Speaker 1: If you say something's going on, It's really common for
Speaker 1: people to tell us, well, you're so strong, you're going
Speaker 1: to get through this, and it's like, well, that's not
Speaker 1: what I was asking for, right, Like what that does
Speaker 1: is it actually shuts the door.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the one you feed Throughout time, great thinkers
Speaker 2: have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes
Speaker 2: like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you
Speaker 2: think ring true, and yet for many of us, our
Speaker 2: thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity,
Speaker 2: self pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't
Speaker 2: have instead of what we do. We think things that
Speaker 2: hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not
Speaker 2: just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent,
Speaker 2: and creative effort to make a life worth living. This
Speaker 2: podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in
Speaker 2: the right direction, how they feed their good wealth. Thanks
Speaker 2: for joining us. Our guest on this episode is Marianna Alessandri,
Speaker 2: the Associate professor of Philosophy at the University of Texas
Speaker 2: Rio Grand Valley, the nation's first bilingual university. She's co
Speaker 2: founder of RGV Puede, a nonprofit whose mission is to
Speaker 2: promote dual language education in South Texas public schools. Today,
Speaker 2: Eric and Marianna discuss her book night Vision, Seeing Ourselves
Speaker 2: Through Dark Moods.
Speaker 3: Hi, Mariana, Welcome to the show.
Speaker 4: Thank you for having me.
Speaker 3: I'm excited to discuss your latest book, which is called
Speaker 3: night Vision, Seeing Ourselves through Dark Moods. And I'm pretty
Speaker 3: sure that plenty of listeners go through dark moods. I
Speaker 3: know I certainly have had more than my fair share
Speaker 3: of them in my life, and so I'm excited to
Speaker 3: talk with you about the value of dark moods in
Speaker 3: our lives. But before we do that, we'll start like
Speaker 3: we always do with the parable. In the Parable, there's
Speaker 3: a grandparent who's talking with their grandchild. They say, in life,
Speaker 3: there are two wolves inside of us that are always
Speaker 3: at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things
Speaker 3: like kindness and bravery and love, and the other's a
Speaker 3: bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred and fear.
Speaker 3: And the grandchild stops and they think about it for
Speaker 3: a second, and they look up at their grandparent and
Speaker 3: they say, well, which one wins? And the grandparent says
Speaker 3: the one you feed. So I'd like to start off
Speaker 3: by asking you what that parable means to you in
Speaker 3: your life and in the work that you do.
Speaker 4: Thank you.
Speaker 1: I love that you ask this question to everybody, because
Speaker 1: you must have heard a thousand answers by now, a
Speaker 1: thousand different takes on it.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 1: So I used to really like this sort of idea
Speaker 1: that there's two different things inside of us and they're
Speaker 1: sort of vuying for our attention, whether it's like the
Speaker 1: Ael and the Devil or in the Jewish tradition like.
Speaker 4: Yetser Harah and Yetser Hatov. And I don't know if
Speaker 4: anyone has kind.
Speaker 1: Of talked about that, but I used to really like it.
Speaker 1: And it wasn't until I had kids that I had
Speaker 1: to really think about, well, how am I going to
Speaker 1: teach my kids about the feelings that we have inside
Speaker 1: of us and like remain one whole person rather than
Speaker 1: someone who feels constantly divided. And so I've moved away
Speaker 1: from enjoying that parable in terms of thinking of us,
Speaker 1: both in terms of good and bad. So I don't
Speaker 1: like those words for us, or just that they're fighting,
Speaker 1: Like there's something so violent about it like there's two
Speaker 1: things fighting inside of me. And so when I was
Speaker 1: writing this book, I was actually thinking about that parable
Speaker 1: and thinking about, well, what does it mean to feed
Speaker 1: it like the one you feed? So that means that
Speaker 1: there's something inside of us. There's these two things inside
Speaker 1: of us, one of which we feed and the other
Speaker 1: of which we starve, and hoping that the one we
Speaker 1: feed is going to completely demolish the other one. And
Speaker 1: I just think, oh, like, if that's inside of me,
Speaker 1: then that means that I'm going to be demolishing.
Speaker 4: Part of myself. I'm going to be hurting part of myself.
Speaker 1: I'm going to be rejecting part of myself and a
Speaker 1: really nasty death, a nasty death of starvation. And so
Speaker 1: I have kind of just taken that parable and thought
Speaker 1: of it more as like, wow, that sounds like a
Speaker 1: recipe for disaster. To feed a side of yourself instead
Speaker 1: of kind of talking to it, thinking about it, asking
Speaker 1: it what it's there for?
Speaker 4: Why are we having these feelings?
Speaker 1: There's a few philosophers who are kind of working on
Speaker 1: rehabilitating these emotions like envy and anger and things like this,
Speaker 1: and so I'm more like I want to be nice
Speaker 1: to myself now.
Speaker 4: I feel like I grew up with a lot of
Speaker 4: sense of being like bad, and I feel like I
Speaker 4: don't want that for my kids. I want to give them.
Speaker 1: This portrait of us, like we feed both sides, and
Speaker 1: like we love both sides, we love ourselves. The other
Speaker 1: thing that this made me think of is when you
Speaker 1: have kids, Right, So, when you have a kid and
Speaker 1: they start crying, like inevitably at some point in your life,
Speaker 1: someone says, well, they're just crying for attention, and that's
Speaker 1: supposed to mean, yeah, don't give it to them, Like
Speaker 1: all they want is your attention, and I have.
Speaker 4: Completely flipped on that.
Speaker 1: I'm like, it's a pretty straightforward ask, right, like, oh,
Speaker 1: you need my attention, let me give you my attention.
Speaker 4: And so that's how I feel now about.
Speaker 1: The so called like bad wolf, which you know, if
Speaker 1: we're looking at Plato, he actually does call it a
Speaker 1: dark wolf. I know that you try not to kind
Speaker 1: of put color on them, but it's just like historically
Speaker 1: the bad wolf is, the dark wolf.
Speaker 4: Is the black wolf is the passions, you know.
Speaker 1: So I think more like the problem is that we're
Speaker 1: starving part of ourselves. The problem isn't that there's these
Speaker 1: two wolves fighting inside of us? And I think if
Speaker 1: we can get right with like trying to give attention
Speaker 1: to the parts of us that need more attention, I
Speaker 1: think will be I don't know, I guess happier people,
Speaker 1: or more well rounded, or more accepting or at least
Speaker 1: less divided people.
Speaker 3: Yeah, in the book you actually talk about let me
Speaker 3: just find it here real quick. You know that if
Speaker 3: we were to feed the bad wolf, it might even
Speaker 3: seek out the light wolf and lay down and they'll
Speaker 3: curl up together at our feet, which is just a
Speaker 3: beautiful metaphor to think of that thing. There are certainly,
Speaker 3: as you mentioned, I have not done a thousand interviews,
Speaker 3: but I've done probably six hundred and fifty, so I've
Speaker 3: heard this a lot and I have read it a lot.
Speaker 3: And if I were to start a show today, I
Speaker 3: doubt I would start it with that parable as the
Speaker 3: orienting point. But it's worked this far, and I think
Speaker 3: it allows us to look at things from different angles.
Speaker 3: But like you, it used to be more straightforward to
Speaker 3: me than it is now, although I still see the
Speaker 3: core message being one of some degree of choice about
Speaker 3: attention and we're going to get into what degree do
Speaker 3: we control our moods? I think that's a really important question,
Speaker 3: but we do have some degree of ability to choose
Speaker 3: where to place attention. And the thing I like about
Speaker 3: the pair of well also is that I feel like
Speaker 3: it humanizes us, that we all feel these things inside
Speaker 3: of us that often feel like they're going different directions. Maybe,
Speaker 3: but the idea of starving one part of ourselves to
Speaker 3: me now feels like uugh, which it actually doesn't say
Speaker 3: to do. In my mind, I sort of justify it, like, well,
Speaker 3: maybe they're just giving the good wolf a little bit
Speaker 3: more food than the bat. But anyway, that's a lot
Speaker 3: about me and the parable, which is not what we
Speaker 3: are here to talk about. I want to start by
Speaker 3: talking about how we as society view what you are
Speaker 3: calling darker moods. And there's a question that you raise
Speaker 3: that I really think is important, and it says, does
Speaker 3: it help or hurt that most of our dark moods
Speaker 3: are classified as mental illnesses? So I'm going to let
Speaker 3: you jump into that fairly wide pool wherever you like.
Speaker 4: Okay, thank you.
Speaker 1: I agree with you about the relatability of the metaphor
Speaker 1: of the wolves, because I was asking my kids about
Speaker 1: it last night, like what would they think would and
Speaker 1: they got it right away.
Speaker 4: They're twelve and ten. They get it.
Speaker 1: And so it's a very compelling metaphor that allows you
Speaker 1: to sort of see it and then say, Okay, well,
Speaker 1: what do we do with the fact that we sometimes
Speaker 1: have these competing feelings? So about the dark moods, how
Speaker 1: do society see them? I think I always like to
Speaker 1: start by talking about the light because that helps me orient.
