Speaker 1: Would you like to hear your voice on an episode
Speaker 1: of The One You Feed? We sure would. Our five
Speaker 1: hundredth episode is coming up in May, and to celebrate,
Speaker 1: we'd like to feature listeners of the show during the episode.
Speaker 1: If the One You Feed has meant something to you,
Speaker 1: we'd love to hear from you. You can go to
Speaker 1: one you Feed dot net slash message and leave a voicemail.
Speaker 1: Tell us how the podcast has impacted you, or tell
Speaker 1: us how the Wolf parable applies to your life. Go
Speaker 1: to one you Feed dot net slash message by May
Speaker 1: one and leave us a voicemail. We're excited to celebrate
Speaker 1: this milestone with you, our dear listeners. Sometimes it's not
Speaker 1: even that we have thoughts that are helpful. It's like
Speaker 1: the thought becomes I just want to run away from this.
Speaker 1: What can I do? What can I do? And what
Speaker 1: our brain generates is like what I can do next?
Speaker 1: Often isn't actually what we need to do to address
Speaker 1: the underlying emotion. Welcome to the One You Feed. Throughout time,
Speaker 1: great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have.
Speaker 1: Quotes like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what
Speaker 1: you think? Ring true and yet for many of us.
Speaker 1: Our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity,
Speaker 1: self pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't
Speaker 1: have instead of what we do. We think things that
Speaker 1: hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not
Speaker 1: just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent,
Speaker 1: and creative effort to make a life worth living. This
Speaker 1: podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in
Speaker 1: the right direction, how they feed their good wolf. Thanks
Speaker 1: for joining us. Our guest on this episode is Liz Fossling.
Speaker 1: It's her second time on the One You Feed podcast.
Speaker 1: Liz regularly leads Interactive scientifically back to workshops about how
Speaker 1: to create a culture of belonging, help remote workers avoid burnout,
Speaker 1: navigate different work styles, and effectively harness emotion as a leader.
Speaker 1: Her work has been featured by The New York Times, Ted,
Speaker 1: The Economist, and NPR. She's also the co author and
Speaker 1: illustrator of the Wall Street Journal bestseller No Hard Feelings.
Speaker 1: Along with the book, her and Eric discuss here Big
Speaker 1: Feelings how to be okay when things are not okay. Hi, Liz,
Speaker 1: Welcome to the show. Thanks so much for having me
Speaker 1: really excited to be here again. Yes, excited to have
Speaker 1: you back again. And you have a new book called
Speaker 1: Big Feelings, How to Be Okay When Things Are Not Okay,
Speaker 1: which is a great topic that I know listeners are
Speaker 1: going to love. But before we get into the book,
Speaker 1: let's start like we always do with the parable. There's
Speaker 1: a grandparent who's talking with their grandchild and they say,
Speaker 1: in life, there are two wolves inside of us that
Speaker 1: are always at battle. One is a good wolf, which
Speaker 1: represents things like kindness and bravery and love, and the
Speaker 1: other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed
Speaker 1: and hatred and fear. And the grandchild stops and thinks
Speaker 1: about it for a second, looks at at their grandparents, says, well,
Speaker 1: which one wins. The grandparents says, the one you feed.
Speaker 1: So I'd like to start off by asking you what
Speaker 1: that parable means to you in your life and in
Speaker 1: the work that you do. Yeah, well, I like that
Speaker 1: it acknowledges that we all experience these emotions and have
Speaker 1: these within ourselves. I think that's a common misconception when
Speaker 1: people maybe feed or feel the sort of quote unquote
Speaker 1: negative emotions, that they're alone in it. So I really
Speaker 1: like that, And then I think the concept of feeding
Speaker 1: these emotions is really great too. Something that I look
Speaker 1: at a lot in my work is when you're experiencing
Speaker 1: something that's difficult, how do you learn from it but
Speaker 1: then try to move through it so that it gives
Speaker 1: you some useful information, but you don't get tangled up
Speaker 1: in it and continue to feed it and get dragged
Speaker 1: into it. So I really love that pair of Well,
Speaker 1: you hit on something there that you talk about early
Speaker 1: on in the book, which is really some myths about
Speaker 1: you know what you're calling big feelings. You hit one
Speaker 1: of the you know myths there, But can you talk
Speaker 1: about a couple of the others. Yes, I think the
Speaker 1: one you're mentioning I hit on, which I actually think
Speaker 1: is worth revisiting again is for the book, we surveyed
Speaker 1: about people all across the world from all different backgrounds,
Speaker 1: and we asked them, have you experienced any of these
Speaker 1: big feelings, which in the book include things like anger, envy, burnout, perfectionism,
Speaker 1: And basically to a person, everyone said yes. And so
Speaker 1: I think one of the myths is again that when
Speaker 1: we experience envy, that we should feel ashamed because we're
Speaker 1: the only person feeling that, which is absolutely not true.
Speaker 1: Another one is just around the intensity of those feelings
Speaker 1: that people often also think in comparison to others that
Speaker 1: they're the only ones that are really getting bogged down
Speaker 1: in I think depression is a good example of the
Speaker 1: When you feel despair, often you feel like everyone else
Speaker 1: is thriving, and that's one of the ways in which
Speaker 1: it warps your view of the world, and that's just
Speaker 1: also not true. And then the last one that we
Speaker 1: cover in the beginning of the book is just that
Speaker 1: there are good, quote unquote and bad feelings, so things
Speaker 1: like envy. Anger is one too. We're often taught that
Speaker 1: anger is associated with violence, and it's really harmful to
Speaker 1: other people, and there are absolutely ways that you can
Speaker 1: express anger, like punching a wall or punching a person,
Speaker 1: that are harmful. But at its core, anger can motivate us.
