelings can lead to a deeper understanding of ourselves
Speaker 1: if we can sit with our emotions and work through them.
Speaker 1: Mollie and I share our personal experiences with anxiety and
Speaker 1: how we coped. We also touch on the topics of anger, perfectionism,
Speaker 1: social comparison, burnout, and uncertainty. I really liked this episode
Speaker 1: because I've been a longtime fan of their illustrations and
Speaker 1: insights into human nature and human psychology. So, without further ado,
Speaker 1: I am really greatly pleased to bring you Molly west Duffy.
Speaker 1: Molly west Duffy, tell me a little bit about yourself. So,
Speaker 1: I am an expert in organizational development and leadership development.
Speaker 1: So I do consulting coaching. I worked at IDEO for
Speaker 1: many years, did research at Harvard Business School, and then
Speaker 1: co authored this book with Liz, who's my creative collaborator. Well,
Speaker 1: this is great. You know. What I like about you
Speaker 1: is that you are able to illustrate some of the
Speaker 1: life's most existential concerns and ways that immediately are recognizable.
Speaker 1: You know, I look at you know, obviously your words
Speaker 1: are great too, but when I look at these illustrations,
Speaker 1: you make I medium like, yep, that's my day. Yes,
Speaker 1: it's you know. I think, especially emotions can be so
Speaker 1: difficult to verbalize, and so the illustration I think really
Speaker 1: captures and helps visualize things in a very like efficient way.
Speaker 1: It's like, oh, there's a small little diagram, but that's
Speaker 1: exactly how I feel. Yeah, So who does the illustrations?
Speaker 1: Are you an artist? Yourself and Liz does the illustrations.
Speaker 1: So Liz and I both co author the book, so
Speaker 1: we each do half of the writing, and then she
Speaker 1: does the illustrations. And it's my favorite part of collaborating
Speaker 1: with her is to, you know, the words are written,
Speaker 1: or at least in draft form, and then she goes
Speaker 1: away and does some sketches and comes back with some
Speaker 1: ideas and I love that. It's just so much fun
Speaker 1: working with her on it. And she was doing some
Speaker 1: illustrations before we started working together around She's an economist,
Speaker 1: that's what her degree is in, and so she did
Speaker 1: a couple of illustrations around like fourteen Ways an Economists says,
Speaker 1: I love you. So that's the type of work that
Speaker 1: she was doing. And then we were introduced by mutual
Speaker 1: friends when we both lived in New York, and I said,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm doing some writing. I would love to
Speaker 1: have you illustrate some of my writing because I really
Speaker 1: love it. And then we started writing together and we
Speaker 1: wrote an article. So Susan Kane has been we've been
Speaker 1: big fans of hers, and she's been so supportive of
Speaker 1: our work, and we did a piece for her platform.
Speaker 1: For a while she was running the Quiet Revolution platform,
Speaker 1: and we did a piece that was called six Illustrations
Speaker 1: that show what it's like to be in an introvert's head,
Speaker 1: and that piece went viral if so many people thought, oh, like,
Speaker 1: this is exactly how it feels, and this is helpful
Speaker 1: for my partner to understand, like if my partner's an extrovert,
Speaker 1: to understand what it feels like to be in my head.
Speaker 1: So got introduced to Susan, and then we wrote the
Speaker 1: first book, which came out in twenty nineteen, No Hard Feelings,
Speaker 1: and then our second book just came out this week
Speaker 1: called Big Feelings. Yeah, huge, congratulations in the book coming out.
Speaker 1: And Susan is our prior guest on the on the podcast.
Speaker 1: Oh great, I love her new book. Yeah, yeah, me too.
Speaker 1: She's a dear friend. We created actually, I created the
Speaker 1: scale for her, the Bittersweet scale that you can measure
Speaker 1: how bitter sweet that's right. Yes. She mentioned that we
Speaker 1: had an event with her last week and she mentioned
Speaker 1: that one of the the questions that most contributed to
Speaker 1: whatever the answer was was what what whether you like
Speaker 1: gray days or not? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, fascinating, it's so fascinating. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Me and David Aiden teamed up on that. But yeah,
Speaker 1: that was super fun. What did I say that today?
Speaker 1: I'm a wild introvert is what I called myself. I'm
Speaker 1: an introvert who scores high and openness to experience interesting. Okay,
Speaker 1: And that resonated with a lot of people. A lot
Speaker 1: of people seem to like to think of themselves as
Speaker 1: wild introverts too, so I like that. Yeah. So this
Speaker 1: book almost didn't happen, right, There was a lot of things.
Speaker 1: It seems like a lot of forces that were working
Speaker 1: against it, right, that's right. Talk a little bit about that. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So we first came up with this idea and pitched
Speaker 1: it to our editors in January of twenty twenty for
Speaker 1: the pandemic, and they said, Okay, you know, we think
Speaker 1: it's an interesting idea, but there's not really going to
Speaker 1: be a big audience for people who want to read
Speaker 1: about difficult emotions. So we said okay. And then in
Speaker 1: June of twenty twenty, after the pandemic started, they came
Speaker 1: back to us and they said, actually, everyone is dealing
Speaker 1: with big emotions. That's all that they're dealing with right now,
Speaker 1: and we'd like to buy that book and we love
Speaker 1: our editors and our publicists. So I say that with
Speaker 1: a grain of results. And what's interesting about that is
Speaker 1: that there's a bunch of books that are coming out
Speaker 1: now on similar topics. So we talked about Susan Kine's Bittersweet,
Speaker 1: Dan Pink's book on Regret, A Brown's book, and all
Speaker 1: of them dealing with sort of, you know, emotions that
Speaker 1: we've traditionally labeled as bad or negative, but what can
Speaker 1: we learn from them? How do we move through them?
Speaker 1: So I think that's just and these books must have
Speaker 1: been started before the pandemic just because of the publishing
Speaker 1: cycle is so long. So I just think it's really
Speaker 1: interesting that we're having these conversations now and I think
Speaker 1: people are open to them more so than they were
Speaker 1: because of the pandemic. Yeah, oh absolutely. I mean, get
Speaker 1: a really profound line in there was like we basically
Speaker 1: wrote this book to convince ourselves we're okay. That was
Speaker 1: a really like vulnerable thing to say. When I read
Speaker 1: that line, that was really honest. Yeah, we tried, we
Speaker 1: challenged ourselves to be really honest. And I think part
Speaker 1: of that was so when Liz and I, when our
Speaker 1: first book came out, it was called big field. Sorry,
Speaker 1: it's called no hard feelings. And then we were like, actually,
Speaker 1: there are some really hard feelings. And we both went
Speaker 1: through difficult times after the first book came out. I
Speaker 1: went through a period of deep depression and despair. List
Speaker 1: dealt with a lot of grief. We both dealt with
Speaker 1: burnout and during that time, was what helped me the
Speaker 1: most was reading books where other people were honest about
Speaker 1: how hard it was and weren't trying to wrap things
Speaker 1: up with like a neat bow at the end of it.