Speaker 1: So I think of it as like a two edged
Speaker 1: system or something where the overriding pressure from our society,
Speaker 1: at least that I feel and that some readers have
Speaker 1: felt with me, is the pressure to be positive, right,
Speaker 1: the pressure to be light, the pressure to be bright,
Speaker 1: the pressure to glow, the pressure to be radiant, the
Speaker 1: pressure to be brilliant.
Speaker 4: We have so many tiny.
Speaker 1: Metaphors that privilege the light over the dark, and so
Speaker 1: you're supposed to bring your own sunshine in these days, right,
Speaker 1: No one's supposed to get you down if you're in
Speaker 1: a dark mood. You're supposed to kind of not subject
Speaker 1: anyone to that, right, like isolate yourself or something like that.
Speaker 1: We're supposed to shed light on difficult problems. We're supposed
Speaker 1: to have a light bulb moment and you know, all
Speaker 1: the way back to just looking on the bright side, right,
Speaker 1: Like we're talking nineteen fifties stuff. And so what I
Speaker 1: see around me in my world, at least in the US,
Speaker 1: and I've heard that other people from other places are
Speaker 1: feeling similar things, is just the pressure to associate light
Speaker 1: with intelligence, with positivity, with health, with just anything that
Speaker 1: you think of as good is like will attach some
Speaker 1: kind of metaphor that makes it sound really bright and
Speaker 1: even lightening up. Like that's all like one way of
Speaker 1: thinking about it, And it's attached to slogans that don't
Speaker 1: invoke the light.
Speaker 4: But I feel like they're of a piece, which is
Speaker 4: like no bad days, right, hashtag no bad days. I
Speaker 4: just when I see it, Like my kid.
Speaker 1: Was playing soccer when I was writing this book, and
Speaker 1: his coach actually wore that shirt that said hashtag.
Speaker 4: No bad days. And I was like, oh, like.
Speaker 1: I can't even come on the field if that's the
Speaker 1: playing field, Like I can't even show.
Speaker 3: Up and hashtag no bad years.
Speaker 1: Nothing bad, zero bad. It's kind of like all light
Speaker 1: and no dark. And I think it was Norah Mcinernie,
Speaker 1: who said that when she sees a mat like a
Speaker 1: welcome mat that says good vibes, only she just turns
Speaker 1: around like leaves right, because it's just impossible, and it's
Speaker 1: a very stark like all or nothing good vibes. Only.
Speaker 1: The epitome of it for me is the choose happy,
Speaker 1: choose happy, and that I'm sure we'll get into more because.
Speaker 4: It's got to do with the stoics, But it's just.
Speaker 1: This kind of over riding sense that this is all
Speaker 1: within my control and I can choose happy, and it's
Speaker 1: about my attitude, and I can.
Speaker 4: Make myself well.
Speaker 1: And so when I am happy, sometimes I tend to
Speaker 1: think that I've done it right, like it was because
Speaker 1: of my choices, it was because I changed my perspective,
Speaker 1: it was because I adopted a positive attitude.
Speaker 4: It was because I made lemonade out of lemons. So
Speaker 4: there is no conflict there.
Speaker 1: And if I am writing a self help book, then
Speaker 1: I can say, oh, I was in a dark place too,
Speaker 1: and then I did X, Y and Z, and now
Speaker 1: I'm in the bright place and you can get there too,
Speaker 1: and here's what you have to do. So there's no
Speaker 1: conflict until the day that you wake up, day days
Speaker 1: years that you wake up and you're like, oh, not okay,
Speaker 1: and I'm not feeling well and I don't know how
Speaker 1: to call it. And so what I noticed was that
Speaker 1: the words, just like all the words for the light
Speaker 1: stuff are really good and positive and strong, the words
Speaker 1: for the dark moods are pretty hideous. And these are
Speaker 1: the words supplied to us by society. I don't think
Speaker 1: we're making these words up as individuals. It's mental illness,
Speaker 1: it's disease, it's dangerous. I mean, the darkness and the
Speaker 1: danger has always been associated with ugliness, with non intelligence, poison.
Speaker 1: We can get back to Seneca on that. Brokenness is
Speaker 1: a huge one. This was a big deal. I went
Speaker 1: to Mexico, I think two years ago, and there was
Speaker 1: this beautiful drawing and it was of like one of those.
Speaker 4: Greek busts, you know, the head, and it.
Speaker 1: Was chopped in half so it was only half of
Speaker 1: the bust's face, and in English across it it said
Speaker 1: broken and I was like, oh, that's interesting, right, like
Speaker 1: one it's in English, but it's in Mexico. I bought
Speaker 1: it because I want to remember always that it feels
Speaker 1: like this thing that we have attached to it because
Speaker 1: it's in English, like has like seeped down all the
Speaker 1: way into Mexico City.
Speaker 4: The idea that if I have a.
Speaker 1: Mental illness, then I am broken. I'm a broken human being,
Speaker 1: and otherwise I'd be functioning. We also say I'm breaking down,
Speaker 1: we say I'm a hot mess. Like there's no nice
Speaker 1: ways to talk about it. When we're in pain, or
Speaker 1: when we're grieving, or when we're anxious, like we have
Speaker 1: so much pressure to kind of just feel bad about
Speaker 1: feeling bad. And I think it's bad enough just to
Speaker 1: feel bad. I think it's bad enough to be grieving.
Speaker 1: But then there's some standard upon which we are measured against,
Speaker 1: and then we end up feeling what in this book
Speaker 1: I'm calling shame, which is just this feeling bad about
Speaker 1: feeling bad. And that's the layer that I would like
Speaker 1: to take off. I'd like to sort of expose it
Speaker 1: as a societal problem, Like we society is not giving
Speaker 1: us enough language.
Speaker 4: But then what we get from certain sectors of society
Speaker 4: is like, well, you just have to change your narrative.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, well, me, like I what like we're
Speaker 1: getting words from society, right, These are the words that
Speaker 1: I've been taught to use. And so I want to
Speaker 1: rethink about like how to talk nicer about our dark
Speaker 1: moods as a society, not just as an individual, because
Speaker 1: I can like do the work quote unquote by myself,
Speaker 1: but I think it's like a bigger problem than just me.
Speaker 1: I'm not the only one who thought that I was
Speaker 1: a monster every time I got angry. Right, that's a
Speaker 1: societal convention attached to women who you know, get angry,
Speaker 1: and it's quote unquote unladylike. Right, So there's like lots
Speaker 1: of societal like trimmings. It's steeped in ancient philosophy, but
Speaker 1: it has these like legs in a lot of different
Speaker 1: sectors in society. So the light metaphor is the bright one,
Speaker 1: and then and the underbelly is what I'm calling the
Speaker 1: brokenness story, which is just like once you're not in
Speaker 1: that club anymore, then you.
Speaker 4: Feel like garbage about yourself.
Speaker 1: You feel like you have no dignity, you feel like
Speaker 1: you're the only one going through it, and you feel
Speaker 1: like if everyone else is going okay, well at least
Speaker 1: you're in a club with all these other losers. Right,
Speaker 1: there's nothing like positive about it. So I wanted to
Speaker 1: try to I don't know, I guess infiltrate that narrative
Speaker 1: and just add different ways of thinking about it through
Speaker 1: using different philosophers.
Speaker 3: There's so many things in what you said, there so
Speaker 3: many different directions that we could go. I agree with
Speaker 3: you that anything that we can do that gets rid
Speaker 3: of feeling bad about feeling bad is a good thing, right,
Speaker 3: anything that we can do that normalizes emotion. And when
Speaker 3: I say emotion, I mean that just means there's going
Speaker 3: to be good and bad emotions. Right, there's just both
Speaker 3: that normalizes that I think is a really good thing.
Speaker 3: I also think what gets challenging, and this is someone
Speaker 3: who is a former heroin addict who's dealt with actual
Speaker 3: clinical depression at one point, and then I'm not sure
Speaker 3: what to call it in its later years. That's an
Speaker 3: interesting topic. As somebody who has felt all that, there's
Speaker 3: also in me a desire to not feel that, and
Speaker 3: not just because society tells me that it's bad, but
Speaker 3: because it hurts. I don't like it. Even when I
Speaker 3: accept it, it still hurts, and I seek a way
Speaker 3: of relating to it differently. And so I think some
Speaker 3: of it is, we've got a societal thing to it.
Speaker 3: And then I think there's also underneath that is the
Speaker 3: natural desire that I think humans have to try to
Speaker 3: alleviate their very real emotional pain.
Speaker 1: I'm so happy that you brought it up with such
Speaker 1: a nuance. I think what's important in talking about any
Speaker 1: of this. There's so many ways to fall into a
Speaker 1: rut or a pitfall, or like ways of thinking that
Speaker 1: have been done before and that don't serve us. And
Speaker 1: one of them is this kind of idea like your
Speaker 1: depression is your gift or something like this, right, like
Speaker 1: this is the romanticization of like, oh, I needed my
Speaker 1: anxiety to push me. And I one hundred percent am
Speaker 1: on the side of the individual like if you want
Speaker 1: to hate your anxiety, go for it.
