Speaker 1: Welcome to Go Ask Ali, a production of Shonda Land
Speaker 1: Audio and partnership with I Heart Radio. I don't think
Speaker 1: that there's some one soul mate. It's not like there's one.
Speaker 1: Although bon Jovi is my soul mate, there's always exceptions.
Speaker 1: Are you saying that gossiping is the same as if
Speaker 1: I'm picking lice out of your scalp and eating it. Well,
Speaker 1: you've done both. So what do you think? I want
Speaker 1: to give her too much? I don't like her to
Speaker 1: come in with an inflated head, So we won't mentioned
Speaker 1: the Golden Globe. After all we've been through. We deserve
Speaker 1: an orgasm. Cis I deserved Welcome to Go Ask Allie.
Speaker 1: I'm Ali Wentworth and this season I'm digging into everything
Speaker 1: I can get my hands on, peeling back the layers
Speaker 1: and getting dirty. Today is a big episode because we're
Speaker 1: going to try to tackle a lot of things, because
Speaker 1: we're talking about relationships, lives, and the country as the
Speaker 1: pandemic continues for who knows how long. So if this
Speaker 1: is a long term thing, how are we going to
Speaker 1: manage the stress and how are we going to manage
Speaker 1: the stress of the country at large? You know, I
Speaker 1: look around at my family and friends, and I see
Speaker 1: how many people have dealt in so many different ways
Speaker 1: with the anxiety of the pandemic. You know, some people
Speaker 1: don't watch the news anymore. Some people eat up the news.
Speaker 1: I have friends that were alone during the pandemic who
Speaker 1: have realized they like being alone. They're not lonely than
Speaker 1: other people. I know. Couples got tighter, other couples broke
Speaker 1: up all because of this global virus. And that is
Speaker 1: why I have two very special guests today because I
Speaker 1: think one for Read Zakaria needs to deal with the
Speaker 1: macro the world at large, especially our country. And then
Speaker 1: the micro Donna Fish, a mental health therapists, will offer
Speaker 1: advice on how to deal with ourselves and others and
Speaker 1: how we slowly start to re engage in the world
Speaker 1: during this incredibly emotional time. So first up is for
Speaker 1: Red Zakaria. For Zakaria hosts a weekly international and domestic
Speaker 1: affairs program for Red Zakaria GPS for CNN Worldwide, and
Speaker 1: is a columnist for The Washington Post, a contributing editor
Speaker 1: for the Atlantic, and a best selling author. His latest
Speaker 1: book is Ten Lessons for a Post Pandemic World. He
Speaker 1: was named a top ten global thinker of the last
Speaker 1: ten years by Foreign Policy Magazine in twenty nineteen, and
Speaker 1: Esquire once called him the most influential foreign policy adviser
Speaker 1: of his generation. Welcome for Red Zakaria, author of Ten
Speaker 1: Lessons for a Post Pandemic World. I'm so happy to
Speaker 1: have you here to answer a million questions. I have
Speaker 1: great to be with you, Ali. I wanted you on
Speaker 1: this podcast because I'm trying to figure out what the
Speaker 1: next few years look like. I want to know if
Speaker 1: it's gonna change us for the better for the worst.
Speaker 1: Let me start out by asking you a toughie, which
Speaker 1: is is this the worst of times? Um? It's the
Speaker 1: biggest crisis we've ever faced, this pandemic because if you
Speaker 1: think about it, it's truly global. It's it's incredibly broad,
Speaker 1: and it's it's been it's been much longer than most
Speaker 1: crisis so compared, for example, the nine eleven, So nine eleven,
Speaker 1: if you were somebody living in Japan or Brazil, it
Speaker 1: really had very little impact on you. Um, Or think
Speaker 1: about even the financial crisis. The financial crisis goes on
Speaker 1: for a few months and then everything starts getting kind
Speaker 1: of back to normal. This case, everyone in the world
Speaker 1: has been affected by this. It's it's almost true to say,
Speaker 1: I think that every human being on the planet in
Speaker 1: some way has been affected by this pandemic. And it
Speaker 1: has been a long running thing, you know. I mean,
Speaker 1: we between the health public health aspect, the shutting down
Speaker 1: of the economy, the change in the nature of work,
Speaker 1: the effects are still going on, right. So I can't
Speaker 1: think of anything we have gone through in our lives
Speaker 1: which has had that broad and that deep in an effect.
Speaker 1: I mean, but it's different from the Spanish flu of
Speaker 1: nine eighteen. I mean, we are, thank thank god, a
Speaker 1: little more technologically advanced. But I have to say, I
Speaker 1: think our health care is a mess in our country
Speaker 1: and I don't see that getting better anytime soon, do you.
Speaker 1: So you're right there two big differences between the Spanish
Speaker 1: flu and now, and even actually the Asian flu of
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty seven and now. The big differences which is
Speaker 1: a positive one. We got a vaccine within nine moment.
Speaker 1: This is what distinguishes this, uh, this pandemic from every
Speaker 1: previous pandemic in history. In nine months, you had five vaccines,
Speaker 1: all of which worked. It's really amazing. Uh. The second
Speaker 1: pieces we shut down the economy. Um. Now, the reason
Speaker 1: that that's unique is before that you couldn't In ninety seven,
Speaker 1: half of Americans didn't even have a phone line. So
Speaker 1: the idea that you could just continue economic activity in
Speaker 1: the digital space was not an option. So in all
Speaker 1: those all previous pandemics, while there was a case, you know,
Speaker 1: there were some lockdown, some curfuse, basically people kind of
Speaker 1: had to get back to work as soon as they could.
Speaker 1: So those are two positives about this. We were able
Speaker 1: to keep the economy going. We got the vaccines. Now
Speaker 1: the big question you ask is, you know, has this
Speaker 1: been a shock to our system in terms of reforming it. Look,
Speaker 1: the fundamental problem we have in the American health care
Speaker 1: system is it is basically a private health care system,
Speaker 1: not a public health care system. If you're rich, if
Speaker 1: you have money, you get the best health care in
Speaker 1: the world. But it is not universal. It does not
Speaker 1: extend out. And in a pandemic, that's a huge problem
Speaker 1: because you leave ten percent behind or behind, and the
Speaker 1: pandemic is going to spread. And and what we saw
Speaker 1: was the reality or the or the consequences of the
Speaker 1: way we have chosen to structure health care, which is
Speaker 1: unlike other advanced industrial nations, we really do not care
Speaker 1: about universality. We do not care and and so looking
Speaker 1: at it from kind of the thirty feet view, it's
Speaker 1: a very inefficient system because we overspend on people like
Speaker 1: you and me, and we underspend on people who desperately
Speaker 1: need the care. Like if if we were to take
Speaker 1: five dollars away from each of us people like us
Speaker 1: um and give it to the poorest stent of Americans,
Speaker 1: it wouldn't change our health at all for the worst
Speaker 1: and would massively benefit those people a the But we
Speaker 1: don't have a mechanism to do now. It doesn't look
Speaker 1: like it's going to pivot that way anytime soon. And
Speaker 1: if anything, and I'd love you to talk about it,
Speaker 1: I think that it's it's sort of shine a light
Speaker 1: on how a mass or health care is. But also
Speaker 1: it even widens the wealth disparity. It even makes the
Speaker 1: haves and the have not even more glaring a problem.
Speaker 1: So it feels like we're we're being more and more
Speaker 1: polarized and not coming together, even though this is a
Speaker 1: global crisis, which you think would bring people together. It's not. Yeah,
Speaker 1: at so many levels, alleys so first, take the point
Speaker 1: you made. Um, the thing that the pandemic has exposed
Speaker 1: is the digital divide, which is in fact also an
Speaker 1: income divide, a class divide, a cultural divided, geographic divide.