Speaker 1: It's just a flag that there has been a violation,
Speaker 1: so it can motivate us to advocate for ourselves, to
Speaker 1: find a better situation for ourselves, to advocate for someone else.
Speaker 1: So I wouldn't call that a bad emotion. You can
Speaker 1: take bad actions based on it, but at its core,
Speaker 1: an emotion is simply data and something that your brain
Speaker 1: is producing. Right, And we've got this podcast Parable that
Speaker 1: talks about you know, good wolf and bad Wolf, which,
Speaker 1: if we're not careful, sets that myth up, which is
Speaker 1: that negative emotions quote unquote negative emotions are bad. That's
Speaker 1: why I love the take that you had. And one
Speaker 1: of the reasons I love the parable is it just
Speaker 1: says like, hey, everybody has these you know. That's I
Speaker 1: think so so important. And you know, the thing that's
Speaker 1: really interesting, And I've been thinking about this a lot
Speaker 1: lately because we've had a couple of guests recently that
Speaker 1: have talked about this. One is a woman named Sarah
Speaker 1: Fay who just released a book She's diagnosed with six
Speaker 1: different things over her life, right, and she sort of
Speaker 1: takes on the d s M, which is the way
Speaker 1: that you know, mental health professionals diagnosed people. But I
Speaker 1: think it gets to the question of when is something
Speaker 1: normal human emotion that we all go through, and when
Speaker 1: is something what we would classify as mental illness and
Speaker 1: is that distinction even useful? Curious your thoughts. I'm not
Speaker 1: a licensed psychiatrist to make these calls. Of course, my
Speaker 1: intuition this is that when it becomes something that you
Speaker 1: really can't move through, and when you're actively harming yourself
Speaker 1: for other people, that's when it requires maybe medication or
Speaker 1: like more professional help. But that said, I mean, I
Speaker 1: think medication and professional help can be useful even if
Speaker 1: you're sort of depressed but functioning. So I think it's
Speaker 1: it's always valuable to consider these things on a spectrum um.
Speaker 1: And so I think there's not like a clear line.
Speaker 1: Sometimes it's just a judgment call that you make yourself
Speaker 1: for the people around you make, or your therapist makes
Speaker 1: of Okay, at this point there needs to be some
Speaker 1: more serious intervention. But I think I don't feel like
Speaker 1: the depths of some of these like really more sort
Speaker 1: of quote unquote severe disorders that are in the DSM.
Speaker 1: But on any given day, I feel good and then
Speaker 1: an hour later I feel bad, And you know, like,
Speaker 1: is that am I like vacillating too much between emotion?
Speaker 1: I don't know. That's my baseline. So these are all
Speaker 1: definitely like arbitrary lines that are still useful to have
Speaker 1: in some cases. Totally yeah, And I do think every
Speaker 1: case is different, and it's something I think a lot
Speaker 1: about as someone who has what I would call maybe
Speaker 1: today i'll call it depressive tendencies instead of saying, I,
Speaker 1: you know I have depression. I have a tendency in
Speaker 1: that direction. But at the end of the day, I
Speaker 1: think that the tools that are very useful for working
Speaker 1: with a lot of these things are the same regardless.
Speaker 1: And and that's really where you guys spend a lot
Speaker 1: of time in the book. You go through these big
Speaker 1: feelings and for each of them you talk about some myths,
Speaker 1: and then you talk about how to work with each
Speaker 1: of them. I love the structure of the book. It's
Speaker 1: laid out very clearly, very helpfully, and of course it
Speaker 1: has the drawings for which you guys are are very
Speaker 1: well known. They're so great. They really add so much
Speaker 1: that we just won't get in a visual or we
Speaker 1: won't get in an audio only conversation, but they add
Speaker 1: so much to the book. Let's jump into some of
Speaker 1: the big lines. Is there anyone that you would like
Speaker 1: to hit one that feels like more top of mind
Speaker 1: today for you than others. I've got a couple I
Speaker 1: might choose, but I'm curious what you might choose. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think I would choose uncertainty and perfectionism, um certainty.
Speaker 1: You know, the last two years easy to say they've
Speaker 1: been very uncertain. Indeed, that's one that I've struggled with
Speaker 1: a lot, and I think a lot of people have
Speaker 1: as well. Okay, so what are some of the myths
Speaker 1: around uncertainty? Two that resonated with me when I first
Speaker 1: started to investigate them. The first was that certainty is attainable.
Speaker 1: It's really comforting to think. I just wish I could
Speaker 1: go back to when I was a child and things
Speaker 1: were certain or pre pandemic, when life was more it
Speaker 1: was just obvious what was going to happen next, and
Speaker 1: I could plan for it. And the truth is, you
Speaker 1: can never plan for the future because you can never
Speaker 1: exactly predict what it is. And yes, there are times
Speaker 1: when there's more a lot arming things that could happen
Speaker 1: in the future, But generally, I think it's actually really
Speaker 1: useful to let go of the smith that there is
Speaker 1: every perfect stability that you can attain, because again, it
Speaker 1: helps you look back at your life and say, I've
Speaker 1: always been operating in some level of uncertainty, and for
Speaker 1: the most part, I've been able to successfully navigate it.