Speaker 1: And so we were hesitant, like, Okay, we're really going
Speaker 1: to write like a self help book because the first
Speaker 1: book had put more of a business book, and we said,
Speaker 1: if we're going to do this, we want to be
Speaker 1: really honest about how hard these things are and that
Speaker 1: we don't have all the answers and there's not like
Speaker 1: a ten step checklist to take to move through these things,
Speaker 1: like they take time and working with therapists and sometimes
Speaker 1: medication and lots of crying and you know, reaching out
Speaker 1: to friends and support. And so that was the impetus
Speaker 1: for it and our readership, our audience was really open
Speaker 1: with us. We asked them to share their own stories
Speaker 1: of what it had been like for them to move
Speaker 1: through through big feelings, and so it was it was
Speaker 1: sort of this process of like while we were writing,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't say that we were like done experiencing those emotions. Right,
Speaker 1: we're humans, like we're all going to continue feeling all
Speaker 1: these emotions, but also trying to give language to what
Speaker 1: did help us move through them even though we weren't done. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you say, in our disconnected and emotion phobic society, many
Speaker 1: of us don't know how to talk about what we're
Speaker 1: going through muscle less handle it. In that one sentence,
Speaker 1: you capture a lot there. There's three components of that sentence.
Speaker 1: That's sometime, there's a lot, there's a lot there. Okay,
Speaker 1: So one an we live in an emotion phobic society.
Speaker 1: You couldn't be more right. I mean that is that
Speaker 1: was that even that's profound. I feel like, you know,
Speaker 1: like I've never quite heard that phrase before, but we
Speaker 1: are kind of emotion phob because like when people ask
Speaker 1: me like how you doing, and if I'm like, well,
Speaker 1: not good, you know, they're like, okay, how can I say?
Speaker 1: It's like do you not hear? I just head not good,
Speaker 1: you know, like you know, like we only want to
Speaker 1: deal with it. A second component is that wests don't
Speaker 1: know how to talk about what we're going through and
Speaker 1: so we don't have like a language that is like
Speaker 1: normalized to talk about it. And the third component is
Speaker 1: that we don't know how to handle it, which is
Speaker 1: really you know, what the book is really about, Ray
Speaker 1: is is how to handle the big feelings. So yeah,
Speaker 1: out there. Yeah. So again this comes from personal experience.
Speaker 1: Liz and I both I think found that there were
Speaker 1: people who we could share what was really going on
Speaker 1: and how we were really feeling, and those were the anomalies.
Speaker 1: Like most people that we talked to on a day
Speaker 1: to day basis, work, friends, even family members, it's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know how much I can share with you,
Speaker 1: and I think that says a lot about our society.
Speaker 1: I think at the same time, we have learned growing
Speaker 1: up that there are certain emotions that we shouldn't be feeling,
Speaker 1: and so there's a lot of shame around them. So
Speaker 1: it feels like we blame ourselves when things are not
Speaker 1: going well, and we think no one, you know, no
Speaker 1: one else is experiencing these things. That's a big misconception
Speaker 1: is we all feel like, you know, no one else
Speaker 1: is feeling despair as badly as I am, or no
Speaker 1: one else is feeling regret or envy as badly as
Speaker 1: I am, and so I better keep that bottled up,
Speaker 1: because what does it say about me to be experiencing
Speaker 1: an emotion that strongly? And you know, once you start
Speaker 1: opening up a little bit in safe spaces, and we
Speaker 1: talk in the book about how like you do have
Speaker 1: to be careful about who you talk to in the beginning,
Speaker 1: because people can say the wrong thing and make you
Speaker 1: feel like, not ashamed, but make you feel that it's
Speaker 1: uncomfortable for them to hear about what you're saying. And
Speaker 1: so finding people who have been through similar circumstances and
Speaker 1: are really just there to listen can be a really
Speaker 1: important first step. Those people are not always who you
Speaker 1: think they are. I was very surprised about the people
Speaker 1: who came out of the woodwork who I could have
Speaker 1: hard conversations with, and people who are longtime good friends
Speaker 1: who I couldn't have those conversations with. So you just
Speaker 1: never know, Yeah, you never know. I love that because
Speaker 1: we can prejudge people really quickly as being oh that
Speaker 1: person couldn't possibly share are my experience, you know, And
Speaker 1: I think that's a big part of the problem in
Speaker 1: the world today, right, Yeah, all that person's are Republican.
Speaker 1: They would never be able to know what pain well,
Speaker 1: how would they know what pain feels like they're a Republican.
Speaker 1: It's like, no, they're human too exactly, or they're a
Speaker 1: total Like many of the people who I really connected
Speaker 1: with were decades older than me, and I didn't feel like, oh,
Speaker 1: we have a lot in common, but they were so
Speaker 1: helpful to me. I think there's something about people who
Speaker 1: have lived, you know, many, many decades of their lives,
Speaker 1: like have been through a lot more than those of
Speaker 1: us who are younger. I wouldn't have said, oh, this
Speaker 1: person is my good friend. But now I have some
Speaker 1: good friends who are in their you know, sixties, even
Speaker 1: in their nineties, who are so helpful to me. I
Speaker 1: need a friend in their nineties. Feel like everyone needs
Speaker 1: a friend of their nineties. Yes, everyone could use a
Speaker 1: friend of their nights and the and everyone in their
Speaker 1: nineties could use a friend. Yes, let's exactly. Let's be honest.
Speaker 1: Let's be honest. Yeah, yeah, I do wonder like do
Speaker 1: you walk around and start to think like your cartoons,
Speaker 1: Like is that helpful for you psychologically? Like I find
Speaker 1: humors my number one character strength, and it's my number
Speaker 1: one thing that protects me from going insane. If I
Speaker 1: didn't have humor, I would go insane on a minute
Speaker 1: by minute basis. So I'm just wondering, like, do you
Speaker 1: start to after a while, like just think in terms
Speaker 1: of like funny ven diagrams and funny you know, like
Speaker 1: charts and things. I will text Liz sometimes and I'll say,
Speaker 1: you know, this thing just happened to me, and like,
Speaker 1: let me extrapolate a little bit from this event that
Speaker 1: happened to like how I'm thinking about it in terms
Speaker 1: of an illustration that she might do. She carries a
Speaker 1: notebook around with her where she jots down like we'reds phrases, images, situations,
Speaker 1: like she has a sketch book and her process is
Speaker 1: really interesting for them. How that translates into the final
Speaker 1: illustrations that you see. I think she does such a
Speaker 1: good job. Like the one that I'm thinking of that
Speaker 1: that came up in the book was a colleague said
Speaker 1: to me. This is in the Burnout chapter. Our colleague
Speaker 1: said to me once Molly, no one else is going
Speaker 1: to draw your lines for you. You have to draw
Speaker 1: your lines for yourself. So in a workplace context, we
Speaker 1: keep thinking that, like our boss will know that we're overworked,
Speaker 1: or our partner will say like, hey, you know, maybe
Speaker 1: you want to consider setting up different boundaries with your team.
Speaker 1: And the truth is that no one else knows how
Speaker 1: stressed or burnt out you are, and so you really, unfortunately,
Speaker 1: are the only one who can do that for yourself.