Speaker 4: That's okay.
Speaker 1: Like from the place of pain, you could want to
Speaker 1: trash it like anything. And Glorian Saldua is actually the
Speaker 1: philosopher I talk about when talking about depression, and I
Speaker 1: think she would have trashed it if given the choice
Speaker 1: at all. Right, So I think hating it is perfectly
Speaker 1: one hundred percent within your rights and it's individual. Right.
Speaker 1: There are some people who end up saying, oh, well,
Speaker 1: this actually turned out to be okay for me whatever,
Speaker 1: Like I don't think anyone has the right to say
Speaker 1: that for somebody else, like, oh, you needed this, this
Speaker 1: was your gift, this is how you.
Speaker 4: Learned x Y. You can only say that, I think
Speaker 4: in first person. So for you, it's just like the pain.
Speaker 1: You feel like you can be one hundred percent against
Speaker 1: that pain and want to get rid of it. But
Speaker 1: for me, the fact is that we always already are
Speaker 1: still going to have it, and that's it's like how
Speaker 1: we then create the narrative of the self. Given that
Speaker 1: you have a thing, It's just like the wolves. It
Speaker 1: reminds me of the wolves. It's like is it inside
Speaker 1: of us? Is it alongside of us? And I've done
Speaker 1: some reading on like children's books about mental illness. It's
Speaker 1: really interesting to look at how people are trying to
Speaker 1: teach kids to think about this stuff, because you know,
Speaker 1: in one book, anxiety is like this bubble that's outside
Speaker 1: of you, and sometimes it comes and you put in
Speaker 1: your pocket and then you want to get rid of it.
Speaker 1: And so some metaphors I think are more apt and
Speaker 1: probably depends on who you are and how you think
Speaker 1: of your anxiety.
Speaker 4: Depression, et cetera, which is also fine.
Speaker 1: But I guess my point is, like the metaphors we
Speaker 1: use and the narrative we tell about our own lives,
Speaker 1: I think a lot of stuff is better than well,
Speaker 1: I'm just garbage. Then right, I'm broken. I'm breaking down.
Speaker 1: I've gotten this from my students, who basically say, well,
Speaker 1: I'm a great human being except for you know, I'm
Speaker 1: broken because I have to take medicine, or I'm great
Speaker 1: except for that I have depression. Other than that, I'm perfect.
Speaker 1: And so what they would like to do is trash depression.
Speaker 1: And I get that, right, Like, if we could trash it,
Speaker 1: let's just do that. I don't think anyone needs it,
Speaker 1: so let's trash it. But we can't, is the problem. Like,
Speaker 1: no medicine is actually good enough for that. So now,
Speaker 1: like ansaldua, it's like, Okay, I have it. I can
Speaker 1: either hide it in a corner of my existence and
Speaker 1: not tell anyone about it and only show them my
Speaker 1: beautiful writerly side and my creative side and just kind
Speaker 1: of be embarrassed and ashamed of this.
Speaker 4: Or I can like fold it into the way that
Speaker 4: I talk about my life and myself and like it's
Speaker 4: sad and it's painful, and also it's part of me.
Speaker 4: So what do I do with the wolf?
Speaker 1: Like, if the wolf is a depression, like, it's either
Speaker 1: going to be part of your narrative or it isn't.
Speaker 4: And my concern mostly is how does the self feel
Speaker 4: about itself?
Speaker 1: Is the language that we used to turn against ourselves
Speaker 1: or is the language that we used used to kind
Speaker 1: of create a whole self out of us, the good,
Speaker 1: the bad, and the ugly, the parts that feel good,
Speaker 1: the parts that feel bad. But in no way do
Speaker 1: I think we have to say that they're good for
Speaker 1: us and they only feel bad, you know. I think
Speaker 1: we can just safely hate them and also realize that
Speaker 1: we're kind of stuck with them, And so what do
Speaker 1: we do? How do we build them into the way
Speaker 1: that we think about ourselves.
Speaker 3: Yeah, again, there's about one hundred different places to take
Speaker 3: that really profound answer. And I think that talking about
Speaker 3: mental illness, I often think about this a little bit
Speaker 3: like the concept of addiction as a disease. I feel
Speaker 3: like that was a step forward because before it was
Speaker 3: a moral failing. Right, So the step to a disease
Speaker 3: feels like a progressive step, and yet it's still a
Speaker 3: label that I think can either be empowering or it
Speaker 3: can be disempowering as a label, and that very same
Speaker 3: label alcoholic for me, has played both those roles at points.
Speaker 3: There's points where that label was really helpful and useful
Speaker 3: to me, same as being a person who has depression
Speaker 3: was to call it something and to be able to
Speaker 3: talk about it with other people who had the same
Speaker 3: thing was helpful. And then there was a point where
Speaker 3: that label becomes limiting or self reinforcing. And so, I,
Speaker 3: like you think it's really tricky how we talk about
Speaker 3: these things. I don't think there are easy answers. I mean,
Speaker 3: I think that you're ultimately right that every individual should
Speaker 3: get to choose for themselves the metaphor that makes sense
Speaker 3: my experiences. It's only later that we have enough insight
Speaker 3: about what's even happening to start making those sort of choices.
Speaker 3: And maybe that's just the way it is. And at
Speaker 3: the same time, as you say, societal labels can be
Speaker 3: really difficult. And I'm truly of two minds around how
Speaker 3: much we discuss mental health these days and the ways
Speaker 3: that we do it, because I see it as a
Speaker 3: really sort of double edged sword.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I like that you brought up disease as progress because
Speaker 1: I think that's true. I think it's like a step,
Speaker 1: especially if we're talking about the label as diagnosis.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 1: So I still have some students whose parents think that
Speaker 1: depression is lazy us, right, or sin, lack of.
Speaker 4: Faith this, like what do you have to be depressed about?
Speaker 4: What do you mean?
Speaker 1: So that's like I see, like the before, I'm like, oh, whoa,
Speaker 1: We're much.
Speaker 4: Better than that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because if we just thought that alcoholics are just assholes,
Speaker 1: like we're not going to get very far. But we
Speaker 1: have to realize, like, Okay, these are human beings. Nobody
Speaker 1: is choosing this. There's got to be something more at play.
Speaker 1: There's got to be something that feels sort of out
Speaker 1: of one's hands, you know. And so I think that
Speaker 1: the diagnosis.
Speaker 4: Or the label or the disease.
Speaker 1: Takes it from being something that I'm doing to everyone
Speaker 1: around me to something that is wrong, right, like what's wrong?
Speaker 1: But I want to keep it from being what's wrong
Speaker 1: with me? Yes, right, Like I'm always wary of that language.
Speaker 1: I want to stay in the zone of like what's wrong,
Speaker 1: what's wrong with my circumstances, what's going on versus like
Speaker 1: I'm failing myself or I've been diseased or something. So
Speaker 1: I've thought a lot about this kind of like I
Speaker 1: don't know just the difference between depression and.
Speaker 4: A broken foot, yeah, or is depression and just.
Speaker 1: A broken brain or all that kind of like talk
Speaker 1: and where it leads us, Like back to the metaphor language, right,
Speaker 1: if you go down this road, where are you going
Speaker 1: to end up? Are you going to be on your
Speaker 1: own side? Are you going to be against yourself? If
Speaker 1: you go down this road, are you going to be
Speaker 1: on your own side or against yourself?
Speaker 4: And so?
Speaker 1: And I also favor everyone having like multiple if they
Speaker 1: want multiple labels. This is what I liked about Ansemdua
Speaker 1: specifically talking about her depression because she was like she
Speaker 1: could call it depression, and she had a couple of times,
Speaker 1: but most of the time she didn't call it depression.
Speaker 4: So I think we don't have to get rid of labels.
Speaker 4: We don't have to get rid of diagnoses.
Speaker 1: Obviously, there's a lot of importance in diagnoses for access
Speaker 1: to healthcare, So I think diagnoses are great. People seem
Speaker 1: to love them. Like you were suggesting, right, like for
Speaker 1: a time, like this is great because because I feel seen. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Otherwise I just thought I was crazy.
Speaker 4: Otherwise I just thought this. But now that I have
Speaker 4: this label, it's legitimate.
Speaker 1: So I think that we don't have to get rid
Speaker 1: of the word mental illness or any of the labels.
Speaker 4: Like I think they're fine. I don't like.
Speaker 1: How they are just all encompassing, Like it's almost like
Speaker 1: they're exclusive. And I want to say, Okay, you can
Speaker 1: call it anxiety, but you can also call it this.
Speaker 1: I like the people who are trying to be creative.
Speaker 1: I think Glennon Doyle is one who's like trying to
Speaker 1: be creative about like this is my fire or this
Speaker 1: is my energy or something like. Just let's add more labels,
Speaker 1: if anything, if we want labels, like add more different
Speaker 1: ways to think about it rather than only I'm broken,
Speaker 1: I'm mentally ill.
Speaker 4: You know this is my.