Speaker 1: So if you look at the top of Americans and
Speaker 1: most recessions, the rich and the poor lose jobs at
Speaker 1: about the same pace. In this recession, the top actually
Speaker 1: gained jobs by the end of and you can imagine why, right, Like,
Speaker 1: so it's easy to do consulting and coding and stuff,
Speaker 1: and that kind of stuff we're doing online. I'm not
Speaker 1: I'm not coding for it. Yeah, in fact, I'm believe
Speaker 1: it or not, you are very much a part of
Speaker 1: the digital economy. Um. But the bottom, uh in lost
Speaker 1: jobs at about the same pace as during the Great Depression.
Speaker 1: And that disparity where the the rich actually gained employment
Speaker 1: and the and the and the poor suffered a massive
Speaker 1: hemorrhage never happened before, at least not in not in
Speaker 1: modern times. Then you say, where are the people who
Speaker 1: have who have the jobs, who have this ability to
Speaker 1: keep generating income even though the physical economy shut down. Well,
Speaker 1: they tend to live in cities or metro areas. They
Speaker 1: tend to have some college education, they tend to you know,
Speaker 1: vote Democratic more than Republican. And the people who are
Speaker 1: who are in the opposite side tend to be a mix,
Speaker 1: but a lot of them are rural, a lot of
Speaker 1: them have less education and all that. So you you know,
Speaker 1: all the divides we think about have just gone stacked
Speaker 1: on each other and white well, and it also seemed
Speaker 1: like here we were in lockdown in a global pandemic
Speaker 1: and it was a perfect storm of everything else. So
Speaker 1: we had well civil unrest, but all kinds of big
Speaker 1: movements like Black Lives Matter. It did also shed a
Speaker 1: light on how incredibly racist our country is. Do you
Speaker 1: think we're going to learn from this? So, I mean,
Speaker 1: you're absolutely right that the pandemic also produced social unrest.
Speaker 1: And I think it produced social unterrest because whenever you
Speaker 1: have one of these shocks to the system, a kind
Speaker 1: of big disruption in a strange sense that allows people
Speaker 1: to ask themselves questions of like am I living the
Speaker 1: life I want to? Is this country organized the way
Speaker 1: I wanted to? And I think we are very bad
Speaker 1: at handling the issue you were talking about, which is
Speaker 1: really the issue of identity, diversity, plurality, because America is
Speaker 1: two things that are very different for most minorities. And
Speaker 1: I say this as a minority. You know, an Indian American,
Speaker 1: I'm Muslim by birth, my brown skin, I have a
Speaker 1: funny name. And for most people in my category, America
Speaker 1: has actually been remarkably welcoming and it has integrated and
Speaker 1: assimilated people, and compared to most other countries in the world,
Speaker 1: you're lucky to be a minority in America. I mean
Speaker 1: I know this from my personal experience, but the data
Speaker 1: also shows we assimilate people much better if you are
Speaker 1: um African American black, or if you are a Native American,
Speaker 1: or you know, there are certain categories. Principally black. America
Speaker 1: has been horrendous to you. I mean, you know, the
Speaker 1: Black experience in America is just stunning, lee cruel, right.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's hundreds of years of slavery in which
Speaker 1: families were forcibly pulled apart, husbands and wives sold separately,
Speaker 1: children so separately, which then destroys the family structure. Then
Speaker 1: you have another hundred years of aggregation, which perpetuates in
Speaker 1: a de facto kind of slavery. Then you have the
Speaker 1: you know, the the civil rights movement, but still the
Speaker 1: massive disparities are never really addressed. So I mean the
Speaker 1: the the obvious one would be wealth, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: average black family's wealth's much much lower than a white family.
Speaker 1: And so what I often find is there is this
Speaker 1: weird you know, putting it all into one box and
Speaker 1: saying we're going to do better with people of color.
Speaker 1: It's like, you know, I'm doing fine. We were trying
Speaker 1: to turn it into a larger conversation that involves everybody,
Speaker 1: and really what we need is a much more specific
Speaker 1: reckoning I think with slavery and with Native Americans, and
Speaker 1: I mean I think yes, and I think, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: obviously this was exacerbated by George Floyd, but something happened psychologically,
Speaker 1: I think during this pandemic as well. I mean, people
Speaker 1: were in lockdown, like you said, they had to think
Speaker 1: about their lives. But people seem to be incredibly angry,
Speaker 1: and in some ways it's come out, I think in
Speaker 1: a positive way through activism. But you know, we are
Speaker 1: seeing a lot of that in fighting, and I think
Speaker 1: there's gonna be a civil war, which is probably an
Speaker 1: extreme thing to say, but I do feel it sometimes.
Speaker 1: I don't see us coming together. I don't see everybody
Speaker 1: being on the same track as far as sort of
Speaker 1: the future of our country goes. Am I being too extreme? No,
Speaker 1: you're not being too extreme. This is the thing I
Speaker 1: worry about more than anything else. I mean, otherwise, you know,
Speaker 1: the America economically, we're doing really well. We're doing technologically,
Speaker 1: we dominate the world. Were the only rich country that
Speaker 1: is growing demographically, you know, because of immigration, we're strong.
Speaker 1: But we have this crazy politics and it's become you
Speaker 1: know of what I was saying before is it's not
Speaker 1: political anymore. It's culture, it's class, it's uh, you know,
Speaker 1: which which are much harder to bridge. I mean, if
Speaker 1: politically we have a disagreement, you know. I mean when
Speaker 1: Georgia and I first got into this this world, the
Speaker 1: liberals wanted to spend a hundred billion dollars, the conservatives
Speaker 1: wanted to spend twenty billion dollars. Well, you know what,
Speaker 1: there's a number between those two. You can always split
Speaker 1: the difference on those kinds of issues, But how do
Speaker 1: you split the difference when when you know, when the
Speaker 1: issue is sort of core identity. I believe my country
Speaker 1: is being is being totally transformed culturally, I believe, you know,
Speaker 1: or gay rights or or you know, abortion, These are
Speaker 1: you know, it's very hard to compromise. So that's become
Speaker 1: the nature of politics now. It's all these identity culture
Speaker 1: class divisions. Are these issues where they exasperated by the pandemic. Um,
Speaker 1: would we be talking about this today if there had
Speaker 1: not been a global pandemic? Yeah, no, we would be.
Speaker 1: I mean this has been the story of American politics.
Speaker 1: Let's say the end of the Cold War as a
Speaker 1: market but that it was really Liberals wanted to spend
Speaker 1: money and in post taxes, Conservatives wanted to save money
Speaker 1: and you know, cut taxes. Um. Now it's become completely different.
Speaker 1: And that's not the pandemic. The pandemic is with all
Speaker 1: these things kind of heightens and accelerates it. But this
Speaker 1: rise of kind of identity politics is is the big
Speaker 1: trend in American politics. Okay, So it seems it seems
Speaker 1: to me right now that the the unions are getting
Speaker 1: very heated. Do you think that there's any positive outcome
Speaker 1: from that? Yeah? Actually, I think this is one of
Speaker 1: those cases where the bad news actually is good news. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: unions are getting more more demanding, you're seeing more strikes
Speaker 1: even but more importantly, you're seeing this crazy situation whether
Speaker 1: ten million people unemployed in eight million unfilled jobs in
Speaker 1: the United States, which has never happened before, and other wads,
Speaker 1: why are these jobs not getting filled? And the reason
Speaker 1: is people are saying, you're not paying us enough, you're
Speaker 1: not treating us well enough. And it's not just about
Speaker 1: the money, because the hospitality industry has raised wages on
Speaker 1: average eight percent and still they can't fill tens of
Speaker 1: thousands of jobs. I think this is somebody described this
Speaker 1: as like the great Reassessment. We're going through a period
Speaker 1: where people are asking themselves what, you know, what is
Speaker 1: the work life balance they want? What is the kind
Speaker 1: of job they want? And you know, the people who
Speaker 1: have not been treated well over the last thirty or
Speaker 1: forty years in America are these sort of lower middle class,
Speaker 1: working class just workers. So the fact that they are
Speaker 1: revolting the fact that employers are going to have to
Speaker 1: hustle and ask themselves, what do I do to make
Speaker 1: these people's lives a little bit less miserable? In these
Speaker 1: way you know, those dishwashers at restaurants. I think it's
Speaker 1: great that they will that they will be paid more,
Speaker 1: they will be treated better. It's by the way, great
Speaker 1: for the economy because it means those are the people
Speaker 1: when you give them more money, they spend it. You know,
Speaker 1: you give money to rich people, they save it. You
Speaker 1: give money to poor people, they ended. So I think
Speaker 1: this will end up being one of the big positive
Speaker 1: changes that will come out of the crisis. You know,
Speaker 1: my concern is, uh is our country's ability to deal
Speaker 1: with the crisis, because uh, yes, we have the vaccine,
Speaker 1: but you know we're not out of the woods yet.