Speaker 1: And so anyways, I was telling her this story and
Speaker 1: then one of the illustrations that came up in the
Speaker 1: book is lines to Draw, And it's like, you know,
Speaker 1: a pen drawing a line. It's several different lines and
Speaker 1: one of them says boundaries, and when of them says
Speaker 1: something else, And so it's that's what I mean. It's
Speaker 1: so fun to have these conversations or phrases come to
Speaker 1: life and illustrations. Yeah, for sure. And so is Liz
Speaker 1: doing any of the interviews as well? Or has she
Speaker 1: kind of like deemed you the spokesperson. We are doing
Speaker 1: lots of them, we are splitting them up, so she's
Speaker 1: doing some of them, I'm doing some of them. We're
Speaker 1: doing some of them together launching a book. It's it's
Speaker 1: nice to have a partner in crime because there's so
Speaker 1: much to do. Our book came out just this past Tuesday,
Speaker 1: so there's there's a lot of things going on. But yeah,
Speaker 1: she she does and interviews as well. Cool, cool, Please
Speaker 1: do me a favorite. Tell her I said hi, and
Speaker 1: that I think she's doing great. I will I won't
Speaker 1: listen to this episode, but you know, I want her
Speaker 1: to know that I'm rooting for her and you. I
Speaker 1: want her to know, thank you, thank you, Scott. I
Speaker 1: will good, thank you, thank you. So what are some
Speaker 1: pervasive and harmful myths about big Yes, so I mentioned
Speaker 1: one of them so far, which is that we think
Speaker 1: that our big feelings are bigger than anyone else's big feelings.
Speaker 1: And again that's because we don't often talk about them,
Speaker 1: so how would we know that someone else is going
Speaker 1: through a difficult time. The second, and I also sort
Speaker 1: of mentioned this, is that big feelings are negative. And
Speaker 1: again I think when we hear words like anger, regret,
Speaker 1: we think, oh, those are bad. And one of the
Speaker 1: things that when we talked with many psychologists like yourself
Speaker 1: or the book, that was one of their big messages
Speaker 1: is that the first step in working through big feelings
Speaker 1: is trying to not see them or label them as
Speaker 1: necessarily negative or positive. Now, they at times can feel
Speaker 1: really bad, and like I want to emphasize that, they
Speaker 1: can feel unbearable at times, but when we take the
Speaker 1: time to understand them, they can help us. There's a
Speaker 1: message that they're sending us. So anger can help us
Speaker 1: advocate for things that we care about, and regret can
Speaker 1: help us understand what we want to make differently moving forward.
Speaker 1: Envy can help us identify things that we want. So
Speaker 1: Liz tells this great story about how she had a
Speaker 1: friend of a friend who had just been promoted to
Speaker 1: a manager at Google and she was leading a team
Speaker 1: of like two hundred people, and she was like, man, like,
Speaker 1: I kind of want that job, And so she dug
Speaker 1: into that a little bit more like why am I
Speaker 1: feeling envious of this person? And what she realized was
Speaker 1: it wasn't that she wanted to be a manager of
Speaker 1: two hundred people, because Liz is truly an artist and
Speaker 1: likes to have lots of heads down time and alone time,
Speaker 1: and like having back to back days of meetings would
Speaker 1: be her nightmare. But she was like there's something there,
Speaker 1: like why am I feeling jealous of this person? And
Speaker 1: she realized was that there was some status attached to that.
Speaker 1: So it was like society looks at oh, you're a
Speaker 1: manager of two hundred people. That means you know, you're important,
Speaker 1: your work is meaningful. And so she thought, well, how
Speaker 1: else can I give myself that feeling work is important
Speaker 1: and meaningful? And there's other ways that I can do that.
Speaker 1: And then, you know, the last myth that we talk
Speaker 1: about with big feelings is that when people say you
Speaker 1: know you can you can just think on the positive side,
Speaker 1: or that somehow you should be strong enough to think
Speaker 1: your way out of difficult emotions, and thinking differently is
Speaker 1: not something that people always have the capacity to do
Speaker 1: when they are in the middle of feeling a big feeling.
Speaker 1: Life is really hard and sometimes we go through really
Speaker 1: hard moments, and so it's okay, you know, it's okay
Speaker 1: to fall apart for a bit and feel like, you know,
Speaker 1: I don't know how to change how I'm thinking about this.
Speaker 1: I can't just think my way out of it. And
Speaker 1: trying to reach out for support, therapy, friends, family, support groups,
Speaker 1: all of these things, and also just acknowledging that structural
Speaker 1: forces matter. So, you know, we talk about burnout, and
Speaker 1: people who are underrepresented in workplaces are definitely more likely
Speaker 1: to experience burnout because of the structural forces that are
Speaker 1: against them. And so, you know, we really shouldn't be
Speaker 1: saying like, oh, you should just be resilient in this
Speaker 1: situation when everything is stacked against you. What are some
Speaker 1: of those structural forces that are stacked against them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So there's a lot of research around emotional labor, and
Speaker 1: emotional labor is when we have to do surface acting
Speaker 1: to hide our true feelings. And so the most common
Speaker 1: example of this is in like a customer service setting
Speaker 1: or in a healthcare setting where we're dealing with clients
Speaker 1: or patients and if we are feeling something, it's not
Speaker 1: appropriate in that setting to share, Oh, I'm also feeling
Speaker 1: really sad or I'm feeling really frustrated right now because
Speaker 1: of the role that we're in. And so there's good
Speaker 1: research that shows that even outside of those settings, women,
Speaker 1: people of color, minorities have to do, or feel that
Speaker 1: they have to do more surface acting, more emotional labor
Speaker 1: in terms of hiding how they're really feeling. And you know,
Speaker 1: we could talk about, you know, the workplace and how
Speaker 1: it's designed. But for for many decades of the workplace
Speaker 1: there there wasn't really room for people who didn't look
Speaker 1: like the model of the person at work, which is
Speaker 1: tended to be a middle aged white man, and especially
Speaker 1: there wasn't room for those people sharing their feelings. And
Speaker 1: so that then leads to again, like, I think the
Speaker 1: work world is changing for the better, but I think
Speaker 1: there's still some leftover norms that we have that that
Speaker 1: do make it more likely for like I said, women,
Speaker 1: people of color, minorities in many different ways to burn out. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and and things are thankfully changing quite dramatically, and there's
Speaker 1: you know a lot of diversity initiatives that in most workplaces.
Speaker 1: I think it's it's really important to set up safe
Speaker 1: spaces to talk about these things and make sure that
Speaker 1: there's you know, people who there's a lot of people
Speaker 1: who are trained as facilitated to do this work. I'm
Speaker 1: not a diversity and inclusion expert, but there are lots
Speaker 1: of them, and I'm really glad that workplaces are bringing
Speaker 1: more of them in because we really need their expertise.
Speaker 1: I'm really glad you're also writing a lot about psychology,
Speaker 1: and you don't ignore structural factors. So I'm glad that
Speaker 1: you do that. You know, not everyone does that or
Speaker 1: focuses on that, or even acknowledges that. Within the psychology community.
Speaker 1: There's you know, personally, I don't see taking personal responsibility
Speaker 1: and self help and structural forces is like a zero
Speaker 1: sum game, right Like, I don't see them as completely
Speaker 1: what's one or the other, you know, and we only
Speaker 1: have to focus on one or the other, you know,
Speaker 1: it's the interaction that's the best. You want an environment
Speaker 1: that brings out the best in you, right like, and
Speaker 1: then you can bring your best. Yeah, So I guess
Speaker 1: that's the way I think about it. So let's talk
Speaker 1: about uncertainty, one of my favorite topics I used to
Speaker 1: be so afraid of. I used to have generalized anxiety disorder,
Speaker 1: and so it just everywhere I went. I was like,
Speaker 1: if there was too much incertainty, I would have a meltdown.