Speaker 1: Disease, because that's just this is not going to inspire
Speaker 1: a person to feel really good about themselves. It's going
Speaker 1: to make them feel like flawed human beings. And I
Speaker 1: just think we're not that is human. We're all human.
Speaker 1: I don't think any of us is broken. I literally
Speaker 1: don't think it's possible for a human being to be broken,
Speaker 1: because then you'd have to ask, well, what are you
Speaker 1: a broken version of them? If you're broken, what's the ideal? Like,
Speaker 1: what does it mean to be unbroken? Is to not
Speaker 1: have any dark moods or anything like that? Seems to
Speaker 1: me creepier, right, So I just want to introduce like
Speaker 1: more things or allow people to have the creativity to
Speaker 1: have more kind of labels, more ways of describing themselves
Speaker 1: than just the ones supplied by society.
Speaker 3: I think you say it really well. You say, can
Speaker 3: we imagine recognizing a person suffering and giving them access
Speaker 3: to help without asking them to see themselves as broken?
Speaker 3: And I think that says it so beautifully. There's another
Speaker 3: phrase that you've used a number of times that I
Speaker 3: picked up and it's like literally the top thing kind
Speaker 3: of on my list to talk about, and I'm glad
Speaker 3: you keep saying it, which is to be on our
Speaker 3: own side. We interviewed a guy his names Ez, He's Gazipura,
Speaker 3: and he wrote a book it's called on My Own Side.
Speaker 3: And the minute I heard that phrase, I went, Yes,
Speaker 3: that's exactly it. What does that mean? To you to
Speaker 3: be on our own side.
Speaker 1: I mean, I can tell you I have years of
Speaker 1: experience not being on my own side.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 1: So my example in the book is my anger. Like
Speaker 1: I'm super angry person and a lot of things set
Speaker 1: me off. And I used to just think, this is
Speaker 1: my flaw, this is my sin, this is my weakness,
Speaker 1: this is what makes me a bad person, this is
Speaker 1: what makes me a monster, especially as a woman and
Speaker 1: especially as a mother. Right like this, this is like
Speaker 1: just the worst thing you can be as a mother
Speaker 1: is someone who's like mean to your kids, are angry
Speaker 1: or just shows their anger or something. So I just
Speaker 1: would look in the mirror and be like, what kind
Speaker 1: of a monster are you?
Speaker 4: That was my word.
Speaker 1: And it's not a stretch to say that that's not
Speaker 1: being on your own.
Speaker 4: Side, right, It's to look at a self with.
Speaker 1: Disdain or embarrassment or shame or just it's to say
Speaker 1: that you're wrong the way you are right, that your
Speaker 1: way is not okay, that you are fundamentally not worthy
Speaker 1: the way that maybe other people are. Like, you know,
Speaker 1: I've heard of people refer to themselves as trash people,
Speaker 1: and just like all these things that I could definitely
Speaker 1: relate to. I think this is something that still sort
Speaker 1: of comes into my mind because it's from childhood, not
Speaker 1: from anyone even telling me that, but just from the
Speaker 1: way that I was raised, and like people are just
Speaker 1: kind of I don't know, jerks or selfish or greedy
Speaker 1: or all these things, and so I would have a
Speaker 1: relationship with myself that was super critical, right, just whatever.
Speaker 4: You're doing, it must be wrong.
Speaker 1: And sometimes with my husband we joke because I'll be
Speaker 1: upset about something and then he'll be like, oh, you
Speaker 1: probably just did something really stupid and wrong, and then.
Speaker 4: I just have to laugh because it's exactly where my
Speaker 4: mind is going.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: But then I think part of why I wrote this
Speaker 1: book is like I don't want that. I want to
Speaker 1: befriend myself. So to be on my own side is
Speaker 1: to say, hey, what's going on? Like if I find
Speaker 1: myself so angry, maybe something is actually going on. And
Speaker 1: my husband's cousin works in Denali and Alaska in the
Speaker 1: Comezana like forest, I don't know, Alaskan tundra or something,
Speaker 1: and she has people go out there with her in
Speaker 1: some kind of team, and if one of them is
Speaker 1: constantly complaining, like constantly have something wrong, constantly, needy, constantly something.
Speaker 4: She's like, Oh it's deeper.
Speaker 1: Right, something is really wrong, right, So she's using that
Speaker 1: as a sign that you have to investigate something. I
Speaker 1: think it's a myth that people just want to be negative.
Speaker 1: I've been told that a lot. Oh you just like
Speaker 1: being negative.
Speaker 4: No, it's is.
Speaker 1: There something about it that you're trying to reach out,
Speaker 1: You're trying to get help, You're trying to announce something
Speaker 1: about yourself, about your situation, and you maybe don't know
Speaker 1: what it is, right, So it comes out in these
Speaker 1: forms that may be irritating to other people. But I
Speaker 1: think to take my own side is to listen to
Speaker 1: those like with my anger and this is what I
Speaker 1: had to do during COVID.
Speaker 4: And say why am I yelling at my kids? What's
Speaker 4: going on?
Speaker 1: Because then if you don't take your own side, it
Speaker 1: stops there, it stops that I'm a monster.
Speaker 4: I guess I'm just an asshole. That's it.
Speaker 1: And I don't think about it anymore. I don't listen
Speaker 1: to it. I don't try to understand my situation.
Speaker 4: It's just me that's broken.
Speaker 1: Yeah, But if I can get past that, and Audrey
Speaker 1: Lord and Maria Lugunis really helped me get past it
Speaker 1: to be like, wait a second time out, Let's think
Speaker 1: of this as neutral. Let's think of this as just
Speaker 1: information what is going on, what's wrong, not what's wrong
Speaker 1: with me, but what's wrong with my situation. And then
Speaker 1: you can find out things that you wouldn't have found
Speaker 1: out if you're not taking your own side. So I
Speaker 1: love that phrase just because it makes me feel like
Speaker 1: I can breathe of all things. Like I just want
Speaker 1: people to take their own side and not let society
Speaker 1: make them feel like they're less than human, or less
Speaker 1: than people, or less than fully formed.
Speaker 4: Like none of us is broken. We're fully formed. We
Speaker 4: struggle and.
Speaker 1: We're in pain and we're grieving, and these are all
Speaker 1: the things of life.
Speaker 3: I think what you said about your anger there is
Speaker 3: a really important idea, because to be on our own
Speaker 3: side is one way of rephrasing a term that was
Speaker 3: popularized by someone in your state, Kristin Neff, about self compassion.
Speaker 3: It's a slight different way of saying the same thing.
Speaker 3: And one of the things that I think is so
Speaker 3: valuable about that idea is exactly what you said. If
Speaker 3: you stop at I'm a monster, or I'm broken, or
Speaker 3: I'm bad. There's not a lot of opportunity for you
Speaker 3: to actually become different. There's not a lot of opportunity
Speaker 3: for you to learn how maybe not to be angry
Speaker 3: at your children. Right, And I think in your book
Speaker 3: it goes about saying you get to a point where
Speaker 3: you really sort of get to the place where it's like,
Speaker 3: being angry is fine. I'm actually okay with that. It's
Speaker 3: just there are certain ways in which I express it
Speaker 3: that I wish I was I was doing differently. We
Speaker 3: can't do that when we're critical of ourselves, I don't think,
Speaker 3: because I think that we shut down the learning centers
Speaker 3: and our brain by doing that, and all of a
Speaker 3: sudden we can't make changes even if that's what we
Speaker 3: decide we want to do. It's a really stuck point.
Speaker 4: Yeah, no, I agree.
Speaker 1: It made me think of a lot of people like
Speaker 1: Brene Brown talking about vulnerability and the way she describes shame,
Speaker 1: which is that feeling it just stops you in your tracks.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 1: So if shame is the feeling bad about feeling bad,
Speaker 1: I'm angry. I already feel angry, Right, that's bad enough.
Speaker 1: I'm angry and now I feel bad about it. Then
Speaker 1: I shut down, just like what you said is. I
Speaker 1: can't then be like, oh, let's get curious about this emotion.
Speaker 4: How might I do?
Speaker 1: Like the curiosity will only come in if I can
Speaker 1: get rid of the top layer of shame and I
Speaker 1: can just be like, oh, yes, it's a perfectly human
Speaker 1: emotion to get angry, and it probably means something, and
Speaker 1: something's probably telling me something. I don't let myself off
Speaker 1: the hook in terms of like, oh, that just means
Speaker 1: all my anger's fine, Like I think that especially Audrey
Speaker 1: Lord is very nuanced in her description about anger, and
Speaker 1: it's not to say that all anger is now virtuous,
Speaker 1: but I don't want it to be all vicious, like
Speaker 1: I don't want our knee jerk reaction to be If
Speaker 1: I'm angry, that means it's bad. And I think that
Speaker 1: is the legacy that we get from the Stoics. And
Speaker 1: reading Seneca with my students is one of the funnest
Speaker 1: things I can do, because he says it so baldly
Speaker 1: and so many times over again, that anger is a
Speaker 1: poison and like you shouldn't even let yourself feel it,
Speaker 1: like not even I mean Aristotle's nicer to us, Aristotle's like, oh, whatever,
Speaker 1: it's a feeling, just don't act on it. Don't be
Speaker 1: a jerk to people, right, don't hit people, like, be
Speaker 1: careful of your behaviors. So I think of it as
Speaker 1: like Seneca or the Stoics, they say like, I'm sorry
Speaker 1: that I got angry.