Speaker 1: I'm still here, so I think that can help you
Speaker 1: even in moments that feel a little more unstable than others.
Speaker 1: And then the second myth is that the anxiety we
Speaker 1: feel in the face of uncertainty is perfectly predictive of
Speaker 1: how much risk we face. So I think it's so
Speaker 1: easy to wake up in the morning with this like
Speaker 1: nebulous pit of anxiety in your stomach and then lean
Speaker 1: into that and say, oh, because I feel bad. That
Speaker 1: means something bad is going to happen, and now I
Speaker 1: need to be on full alert and in panic mode.
Speaker 1: One funny thing that I don't know funny, but somehow
Speaker 1: a lot of the research around uncertainty involves shocking people,
Speaker 1: like giving them harmless but painful electric shocks. Like every
Speaker 1: single study involved this, so uncertainty researchers loved electric shocks.
Speaker 1: That seems actually fair, but in one of these but
Speaker 1: in one of these studies, I'm not going to sign
Speaker 1: up for any studies are an uncertainty. I do not
Speaker 1: as somebody owned an old guitar amplifier and really lousy
Speaker 1: houses in a long time ago, I used to get
Speaker 1: shocked all the time. I hated Yeah, yeah, So say,
Speaker 1: I'm not signing up for any of those. But in
Speaker 1: one of these studies, they segmented people randomly into two groups,
Speaker 1: and one group had a ninety percent chance of getting shocked,
Speaker 1: so it was pretty much guaranteed that that they were
Speaker 1: going to get this painful experience. The other group had
Speaker 1: a fifty percent chance, And the group that had a
Speaker 1: fifty percent chance was three times more stressed than the
Speaker 1: group that was certain they were going to get shocked,
Speaker 1: which speaks to this like we would rather know that
Speaker 1: something bad is going to happen then not know what's
Speaker 1: going to happen. So we really really hate uncertainty, which
Speaker 1: again speaks to like you can be super anxious, but
Speaker 1: that doesn't mean that you're guaranteed a horrible thing that's
Speaker 1: about to happen. There's a couple of things in what
Speaker 1: you said there that I think are important. That this
Speaker 1: idea that certainty ever exists is certainly a myth, Like
Speaker 1: I think those those whose study Buddhism and the sort
Speaker 1: of bang us over the head with this sort of stuff,
Speaker 1: like you know it doesn't exist. There's a poet author
Speaker 1: out there, Mark Neipo, who talks about something called the
Speaker 1: terrible knowledge, which is that anything can happen to anyone
Speaker 1: at any time, And I think that's true. But I
Speaker 1: think there's a positive too to recognize an uncertainty. Besides
Speaker 1: feeling less anxious about it, the other positive is you
Speaker 1: don't take things for granted as much if you actually
Speaker 1: realize the true uncertainty of things you recognize, like, oh,
Speaker 1: you know, let me be grateful for my dog who's
Speaker 1: laying here right next to me, because I just don't
Speaker 1: know how much longer that will happen. You know, it
Speaker 1: can m knowledge of uncertainty can also contribute to our
Speaker 1: lives in positive ways. Yeah. Absolutely. I have a friend
Speaker 1: who is, you know, in his early thirties, extremely oppressive athletes,
Speaker 1: eats very healthy, and he had some pain in his
Speaker 1: ankle last year which then was diagnosed as bone cancer
Speaker 1: and needed an amputation and just like you know, had
Speaker 1: a horrendous year and now luckily seems to be in remission.
Speaker 1: But I just remember that experience like it really felt
Speaker 1: like out of nowhere. Yeah. I don't want to use
Speaker 1: his story as like it made me feel really good,
Speaker 1: but it did. It did. It kind of crystallized, like
Speaker 1: out of all of us, He's the last person I
Speaker 1: would have predicted to have such a health crisis at
Speaker 1: this stage, and that it's just like put my own
Speaker 1: health in much more perspective, and I agree with you.
Speaker 1: It made it was like, wow, things like this do happen,
Speaker 1: and it's horrifying. And so even if I'm not having
Speaker 1: a great day, I'm still grateful that generally things are okay.
Speaker 1: And the next question I'm going to ask is, you know,
Speaker 1: as we look at working with emotions and people who
Speaker 1: talk about emotions and theorize about emotions, some people have
Speaker 1: a belief that like thoughts cause our emotions, you know,
Speaker 1: there's a there's a you know, thoughts leading to emotion.
Speaker 1: There's other people that think it's a more complicated than that.