Speaker 1: And I know that you've cited Taiwan and Korea as
Speaker 1: places that were able to deal with the pandemic a
Speaker 1: lot more efficiently than we have. We don't seem to
Speaker 1: be dealing with this particular crisis as well as we
Speaker 1: could be, which makes me nervous about future epidemics, which
Speaker 1: makes me worry about future any kind of issues, chemical warfare,
Speaker 1: biological contagions, or whatever it is I worry about it.
Speaker 1: Should should I Should I be taking xanix or is
Speaker 1: it going to be okay? No, I think you should
Speaker 1: be worried. I think you've be This is the in
Speaker 1: a way the central problem we face is the American
Speaker 1: government has just gotten very bad. You know. I say,
Speaker 1: one of my lessons is, it's not the quantity of government,
Speaker 1: it's the quality of government. Because Taiwan spends five percent
Speaker 1: of its GDP on healthcare, we spend and they did
Speaker 1: stunning lee well, and we did abysmally um and here
Speaker 1: and here's the fascinating thing, Ali, it's not that they
Speaker 1: did lockdowns. Taiwan did no lockdowns. Korea did no lockdowns
Speaker 1: because they got to it early and they understood that
Speaker 1: the key in a pandemic is you isolate, You isolate
Speaker 1: that small number of people. And I talked to the
Speaker 1: guy who ran the program in Taiwan and I said, well,
Speaker 1: you know, Americans would say you could, we could never
Speaker 1: do that. And he said, well, think about what you're saying.
Speaker 1: Because we quarantined in total, one percent of the population
Speaker 1: for fourteen days, So we deprived them of liberty for
Speaker 1: fourteen days one percent of the In return, the other
Speaker 1: could go about business as usual. No lockdowns. We never
Speaker 1: shut the economy down. We never. You guys say you
Speaker 1: can't do that, But in response to your pandemic, then
Speaker 1: what you had to do was you did a lockdown
Speaker 1: that put tens of millions of people out of work,
Speaker 1: shut out hundreds of thousands of businesses, and that the
Speaker 1: government had to spend four trillion dollars to make up
Speaker 1: for it. And that's not an infringement on liberty when
Speaker 1: people lose their jobs their livelihood. So I thought it
Speaker 1: was a really good example of you know what we
Speaker 1: have lost the capacity to do, which is kind of
Speaker 1: intelligent risk reward behavior. Okay, I'm willing to take this
Speaker 1: much pain for a small short period of time to
Speaker 1: get much larger. Again. No, we just stumbled through it.
Speaker 1: And just because we're so rich, we can kind of
Speaker 1: throw enormous amounts of money at the problem. That was
Speaker 1: the vaccine, that was the COVID relief, and we'll be
Speaker 1: all right because of that. But you know, imagine if
Speaker 1: we didn't have this kind of money, would be really screwed. Yes,
Speaker 1: we were, So I want you to do two things
Speaker 1: I bet you haven't had to do on any of
Speaker 1: these uh zoom interviews, which is, paint me the worst
Speaker 1: case scenario of the next five years, and then we're
Speaker 1: gonna do a pivot into pure optimism. But right now,
Speaker 1: the next five years. If it went off the rails,
Speaker 1: what would what would America look like to you? Yea?
Speaker 1: So the worst scenario is nothing gets done, Biden ends
Speaker 1: up being a failed president, the Republicans take to take
Speaker 1: the House and the Senate, which means this total gridlock.
Speaker 1: Trump doesn't win, but manages to manipulate the results so
Speaker 1: that hu wins. So you have, for the third time,
Speaker 1: now you would have this sense of deep illegitimacy. You
Speaker 1: know that that the group that didn't get basically thought
Speaker 1: the other group stole it um. And then you I
Speaker 1: think you would do end up with some kind of
Speaker 1: you know, violence, constant demonstrations. You'll end up in a
Speaker 1: situation where the United States becomes a kind of banana republic,
Speaker 1: where it can't be governed, nothing gets done. You know,
Speaker 1: I don't think it will collapse. I mean, the private
Speaker 1: sector will keep going, I I suppose, but I think
Speaker 1: it becomes very difficult for any large problem to be solved.
Speaker 1: And I think that what worries me most about it is,
Speaker 1: and I'm not describing something that extreme, many of these
Speaker 1: steps could easily happen. Frump could decide to run, he
Speaker 1: could get the nomination. The last election that Biden one
Speaker 1: in the electoral College was close about a hundred thousand
Speaker 1: votes in three states, and it would have gone the
Speaker 1: other way. And if if the Secretary of State of
Speaker 1: Georgia and the Pennsylvania Legislature and Wisconsin had said, we
Speaker 1: think that this is all wrong the electors, we're going
Speaker 1: to nominate our own slate, boom, you have a constitutional crisis.
Speaker 1: And and my fear about all this is, I don't
Speaker 1: see what stops it. We could get lucky, he loses
Speaker 1: very badly, but at least if he would have win decisively,
Speaker 1: that would be another thing. But I doubt that. I
Speaker 1: think you're going to end up with a very close election.
Speaker 1: We've had very close elections for the last twenty years now.
Speaker 1: And with the erosion of trust in the US government,
Speaker 1: as soon as that starts to crumble, then America does
Speaker 1: not have an ability to respond to a crisis. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, I even think about global warming right now,
Speaker 1: even that is a political debate as to whether it
Speaker 1: even exists or not. And yet we have wildfires and floods.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's we're witness to it um And so
Speaker 1: for me and for the sake of this podcast, for it.
Speaker 1: I'm thirty two years old. For me, a thirty two
Speaker 1: year old woman, you know, I I there's no category
Speaker 1: of life in America that doesn't concern me right now,
Speaker 1: you know where, whether it's the forest or the courts,
Speaker 1: or you know, people of color, or the wealth disparity.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's very hard right now to be optimistic.
Speaker 1: And I know that you've written that. Lennon once said
Speaker 1: our decades when nothing happens, and weeks when decades happen.
Speaker 1: And I feel like we're in that right now. Yeah. Look,
Speaker 1: first of all, let me say, since people are going
Speaker 1: to hear the podcast, Ali looks like she's twenty eight,
Speaker 1: not thirty two. Time already a little startled for another. Um, Look,
Speaker 1: the challenge we face is that all these crises seem
Speaker 1: to be happening at the same time, and we somehow
Speaker 1: have politicized things at a level that no other country has. So,
Speaker 1: you know, the issue of global warming, as you said,
Speaker 1: there's no other country in which there's a big debate
Speaker 1: going on. I mean there's a little bit in Australia,
Speaker 1: but it's really I mean in every other country. If
Speaker 1: you look at the Conservative Party in Germany, in Britain,
Speaker 1: they're all completely on board with dealing with it the pandemic.