Speaker 4: And if you say things like that, I'm.
Speaker 1: Sorry that I felt this way, I'm sorry that I'm sad,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry that I'm angry, that actually means that you
Speaker 1: believe you can stop it from happening, that you're of
Speaker 1: an older school. I think that is like I can
Speaker 1: buy force of will and practice and habit and the
Speaker 1: good Stoic lifelong practice, like I can stop the emotion
Speaker 1: from bubbling up in me. And then Aristotle, who I
Speaker 1: found nicer, says, no, you know what, it's a feeling.
Speaker 1: Feelings happen, Feelings come and go. You are neither judged
Speaker 1: nor praised for your feelings. Right, It's not about your feelings,
Speaker 1: it's about your action. It's about what you do with it.
Speaker 1: And I feel like our world is actually full of
Speaker 1: both people and sometimes people who think both things, which
Speaker 1: as a philosopher, I don't think you can.
Speaker 4: I think you actually have.
Speaker 1: To choose, like either you believe that you are in
Speaker 1: one hundred percent in control of your emotion or that
Speaker 1: you're not.
Speaker 4: And I think that the not is a newer way
Speaker 4: of thinking, like.
Speaker 1: The people who say all the feels and like you
Speaker 1: just feel your feelings. But his line is strong, like
Speaker 1: Aristotle that is, will just don't act on it right,
Speaker 1: like don't throw it all away, because your behavior is
Speaker 1: on which you get judged.
Speaker 4: Right, So if you act badly and.
Speaker 1: You, you know, curse out a weiter because you're mad,
Speaker 1: like that's not okay, but it was okay that you
Speaker 1: were mad that they.
Speaker 4: Spilled water on you or something like that.
Speaker 1: So I kind of think it's a really important distinction
Speaker 1: to think through whether we're more leaning as stoics individually,
Speaker 1: like do you think that it is something that you
Speaker 1: should have been able to control, that you shouldn't even
Speaker 1: been ever gotten angry, because then you're going to be
Speaker 1: real tight on yourself. You're going to be super critical
Speaker 1: of yourself and you'd be like, oh my god, I
Speaker 1: can't believe I let myself get angry again. Or if
Speaker 1: you're more Aristatilian you'd be like, Okay, that's okay, but
Speaker 1: I really shouldn't have done what I did. And in
Speaker 1: the book, I ended up throwing almonds at my kids
Speaker 1: because they couldn't decide, they couldn't split them in half evenly,
Speaker 1: you know, and they were little, and so I just
Speaker 1: ended up fine, these are yours and those are yours,
Speaker 1: you know, and it's like, no, that was not the
Speaker 1: right behavior, right like, yes, the anger's okay, but then
Speaker 1: upon reflection, it's like, okay, I have to go and apologize,
Speaker 1: right like. So that's kind of more Aristotle's way of
Speaker 1: like you can control your behavior, but don't get stuck
Speaker 1: trying to control your feelings. And my students I give
Speaker 1: them an exercise. One week, they have to be Aristotelian
Speaker 1: and they get to have whatever feelings without being mad
Speaker 1: at themselves about those feelings, but they have to act virtuously.
Speaker 1: Another week we try stoicism. You have to try not
Speaker 1: to feel bad feelings because those are going to bring
Speaker 1: you down. They're going to make you feel worse if
Speaker 1: you like allow them in and see how much control
Speaker 1: you think you have over your emotions and then write
Speaker 1: a paper about it, you know. So that's like really
Speaker 1: fun to sort of practice what feels more natural to
Speaker 1: which individual.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think it's interesting because I would, unlike you,
Speaker 3: I would split the difference. I would say, well, no,
Speaker 3: we were not ultimately in charge of our emotions. I
Speaker 3: don't think our emotions have a lever on them that
Speaker 3: we grab and pull, but I think there are levers
Speaker 3: around our emotions that influence them. The stoics, I feel like,
Speaker 3: takes it way too far right. It's sort of like
Speaker 3: everything that happens is a result of what's going on
Speaker 3: inside of you. It's all there, and I think that's preposterous.
Speaker 3: We exist in a world with other people and situations
Speaker 3: that are fair and not fair, and just and unjust,
Speaker 3: and we have different genetic makeups and we have all
Speaker 3: these different things. So I think to believe that it's
Speaker 3: all inside me, but to also believe that it's all
Speaker 3: the situation is I think misguided also because there is
Speaker 3: a role for or how we frame that situation, and
Speaker 3: so I would sort of be a but this is
Speaker 3: me in general. I'm not saying it's always right, which
Speaker 3: is that I'm a middle way kind of person. Right,
Speaker 3: So I would be like, well, no, we can't completely
Speaker 3: control our emotions, and we can have influences, we can
Speaker 3: we can do things that make it more likely that
Speaker 3: we feel a certain way. I think my depression is
Speaker 3: a great one, or my melancholy, I don't even know
Speaker 3: what to call it anymore, is one that on some
Speaker 3: level I can't I've tried, I can't make it go away.
Speaker 3: It just seems to be. I'm more leaning on the like, well,
Speaker 3: that's just part of who I am, It's part of
Speaker 3: my temperament. And yet I know that there are very
Speaker 3: clear things that I can do in my life that
Speaker 3: make it more likely that I won't spiral into the
Speaker 3: really darkest forms of it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that sounds more like Aristotle. I think you're actually
Speaker 1: because Risel's pool is like bigger if the Stoics are here,
Speaker 1: kind of as more extreme. Aristotle gives a lot of leeway,
Speaker 1: like who we surround ourselves with, right are we friends with?
Speaker 1: We can control the circumstances of our lives that will
Speaker 1: make it more or less common that we will feel
Speaker 1: those things. So I think you're right, or I think
Speaker 1: that you're You're describing a position which is not in
Speaker 1: between them necessarily, but like Aristotle has room for all
Speaker 1: of that stuff. It all has to do with behavior choices, right,
Speaker 1: the choices I make about who I'm around, about what
Speaker 1: I watch, about what I allow myself, you know, to
Speaker 1: do on my phone or things like that. Like certain
Speaker 1: choices will probably exacerbate this bad feeling, and other choices
Speaker 1: might not. And so while I think ultimately when push
Speaker 1: cubs to shove, he's gonna say, investigate more, or like
Speaker 1: put more of your effort into that, into those circumstances,
Speaker 1: into like how are you building your life like physically
Speaker 1: through your actions and interactions rather than living up here
Speaker 1: censuring yourself for like why why am I still like this?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 1: Especially when something comes back and back we get super
Speaker 1: angry at ourselves. God, like I'm forty five years old,
Speaker 1: Like I shouldn't be still like this, you know, and
Speaker 1: that can.
Speaker 4: Just like eat us up inside.
Speaker 1: So I think he would rather be like, it's not
Speaker 1: just external circumstances that are beyond my control, but certainly
Speaker 1: external circumstances that are within my control.
Speaker 3: Yep. I'm working on a book, and I've been writing
Speaker 3: a chapter about like what do we do when we
Speaker 3: are right at the choice point of something and we
Speaker 3: know what we want. When I say want, I mean
Speaker 3: the wiser part of me wants to do.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: Like I've gotten clear, I know, here's the choice I
Speaker 3: want to make. And yet we find ourselves at that
Speaker 3: choice point where there is a conflict. Right, that's where
Speaker 3: some people often feel the metaphor of the wolves or
Speaker 3: the devil or angel. Right, it's right in that moment,
Speaker 3: I know what the thing is that the best part
Speaker 3: of me wants to do. And yet I've read more
Speaker 3: behavioral science papers about this idea over the last month
Speaker 3: than is probably wise for anyone.
Speaker 2: To ever do.
Speaker 3: But they all agree on one sort of key thing,
Speaker 3: and it's that if you're relying on what we call
Speaker 3: willpower in those situations, you're probably in trouble. Right. You know,
Speaker 3: you may have some of it, but it's not good.
Speaker 3: You've got to design your life in such a way
Speaker 3: that you end up at that place far less often.
Speaker 3: And I think that I can take that back to
Speaker 3: you and your anger right that you describe in the book,
Speaker 3: because what you ultimately had to do was go, I
Speaker 3: don't like the way I acted at my children, and
Speaker 3: yet I don't seem to not be able to do that.
Speaker 3: So what's going on here. You listened to your anger
Speaker 3: more deeply, you allowed it more deeply, and it showed
Speaker 3: you some more structural elements of your life, these environments
Speaker 3: that we're talking about that needed to change for you
Speaker 3: to be the person that you wanted to be? Is
Speaker 3: that an accurate way of saying it?
Speaker 4: Yes? Yes, yes, yes.