Speaker 1: But I've gotten so much better over that. So I
Speaker 1: really liked reading your book. I wish I could read
Speaker 1: your book like ten years ago. Probably would have saved
Speaker 1: me through a lot. But what are some of the
Speaker 1: common myths surrounding uncertainty and the anxiety causes you go
Speaker 1: through some of the myths there as well. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: so we and I would love to hear, actually, how
Speaker 1: what helped you move through that? So I want to
Speaker 1: come back to that. Yeah, so there is a big
Speaker 1: myth that we can have absolute certainty, which I think
Speaker 1: the last two years have helped us move through that.
Speaker 1: Many of us have had that balloon popped, but you know,
Speaker 1: we still were humans. We tend to not like change
Speaker 1: and dealing with uncertainty, So that's a big myth. There's
Speaker 1: also a myth that our anxiety accurately reflects the risk
Speaker 1: the actual risks, and there's really often a mismatch between
Speaker 1: how stressed we feel about something and the likelihood of
Speaker 1: thing happening. So there's a really interesting experiment. You may
Speaker 1: know of it in the psychology field, but researchers had
Speaker 1: two groups of people and they told one group of
Speaker 1: people that they had a ninety nine percent chance of
Speaker 1: receiving a painful electric shock. It was safe, but it
Speaker 1: was painful. And they told the other group that they
Speaker 1: had a one percent chance of receiving that shock, and
Speaker 1: the two groups were willing to pay about the same
Speaker 1: amount of money to avoid the shock. So the likelihood
Speaker 1: of getting hurt didn't really affect our level of anxiety.
Speaker 1: It was like and in some cases, like even just
Speaker 1: knowing for sure it's going to happen, like people would
Speaker 1: rather say, Okay, it's one hundred percent, I'm going to
Speaker 1: be ready for that shock, versus being told that you have,
Speaker 1: like you know, a one percent or a ten percent chance.
Speaker 1: That's really hard for us. So I think that can
Speaker 1: be then generalized to think about, Okay, the more uncertainty
Speaker 1: we face, the worst that we feel, but that doesn't
Speaker 1: always mean that the bad thing is going to happen then.
Speaker 1: And then you know, there's a myth around resilience, and
Speaker 1: I think, you know, we are proponents of resilience, and
Speaker 1: I mentioned it when we were talking about burnout, but
Speaker 1: you know, there's there's been a lot placed on resilience
Speaker 1: these last two years, like that's the answer for everything.
Speaker 1: You know, you're having a hard time at work, be resilient,
Speaker 1: you're struggling to try your teacher, of your kids at home,
Speaker 1: just just be resilience. And again this goes back to
Speaker 1: like systemic problems, and there's often other things going on
Speaker 1: kind of frantic. Quickly google a research paper that's really
Speaker 1: into what you're saying. It's called the title of the
Speaker 1: paper is the Devil you Know, Neurotsism predicted Neural Response
Speaker 1: to uncertainty. It's one of my favorite papers in Psychological
Speaker 1: Science two thousand and eight by Jacob Hirsh and colleagues.
Speaker 1: And what I really like about it is they show
Speaker 1: that people would prefer a much harsher immediate punishment, like
Speaker 1: the devily know, for a greater uncertainty that there could
Speaker 1: be something worse down the line. I love that. That's
Speaker 1: really interesting. But neuroticism moderated that. So yeah, where you
Speaker 1: score in the trade the personality trait, Neuroticism moderated the
Speaker 1: extent to which the strength that strength. So people who
Speaker 1: are really neurotic, you know, are like, yeah, I'll take
Speaker 1: all the bad things right now if I know they'll
Speaker 1: be certainty. Yeah, let's get a mover. That's interesting COVID already. Yeah, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's my bet. That was true for some people
Speaker 1: like I'll just take it now, please. So what helped you?
Speaker 1: I mean? And I'm curious because the way that you
Speaker 1: said that previously was like I used to have, and
Speaker 1: so like what helped you move through that? Well? I
Speaker 1: do think there's something too exposure therapy. I had a
Speaker 1: book come out and suddenly I had I was on
Speaker 1: the talk circuit and I had to overcome my fear
Speaker 1: of flying. I was like, come on, Scott, like let
Speaker 1: your fear hold you back. So I started off like
Speaker 1: just doing it, like going in the flight's beginning, I
Speaker 1: got prescribed medicine as a crutch, you know, like I
Speaker 1: took I popped one xanax before before the flight, and
Speaker 1: then I was good. But then I was like, you
Speaker 1: know what, Scott, you don't want to be having to
Speaker 1: do like reliant on xenax. It's like, you know, so
Speaker 1: what else can you do? So I took a Mindfulness
Speaker 1: Stress Biased Reduction Course NBSR eight week course and that
Speaker 1: helped a lot, actually really learning how to just sit
Speaker 1: with my thoughts and emotions and watch it go by
Speaker 1: like a cloud passing by, right, you know, that was
Speaker 1: that was nice. So meditation helped a lot, but also
Speaker 1: exposures start but like I just kept doing it, kept
Speaker 1: going on the play after flay after flight, and you know,
Speaker 1: it extinguishes, you know, the anxiety starts to extinguish once
Speaker 1: you do get more of that certainty you know behind you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I like yours. I like your suggestions. You say, stop
Speaker 1: and sit with uncertainty, which that that was one of
Speaker 1: the thing. So mindfulness, Yeah, I think mindfulness is it's
Speaker 1: it's sort of the obvious thing, and it's it's honestly,
Speaker 1: there's a reason it's the first step because I think
Speaker 1: it's the hardest. We really don't like sitting with these things.
Speaker 1: And you know, I think there's another you probably will
Speaker 1: know the name of it more than I do, but
Speaker 1: I think there's another study that shows we would rather
Speaker 1: get an electric shock than sit with our own thoughts. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I think, And there's so many varieties of that.
Speaker 1: So you mentioned mindfulness based stress direction, I think is great.
Speaker 1: I have done, you know, a lot of meditation over
Speaker 1: the years for various things. Anxiety is one of them,
Speaker 1: dealing with pain is one of them, and it's been
Speaker 1: really helpful for that. So there's like a lot of
Speaker 1: flavors of that. And I encourage people, like if you
Speaker 1: if you've tried one that you didn't really like, like
Speaker 1: try a different one. Yeah. Yeah. The second one was
Speaker 1: adopt the manta. I am a person who is learning,
Speaker 1: uh do dot dot yes. So I think we can
Speaker 1: put so much pressure on ourselves to feel like we
Speaker 1: need to have the answers right now, and we beat
Speaker 1: ourselves up when we're not perfect at something the first time.
Speaker 1: And so when we tell ourselves like I am a
Speaker 1: person who is learning to blank versus I can't do
Speaker 1: this or I need to have this all figured out,
Speaker 1: we give ourselves agency to like get better at things.