Speaker 1: Look at the vaccination. We are the only major country
Speaker 1: in the world that has this bizarre situation with of
Speaker 1: the country will not take a life saving drug called
Speaker 1: a vaccine because they want to make a political point
Speaker 1: and it's more important to own the Libs than to
Speaker 1: vaccinate yourself against a pandemic. Alright, so let's let's conclude
Speaker 1: with some optimism, and let me ask you this, What
Speaker 1: is the biggest, clearest, most important thing that we have
Speaker 1: learned because of the pandemic? If we can bring anything
Speaker 1: with us out of this horrible period, you know, besides
Speaker 1: the fact that we can zoom, what are what are
Speaker 1: some of the things that we can benefit from learning?
Speaker 1: If anything, we've learned that we have a lot of problems,
Speaker 1: and they kind of expose that reality. You know. It's
Speaker 1: like Warren Buffett's great line, it's only when the tide
Speaker 1: goes out that you know who's been swimming naked? So
Speaker 1: I think the tide went out in America. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of nudity, and there's a lot of naked people.
Speaker 1: I think, you know, if at some fundamental level. I
Speaker 1: hope we've realized that wealth does not buy health, that
Speaker 1: being being rich and having a healthy society is not
Speaker 1: the same thing. We need to we need to restructure
Speaker 1: in a way that allows, you know, that allows some
Speaker 1: of those dollars to get to people who really desperately needed.
Speaker 1: I think we've realized that people do honorable jobs, work
Speaker 1: really hard, and should have a lot of dignity even
Speaker 1: though they don't make a lot of money, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, I think we we all saw that the
Speaker 1: people who went to work every day in offices, in factories,
Speaker 1: in water treatment plans and sewage facilities so that we
Speaker 1: could sit at home are often the worst paid people. Um.
Speaker 1: So you know, if you shine a light on this stuff,
Speaker 1: it's it's actually all fixable. It's not so hard to fix.
Speaker 1: And you asked an optimistic scenario. Look, we've already with
Speaker 1: the first COVID relief bill, which had the childcare credit, right,
Speaker 1: you know, you have, we have reduced childhood poverty in
Speaker 1: America by by half in one year. I mean, what
Speaker 1: that should make us realize is, you know, we don't
Speaker 1: have to live with these things. They are actually very
Speaker 1: simple ways that we can solve them. And you know,
Speaker 1: and and I think even the most uh the purest
Speaker 1: libertarian would agree that, you know, to invest the money
Speaker 1: for in a child who has you know, it's it's
Speaker 1: not like the child is being lazy or not working
Speaker 1: or anything like that. This is a no brainer. You
Speaker 1: will you give them better nutrition, you give them better education,
Speaker 1: and then they end up, you know, being better citizens
Speaker 1: and more productive members of the economy. So there's so
Speaker 1: many things we can do. So if Biden gets two
Speaker 1: of these bills done, you know, the the infrastructure Bill
Speaker 1: and the soft infrastructure Bill, if he's able to have
Speaker 1: a reasonably successful presidency. If Trump is defeated decisively, I
Speaker 1: think the best thing that could happen is that he
Speaker 1: does get nominated and it's a wipeout and he loses.
Speaker 1: I think then you have the beginnings of restoring a
Speaker 1: kind of normal politics in America. I'm hoping that people
Speaker 1: looked at Trump and enough people looked at it and said,
Speaker 1: you know, this is a dangerous path um And yes,
Speaker 1: there are people who believe in him. But but but
Speaker 1: just one piece of my optimism comes from this alley,
Speaker 1: which is you're never going to get a percent of
Speaker 1: the country still supported Nixon after he resigned. Percent of
Speaker 1: the country supported McCarthy after the Senate centure. So you know,
Speaker 1: your best case scenario is six but I think you know,
Speaker 1: maybe not that. But could we get to a sixty
Speaker 1: forty Saint Politics. Yeah, it's possible. It's I wouldn't bed
Speaker 1: money on it today, but that's what I hope. Okay,
Speaker 1: I'll take it. You know they say, um, in life,
Speaker 1: we only use ten percent of our brain. I think
Speaker 1: you only had to use three percent of your brain
Speaker 1: on my podcast, and I used all of my brain.
Speaker 1: I tend to be an optimist, So I'm going to
Speaker 1: hope that lessons are learned from this. And now it
Speaker 1: is your time for reads a car to ask me
Speaker 1: a question. I could ask you so many questions. You know,
Speaker 1: I'll be honest, Like I still remember the first time
Speaker 1: I said next year at the dinner party, which is
Speaker 1: probably twenty odd years ago. Um, and I just came
Speaker 1: away thinking that was so much fun. So my question
Speaker 1: is you are one of the funniest people I know,
Speaker 1: one of the most naturally comedic people I know. Do
Speaker 1: you do you think that you know this? And I'm
Speaker 1: thinking of the Dave Chappelle type stuff. Do you think
Speaker 1: it's possible to be to be really funny if you
Speaker 1: have to be sure never to offend anyone any any
Speaker 1: member of any group. Well, it's funny that you asked
Speaker 1: that question because I just did a podcast about that,
Speaker 1: because it is something that I think about every day
Speaker 1: because what with the Dave Chappelle controversy. But also I
Speaker 1: find that a lot of times when I joke around,
Speaker 1: even in the confines of my own home, I have
Speaker 1: two children that are saying, you can't say that. Mom.
Speaker 1: You can't do that, Mom, you can't post that. You know,
Speaker 1: So it's a mine field. I can't say anything. But
Speaker 1: then again, I'm not doing stand up. I'm not on
Speaker 1: any kind of global stage. But you know, my feeling
Speaker 1: is this. A lot of times I think comedians are
Speaker 1: the truthsayers, and whether they're saying something provocative or not,
Speaker 1: it does make us think and it also gives a
Speaker 1: sense of sort of the temperature of the culture at
Speaker 1: that time. And so my feeling with comedy is nothing
Speaker 1: should be off limits, and if if things are off limits,
Speaker 1: then it should be universal. You can't have Ricky's your vase,
Speaker 1: make age jokes, but then somebody else isn't allowed to
Speaker 1: do this, you know. So my feeling is let comedians
Speaker 1: who are craftsmen, who are who are generally funny, and
Speaker 1: let them go be kind of the narrators of our
Speaker 1: time and let them push buttons. Well, I just wanted to,
Speaker 1: for the benefit of our listeners, remind bit make once
Speaker 1: mall correction when you grew up in the Clinton administration,
Speaker 1: not the Oh I'm sorry, I messed that up. It's
Speaker 1: I lie so much about my age, I forget who
Speaker 1: was in power. But I did have a huge crush
Speaker 1: on g Gordon Liddy's son in my youth. So there
Speaker 1: I said it, Fury, thank you, thank you so much.
Speaker 1: Such a pleasure, such a pleasure. When we come back,
Speaker 1: we'll talk with therapist Donna Fish about how to handle
Speaker 1: the uncertainty of a long term pandemic. Now for some
Speaker 1: insight from a top mental health expert as we re
Speaker 1: entered this unpredictable world. So I recorded this interview back
Speaker 1: in September, and that was a day after my daughter
Speaker 1: was diagnosed with COVID, right as she was supposed to
Speaker 1: go to college for the first time, and the Delta
Speaker 1: variant had emergency rooms filled all over the city and
Speaker 1: she had a breakthrough. Um, she was already vaccinated and
Speaker 1: it just spun us all out. Now she's thriving in
Speaker 1: school and Delta has subsided a bit. But these are
Speaker 1: two of the conditions that could happen to us at
Speaker 1: any time, and that is a point. We can't make
Speaker 1: any predictions which way this virus will take us for
Speaker 1: the foreseeable future. So how do we deal? Enter Donna Fish.