Speaker 1: I love that you use the word design And I
Speaker 1: think that word used to be so confusing to me,
Speaker 1: like what does that even mean? But it really is,
Speaker 1: how do you structure your life such that you won't
Speaker 1: get as irritated? Like if I'm irritated every single day?
Speaker 1: Am I overwhelmed?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 1: It was so much nicer for me to feel like
Speaker 1: I was overwhelmed than feel like I was a monster.
Speaker 4: That was like a nicer narrative for me.
Speaker 1: And then I was like, okay, okay, if I'm overwhelmed,
Speaker 1: right with curiosity, like why am I overwhelmed?
Speaker 4: What's going on? What could I reduce? Is there anything
Speaker 4: that I could do, like.
Speaker 1: Design your life so that you kind of don't have
Speaker 1: to rely on willpower?
Speaker 4: I think that's like beautifully stated.
Speaker 1: There's so many times when we think or would like
Speaker 1: willpower to be there, but it's only there for like
Speaker 1: the first ten minutes, right, and then after that, whether
Speaker 1: it's like you know, resolutions or whatever, like when they
Speaker 1: go by the wayside. If I can say, you know,
Speaker 1: this part of my life is designed such that every
Speaker 1: three months I'm going to check in with this, or
Speaker 1: every two weeks I'm going to do this, like some
Speaker 1: part of it is like set so that you don't
Speaker 1: have to have the motivation or the willpower. But you
Speaker 1: also said something else that I really liked, which is
Speaker 1: this kind of part of me wants to do this
Speaker 1: or the better part of me said and that reminded me.
Speaker 1: I am pretty taken with the internal family systems.
Speaker 4: And I know that you interviewed Richard Schwartz.
Speaker 1: Because what he does is just break it up, like
Speaker 1: we're all multiple, Like part of me wants to do that, right,
Speaker 1: and then another part of me doesn't want to do that.
Speaker 1: And so if the part of me wins out that
Speaker 1: didn't want to do that, then instead of being like, ah,
Speaker 1: I'm so mad at you, like why do you.
Speaker 4: Run the show?
Speaker 1: Why did you win again? Why couldn't I control my X,
Speaker 1: Y or Z, then it's like to be like friendly
Speaker 1: with it, like oh, that's interesting, Like what's up with you?
Speaker 1: Like I often talk to this part of me that
Speaker 1: I just call worry, and it wakes me up in
Speaker 1: the middle of the night and it talks to me
Speaker 1: incessantly about how I'm doing everything wrong and how I'm
Speaker 1: never going to finish anything and all this, and I
Speaker 1: just sort of ask it.
Speaker 4: Like, what are you getting out of this?
Speaker 1: Why do you have to wake me up at this
Speaker 1: hour and keep me up for an hour and make
Speaker 1: me feel bad, you know? And then what it said was, Oh,
Speaker 1: it's because I can't get you during the day. You
Speaker 1: never let me talk during the day. Yeah, And I
Speaker 1: was like, okay, would you be happier if I let
Speaker 1: you talk during the day. And it's worried for me,
Speaker 1: And I like his whole system that all the parts
Speaker 1: are good, all the parts are just trying to help you,
Speaker 1: even if they look like bad parts. It reminds me
Speaker 1: of that kid trying to get attention. It's like they
Speaker 1: need attention, okay, so let me give them attention. And
Speaker 1: I'm also currently in therapy and my therapist was telling
Speaker 1: me when you have nightmares and you run away from
Speaker 1: the things, sometimes the thing gets bigger and scarier, and
Speaker 1: he's like, try if you can, just to turn toward
Speaker 1: it and see what happens if you turn the other
Speaker 1: way or try to touch it, or try to go
Speaker 1: toward it, because it's getting bigger and scarier because you
Speaker 1: don't know what it is. But if you turn toward it,
Speaker 1: maybe it was nothing. It's trying to get your attention,
Speaker 1: and so it will get more and more I don't know, scary.
Speaker 1: So I'm trying more and more in my life to
Speaker 1: turn toward the things. So like in your example of
Speaker 1: like part of me wants to do this, and part
Speaker 1: of me is definitely rebelling. It's like, okay, rebellious part,
Speaker 1: what are you trying to protect of me? Like, how
Speaker 1: are you trying to help me even though it looks
Speaker 1: like you're sabotaging my life? What are you trying to
Speaker 1: do for me that like you're just sort of misunderstood.
Speaker 1: I like thinking of our parts as kind of like
Speaker 1: I guess it's like the bad wolf, right, it's just
Speaker 1: the misunderstood or like has its reason, wants to be
Speaker 1: listened to, wants to be heard. Then for me, that
Speaker 1: achieves the same aim of being like a unified individual
Speaker 1: or an individual who's on its own side, like all
Speaker 1: the parts of me are good, No one here is
Speaker 1: really bad. Sometimes we do things that we can't explain
Speaker 1: because we have different sides of us that have different goals.
Speaker 4: But you know, I don't know. I like the idea
Speaker 4: of like listening.
Speaker 1: I think that's a big takeaway for me from my
Speaker 1: study of these moods is like what happens when we
Speaker 1: turn towards them. We stop being so afraid of them,
Speaker 1: stop being so ashamed of them, and actually like listen
Speaker 1: to them. What are they trying to tell us to do,
Speaker 1: for us, to get us to do, etcetera.
Speaker 3: Hey everyone, One of the things that I know many
Speaker 3: of you struggle with is anxiety, and very recently I
Speaker 3: shared some tips on managing anxiety in our newsletter. Specifically,
Speaker 3: I shared a practice on clarifying your values. In the practice,
Speaker 3: you write down one or two of your core values
Speaker 3: and then identify one action step that aligns with them.
Speaker 3: I find that taking one positive action towards things that
Speaker 3: matter to me really helps reduce anxiety. Also, I have
Speaker 3: a reflection question, what positive experiences have you had today
Speaker 3: that you could focus on instead of your anxiety? Every Wednesday,
Speaker 3: I send out a newsletter called a Weekly by to
Speaker 3: Wisdom for a wiser, happier You, and in it I
Speaker 3: give tips and reflections like you just got and it's
Speaker 3: an opportunity for you to pause, reflect and practice. It's
Speaker 3: a way to stay focused on what's important and meaningful
Speaker 3: to you. Each month we focus on a theme. This
Speaker 3: month's theme is anxiety, and next month we'll be focusing
Speaker 3: on acceptance. To sign up for these bits of weekly wisdom,
Speaker 3: go to Goodwolf dot me slash newsletter. I think that's
Speaker 3: the other benefit of being on our own side, right,
Speaker 3: is to assume not that we're broken, that we're bad,
Speaker 3: but the things that we're doing there's reasons for, and
Speaker 3: so why what's happening? You know? Gaborimante said it so
Speaker 3: clearly years and years ago when he said not he said,
Speaker 3: you know, don't ask why the addiction, asked why the pain? Right,
Speaker 3: And I think that it's a similar idea. And it's
Speaker 3: not to say that like you excuse things that you
Speaker 3: do while you're an addict because of things that happened
Speaker 3: to you that caused you pain. That's not it. It's
Speaker 3: the right direction to look right. It's the right direction
Speaker 3: of Look what's causing me If I'm wanting to behave
Speaker 3: a certain way and I'm consistently behaving a different way.
Speaker 3: It's meeting some need somewhere, somehow it makes sense to
Speaker 3: some part of us, as you said, and what is that?
Speaker 3: And you have to be on your own side to
Speaker 3: f figure that out, because if you're not on your
Speaker 3: own side, then you are in the I'm awful, I'm bad,
Speaker 3: I'm broken. I can't get bad. I mean all the
Speaker 3: permutations of this that make whatever the situation is worse.
Speaker 3: I mean, addiction is a condition that is shame driven.
Speaker 3: I mean it's part of the engine. If it didn't exist,
Speaker 3: I'm not saying that nobody would be an addict, but
Speaker 3: I think the way out of it might be easier
Speaker 3: and faster to find. But the shame is the Maybe
Speaker 3: it's not the engine, it's a fuel that the engine
Speaker 3: is using.
Speaker 1: It opens like a fascinating can of worms. Because I
Speaker 1: thought of writing my book as like a love letter
Speaker 1: to those people who are the way Glaurian and Sandua
Speaker 1: put it excruciatingly alive to the world. And I think
Speaker 1: a lot of times addicts fall into that. I don't
Speaker 1: know if all the time or something, but like who
Speaker 1: out there finds themselves excruciatingly alive to the world such
Speaker 1: that a lot of things hurt us. Right, people that
Speaker 1: you know are called sensitive, and like, forget mental illness.
Speaker 1: Just the very idea that calling someone sensitive is an
Speaker 1: in shapes the way we're going to feel about ourselves. Right, Oh,
Speaker 1: you wear your heart on your sleeve?
Speaker 4: What's wrong with you? Why do you cry it? Everything?
Speaker 4: And then those voices get inside of us and we
Speaker 4: do it to ourselves.