Speaker 1: And so some of those things are like saying instead
Speaker 1: of you know, I'm a really bad parent, it's like, well,
Speaker 1: I'm a person who's learning how to care for an
Speaker 1: infant right now. I've never had to do that before.
Speaker 1: Or I don't know how to manage people. I can't
Speaker 1: do this. I'm learning how to be a great manager.
Speaker 1: I've never done this before. So I mean this connects
Speaker 1: to growth mindset and you know a lot of other
Speaker 1: pieces of psychology, but that phrase we have found helpful, awesome,
Speaker 1: and then three translate you're into specific fears. So I
Speaker 1: didn't know this before writing this book, but the difference
Speaker 1: between anxiety and fear is that fear is about something specific.
Speaker 1: So I might have a fear of public speaking, or
Speaker 1: you had a fear of getting on an airplane, and
Speaker 1: anxiety is something that's that's more generalized. So we are
Speaker 1: afraid of many different things happening, and it can be
Speaker 1: easier not all the time, but it can be easier
Speaker 1: to deal with things if you translate them from okay,
Speaker 1: well these ten things could happen into specific fears, and
Speaker 1: so that takes this like big, ambiguous thing and makes
Speaker 1: it something that we can actually deal with. So asking yourself,
Speaker 1: so what am I afraid of? Like what are the
Speaker 1: There might be multiple things, what do I imagine could happen?
Speaker 1: And then how would those you know, specific things look
Speaker 1: and feel and sort of walk through the scenarios of
Speaker 1: those things. I love it well. Hopefully this is helping
Speaker 1: our listeners with their anxiety. I also really love this.
Speaker 1: When you find yourself thinking what if this doesn't work,
Speaker 1: be sure to also ask yourself what if it does? Yeah? Okay?
Speaker 1: Separate though withins from the beyonds what does that mean?
Speaker 1: So there are things that are within our control and
Speaker 1: there are things that are beyond our control. So labeling
Speaker 1: things as something that's within or beyond can be helpful
Speaker 1: for them deciding what to do next. So the things
Speaker 1: that are within your control that you're worried about or
Speaker 1: you have anxiety about. For the book, we interviewed somebody
Speaker 1: who's an organizational psychologist who worked with NASA, and she
Speaker 1: said that even at NASA, when they make plans, they
Speaker 1: refer to them as plans from which we deviate, and
Speaker 1: so it's a helpful reminder that, like, even the things
Speaker 1: that we feel like are within our control, there's going
Speaker 1: to be some uncertainty around and it's not our faults.
Speaker 1: Then if things don't go exactly to plan, and the
Speaker 1: benefit of planning is really like coming together and thinking
Speaker 1: about what are we going to do next? How do
Speaker 1: we have alignment on that. The value is in the
Speaker 1: process of doing the planning, And it doesn't mean that
Speaker 1: we have to like follow the plan exactly. We can
Speaker 1: change the plan as we go forward and then for
Speaker 1: the things that are beyond your control, and this is
Speaker 1: way easier said than done, but trying to let go
Speaker 1: of the things that you can't control. And a part
Speaker 1: of this is something that but both Lis and I do,
Speaker 1: which is a CBT or cognitive behavioral therapy technique, which
Speaker 1: is setting aside time to worry or to ruminate, and
Speaker 1: so like we often will worry at times when we
Speaker 1: can't do a lot about things. So I will often
Speaker 1: worry it like right as I'm going to bed, and
Speaker 1: that's the there's nothing I can do it. I'm about
Speaker 1: to go to bed, and so I will write down
Speaker 1: my fears. I have a little post it next to
Speaker 1: my bed, and I'll write down, like the things that
Speaker 1: I'm worried about, and then I can I say, I'll
Speaker 1: look at them again in the morning. And I would
Speaker 1: say about half the time, when I look at them
Speaker 1: again in the morning, I say, okay, like that was
Speaker 1: a thought that I had last night at nine pm,
Speaker 1: but I'm not worried about it today now that it's daylight.
Speaker 1: And then half the time it's like, yeah, I do
Speaker 1: need to worry about that. So how can I schedule
Speaker 1: some time to sit down and think about that. That's
Speaker 1: not right before bedtime? Really good advice. It's really hard
Speaker 1: to turn off the brain. It's so hard. Yeah, at
Speaker 1: any time, you say, design your life based on your
Speaker 1: tolerance of uncertainty. So just complete is a part of
Speaker 1: life design. So I think, what can be helpful about
Speaker 1: this is thinking about people in your life who have
Speaker 1: more or less tolerance for uncertainty and just recognizing that
Speaker 1: there is a scale around this. So we have an
Speaker 1: assessment on our website that can help you. It's also
Speaker 1: in the book that can help you identify your tolerance
Speaker 1: for uncertainty. And again that this isn't a right or
Speaker 1: wrong thing, it's just a difference. And so, like my
Speaker 1: husband is a comedian and he loves uncertainty, like he
Speaker 1: thrives on he doesn't know what's going to happen in
Speaker 1: a comedy set or the next day, and if he
Speaker 1: did that, he would feel like his life was kind
Speaker 1: of boring. And then there are other friends who I
Speaker 1: have who want really secure careers. They want to be
Speaker 1: government employees where they have a pension, or they want
Speaker 1: to be an academic where they get tenure. And so
Speaker 1: knowing that, like, how can we design our lives around that?
Speaker 1: And I think it's okay to admit to yourself that, like,
Speaker 1: maybe you want more stability in your life or you
Speaker 1: want less stability in your life. These things can change
Speaker 1: over our lifetime too, So for many people they want
Speaker 1: more stability as they age, depending on what's going on
Speaker 1: if they're starting a family or those sort of things.
Speaker 1: Whereas when we're young, you know, we don't want to
Speaker 1: know what we're going to be doing for the rest
Speaker 1: of our lives. But you know, it's it's okay to
Speaker 1: recognize that, Like, hey, this job has a lot of
Speaker 1: uncertainty in it, and maybe there's a part of that
Speaker 1: that's fun. But I am stressed out by that, and
Speaker 1: so in my next job, maybe I'm going to look
Speaker 1: for something that has a little bit less uncertainty. Good. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's really healthy, really helpful. You how would you, because
Speaker 1: I'm curious. You said you're an introvert, a wild Yeah,
Speaker 1: what do you think? What do you think your tolerance
Speaker 1: for uncertainty is? And has it changed? I'm I'm a
Speaker 1: paradox wrapped in a paradox because I am more fearful
Speaker 1: and anxious about it before it happens, and then once
Speaker 1: it happens, I just let loose. Right. It's like once
Speaker 1: I calm down, like once I'm on the airplane and
Speaker 1: there's nothing I can do. The door is that. They're like,
Speaker 1: the door is now shut. I'm like, oh cool, I'm
Speaker 1: good now, you know, like, no, no need to worry.