Speaker 1: Donna Fish is a psychotherapist and licensed clinical social worker
Speaker 1: in Manhattan. Her current specialties include trauma, anxiety, depression, eating disorders,
Speaker 1: and family and couples therapy. She's lectured and held agent
Speaker 1: positions at the Harvard Medical School Department of Continuing Education
Speaker 1: in Columbia University, and she often writes for Psychology Today
Speaker 1: and as many many articles published by the Huffington's Posts.
Speaker 1: Donna Fish, thank you so much for being with me
Speaker 1: today and go ask Alley. There's a lot to cover.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Ellie, thank you so much for having me
Speaker 1: so here. We are, Donna Fish, We're not getting out
Speaker 1: of this pandemic anytime soon. UM. I want to talk
Speaker 1: to you about how we kind of readjust our lives
Speaker 1: to fit into this global scenario. And I gotta tell
Speaker 1: you something. Yesterday my daughter, who's eighteen years old, who's
Speaker 1: about to go to Brown University, tested positive for COVID.
Speaker 1: So it just it's a ship show over here because
Speaker 1: we now have to prolong her moving in. We're all
Speaker 1: quarantining for ten days. And the worst part about it is,
Speaker 1: I I feel like, wait, we already got through this.
Speaker 1: What's happening? Why are we back eating noodles again? So
Speaker 1: I want to talk about anxiety first, because there is
Speaker 1: an anxiety for a virus that seems to never end. Yeah. Absolutely.
Speaker 1: First off, most importantly, oh my god, as a parent
Speaker 1: and your poor daughter, I mean, it's so awful. It's
Speaker 1: the worst. And also she has anxiety in general about
Speaker 1: starting college for the first time. Of course, I mean
Speaker 1: what I've been thinking about lately. And I love that
Speaker 1: you brought up anxiety to talk about first, because I'm
Speaker 1: obviously hearing about it from all of my patients every day,
Speaker 1: and you know, my own kids, myself, and I'm realizing,
Speaker 1: I think, okay, so we're really having to move into
Speaker 1: a really different way of thinking and kind of framing things.
Speaker 1: It's like living with a chronic illness, you have to
Speaker 1: adjust your expectations. So everything, we've got to reframe everything,
Speaker 1: Like my family is in Canada and from Canada. Originally
Speaker 1: I can't just pop off to Toronto and go see
Speaker 1: my daughter who's just moving into in a new apartment
Speaker 1: that I want to help remove, Like what if I
Speaker 1: get stuck in Canada and can I afford. So there's
Speaker 1: a rethinking of everything, And I realized we could we
Speaker 1: have sort of a choice here. We could get super
Speaker 1: anxious about it and go into disaster mode thinking, or
Speaker 1: we can kind of accept that, like this is really
Speaker 1: the name of the game now. It's endemic, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: meaning we're living with this, and to also understand that
Speaker 1: everybody's going through this, so your daughter is not alone.
Speaker 1: Number one. Well that's one of the things that I
Speaker 1: said to her, was because I've heard more and more
Speaker 1: friends who have kids that we're supposed to go to
Speaker 1: college and the same thing. Exactly, either they got it,
Speaker 1: somebody else got you know. So I feel like it's
Speaker 1: a little bit of groundhogs day. But also this is
Speaker 1: the new norm. You know, there's gonna be people quarantining
Speaker 1: all the time exactly. So she's not the only one
Speaker 1: missing out, you know fomo. Yeah, the whole world is
Speaker 1: in fomo. Well, at least when we were like locked down,
Speaker 1: it reduced the fomo. Yea, now we as we as
Speaker 1: we're re emerging, there can be that also anxiety of like,
Speaker 1: but you know, my best friend is moving into the
Speaker 1: dorm and I'm not right right, you know, my daughter's
Speaker 1: upset because it's not like nobody's going to college. Everybody
Speaker 1: who's supposed to be going to move in or moving
Speaker 1: in it except for her because of the circumstances. So
Speaker 1: you know, I worry about anxiety with that. I also
Speaker 1: worry are we in this endless whirlwind of pandemic crisis
Speaker 1: and that is a whole other, you know, huge thing
Speaker 1: to have to deal with. I think that this idea
Speaker 1: like the stop start kind of thing. Right you're just thinking, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be able to get back to work because
Speaker 1: my kids are going to school now, and the fact
Speaker 1: that well, no, your kids just tested positive or there's
Speaker 1: another kid who tested positive, so your kid is being
Speaker 1: quarantined in their back home and you're back doing zoom
Speaker 1: school and then you have to tell your boss like oop, sorry,
Speaker 1: can attend that meaning or you know, and I think
Speaker 1: that everybody is just going to have to have a
Speaker 1: tremendous acceptance of that. At any moment, your life is
Speaker 1: going to have to kind of stop, and you're gonna
Speaker 1: have to readjust and recalibrate. And so that's kind of
Speaker 1: the new normal. I mean, one of the ways we
Speaker 1: cope best, right, that helps anxiety is to be able
Speaker 1: to predict things right. And so the more we can
Speaker 1: predict and readjust our expectations of like, Okay, well we
Speaker 1: really can't expect to go back to whatever life we
Speaker 1: used to have because that's not happening, then we can
Speaker 1: at least go, okay, what can we expect, what's reasonable,
Speaker 1: what's realistic? Exactly? So if we can all get on
Speaker 1: the same page and we are at least all in
Speaker 1: this together, whether you're vaccinated not vaccinated, we're all sort
Speaker 1: of vulnerable. Yes, I do wonder because I think we
Speaker 1: all sort of went through COVID for a year and
Speaker 1: a half. We all, as you said, we're taking off
Speaker 1: our masks. This summer was you know, fun fund socializing.
Speaker 1: Everyone was out. We sort of felt like, oh that's over,
Speaker 1: Well now it's now, it's not over, and I wonder
Speaker 1: our kids finding ways to control the few things they
Speaker 1: can just because the whole world looks out of control
Speaker 1: right now. Well, what you're hitting on is in fact
Speaker 1: exactly what's important for trauma, right I do a ton
Speaker 1: of work with trauma, and one of the most important
Speaker 1: things when you're dealing with a lot of you know,
Speaker 1: overwhelming powerlessness and helplessness, which is like we are powerless
Speaker 1: over the course of this pandemic to a degree. Obviously,
Speaker 1: what's the most important thing is to find at least
Speaker 1: a few things that you have control over. And so
Speaker 1: that's a single thing that you can always help as
Speaker 1: a parent with your children, help them find things that
Speaker 1: they can control. The other thing, I don't know if
Speaker 1: this is a moment I can launch into a little
Speaker 1: technique or tool that I offer people. Please, um, we'll
Speaker 1: take tools. So one of the things that happens when
Speaker 1: you are struggling with anxiety is our brains will worry,
Speaker 1: and worry is actually our brains attempt to decrease anxiety.
Speaker 1: Believe it or not, it's our way to kind of
Speaker 1: help ourselves feel a sense of control and feel less
Speaker 1: anxious and less panicked. So we our brains are sort
Speaker 1: of scrambling. It sometimes gets circular and just kind of
Speaker 1: drive you crazy. And it doesn't it doesn't actually work
Speaker 1: to really decrease anxiety. However, I have the best thing
Speaker 1: that I love to use, which is called the worry sheet.
Speaker 1: And what I do is I have people really right
Speaker 1: down and you. People could do this with their children too,
Speaker 1: really young children. You could just do the writing yourself.
Speaker 1: You could ask them, so, what's going on in your head?
Speaker 1: Let's write down all of your worry thoughts. So I'll
Speaker 1: make a list of all the worry thoughts. I like
Speaker 1: to group worry thoughts into productive worry thoughts and non
Speaker 1: productive worry thoughts. The productive worry thoughts are things that
Speaker 1: you're worrying about that you can do something about them.