Speaker 1: The can of worms that I've never really thought about
Speaker 1: is like what would come of addiction, the sort of
Speaker 1: need to turn to harmful substances. If our society had
Speaker 1: more night vision, if our society could give us a break,
Speaker 1: could have half bad days, could not expect so much
Speaker 1: production and positivity out of us, but could just lower
Speaker 1: the bar on like what a person could be expected
Speaker 1: to do, or to be, or to feel or whatever.
Speaker 1: And that way, those of us who are excruciatingly alive
Speaker 1: to the world maybe wouldn't have to numb it in
Speaker 1: one thing or another, Like if to be sensitive, we're
Speaker 1: a compliment to somebody.
Speaker 4: I'd like to imagine.
Speaker 1: Other worlds because that's the only way I can do this,
Speaker 1: because that's why I'm not a social scientist, is because
Speaker 1: I can't do studies on this. There's so many things
Speaker 1: that it's like, well, what about before the time, or
Speaker 1: what if we lived in a totally different world. And
Speaker 1: it's like you can't study what already is because we're
Speaker 1: already influenced by the way society talks about us. But
Speaker 1: I wonder, you know, like what would it look like
Speaker 1: if we didn't feel like we had to run to
Speaker 1: something else because the world is so like it's so bright.
Speaker 1: I always think of the metaphor because they live in
Speaker 1: South Texas, like it's so bright people in South Texas. No,
Speaker 1: you need shade, you need a tree, you need a cave.
Speaker 1: It's maybe only people who don't, who just want eternal
Speaker 1: sunshine all the time, and you're just going to get
Speaker 1: burned all the time. Like there's no way to live
Speaker 1: in that space of all light. And so what do
Speaker 1: we do when we need shade? Like there's something so
Speaker 1: beautiful about being able to be in the shade together,
Speaker 1: being able to express or experience a dark mood with
Speaker 1: somebody else. But because so many people that love us
Speaker 1: are not very good emotionally with us, Like they don't
Speaker 1: know how to handle us, and they want us to
Speaker 1: get over it, and they're very loving and they say,
Speaker 1: you know.
Speaker 4: No, you're beautiful. Don't feel that way. You shouldn't feel
Speaker 4: that way.
Speaker 1: You have everything to live for it, right, just kind
Speaker 1: of like rejection, rejection, rejection, because it's making them so uncomfortable.
Speaker 1: What we're saying, What would happen if we could learn
Speaker 1: to sit with each other in the dark and not
Speaker 1: try to just shed light on someone else's situation, you know,
Speaker 1: just like allow us to all be a little bit
Speaker 1: more for me, like more human. And that's what the
Speaker 1: existentialist does for me, is like makes me feel like
Speaker 1: my level of humanity is just right, Like I'm not
Speaker 1: too dark, I'm not too much, I'm not too sensitive,
Speaker 1: I'm not like this is actually just what it means.
Speaker 1: You said you were taking care of parents earlier, and
Speaker 1: my parents.
Speaker 4: Both died last year.
Speaker 1: It influenced me so much, Like I'm not broken because
Speaker 1: my mother's dying. I'm not falling apart. I'm in extreme pain, right,
Speaker 1: but it's also poignant and like it has so many
Speaker 1: dimensions to it, and if we just write it off
Speaker 1: like breaking down, We're not going to get to the
Speaker 1: heart of it. That it's like multi layered and complex
Speaker 1: and so beautiful and also just like absolutely agonizing. But
Speaker 1: that's what the human life is. And I think if
Speaker 1: we could like connect.
Speaker 4: On that level of like hold each other's.
Speaker 1: Hand while we're so rather than run away or try
Speaker 1: to make it better or don't cry or anything like that,
Speaker 1: Like if we could stop being so allergic to it
Speaker 1: or anemic or there's lots of metaphors about people and
Speaker 1: emotional intelligence, but I think if we could just get
Speaker 1: more real with each other sooner and not present such
Speaker 1: a oh I'm fine, I'm good, I'm doing great or whatever,
Speaker 1: like I would be more comfortable. I was much more
Speaker 1: comfortable in the world of COVID and lockdown when everyone
Speaker 1: got on Zoom.
Speaker 4: And we were like, oh, yeah, it's terrible, oh.
Speaker 1: Not doing so good, Like everyone was allowed to have
Speaker 1: that time in the shade and just to be upset,
Speaker 1: And I actually felt happier because I felt like I
Speaker 1: wasn't the odd ball, like I didn't have to hide everything.
Speaker 1: I was truly feeling like everyone was just able to
Speaker 1: like be emotionally honest with each other, and I was like,
Speaker 1: and then when it ended and people started going back
Speaker 1: to like the small talk.
Speaker 4: The stuff that for me felt fake. I was like, Oh,
Speaker 4: that's over.
Speaker 1: That window will never come back again, and like it's
Speaker 1: a weird thing for those of us who sort of
Speaker 1: felt more seen during that time.
Speaker 3: We'll never say never. We've sort of talked about this,
Speaker 3: but this sentence just leapt out at me, and it
Speaker 3: was when platitudes do not pull us out of pain,
Speaker 3: they can plunge us deeper into loneliness. And I've been
Speaker 3: thinking a lot about what happens to the people. I
Speaker 3: was thinking about it in recovery circles, right, because a
Speaker 3: big part of what happens at a lot of recovery
Speaker 3: meetings doesn't even have to be twelve step. Right, But
Speaker 3: there's a testimonial element to it, which is you addressed
Speaker 3: it a little bit earlier with certain self help authors,
Speaker 3: which is that I had this problem, I did X, Y,
Speaker 3: and Z. Now I don't have that problem, and I
Speaker 3: can show you how to do that. And that thinking
Speaker 3: saved my life, right like in a twelve step program,
Speaker 3: right Like I needed that. But I've been thinking more
Speaker 3: about what about the people where that doesn't solve the problem.
Speaker 3: And I'm not saying that all that stuff is platitudes.
Speaker 3: I mean, obviously a platitude is different than a recovery fellowship,
Speaker 3: but it's the same general idea, which is when someone
Speaker 3: gives us a peace, piece of advice, or a platitude
Speaker 3: or a way forward, and that doesn't solve the problem.
Speaker 3: Like you said, I think that can plunge us deeper
Speaker 3: into loneliness.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So there's a humbling aspect to this book in that
Speaker 1: some people like the platitudes. So I was reading Cicero
Speaker 1: and he said because he lost his daughter and it
Speaker 1: absolutely crushed him, and he said that he really loved
Speaker 1: it when other people talked about losing their daughters and
Speaker 1: their family.
Speaker 4: And I thought, oh wow, some people like that. The
Speaker 4: way that I feel about the world isn't the way
Speaker 4: that everyone feels about the world.
Speaker 1: And so some people kind of want, like you said,
Speaker 1: like it saved your life to believe this thing, right,
Speaker 1: Like for me, it's got this underbelly of what about
Speaker 1: the others?
Speaker 4: What about the others? What about the others? Right?
Speaker 1: What about the people that doesn't work for If you
Speaker 1: just keep saying this thing works, This thing works, you know, yea,
Speaker 1: it can be super tricky. So one is it everyone's individual.
Speaker 1: But I have found that a lot of people don't
Speaker 1: want to be told that they're strong, right, Like, I
Speaker 1: think that especially women, especially women of color, If you
Speaker 1: say something you know is going on, it's really common
Speaker 1: for people to tell us, well, you're so strong, you're
Speaker 1: going to get through this. And it's like, well, that's
Speaker 1: not what I was asking for, right, Like, what that
Speaker 1: does is it actually shuts the door.
Speaker 4: Or you're so beautiful? How can you say that? Right?
Speaker 1: These are no's and they shut the door. And what
Speaker 1: that does is then make me aware, Oh, I can't
Speaker 1: talk to you about that. I can't tell you the
Speaker 1: real feeling because you're not comfortable with it, and you're
Speaker 1: going to like shove it back to me in some
Speaker 1: platitude or in some way that you're trying to make
Speaker 1: me feel better, but you're super clumsy at it, like
Speaker 1: you don't really know how to do it. So you
Speaker 1: are trying to give me some words of encouragement or something,
Speaker 1: affirmations or whatever, and it for me, it definitely doesn't work.
Speaker 1: So then what happens is then I either go into myself,
Speaker 1: and I have two choices after that. I can either
Speaker 1: just stop talking to you because I know you don't
Speaker 1: get it, or I can fake it and I can
Speaker 1: pretend that I'm happy.
Speaker 4: I can pretend it's all better.
Speaker 1: The next day I wake up and I can just
Speaker 1: pretend that I don't feel that way anymore. And I
Speaker 1: think that I I guess people call this masking, right,
Speaker 1: like going about the world sort of like distrustful, like
Speaker 1: not letting your actual raw self out because it's not
Speaker 1: going to be received well. And so I don't want
Speaker 1: any of those options, right, Like I want to change
Speaker 1: the world rather than change myself to be like, well,
Speaker 1: how am I going to get less hurt?
Speaker 4: Well, I guess I won't trust this person. I won't
Speaker 4: tell that person.