Speaker 1: And when you were talking about anxiety, it made me
Speaker 1: think of that sense of somehow some days you just
Speaker 1: wake up and before you've even had a thought, there's
Speaker 1: a mood, and then it's like every thought gets filtered
Speaker 1: kind of through that mood. Is that sort of what
Speaker 1: you were talking about with like anxiety, Like you wake
Speaker 1: up and it's just, you know, you feel a certain way,
Speaker 1: and now all of a sudden, your thoughts all take
Speaker 1: on the color of that feeling. Absolutely yes. So my
Speaker 1: view is that emotions are often the product of like
Speaker 1: stimuli we're taking in, and it can just be a
Speaker 1: result of our brain chemistry, which is often the cause
Speaker 1: as well. And so I think it depends on how
Speaker 1: you define a thought. But then like the conscious thoughts
Speaker 1: we have get, as you said, filtered through this emotion
Speaker 1: that's coming up. So one example of kind of how
Speaker 1: I consider emotion is way way back in the day,
Speaker 1: if a lion was charging towards you, it was really
Speaker 1: important that you just feel fear right away, that your
Speaker 1: brain was able to process like lion coming, fear, run away,
Speaker 1: and that it wasn't like this very conscious like, oh
Speaker 1: there's a lion, perhaps you know, and you can I
Speaker 1: think you can debate forever if the thought comes first
Speaker 1: what a thought is, but then everything after that is
Speaker 1: filtered through this like physiological response you're having in response
Speaker 1: to that emotion. And with anxiety, I think it's the same, right,
Speaker 1: So if you doom scroll late at night, go to bed,
Speaker 1: have bad dreams, or there's just this like subconscious thing
Speaker 1: running through you that the future is really scary, there's
Speaker 1: always horrible things happening in the world. If you wake up,
Speaker 1: you have this pit you're not even really conscious of
Speaker 1: what thoughts are driving that, But then that starts to
Speaker 1: create these thoughts that might not necessarily be true for
Speaker 1: me personally, which as I've talked to people, I think
Speaker 1: a lot of people experience this. It also generates this
Speaker 1: frantic energy that leads you to kind of exhaust yourself
Speaker 1: in an effort to get over the anxiety. But because
Speaker 1: you're not sitting with it and really trying to understand
Speaker 1: what might be driving it, it's not productive. So to
Speaker 1: give more color to that, I used to wake up,
Speaker 1: especially during the early days of the pandemic, feel so anxious,
Speaker 1: and I would just vacuum the floor, I would answer
Speaker 1: all my emails, I would create all these new projects
Speaker 1: for myself. I would call someone. I would just have
Speaker 1: this to do list and mercilessly bang my way through it.
Speaker 1: And at the end of the day I was just exhausted.
Speaker 1: But I had never stopped to think, why am I anxious?
Speaker 1: Like what can I actually do about that underlying emotion?
Speaker 1: So I just didn't feel any better, actually felt way worse.
Speaker 1: And so I think that's also sometimes it's not even
Speaker 1: that we have thoughts that are helpful. It's like the
Speaker 1: thought becomes I just want to run away from this.
Speaker 1: What can I do? What can I do? And what
Speaker 1: our brain generates is like what I can do next
Speaker 1: often isn't actually what we need to do to address
Speaker 1: the underlying emotion. So what are some tools for working
Speaker 1: with uncertainty? Yeah, so the first is just to stop
Speaker 1: the cycle of what psychologists call anxious fixing. So this
Speaker 1: is you feel anxiety and it feels good to cross
Speaker 1: things off a checklist, and so you do, and you do,
Speaker 1: and you do, but you're not actually addressing that underlying need.
Speaker 1: So it's really just in this case, when you feel
Speaker 1: that overwhelming panic or anxiety, it's to stop and don't
Speaker 1: rush into anything else. Just sit there and say, like
Speaker 1: I'm this moment, I'm very anxious, and then try to
Speaker 1: think through like what are my fears? So anxiety is
Speaker 1: more nebulous, this sort of anxious feeling we have versus
Speaker 1: a fear, which is centered around something specific. And so
Speaker 1: you might say, you know, over the past years, like
Speaker 1: I'm afraid I'll get COVID, I'm afraid someone I love
Speaker 1: will get COVID, and those are terrifying things. But once
Speaker 1: you actually map out the exact fears you have. It's
Speaker 1: easier to start thinking what can I do to prevent that?
Speaker 1: What steps can I take? Versus with anxiety, there's not
Speaker 1: a clear next step, So I think the first piece
Speaker 1: of advice would just be just stop and sit with it.
Speaker 1: As uncomfortable as that might feel in the moment, it's
Speaker 1: really important. And then you sort of led into another
Speaker 1: one there, which is to try and go from vague
Speaker 1: anxiety into more specific fears like what am I really
Speaker 1: afraid of? And you know, the more specific oftentimes the better. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think one thing that came up a lot as
Speaker 1: I was speaking with both experts and then just people
Speaker 1: about this is some people mentioned they find it useful
Speaker 1: to ask themselves what's the worst thing that could happen,
Speaker 1: and then realizing that it's not so bad is comforting
Speaker 1: to them. And so if that works for you, that's great.
Speaker 1: I do want to share that tip. For me personally,
Speaker 1: I can come up with some really dooms day, so
Speaker 1: you know, like, what's the worst thing that can happen.
Speaker 1: I'm very creative when it comes as to this question.
Speaker 1: So if that's you, I would not ask that, or
Speaker 1: I would say what's the worst thing that could happen,
Speaker 1: and then follow it up with what's the best thing
Speaker 1: that could happen, and what is the likelihood that the
Speaker 1: worst thing happens? Because often it's like, yeah, I dreamed
Speaker 1: up this nightmare scenario, but it's extremely unlikely that that's
Speaker 1: actually what's going to happen tomorrow. And so it's important
Speaker 1: to keep that in mind as well. Makes me laugh.
Speaker 1: My partner's mom has Alzheimer's that that does not make
Speaker 1: me laugh, but within that, you know, humor is helpful.