Speaker 1: So let's say, for example, if you're worried that you
Speaker 1: have a deadline coming up. Let's say it's a college
Speaker 1: student and you know you've got this big paper that
Speaker 1: you have to write. You know you don't have to
Speaker 1: do it yet, but it's hovering over your head. Make
Speaker 1: a schedule of some actionable items I call them. I'll say, okay,
Speaker 1: let's put it in your calendar. Oh, this is when
Speaker 1: I'm gonna are x y Z, I'll go to the
Speaker 1: library or I'll start researching. And so you really make
Speaker 1: a list and you take each worry thought and you
Speaker 1: see is there something you can do about it? And
Speaker 1: you make it actionable. The non productive worry are the
Speaker 1: things you have absolutely no control over. Yeah, is the
Speaker 1: pandemic exactly? I would think that, Yeah, when is the
Speaker 1: pandemic going to be over? I have another little tool
Speaker 1: for that one. If you want to hear it, I
Speaker 1: need a tool kit. You. So, one of the things
Speaker 1: that I like to I like to reframe all emotions. Okay,
Speaker 1: because emotions are not good or bad. Okay, all emotions
Speaker 1: are beautiful because we're human beings and were we have
Speaker 1: this capacity for a full palette, right, and they're all
Speaker 1: varying degree is almost like a paint strip. Right. It's
Speaker 1: the intensity of the emotions that usually create the suffering.
Speaker 1: It's not an emotion in and of itself. So let's
Speaker 1: say anxiety. For example, anxiety, if it's a ten out
Speaker 1: of ten, it really makes it analonging to think straight.
Speaker 1: That being said, in certain circumstances might be really useful
Speaker 1: at panic, right, gets your adrenaline goings, the fight or
Speaker 1: flight response to you a better panic, right. So it's
Speaker 1: not that panic is good or bad. It has its advantages.
Speaker 1: It's just that if you're panicking when you're in the
Speaker 1: situation where you're not in danger, it's going to get
Speaker 1: in the way of your judgment and your ability to
Speaker 1: think straight. So let's look at the advantages of your
Speaker 1: anxiety about the pandemic, and not only the advantages, but
Speaker 1: the great things it says about you and your core
Speaker 1: values that you're anxious about the pandemic. Well, number one,
Speaker 1: anxiety helps you mobilize, right, It gives you adrenal, It
Speaker 1: helps you kind of be on the alert make good decisions. Well,
Speaker 1: it can help you make good decisions because you're using
Speaker 1: the emotion of anxiety to use your thought, your rational
Speaker 1: mind to go, oh, I'm anxious, therefore, oh it might
Speaker 1: make sense. I just got exposed. Let me go get tested.
Speaker 1: So that's good anxiety. And then you know, you want
Speaker 1: to validate the emotion, and that validation of the feelings
Speaker 1: also helps coping and helps soothing, So that validation is important. Right.
Speaker 1: So it's important to particularly with our children, to validate
Speaker 1: their anxiety about this new world. Absolutely. So the next
Speaker 1: piece of this, which obviously anxiety has a strong hold on,
Speaker 1: is how to socialize now, because I can tell you
Speaker 1: from speaking to adults, I have seen a huge shift
Speaker 1: with how adults now view socializing. I think people in
Speaker 1: a lot of ways had positive responses to being in
Speaker 1: their pod right. And on the one hand, you know,
Speaker 1: that's kind of great. People are sort of cutting out
Speaker 1: the fat, They're finding out what's important to them. But
Speaker 1: I have also noticed that there is a lot of
Speaker 1: anxiety out going and socializing. Yeah, you know, just re emerging, right,
Speaker 1: And it it is so true. It's like we were habituated.
Speaker 1: We were trained really to be socially distant and to
Speaker 1: be anxious enough to get near each other and to
Speaker 1: reduce the people we socialize with. Um. And it's a
Speaker 1: little like what I was referring to about how much
Speaker 1: anxiety is useful versus how much gets crippling. And so
Speaker 1: I've noticed in my practice I'm having to help people
Speaker 1: re emerge because right now their anxiety could be pitched
Speaker 1: so high that they're like I have to stay in
Speaker 1: my apartment and I can't get together with my friends,
Speaker 1: and like that's not really going to help you with
Speaker 1: living a you know, a happy life and helping you
Speaker 1: it's your depression. So and to some degree that's not
Speaker 1: necessarily true that you can't socialize. So it's like their
Speaker 1: anxiety is still pitched at the level of like where
Speaker 1: it was. So we have to sort of figure out, Okay,
Speaker 1: well what's realistic, what's doable, and also what's what's doable
Speaker 1: for you? So what kind of baby steps can you
Speaker 1: take to you know, starting to see maybe three people
Speaker 1: at a time, and what are the things you need
Speaker 1: to do to feel somewhat comfortable but still push yourself.
Speaker 1: One of the things that's actually really important to treat
Speaker 1: anxiety is exposing yourself to anxiety because the more you
Speaker 1: avoid feelings of anxiety, the more crippled you become. You know,
Speaker 1: people get a hoorophobic or they stop, you know, they
Speaker 1: can't do things, they can't socialize, or they can't go
Speaker 1: out and they're too frightened. And the more we avoid,
Speaker 1: the more we sort of create these monsters in our head.
Speaker 1: And so it does take you know, a little bit
Speaker 1: of kind of pushing. I've been trying to help people
Speaker 1: actually feel more uncomfortable and more anxious ironically and paradoxically,
Speaker 1: because the roots through anxiety is more anxiety believed or
Speaker 1: not to get to the other side. Yeah, no, I
Speaker 1: believe it. Yeah, there's anxiety runs through our family, so
Speaker 1: I understand that. I'm also thinking about again, when we
Speaker 1: were all in lockdown own, we all knew the rules,
Speaker 1: we all knew what we were supposed to do, and
Speaker 1: I have seen a lot of anxiety now with well,
Speaker 1: yes there's the delta variant and other variants. It's COVID
Speaker 1: is still going. And yet I'll get a paperless post
Speaker 1: to go to a big party, and then I have
Speaker 1: friends who will not come out of their house. So
Speaker 1: now we're in this kind of free fall of everyone
Speaker 1: being very confused. We'll should I go to this birthday party?
Speaker 1: It's one of my best friends, but she's having forty people.
Speaker 1: That's crazy. You know. It is a lot of head scratching.
Speaker 1: It is a lot of head scratching, and I think
Speaker 1: it's one of those great times where everybody has to
Speaker 1: figure it out for themselves and what works for them too. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there is no one rule, one size fits all here. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we kind of have to have respect, right, you know,
Speaker 1: one friend need not want to come to your birthday
Speaker 1: party because she's too uncomfortable and to some degree and
Speaker 1: other things, I think we have to be a little
Speaker 1: bit cautious of this. Right, There's something called secondary gain,
Speaker 1: which means that you can maintain your anxiety because it
Speaker 1: really helps with something else, so that you don't actually
Speaker 1: want to get over your anxiety because if you did,
Speaker 1: you have to actually go, you know, go to a
Speaker 1: birthday party you don't want to go to. So, you know,
Speaker 1: like for kids, like sometimes they might be like, I'm
Speaker 1: scared to go out because of delta Um, but Cher Sully,
Speaker 1: it's really a social anxiety issue that they're dealing with,
Speaker 1: or a bowling issue. So we have to be a
Speaker 1: little bit cautious that it's not used to be able
Speaker 1: to avoid really avoid. But is that so hard to
Speaker 1: figure out exactly? Which is where as a parent, you're
Speaker 1: the expert on your own kid, you knew your kid
Speaker 1: better than anyone, and as a mom or instincts are
Speaker 1: so homeed, like we could feel it right when it's
Speaker 1: like that, maybe there's some other reasons that you're wanting
Speaker 1: to not go to this party or you know, not
Speaker 1: wanting to live in the dorm this year or whatever,
Speaker 1: and they could be super valid reasons too. I'd like
Speaker 1: to really open up, like it's okay to have all
Speaker 1: these things that you're worrying about and that you're scared up,
Speaker 1: you know, right exactly. Another thing is there's a lot
Speaker 1: of anxiety an animosity with the mask war. I call it,
Speaker 1: Oh my god, So with the anti vactors and the
Speaker 1: factors in the mask and not wearing the mask, and
Speaker 1: I find that that's triggering people. I know, I know, No,
Speaker 1: it's so unbelievably emotional, and I think it's because it's
Speaker 1: addressing like our survival, you know, and feeling threatened. And
Speaker 1: both camps are feeling the same way. Right, you're threatening
Speaker 1: my kid. My kid can't breathe with a mask. But
Speaker 1: I do really believe and know this. Every parent is absolutely, always,
Speaker 1: always doing what they feel is best for their child.