Speaker 1: I'd rather fill in the other people. I'm kind of like, well,
Speaker 1: what is going wrong? Like I love my friend so
Speaker 1: much and I'm always trying to tell her how beautiful
Speaker 1: she is, and I'm always trying to raise her up
Speaker 1: and I'm always trying to give her all these positive things,
Speaker 1: but it doesn't work, and I don't understand, like for
Speaker 1: the person who is really trying to do that in
Speaker 1: this very loving way my recommendation is like, okay, try
Speaker 1: to flip it. Maybe that's not what they want or need.
Speaker 1: Maybe you're making them feel lonely or that if they
Speaker 1: don't rise to that occasion, like if you haven't made
Speaker 1: them feel better, then you feel like a failure. But
Speaker 1: they also feel like responsible now for your feelings. And
Speaker 1: so what if you dim the lights? What if you
Speaker 1: go in there with them, go in the cave. You
Speaker 1: don't have to not responsible for cheering anyone up, like probably,
Speaker 1: or if it's not going well, try a new tactic,
Speaker 1: like use all that energy you've been using and just
Speaker 1: like switch it, switch the mode to like just sit
Speaker 1: there with them, maybe bring them a movie. Maybe it's
Speaker 1: not about words. A lot of people are obsessed with
Speaker 1: like what are the right words, especially in grief?
Speaker 4: What should I say which? And it's like, well, maybe
Speaker 4: it's not about words.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's just really about your presence and about your
Speaker 1: non demanding presence. You don't demand that they be okay
Speaker 1: around you, You don't demand that they even want your
Speaker 1: presence or anything like this. But just kind of I
Speaker 1: want to help people feel less lonely, like the suffering
Speaker 1: among us. I want to help feel less lonely by
Speaker 1: trying to draw attention to the way in which the
Speaker 1: so called like consolers sometimes get it wrong. Even if
Speaker 1: they have the best of intentions, they get it wrong
Speaker 1: because they are feeling so uncomfortable and they want it
Speaker 1: to go away. But in fact we feel like then
Speaker 1: they're trashing us instead of just it's not working, and
Speaker 1: it also makes.
Speaker 4: Us feel worse.
Speaker 1: So I feel like, just like, I don't know, pointing
Speaker 1: these things out I think can be quite helpful.
Speaker 3: I think there's actually a third option that people do
Speaker 3: when they share their emotion with someone and that it
Speaker 3: isn't met. And you talk about this in the book
Speaker 3: when you talk about first order anger and second order anger.
Speaker 3: I actually think there's a variation of this in that,
Speaker 3: which is I escalate my unokayness to get your attention.
Speaker 3: You didn't hear me when I said it like that,
Speaker 3: so I'm going to double down on it because you're.
Speaker 2: Not hearing it.
Speaker 3: And while that may get your attention, it's also doing
Speaker 3: something inside me, right, It's escalating it inside myself, and
Speaker 3: so it is problematic in that way. Also because I mean,
Speaker 3: I just have noticed this enough in different relationships in
Speaker 3: my life that if I meet somebody where they are emotionally,
Speaker 3: everybody just sort of settles down. But if I am like, well,
Speaker 3: you know, maybe you should or you could or you
Speaker 3: you know, I'm a fixer by nature, it's almost like, no,
Speaker 3: you're really not good this man. I'm not just a
Speaker 3: little bit bad. I'm terrible, right, and then after that
Speaker 3: it's I'm horrible, and I mean so I think, yeah,
Speaker 3: that also happens.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that reminds me of this term help rejecting complainer,
Speaker 1: which is not exactly what you're talking about, but I
Speaker 1: think it was like in the eighties or even before that.
Speaker 1: I can't remember who came up with this term, but
Speaker 1: it was like when the person you know.
Speaker 4: Just refuses your help.
Speaker 1: You try everything, you suggest, X, Y and z, and
Speaker 1: that person is just a real you know, it's like
Speaker 1: pathologizing the person who is rejecting all these platitudes.
Speaker 4: And I feel like today, in twenty twenty four, I'm like.
Speaker 1: Laughing at this notion because it is so clearly biased
Speaker 1: toward the helper, like that helping is the correct thing,
Speaker 1: and like those people just want to be negative. And
Speaker 1: so in twenty twenty four, like I'd like to rewrite that.
Speaker 1: I'd like to like save all those people who got
Speaker 1: that it's not a diagnosis, but got that label on them.
Speaker 4: Of like you're just a helper.
Speaker 1: It's like, well, no, you're doing it wrong, right, Like
Speaker 1: like when are we actually going to realize like if
Speaker 1: people are responding to us or escalating or doing something like, yes,
Speaker 1: it might be them. It always might. There's no like
Speaker 1: hard and fast rules about you know who is doing
Speaker 1: what when or which anger's okay and which one isn't.
Speaker 1: But it deserves like attention, right, It's like if that
Speaker 1: person seems to be needing more attention or getting more
Speaker 1: whatever with me escalating, maybe it's something that I'm doing
Speaker 1: that is not working for them, and my energy would
Speaker 1: be better put into just like sitting there. I actually
Speaker 1: think that all the people who think that they need
Speaker 1: to cheer people up will be relieved to know that
Speaker 1: our job is never to cheer anybody up. Just don't
Speaker 1: think that we have the responsibility to cheer anyone up
Speaker 1: because we can't and so many times it backfires, it
Speaker 1: makes them in a worse spot. So I just think
Speaker 1: we're just here to accompany each other, like the people
Speaker 1: we love we're just here to be together. We're just
Speaker 1: here to like maybe cry together. Like we don't have
Speaker 1: to fix other people's problems. Like, so, I think that
Speaker 1: the job of being a friend or a loved one
Speaker 1: is actually easier than we think it is because we
Speaker 1: don't have the responsibility to Like at the end of
Speaker 1: this conversation, they're going to feel better, like, oh, that's
Speaker 1: way out of our control, especially when it comes to grief,
Speaker 1: which is just not something that is within our power.
Speaker 1: Like we just let each other be human and say
Speaker 1: it's perfectly normal to be human, like that's good. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm here, I'm here. Mister Rogers said it really nicely.
Speaker 1: He said a lot of times when we say to people,
Speaker 1: don't cry, what it means is I'm too uncomfortable with you,
Speaker 1: so please stop. And the world that I want to
Speaker 1: live in I'm paraphrasing him, is where the person would say,
Speaker 1: go ahead and cry, and I'll still be here.
Speaker 4: I'll I'll just be here with you while you're crying.
Speaker 1: Right, Like, it doesn't take much. It just takes not
Speaker 1: a rejection. So if the immediate feeling is like no, no,
Speaker 1: don't think that, don't say that, don't believe that. It's like, ah,
Speaker 1: how about yes, Oh you feel too old for that job?
Speaker 4: Tell me about it. Like you're not going to change
Speaker 4: a person's feeling.
Speaker 1: About themselves just by telling them they're beautiful, Like you're
Speaker 1: battling something that they can't even get out of right,
Speaker 1: So you're not going to convince them that they're beautiful.
Speaker 1: Like it's like, oh, tell me about that, Like let
Speaker 1: it be heard, you know. I think that's the only
Speaker 1: thing is like we want to like see each other
Speaker 1: in amp each other. We don't need to worry about
Speaker 1: cheering each other up.
Speaker 3: Well, I think that is a beautiful place for us
Speaker 3: to wrap up. You and I are going to continue
Speaker 3: in the post show conversation. We're going to keep on
Speaker 3: this thread a little bit, and I'm going to ask
Speaker 3: some questions about, well, is it ever our job to
Speaker 3: offer help and in what circumstances. There's a conversation in
Speaker 3: the book that you referenced just for a second there,
Speaker 3: which is about a middle aged woman going back into
Speaker 3: the workforce and the way her husband and son responded.
Speaker 3: And I had all kinds of emotions through that whole story.
Speaker 3: So you and I are going to talk about that
Speaker 3: in the post show conversation listeners. You can get access
Speaker 3: to that ad free episodes and become part of our
Speaker 3: community at oneufeed dot net slash join. Thank you so
Speaker 3: much Marianna for coming on. I really really enjoyed the book.
Speaker 3: I've really enjoyed this conversation.
Speaker 4: Thank you. Is so nice to talk to you and
Speaker 4: your wonderful host, So thank you for being kind.
Speaker 2: If what you just heard was helpful to you, please
Speaker 2: consider making a monthly donation to support the One You
Speaker 2: Feed podcast. When you join our membership community. With this
Speaker 2: monthly pledge, you get lots of exclusive members only benefits.
Speaker 2: It's our way of saying thank you for your support now.
Speaker 2: We are so grateful for the members of our community.
Speaker 2: We wouldn't be able to do what we do without
Speaker 2: their support, and we don't take a single dollar for granted.
Speaker 2: To learn more, make a donation at any level and
Speaker 2: become a member of the One You Feed community, go
Speaker 2: to oneufeed dot net slash join. The One You Feed
Speaker 2: podcast would like to sincerely thank our sponsors for supporting
Speaker 2: the show.