Speaker 1: And she would get these anxious fears, and so I
Speaker 1: would try and reason with her, like she was always
Speaker 1: afraid she was going to starve to death, and I'd
Speaker 1: be like, what you're not, you know, and I'd start
Speaker 1: going into why she's not going to starve to death.
Speaker 1: Every time she would just come up with a more
Speaker 1: and more fantastical story about how this was going to happen.
Speaker 1: And I just after a while, I realized, like this,
Speaker 1: this is this is not working, like, you know, like
Speaker 1: this is one where her ability to dream up scenarios
Speaker 1: is well beyond my ability to you know, come up
Speaker 1: with contingency plans. And I know some people who are
Speaker 1: like that also like, you know, what's the worst thing
Speaker 1: that can happen? They've got some doozies, you know. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: that's definitely me. What's the worst thing that can happen
Speaker 1: for me is generally a pretty good one, you know,
Speaker 1: because I'll go like, well, you know, I guess we
Speaker 1: won't make any money. If we don't make any money
Speaker 1: for a few months, you know, I'll figure it out,
Speaker 1: which sort of leads me to another one of your
Speaker 1: tips for uncertainty, which is to sort of reflect on
Speaker 1: moments that bring you confidence or reflect on your ability
Speaker 1: to cope with what uncertainty brings. Yeah, so this is
Speaker 1: I think one of the best ways to navigate uncertainty.
Speaker 1: It's not about creating confidence for yourself that something is
Speaker 1: going to happen at a future point in time, because,
Speaker 1: like we said, you can't really do that. It's about
Speaker 1: building confidence that you will be able to handle it.
Speaker 1: And so one great way to do that is to
Speaker 1: look back and try to find moments when you were
Speaker 1: overwhelmed or you didn't think you could make it through
Speaker 1: an experience and you did so. For example, I actually,
Speaker 1: for I don't know, twenty years struggled with a really
Speaker 1: intense needle phobia and I went to a cognitive behavioral
Speaker 1: therapy to overcome it. But it was an example of
Speaker 1: where my anxiety was absolutely not proportional to the risk. Right, Like,
Speaker 1: getting your blood drawn is a very low risk procedure,
Speaker 1: and I like faint. I couldn't sleep for days, I
Speaker 1: would avoid going to the doctor because I just didn't
Speaker 1: even want to risk meeting blood work. And so through CBT,
Speaker 1: I was able to gradually, like expose myself to the
Speaker 1: situation more and more. And now it's still an unpleasant experience.
Speaker 1: But every time I feel this fear, I remind myself
Speaker 1: think back to the last blood draw, where everything was fine,
Speaker 1: you didn't pass out, you were able to make it through.
Speaker 1: And so every subsequent blood draw has been easier and
Speaker 1: easier because I've built that confidence in myself. And so
Speaker 1: the same thing can be applied to uncertainty. If you've
Speaker 1: gone through something really hard, often we wish we hadn't
Speaker 1: had to go through that hard thing, but you can
Speaker 1: take away the lesson that you are capable of surviving
Speaker 1: it and of making it through. And one quick phrase
Speaker 1: I want to end with on this is I found
Speaker 1: it so valuable to also tell myself I am a
Speaker 1: person learning to X so when you're confronted with uncertainty,
Speaker 1: saying like I need to have it all figured out
Speaker 1: right now, I can't do this. Just I'm a person
Speaker 1: learning to continue to move through uncertainty, and I've done
Speaker 1: it before and there's lessons there. But I'm still going
Speaker 1: to find new ways to do it. And I think
Speaker 1: that phrase can really help you shift your mindset to
Speaker 1: be more open to It's okay, I will make it
Speaker 1: through this. Excellent. Well, let's move on to I think
Speaker 1: you chose perfectionism as your next one, right, I did. Yes,
Speaker 1: this is a big one for me. Tell us about
Speaker 1: your perfectionism. Yeah, my perfectionism definitely manifest in my work.
Speaker 1: So just I think becoming overly obsessive with getting to
Speaker 1: a versus you know, saying like in this case actually
Speaker 1: is more than an help and it's actually better for
Speaker 1: everyone if I don't spend more time on this. But
Speaker 1: it also has shown up a lot in my personal relationships.
Speaker 1: So when I first started dating my now husband, I
Speaker 1: felt in many ways that I was two people, and
Speaker 1: the first was me, who sometimes you know, likes to
Speaker 1: stand in my kitchen and radial pajamas and eat cheese
Speaker 1: directly from the fridge. And then the person that I
Speaker 1: was when we were dating and not living together, which
Speaker 1: I always you know, I would put on makeup and
Speaker 1: tried to be funny and gregarious and have stories and
Speaker 1: would eat really politely. And then when the relationship was
Speaker 1: going well, and then we talked about moving in together,
Speaker 1: and that was terrifying for me because I was like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, he's going to discover this person that's
Speaker 1: so different, that's kind of a mess, that has anxiety
Speaker 1: attacks at night. I just hidden that all away because
Speaker 1: I really thought that to be in a relationship, to
Speaker 1: have someone love you, you just had to be perfect
Speaker 1: and you had to be fun to be around all
Speaker 1: the time. So it's for a lot of my life
Speaker 1: shown up sort of in every facet of both professional
Speaker 1: and personal life. Before we get into coping tools, let's
Speaker 1: follow the way we've been going, which is, what's a
Speaker 1: couple of myths people have about perfectionism. So one myth
Speaker 1: is that you're not a perfectionist. And I think people
Speaker 1: who have perfectionist tendencies often they're so hard on themselves
Speaker 1: that it's incomprehensible to them that they'd be a perfectionist,
Speaker 1: because they're like, I'm not perfect. I'm a complete failure.