Speaker 1: It's not because they're wanting to hurt other people. It's
Speaker 1: so primitive our instinct to protect our kids, even if
Speaker 1: it seems malevolent, you always can find the threat of
Speaker 1: the parent was feeling instinctively and absolutely believing this is
Speaker 1: what I need to do to help my child and
Speaker 1: to protect my child. Yeah. The other thing that happens
Speaker 1: where we're really frightened is that we like to blame
Speaker 1: other people for the problem, because there's something about blaming
Speaker 1: and focusing that and blaming the other person for the problem.
Speaker 1: I think that gives you a weird sense of control.
Speaker 1: But but it does. It does, I mean it does.
Speaker 1: I think about you know, if you and I were
Speaker 1: lost in the woods, you would probably blame me because
Speaker 1: I didn't read the map well, and I would blame
Speaker 1: you because you didn't wear the right shoes and you're
Speaker 1: slowing us down and it's getting dark. I mean exactly exactly.
Speaker 1: If I'm frightened and feel powerless, I go to anger
Speaker 1: because anger is power. I mean, that's one of the
Speaker 1: benefits of anger in fact. Yeah, but it's also it's
Speaker 1: a very primal feeling. I mean, think about every wild
Speaker 1: animal exactly, if you, you know, approach their cubs or
Speaker 1: their babies, they'll kill you bingo. So I think a
Speaker 1: part of what happens is in the space that we're
Speaker 1: in right now of this absolutely not knowing what the
Speaker 1: fuck is going to come next, right, And that really
Speaker 1: messes with our coping because part of helping people's anxiety
Speaker 1: go down, and coping is predicting things. We can't predict
Speaker 1: things anymore, and that messages with our ability to feel
Speaker 1: calm and in control. So it's just completely missing with
Speaker 1: our basic kind of hard drive that kind of goes,
Speaker 1: this is how I function, And so it's so easy.
Speaker 1: We we are feeling so helpless and powerless, but instead
Speaker 1: of recognizing that, validating it, saying Okay, this is what
Speaker 1: we are helpless and powerless over, we want to just blame.
Speaker 1: There's something satisfying about just being able to blame the
Speaker 1: other person right and wanting to be right and wanting
Speaker 1: to be thinking we're doing the right thing. And it's
Speaker 1: time for a short break. Ye, and we're back. So
Speaker 1: let's let's bring it up now to adults, because I
Speaker 1: think too. I mean, it's been rough on marriages this
Speaker 1: whole period um, and I think it's taken more of
Speaker 1: a toll on relationships than we even realize. The stress
Speaker 1: it comes out in relationships in different ways. How do
Speaker 1: we maintain our relationships without completely losing our minds, a
Speaker 1: good sense of humor and our ability to laugh at
Speaker 1: our own selves. Well, I've been trying that. You're very
Speaker 1: good at that. Um. You know, I think that the
Speaker 1: most useful thing to maintain any close relationships is to
Speaker 1: be willing to look at your own role in the
Speaker 1: problem and to stop blaming the other person. That being said,
Speaker 1: when we're really angry and really upset it's not realistic,
Speaker 1: which is fine, but finding some truth in what the
Speaker 1: other person is saying about how angry they are with
Speaker 1: you or whatever you did wrong, even if it feels unfair,
Speaker 1: and then finding some way to imagine what what does
Speaker 1: that feel like? Yeah, of course, oh I get it.
Speaker 1: You know. Of course you were really frustrated with New York.
Speaker 1: Of course that made you feel really ashamed. If you
Speaker 1: can just create and continue that skill of like, okay,
Speaker 1: well what's that like from the other person's point of view?
Speaker 1: And you know that person, Like when you're in a
Speaker 1: relationship with somebody, you know, being able to fight also
Speaker 1: is a great skill, like being able to fight and
Speaker 1: then reconnect, because some people avoid fighting and avoid conflict,
Speaker 1: which is unhealthy, or they let it build up, or
Speaker 1: one person is the fighter and the other person shuts down.
Speaker 1: So being able to figure out how to how to
Speaker 1: fight productively, I call it is really useful and learning
Speaker 1: good skills to be able to not just because we
Speaker 1: always want to be listened to write who doesn't want that,
Speaker 1: But our capacity to actually listen to the other person
Speaker 1: is usually pretty limited, and it requires empathy, and it
Speaker 1: requires really asking and saying, Okay, you said this, and
Speaker 1: I'm imagining you might might have been x Y z
Speaker 1: am I getting that right, and to make sure that
Speaker 1: you're actually getting it from their point of view. A
Speaker 1: lot of people think empathy means thinking, oh, I would
Speaker 1: feel like this in that situation. That's actually not empathy.
Speaker 1: That's subjectivity. That's that's kind of more thinking of it
Speaker 1: from your point of view. And so like if you
Speaker 1: just took a moment and said, okay, well how my
Speaker 1: day I felt, as you know them, not how you
Speaker 1: would feel. And that's the hard part. And then there's
Speaker 1: one last piece that's really really important to maintain. You
Speaker 1: find at least one to two things that you could
Speaker 1: say to the other person that you really do genuinely
Speaker 1: respect about them, because respect is in fact what breads
Speaker 1: ongoing love and closeness and you know the ebb and
Speaker 1: flow of long term marriage and so too to have
Speaker 1: enduring love, respect is what fuels that and literally finding
Speaker 1: those things at least one a day, every single day,
Speaker 1: like brushing teeth, some habits so that you can maintain
Speaker 1: and even get closer. And then we could talk about
Speaker 1: the situations where you know, you want to maintain the
Speaker 1: status quot or you make a decision like this is
Speaker 1: a person where no, it doesn't make sense to stay
Speaker 1: with because in fact, I think the pandemic that's how
Speaker 1: people realize, like life short. Yeah, I don't want to
Speaker 1: stand in this marriage, right, Yeah, but I wanted to
Speaker 1: say that that's something that I have found that's been
Speaker 1: helpful for me in my marriage is that there are
Speaker 1: times where you know, we're fighting about something and a
Speaker 1: lot of people like like dig in even more, you know,
Speaker 1: they kind of like, no, I'm right. And there are
Speaker 1: times when I've realized, you know what, I'm wrong, I'm
Speaker 1: just wrong about this, or I'm stressed out, like I'm
Speaker 1: stressed out about COVID. You know, when everything blew up
Speaker 1: when my daughter tested positive, I was angry and upset
Speaker 1: and lashing out and arguing with my husband and the
Speaker 1: right in the middle the argument, I went, you know what,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry this, this has nothing to do with you.