Speaker 1: It's just like it's on the way to the it's
Speaker 1: like in the line, you know, like it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: what's the unknown? So I don't know. I guess I'm
Speaker 1: a very practical paradoxical in that way because I really
Speaker 1: love having fun and I am very high openness to
Speaker 1: experience and I do have again get wild. But you know,
Speaker 1: I feel like if there's too much unknown right right before,
Speaker 1: I'm nervous, you know. But then when it's too late,
Speaker 1: then I'm like, Okay, I'm good in advance sort of,
Speaker 1: I do it in advance. I play. I'm really into
Speaker 1: like controlled, you know, thoughtful fun. I mean I think
Speaker 1: like rock climbers say that right, like they they plan
Speaker 1: so meticulously that, like dalx Hanold said, it would seem
Speaker 1: as though it's really scary and it is going up
Speaker 1: without a harness, you know, climbing Mount Everest without or
Speaker 1: climbing whatever the big the big mountains without without the
Speaker 1: harness and all. But he's like, you have to understand
Speaker 1: I He's like, I prepared every single like step and
Speaker 1: I know every move I'm gonna make. It's actually just
Speaker 1: very simple for me, you know, in the moment, you know,
Speaker 1: so it's like he's planned for all as many contentiously
Speaker 1: as possible, so that in the moment itself, he can
Speaker 1: be like, well, whatever happens happens now. I bet it's
Speaker 1: it's such a great analogy. It's I really liked that.
Speaker 1: I hadn't heard that before. Cool. Yeah, have you ever
Speaker 1: heard of Alex Handld He's he's amazing. I have not, No,
Speaker 1: I'll have to look him up. Yeah, And there's documentaries
Speaker 1: made about him and how he controls his fear, which
Speaker 1: is uh A really good uh, really good lesson for
Speaker 1: a lot of us. Yeah, let's talk about comparison. That's
Speaker 1: a big one. How do we embrace comparison because it's
Speaker 1: it doesn't seem to be going away, Like I still
Speaker 1: as much as I want to it to go away.
Speaker 1: So yeah, can you give us some advice on how
Speaker 1: it could be actually we can harness the power of it. Yes,
Speaker 1: So in comparison. So we name this chapter comparison. But
Speaker 1: people are like, well, that's not an emotion, and that's true.
Speaker 1: The emotion is envy. But we thought that people might
Speaker 1: relate more to just the word comparison because we use
Speaker 1: it so often. So, yes, you're exactly right, comparison is
Speaker 1: not going anywhere. And unfortunately, even if we get off
Speaker 1: social media that may be helpful, but unless we're totally
Speaker 1: off the grid, we still are going to get updates
Speaker 1: about people through you know, LinkedIn and text messages and
Speaker 1: just running into people in the grocery store, and you know,
Speaker 1: we can't we can't avoid it. So I think the
Speaker 1: first thing is to listen to some of those triggers
Speaker 1: and say, how can those be helpful for me in
Speaker 1: figuring out what I want? So I give the example
Speaker 1: earlier of Liz listening to her feeling of like why
Speaker 1: am I jealous of this person who's a manager of
Speaker 1: two hundred people, and getting really specific with that. So,
Speaker 1: like I said, you know, she wasn't just like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: I should go apply for a job at Google. She
Speaker 1: was like, well, what is it specifically you know that
Speaker 1: they have that makes me feel less than what is
Speaker 1: this void that you know I'm trying to fill? Do
Speaker 1: I really want what they have? You know? And in
Speaker 1: her case it was like, yes, a part of it,
Speaker 1: but I don't want the other part of it. And
Speaker 1: I think, you know, there's something called malicious envy, which
Speaker 1: is when we perceive scarcity, and in many cases there's
Speaker 1: not scarcity. So another person's ability to achieve something is
Speaker 1: actually evidence that you could achieve that too, not evidence
Speaker 1: that you can't achieve it. So again, like it's not
Speaker 1: a zero sum game in most places. So shifting your
Speaker 1: thinking from malicious envy to what we call benign envy,
Speaker 1: which is envy that is that is not going to
Speaker 1: be harmful to us. So, you know, I'm inspired by
Speaker 1: this person, What can I learn from them? Can I
Speaker 1: go talk to them and ask them to be my
Speaker 1: mentor you know, everyone is on their own journey. I
Speaker 1: haven't gotten there yet, but I will get there. And
Speaker 1: then I think just understanding that, like when we are comparing,
Speaker 1: we are most likely seeing someone else's highlight reel, so
Speaker 1: we are seeing the best of and in some cases
Speaker 1: not the reality. You know this perhaps all the time
Speaker 1: on social media we're not seeing we're seeing the glamorous shop,
Speaker 1: but we're not seeing everything behind the glamor as shot.
Speaker 1: And so you know, asking yourself, how do I know
Speaker 1: that this person isn't struggling in some way? What am
Speaker 1: I proud of that doesn't show up on social media?
Speaker 1: You know, there are the things that if I posted,
Speaker 1: others would be envious about. And again, I think when
Speaker 1: we wrote this book, Liz and I wanted to be
Speaker 1: really clear that like, yes, we wrote a best selling book,
Speaker 1: but there's also really hard parts of our lives that
Speaker 1: we went through since that book came out, like in
Speaker 1: the recent past, and you wouldn't know that from our Instagram,
Speaker 1: from our public profiles, from meeting us on a day
Speaker 1: to day basis, And so it in sharing that we
Speaker 1: just want to like pull back the veneer a little bit. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you see some things that are a little bit counterintuitive.
Speaker 1: I mean you say, well, you say counterintuitively. Sign shows
Speaker 1: that what makes you say it right there in the beginning.
Speaker 1: Counterarly science shows that what makes us miserable isn't comparison itself.
Speaker 1: It's when we don't compare ourselves to others enough. This
Speaker 1: is about just picking a broader baseline. So we're often
Speaker 1: when we're comparing ourselves to others, we're picking like the
Speaker 1: top ten percent of people. So we're like, I'm trying
Speaker 1: to become a good runner, Well I'm going to compare
Speaker 1: myself to somebody who's run an ultra marathon and broadening
Speaker 1: your perspective can help you understand that there's a huge
Speaker 1: swath of people and you're probably not looking at the
Speaker 1: people who are worse than you at running. And then similarly,
Speaker 1: like comparing what we call the nitty gritty, so thinking
Speaker 1: about not only the best parts of what that person
Speaker 1: is experiencing that you want, but also the worst parts
Speaker 1: of it. So one of our readers, she's a lawyer,
Speaker 1: and she was really envious of She had other lawyer
Speaker 1: friends who had gone into corporate law and they were
Speaker 1: making like way more than was. But then when she
Speaker 1: actually dug into well what does their day to day
Speaker 1: look like? You know, they're working like one hundred hour weeks,
Speaker 1: And when she spent some more time understanding the details,
Speaker 1: she was like, I would hate that, and she was
Speaker 1: she felt better about her career in public service. So
Speaker 1: you know, again, I think we cherry pick the good
Speaker 1: parts and we say, well I want only that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we do, we really do. You have a whole bunch
Speaker 1: of things to help people work through it really helpful
Speaker 1: that are really helpful. I won't go through all of them,
Speaker 1: but I'll name one that I think is just so
Speaker 1: spot on. Avoid comparison hot beds when you're feeling blue.
Speaker 1: I find if I'm in a particular mood and then
Speaker 1: I get like an email from like my biggest competitor.
Speaker 1: I'm like, I'll be even particularly not happy with that person.