Speaker 1: I'm not perfectly dressed for every situation. I don't ace
Speaker 1: every single presentation at work. How can I be a perfectionist?
Speaker 1: And perfectionism is not about like color coded folders and
Speaker 1: looking a certain way or behaving a certain way. It's
Speaker 1: about desperately trying to avoid failing. So it's one thing
Speaker 1: to aim for a hundred percent on the test and
Speaker 1: get ninety percent and feel pretty good. It's another to
Speaker 1: aim for a hundred to get ninety eight and then
Speaker 1: beat yourself up because you didn't get that one question.
Speaker 1: And that's perfectionism. So I think, being honest with yourself,
Speaker 1: that you might have these tendencies even if you don't
Speaker 1: think of yourself as perfect or perfectionist. And then another
Speaker 1: one is that perfectionism helps us. I think a lot
Speaker 1: of myself included. It was like if I abandoned this,
Speaker 1: if I try to move away from these thoughts or tendencies,
Speaker 1: I'll turn into a couch potato and I won't have
Speaker 1: any drive and I'll just be a complete basket case.
Speaker 1: On the floor, when in fact, perfectionism, a lot of
Speaker 1: research shows, makes you focus so much on this fear
Speaker 1: of failure that it holds you back much more than
Speaker 1: it helps you move forward. So the two are you
Speaker 1: might have perfectionist tendencies even if you don't think, and
Speaker 1: then once you accept that it's okay to move away
Speaker 1: from them, they are not as helpful as you think
Speaker 1: they are. Yeah. And then the third myth is what
Speaker 1: you sort of hit on in your personal story, which is,
Speaker 1: you know, I have to be perfect to be valued. Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: and I think that for many people shows up in
Speaker 1: their personal lives. Yep, yep. How have you worked with
Speaker 1: perfection in your own life? And then you know, we
Speaker 1: can go into some of the tools from the book,
Speaker 1: But I'm just kind of curious, like in your personal life,
Speaker 1: like that's a big one, you know, have you worked
Speaker 1: through that? Yeah? So I did see a therapist, which
Speaker 1: was really helpful. And the story I share in the
Speaker 1: book that has stuck with me the most is my
Speaker 1: therapist asked me to recall a time, like just a
Speaker 1: really great experience I had with a pet and I
Speaker 1: remember this like grumpy Persian cat that I used to
Speaker 1: cat sit and she you know, she had the face
Speaker 1: that indicated she hated everyone, and she had a breathing
Speaker 1: problem at that point, so she would have these little snorts.
Speaker 1: And I adored this cat, and she would, you know,
Speaker 1: she would just like come and sit, and sometimes she
Speaker 1: looked she seemed like irritated and was there but just
Speaker 1: by sitting there, Like, I just liked to be around
Speaker 1: this cat. And my therapist said, isn't it possible that,
Speaker 1: like your boyfriend just likes to be around you, and
Speaker 1: even if you're just sitting on the couch and you're
Speaker 1: not telling a joke and you don't look a certain way,
Speaker 1: that there's just a lot of comfort and having another
Speaker 1: person be there, even if they're just being there. And
Speaker 1: so that is something. And I also think about my mom.
Speaker 1: If I call her, I have a close relationship with her,
Speaker 1: it helps me feel better. And that's how I felt
Speaker 1: about my boyfriend, Like he didn't you know, if you
Speaker 1: just woke up and had bad head and everything, like
Speaker 1: I don't know, I just love that he was there,
Speaker 1: And so starting to see things from that perspective. And
Speaker 1: then the second was also actually one of the tips
Speaker 1: that is in the book too, is about moving away
Speaker 1: from avoidance goals to approach goals. And so an avoidance
Speaker 1: goal is avoiding failure, so I don't want him to
Speaker 1: see me without makeup, and an approach goal is about
Speaker 1: attaining something positive, and an approach goal is inherently more
Speaker 1: exciting and you feel good when you reach it, right, Like,
Speaker 1: if you just avoid failure, that's not an inspiring goal.
Speaker 1: You're going to avoid failure, and you know, it's like great, Okay,
Speaker 1: I don't get anything out of this. So in the
Speaker 1: context of that relationship, an approach goal might have been
Speaker 1: I'm gonna put on my ratty pajamas and I'm gonna
Speaker 1: show him my favorite cheese and We're actually gonna have
Speaker 1: like a fun time eating cheese out of the fridge together,
Speaker 1: you know, and like that it was just like opening
Speaker 1: up a little more. But it was also it culminated
Speaker 1: in this like really fun bonding experience. And so often
Speaker 1: we we just get into this mindset of I don't
Speaker 1: want to mess up this presentation, and instead, if we
Speaker 1: think free of expectations, how can I just really show
Speaker 1: people how excited I am about the material? And that's
Speaker 1: a really different way of starting to work on that
Speaker 1: presentation you talked about not needing to get things to
Speaker 1: a as being you know one thing to do. How
Speaker 1: do you start to know within yourself when you're sort
Speaker 1: of in that zone of like, Okay, I'm spending a
Speaker 1: ton of extra time to get very little value out
Speaker 1: of that. How do you know that? Because I think
Speaker 1: that's hard for perfectionists. And then secondly, once you know that,
Speaker 1: what are some of the things you might say to
Speaker 1: yourself to actually get you to set it down and
Speaker 1: move on. Yeah, So one question that I found helpful
Speaker 1: is when what I'd be ready to ask someone for
Speaker 1: feedback and they could give me useful feedback. Usually if
Speaker 1: you get to a hundred percent, you're actually not open
Speaker 1: to feedback anymore because you're like this is great, I
Speaker 1: don't why should I need anyone to help. That's interesting
Speaker 1: Like if I'm let's say I'm writing an article, I
Speaker 1: also can't hand someone a page that just has completely
Speaker 1: incomprehensible notes on it. They're not going to give me feedback.