Speaker 1: This is COVID and I'm sorry, but that self awareness
Speaker 1: that you have is what saves and what creates and
Speaker 1: endur's relationships. We can't always be, you know, in in
Speaker 1: this con state of mind and listening perfectly, like believe me.
Speaker 1: But I also think we're all everything that it's been
Speaker 1: dialed up emotionally for all of us right now, like
Speaker 1: all of us, So I think it's a heightened emotional
Speaker 1: time and so you know, we all have to be
Speaker 1: aware of that. And one of the things that I
Speaker 1: want to go back to, which I think is so helpful.
Speaker 1: This is my big AHA moment with you, is that um,
Speaker 1: that we're all in it in one way or another.
Speaker 1: We're not all in lockdown anymore, but we're all dealing
Speaker 1: with repercussions of this pandemic. And if we can look
Speaker 1: at everybody else and thank however they're acting, whatever they're doing,
Speaker 1: whether they're secluding themselves, they're being overly social, their screening
Speaker 1: at parents, they're this there that we can all agree
Speaker 1: that it comes from an emotional place and it comes
Speaker 1: from a place of being safe, whether for them or
Speaker 1: their kids, And that for me is a really interesting
Speaker 1: lens to look at all of this through because that's
Speaker 1: the only way I'm able to have empathy and understanding
Speaker 1: with somebody who's, you know, maybe dealing with this in
Speaker 1: a way that I'm not exactly and respecting that, and
Speaker 1: that everybody has a right to do what they're comfortable
Speaker 1: with and we all have to figure that out differently,
Speaker 1: and it could keep and it's going to keep changing too,
Speaker 1: and to be open to that change. I mean, evolution
Speaker 1: happens because we adapt it, and so if we're going
Speaker 1: to survive this, we have to figure out how to adapt.
Speaker 1: And that means that we've got to adapt to the
Speaker 1: fact that the reality that things keep changing and that
Speaker 1: there's no one way to be That being said, everyone
Speaker 1: has a right to create their own boundaries, so so
Speaker 1: it's the healthy wasp, but also everybody can make their
Speaker 1: own choices. Donna Fish, this has been really really helpful. Okay,
Speaker 1: Donna Fish, we've come to the point in the podcast
Speaker 1: where you get to ask me a question. Okay, so
Speaker 1: my question for you was about social media and you
Speaker 1: you have two daughters, right, yes, and they're eighteen and
Speaker 1: how old is the other one? Six? Oh my god,
Speaker 1: perfect ages for this. So when my kids were at
Speaker 1: that age. Oh my god, there was no Instagram. I mean, honestly,
Speaker 1: I feel for the adolescents I treat, and the young
Speaker 1: women and the young people I treat who are always
Speaker 1: like looking at images, not with social media, but like
Speaker 1: literally how everyone is being looked at and how everybody's
Speaker 1: saying selfiesn't like, how do you help them navigate that?
Speaker 1: It has been well? Of course I didn't grow up
Speaker 1: with social media, and so I there's no handbook for it. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, I read books like The Big Disconnect, and
Speaker 1: I worried first of all about my daughters with this
Speaker 1: whole sexualization of social media. It was a huge red
Speaker 1: flag for me. And so what I did was I
Speaker 1: started to look at images with them and say, you
Speaker 1: see this girl, you know, she's doing this in a bikini,
Speaker 1: but what is what is she really saying? What is
Speaker 1: she selling? Let's look at the big picture, what's going
Speaker 1: on here? What hole is she trying to fill? And
Speaker 1: so I would start with things that they could understand
Speaker 1: like that, and I used a lot of humor with it,
Speaker 1: you know, I I you know they were dressed provocatively.
Speaker 1: I'd say, you know, oh, I'm sorry, are you Kardashian, well,
Speaker 1: why don't you have Chris Jenner make you dinner? So
Speaker 1: there's a lot of that. But also it was really
Speaker 1: important for me to talk about the interior and I
Speaker 1: would say, you know, it's really sexy, not being an
Speaker 1: Instagram influencer, but being like a really cool scientist, and
Speaker 1: I think it helped. I also had to be a
Speaker 1: parent and go, you're just not allowed to post bikini shots.
Speaker 1: You're just you're not allowed to so, and then when
Speaker 1: they had friends that would do it, I would again
Speaker 1: sit with them and say, God, why why do you
Speaker 1: think your friend is sticking her ass out in the beginning,
Speaker 1: Like what's going on with her that she feels the
Speaker 1: need to do that. So those the combination of those
Speaker 1: two things helped a lot. But you know, it doesn't
Speaker 1: mean that they're still like not in their beds right
Speaker 1: now looking at images going like oh I want to
Speaker 1: have that. I'm feeling so moved, really heartened, and just
Speaker 1: really respect you so much because you're offering your kids
Speaker 1: exactly what they need to build the resilience to cope
Speaker 1: with all of this, which is a close relationship with you,
Speaker 1: that you're engaged, that you sit there with them and
Speaker 1: that you're helping them think, you're you're you're asking them,
Speaker 1: you're asking them to think about things, but you're in
Speaker 1: there with them, and you have obviously such a great
Speaker 1: close relationship. And guess what that is the key to
Speaker 1: helping our kids and to helping them deal with all
Speaker 1: the anxiety. As a mental health professional, my heads off.
Speaker 1: Thank you, I'm serious. Thank you. I appreciate that. Thanks
Speaker 1: for asking so thank you so so much. I really
Speaker 1: appreciate you taking the time. Thank you, Ali. I really
Speaker 1: think that the key takeaway from this episode, and there
Speaker 1: was a lot, is that we kind of have to
Speaker 1: in our relationships, in our relationships with other people. Well,
Speaker 1: we may not believe the same thing, we may not
Speaker 1: act the same way in this COVID world, but we
Speaker 1: have to be able to think that, you know, this
Speaker 1: person over here is doing the right thing for themselves,
Speaker 1: or this person over here is doing the right thing
Speaker 1: for their families. Because we are very polarized right now,
Speaker 1: and so much of this has been heated up by
Speaker 1: this pandemic, and as I sit here, I just want
Speaker 1: to close my eyes and think to myself, in one
Speaker 1: way or another, we are all in this together. We
Speaker 1: are all charting new territory in various degrees, and for
Speaker 1: some it has been horrific. People have lost jobs, people
Speaker 1: have lost lives, We have lost our sense of community.
Speaker 1: But the one thing we can't lose is our sense
Speaker 1: of humanity and empathy, because that's all we have, and
Speaker 1: many people believe that's the only way we're going to
Speaker 1: get through this. And I want to thank for the
Speaker 1: Zakaria because I was feeling very dark about the state
Speaker 1: of our country and he actually made me feel very
Speaker 1: optimistic about the economy. About activism, it's a way of
Speaker 1: sort of righting the wrongs. I mean, maybe our country
Speaker 1: needed to take a very close look at the things
Speaker 1: that are just not working. So maybe it's time for
Speaker 1: us as Americans to reflect on the things that need
Speaker 1: to be fixed. And since my conversation with for Reed,
Speaker 1: one of Biden's two infrastructure bills has become law and
Speaker 1: the other is still in the Senate. And in the
Speaker 1: ever evolve being in changing world, the omicron variant is
Speaker 1: now with us, and so fasten your seatbelts see where
Speaker 1: this goes. So thank you for Reid, and thank you Donna.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for listening to go ask Alli.
Speaker 1: Be sure to subscribe, rate and review the podcast, and
Speaker 1: follow me on social media on Twitter at Ali e
Speaker 1: Wentworth and on Instagram at the Real Ali Wentworth and look.
Speaker 1: If you have any questions or guest suggestions, I would
Speaker 1: love to hear from you, call or text me at
Speaker 1: three to three four six three five six or email
Speaker 1: Go ask Alli podcast at gmail dot com. Go ask
Speaker 1: Alli is a production of Shonda land Audio and partnership
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