Speaker 1: But it's like other days I don't really even mind it,
Speaker 1: you know, it's like, oh whatever, So yeah, I really
Speaker 1: like that one avoid you know, your mood matters this equation. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: And there's so there's research from Facebook that shows that
Speaker 1: people spend two hundred and twenty five percent more time
Speaker 1: on the platform after they have had a breakup. And
Speaker 1: it's like, oh, that's exactly the wrong time. That's when
Speaker 1: we're going to be feeling the lowest, and that's that's
Speaker 1: really not going to help. So I think, like I
Speaker 1: had to do this. There was a you know, a
Speaker 1: period of why was going through deep depression and I
Speaker 1: was like, I if I'm having a good day, which
Speaker 1: honestly was like once a month at that point, Like sure,
Speaker 1: I could open up the Instagram app and I could
Speaker 1: check on like how a close friend was doing, to
Speaker 1: see about their travels or something like that. But the
Speaker 1: rest of the days, I was like, I know, how
Speaker 1: this is going to make me feel and it's just
Speaker 1: not helpful for where I am because I'm so low
Speaker 1: right now. And it's hard because it's it's such a
Speaker 1: it's a habit and we do this habitually, but just
Speaker 1: trying to be kinder to yourself and not doing that
Speaker 1: to yourself it's like, you know, sticky, Like it's like
Speaker 1: throwing acid on a wound. It's like you don't need
Speaker 1: that right now. Yeah. Yeah, Well I'm curious, like you
Speaker 1: you lifted yourself up from a deep depression. What are
Speaker 1: some things that you found were most helpful for you,
Speaker 1: particularly the kind of things you talk about in this book.
Speaker 1: Which ones would you say were helpful for you in
Speaker 1: that case? Yeah, so definitely working with a therapist. I
Speaker 1: think it's it's hard sometimes we go to therapists like
Speaker 1: during moments of crisis. So you know, it's like when
Speaker 1: you're working with a therapist for a long time, you know,
Speaker 1: and then you go into crisis mode, they sort of
Speaker 1: already know you and can help you with that. But
Speaker 1: in my case, I had just moved from New York
Speaker 1: to LA and I had to find a new therapist
Speaker 1: because of you know, state insurance lines, and so I
Speaker 1: sort of came to my therapist, and I was like,
Speaker 1: in such a crisis, and you know, it's like, well,
Speaker 1: I just met this person, Like how are they gonna
Speaker 1: like help me immediately fix it? Even though I like
Speaker 1: really was in a dark place and I was like,
Speaker 1: I want these feelings to go away. So I just
Speaker 1: had to recognize that it was going to take some time.
Speaker 1: Medication definitely helped. I was say, medication helped pull me
Speaker 1: out of a space where I couldn't do therapy and
Speaker 1: like take the action and do the self reflection that
Speaker 1: I needed to a place where I could start to
Speaker 1: do that deeper work. For a long time, honestly, Scott,
Speaker 1: it was just about chunking time and getting through days.
Speaker 1: So it was like, yeah, I have four hours left
Speaker 1: until I can go to bed, and I will feel
Speaker 1: better once I go to bed. Can I make it
Speaker 1: through four hours until eight o'clock when I can go
Speaker 1: to bed. Yes, I can make it through four hours.
Speaker 1: I mean it's literally that that level. It was reaching
Speaker 1: out to friends who get it. So it was again
Speaker 1: I mentioned this in the beginning, but finding people who
Speaker 1: weren't going to be afraid of or uncomfortable by the
Speaker 1: things that I was about to share, and I talk
Speaker 1: in the book I had suicidal thoughts and it wasn't
Speaker 1: that I wanted to act on those things. It was
Speaker 1: just like I was in a lot of pain and
Speaker 1: I didn't want to keep being in pain. And there
Speaker 1: were a few friends who opened up and said, you know,
Speaker 1: I've had those thoughts in the past, and I know
Speaker 1: how hard they are, and I'm here. I had one
Speaker 1: friend who texted me every single day, how are you doing?
Speaker 1: I just I'm checking in. You know. I had friends
Speaker 1: who would call like weekly to check in. And if
Speaker 1: you don't have friends, finding there's so many great support
Speaker 1: groups online for whatever it is that you're working through,
Speaker 1: whether that's physical or mental pain, and connecting with those people.
Speaker 1: And then, you know, I think a big piece of
Speaker 1: this is just accepting, like I said, that there's no shortcut,
Speaker 1: and when you're feeling that bad, it's like, there's got
Speaker 1: to be a short cut. I can't how can I
Speaker 1: possibly survive feeling this bad? But that over time for me,
Speaker 1: the darkest thoughts, it went from like multiple times a
Speaker 1: day to once a day to you know, a couple
Speaker 1: times a week to once a week, and like literally
Speaker 1: it was like that slow, but it did trend upward,
Speaker 1: and so I just had to hang in there to
Speaker 1: see that trend line. And it took months, but you know,
Speaker 1: eventually got there. That is hopeful for people to know,
Speaker 1: you know that there's a way out, And I think,
Speaker 1: just to share one more thing, I think again, I
Speaker 1: was looking during that time. I was looking for stories
Speaker 1: of people who had had really dark thoughts who made
Speaker 1: it out the other side. And I have to say,
Speaker 1: there aren't that many stories of those, and I think
Speaker 1: it's it's much more common than we think about, and
Speaker 1: it's there's there are lots of stories of people acting
Speaker 1: on those thoughts, which is tragic. And I'm glad that
Speaker 1: there are stories about those things because those stories are
Speaker 1: important too. But I wanted to share how bad it
Speaker 1: was and yet that I was also able to work
Speaker 1: through it, because I in the beginning and middle of it,
Speaker 1: I didn't know. I was sort of like, how can
Speaker 1: I come out the other side of this? I feel
Speaker 1: like I'm going crazy, I'm going insane, and you know,
Speaker 1: really my therapist was the one who was like, this
Speaker 1: is more common than you think, and like you can
Speaker 1: come out the other side of it. But I just
Speaker 1: want people to know it's possible and that there are
Speaker 1: examples out there. Yeah. I want our listeners to hear
Speaker 1: that too. Yeah, so important. You actually just also just
Speaker 1: made me think of a book title. Someday, I want
Speaker 1: to write a book called dark Thoughts. Would that be interesting?
Speaker 1: Will that be an interesting book? You know, A chapter
Speaker 1: in suicide, a chapter and homicidal thoughts, you know, like
Speaker 1: I want to call my mother, you know, or the
Speaker 1: chapter on like you know, like I don't know whatever. Yes, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's yeah. Just to pause on that. I mean, I
Speaker 1: think we use that word because it can be hard
Speaker 1: to say I'm having suicidal thoughts, because that is something
Speaker 1: that's deeply shameful, and you know, again as something we
Speaker 1: don't talk about it, and so that we I use
Speaker 1: that phrase many times of having dark thoughts, of having
Speaker 1: dark thoughts. But you're right, I hadn't even thought about
Speaker 1: it in terms of homicidal thoughts, and I think many
Speaker 1: people have them. And also they are not they pass
Speaker 1: they can pass road y. Have you heard of road rage?