Speaker 1: So I think that's the nice heuristic of like one
Speaker 1: of this in enough shape where someone gets where I'm
Speaker 1: going and they can provide useful direction. I think that's one,
Speaker 1: and then I think it's also just opening yourself to learning,
Speaker 1: and so saying another thing that I found useful is
Speaker 1: if I am in a silo working on this till
Speaker 1: a hundred percent, I might get to a percent and
Speaker 1: realize this is not something that resonates with people or
Speaker 1: not what my boss wanted. So I'm actually creating more
Speaker 1: work for everyone as opposed to like handing it to
Speaker 1: her at like se and then maybe making some course corrections.
Speaker 1: So it's about creating some breaks for yourself. And then
Speaker 1: also I really like this question of like when would
Speaker 1: this be ready for feedback? Yeah, my partner and I
Speaker 1: were talking about that recently, in that, you know, when
Speaker 1: I'm giving a talk for our Spiritual Habits program or
Speaker 1: you know, the second Spiritual Habit Circle of Connection she
Speaker 1: co teaches. But I tend to start the lessons and
Speaker 1: what I realized was exactly what you just said, although
Speaker 1: I wouldn't articulate it as well, which is that I
Speaker 1: think I'm almost done by the time I bring her in,
Speaker 1: and at that point, I don't really want feedback because
Speaker 1: what I wanted to be done, you know, like I
Speaker 1: think I'm done, you know, and so we talked about, like,
Speaker 1: I got to bring her in, like there's got to
Speaker 1: be enough there for her to critique to your point, Like,
Speaker 1: but I need to bring her in much earlier, because
Speaker 1: I may be way more open to feedback at that
Speaker 1: point and not take it in the way that I
Speaker 1: you know, sometimes I just get a little grumpy, you know,
Speaker 1: And the more time I spend with it, sometimes the
Speaker 1: more attached I get to the way it is totally,
Speaker 1: which is in the music business, we used to call
Speaker 1: it rough mixitis. Right, You've listened to it this certain way,
Speaker 1: in this rough mix for so long that that's how
Speaker 1: you think it should sound, and somebody comes along and
Speaker 1: may have a much better mix, but you're not open
Speaker 1: to it because you're sort of mired in in what
Speaker 1: your idea of it was. Yeah. I love those examples.
Speaker 1: That's exactly what I'm talking about. You also talk about
Speaker 1: one of my very favorite topics, which is how extreme
Speaker 1: language can cause extreme motion, and you talk about getting
Speaker 1: rid of always and never. Yeah, so those are two
Speaker 1: words that usually show you've slipped into your perfectionist tendencies
Speaker 1: and that your self reflection has turned self destructive. So
Speaker 1: examples are good parents never yell at their kids. Great
Speaker 1: employees are always turning everything in five days before the deadline,
Speaker 1: and those are extreme view of the world that just
Speaker 1: aren't true. So again, it's usually a sign that whatever
Speaker 1: thought is banging around your brain is not an accurate
Speaker 1: perception of reality. And so I think it's nice to
Speaker 1: have those words so that when you notice them, say like, oh, okay,
Speaker 1: I see what's happening here. I need to think about
Speaker 1: this differently. So you know, like good parents never feel
Speaker 1: frustrated that their kids, and actually, like good parents do
Speaker 1: feel frustrated. It's totally fine. How can I just navigate
Speaker 1: through this situation? How can I make it better? In
Speaker 1: a work context, you know, great employees or employes who
Speaker 1: get promoted never make mistakes, also not true, and so
Speaker 1: it allows you to step back from that and say,
Speaker 1: a mini mistake, Can I ask my boss for advice
Speaker 1: on how to avoid making that mistake in the future.
Speaker 1: I think it just allows you to detach a little
Speaker 1: bit from these extreme ways of thinking that cause us
Speaker 1: to burrate ourselves and then start to feel really down
Speaker 1: and low. Yeah, those two words tend to be destructive
Speaker 1: wherever they show up, whether or it's in our own lives,
Speaker 1: Like you said, a good parents should never get angry,
Speaker 1: or when we're communicating to somebody else, you always do this,
Speaker 1: or you never do that, you know, like they just
Speaker 1: they're troublesome words. Yeah, I love that you brought up
Speaker 1: to in communication and conversation. You know, if you say
Speaker 1: you always do acts, that person is just immediately going
Speaker 1: to come up with an example of when they didn't
Speaker 1: do it. It's not a useful conversation. I'm sure I've
Speaker 1: done plenty of the saying always there never, but I
Speaker 1: know for sure I've been in relationships with people who
Speaker 1: have used those phrases, and you're right, I'm I'm immediately like,
Speaker 1: but that's not true, you know, like you know, which
Speaker 1: is missing. The point to a more nuanced version of
Speaker 1: me would be like, all right, I understand what they're saying.