Speaker 1: A lot of people have lots, you know, in the moment,
Speaker 1: like you know, this person caught me off, cut me off,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna cut them. You know, it's just like calm down,
Speaker 1: calm down. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, anyway, yeah, or catastrophic
Speaker 1: thinking is another example. Oh yeah for sure. Sure, yeah,
Speaker 1: we write that book someday. Yeah, she just gave me
Speaker 1: a book idea. We don't have time to go through
Speaker 1: all the big emotions. So I definitely like want to
Speaker 1: direct our listeners to your book. Maybe we can cover
Speaker 1: one more, you know, to have nice balance. Three. Three
Speaker 1: seems good that we cover what's cover? Like on offence
Speaker 1: between anger and perfectionism? Can you quickly cover anger and perfectionism?
Speaker 1: Can you do both? Sure? All right, I'll try my bed.
Speaker 1: So so anger anger is something that, again society tells
Speaker 1: us is bad to feel, especially women or people identifying
Speaker 1: as women have been raised in our society to think
Speaker 1: that that's not an appropriate emotion to share, especially at
Speaker 1: work with colleagues. And yet anger can be a great
Speaker 1: sign that we care deeply about something or something that
Speaker 1: we care about has been violated. So like in my
Speaker 1: coaching work, I help people think about, Okay, so you're
Speaker 1: really angry at this person, beyond that, underneath that, what
Speaker 1: are you feeling? And sometimes it's about that like caring
Speaker 1: and I say, well, that's actually like good, like you
Speaker 1: care a lot about this company here, you feel a lot,
Speaker 1: you care a lot about this team, and they've been violated,
Speaker 1: and so how do we actually like listen to that
Speaker 1: and what can you do to help protect your team?
Speaker 1: That's not just like yelling. It's also can be a
Speaker 1: sign of fear. So fear that something. We get angry
Speaker 1: when we fear that something bad has happened or will happen.
Speaker 1: And so again it's like, okay, so that's fear. Let
Speaker 1: me recognize that that's fear. Anger is something that is
Speaker 1: hard for those around us to hear, especially when we've
Speaker 1: been raised in environments where anger is dangerous. Many people
Speaker 1: in our family lives that has been true, and so
Speaker 1: anger is one of these ones where we really have
Speaker 1: to sit with it and translate it for those around us.
Speaker 1: Which doesn't mean that you're not allowed to get angry.
Speaker 1: Of course, we all get angry, but it's about lengthening
Speaker 1: the space between the trigger and the response and being
Speaker 1: able to come back and say, you know, I was
Speaker 1: having a really strong reaction to that. Let me talk
Speaker 1: to you about what I was feeling and why that
Speaker 1: reaction was triggered. So that's a phrase that we recommend.
Speaker 1: I'm having a strong reaction right now, and sometimes you
Speaker 1: need to step away to go handle that and come back. Perfectionism,
Speaker 1: that's just yeah. So perfectionism is really interesting. Some people
Speaker 1: identify with the phrase perfectionism and some people don't because
Speaker 1: they think of it as like color coded folders, and
Speaker 1: they're like, why I don't do that. I'm not a perfectionist.
Speaker 1: But perfectionism can show up in many different ways that
Speaker 1: are not color coded folders. And we can have perfectionist
Speaker 1: tendencies in different parts of our lives. So we can
Speaker 1: be a perfectionist in our work life but not in
Speaker 1: our home life, and vice versa, and so it can
Speaker 1: be hard for people to recognize. I think the biggest
Speaker 1: thing that I want to share about perfectionism is that
Speaker 1: it may not be as helpful to us as we
Speaker 1: think that it is. So we interviewed another A therapist
Speaker 1: for the book, and she said that a lot of
Speaker 1: her Type A clients feel like if they stop their
Speaker 1: perfectionist tendencies, everything's going to fall apart. They're going to
Speaker 1: get immediately fired from their job, They're going to become
Speaker 1: a couch potato, and so it's this very black and
Speaker 1: white thinking about these tendencies are the sole thing that
Speaker 1: is helping me hold onto my success, and if I
Speaker 1: let go of them, the whole house of cards is
Speaker 1: going to fall down. And so what the therapist said was,
Speaker 1: you know, recognizing that the reason for your success, I mean,
Speaker 1: there may be a part of it that's because of
Speaker 1: your perfectionism, but that's certainly not all of the reason
Speaker 1: for your success, and that a lot of it is
Speaker 1: about you being a good person or a good listener
Speaker 1: or good teammate, and you doing the perfectly and everything
Speaker 1: doesn't always matter. And in some cases, in a workplace context,
Speaker 1: perfectionism can actually be detrimental to those around us. Many
Speaker 1: of us have worked with people where we're like, okay,
Speaker 1: you got it ninety percent of the way there. That's
Speaker 1: good enough for what we need. We need to move
Speaker 1: on because there's other things that we need to do
Speaker 1: as a team. And when you're working with somebody who's like, no,
Speaker 1: I have to get it to one hundred percent, it's
Speaker 1: it's sort of selfish in a way. They're like, I know,
Speaker 1: I need to know finish this and make it look perfect.
Speaker 1: Because I need that for myself. Maybe the team doesn't
Speaker 1: need that, so those reframes can be helpful. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: oh man, people right now. People are suffering right now obviously,
Speaker 1: And I really liked how you broad in the ending
Speaker 1: post traumatic growth. That's actually the topic of my book
Speaker 1: coming out this year. I didn't know that. Okay, great,
Speaker 1: the title of the book is Choose growth, but this
Speaker 1: is I'm just so glad that you talk about this,
Speaker 1: and just to tire everything together, today, we cause ourself
Speaker 1: additional suffering. We have we suffer, but then there's lots
Speaker 1: of ways we cause ourselves additional suffering. Perfectionism is one
Speaker 1: of them, right, and then a lot of other things
Speaker 1: are part of it. So I really love how you
Speaker 1: kind of tie that a lot of that together in
Speaker 1: your book at the ending there and the conclusion. Thank you. Well,
Speaker 1: I'm very excited to read about the book again. That
Speaker 1: was something that I didn't know about before writing and
Speaker 1: stumbled across it in research, and it helped give a
Speaker 1: name to some of the things that I had experienced.
Speaker 1: So while I never would want to go through despair
Speaker 1: or recommend that to anyone, there are pieces of myself
Speaker 1: that are new that came out of that experience, that
Speaker 1: where I can be more compassionate, pathetic and less judgmental.
Speaker 1: And that is a self re lining to that. And
Speaker 1: with each of these emotions that we talk about, there's
Speaker 1: usually something that you can get out of that. And
Speaker 1: so I'm really god and I look forward to reading that.
Speaker 1: Thanks Molly. But in the meantime, everyone should run out
Speaker 1: and get your book Big Feelings. It is really really good.
Speaker 1: It is scientifically sound, which I liked, and it's funny.
Speaker 1: It's funny and it's human. Molly. I really appreciate you
Speaker 1: chatting with me today and I wish you all the
Speaker 1: best with the success of your book. Thank you, Scott.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for having me. I enjoyed our
Speaker 1: conversation me too. Thanks for listening to this episode of
Speaker 1: The Psychology Podcast. If you'd like to react in some
Speaker 1: way to something you heard, I encourage you to join
Speaker 1: in the discussion at thus Psychology podcast dot com. We're
Speaker 1: on our YouTube page, The Psychology Podcast. We also put
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Speaker 1: as well, so I want to check that out. Thanks
Speaker 1: for being such a great supporter of the show and
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