Speaker 1: Underneath ignore the word. You know, that's a feeling. But
Speaker 1: but it's very hard, it's very hard to not counter
Speaker 1: you know, a factual incorrectness there. Ye h h h.
Speaker 1: You talk about naming your inner perfectionist and finding a
Speaker 1: non perfectionist role model, say a little more about that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So it's again of method to allow yourself to distance
Speaker 1: yourself from your thoughts, and so you know, for your
Speaker 1: perfectionist it might be a part of you that is
Speaker 1: useful to engage with sometimes, but you don't want it
Speaker 1: to consume all of you, and so calling your perfectionist,
Speaker 1: I think in the book we give examples of like
Speaker 1: Grace or Darth Vader or Bozo. It can be a
Speaker 1: goofy name whatever feels good to you. And then when
Speaker 1: you start to have these thoughts like good parents always
Speaker 1: do X, great employees never do, why saying like, oh,
Speaker 1: that's Bob, my inner perfectionist, And I'm actually going to say,
Speaker 1: like what does Bob want in this moment? Right? Like
Speaker 1: there actually might be some useful information in there, like
Speaker 1: Bob really wants to be a great employee. It's useful
Speaker 1: to know that, like, oh, I do want to do
Speaker 1: well in this job, but you're not sort of like
Speaker 1: leaning into those emotions and taking them or those thoughts
Speaker 1: and taking them as fact. And then a non perfectionist
Speaker 1: role model. I think it's actually really useful if there's
Speaker 1: someone at work that you really admire, a mentor just
Speaker 1: someone in your personal life, to also note when they
Speaker 1: flubb something or they don't immediately respond to an email,
Speaker 1: because again, I think it helps you realize that everyone
Speaker 1: makes mistakes. No one is like on their A game seven,
Speaker 1: and so you can still be successful and impressive and
Speaker 1: this incredible person in someone's life even if you're not,
Speaker 1: you know, striking a home run every second of the day.
Speaker 1: If anyone needs a clear example of non perfection in
Speaker 1: their life, I offer myself up. Say I love that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I love naming my inner characters. I've shared often,
Speaker 1: you know about my inner depressive tendency. Person is your
Speaker 1: you know, from Winnie the Pooh, you know, And it
Speaker 1: makes me kind of laugh every time I start putting
Speaker 1: my thoughts in your's voice. You know it's good. So
Speaker 1: I've had people asking me if I would record whole
Speaker 1: guided meditations for them in your's voice, but I have
Speaker 1: stayed away from that for now. All right, now, it's
Speaker 1: my turn to pick a a I've got a bug
Speaker 1: flying around here. I'm not going to fall into the
Speaker 1: perfectest idea of that, like you should never have a
Speaker 1: bug in your house. Yeah, bugs are everywhere, They're everywhere. Yes,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna pick my big feeling and I'm going to
Speaker 1: go with comparison, not actually because it's one of the
Speaker 1: ones that I struggle with as much, because I actually
Speaker 1: don't as much anymore in my life. But it's one
Speaker 1: I know a lot of people do struggle with. And
Speaker 1: I found a lot of the things you guys had
Speaker 1: to say about it, in a lot of cases counterintuitive
Speaker 1: and counter to what people think. So let's talk a
Speaker 1: little bit about comparison. It can be one of the
Speaker 1: most painful big feelings out there. What are a couple
Speaker 1: of the myths around comparison. Yeah, I think nowadays so
Speaker 1: much of the conversation centers around social media, and so
Speaker 1: I think it's easy then to assume if I get
Speaker 1: off of Instagram or Facebook, I will be free of comparison,
Speaker 1: and that's just not true. There's infinite examples of like
Speaker 1: you know, your neighbor, your colleague, whatever, You're still going
Speaker 1: to compare yourself to people. So it can be absolutely
Speaker 1: helpful to limit social media intake, but it's not sort
Speaker 1: of the magic wand with which you can eradicate all
Speaker 1: of these emotions. The second one that we talked about
Speaker 1: in the book is if you just get to a
Speaker 1: certain point, you'll feel great about yourself. And you'll never
Speaker 1: compare yourself to anyone else. You know, it's very true
Speaker 1: that there's always going to be someone who is better
Speaker 1: than you, quote unquote on sub metric. If you have
Speaker 1: infinite money, you're suddenly going to turn to like looks
Speaker 1: or I don't know, access to some whatever or maybe
Speaker 1: even like meaning or whatever it is. You're just you
Speaker 1: can never be the best at everything. And so I
Speaker 1: think it's really useful to catch yourself when you hear
Speaker 1: yourself saying like, I'll be happy when blank, because the
Speaker 1: truth is that's not guaranteed, and it's more important to
Speaker 1: figure out how to be happy with what you have.
Speaker 1: Those are two big ones. And then the one that
Speaker 1: I find the most interesting, which we stumbled across this
Speaker 1: research a couple of years ago and it's been really
Speaker 1: helpful to me, is that to overcome comparison or of envy,
Speaker 1: you should compare yourself less. So that's the myth is
Speaker 1: that just like, don't look at other people, And the
Speaker 1: truth is it's actually research shows makes you feel better
Speaker 1: to compare yourself. More so, if the researchers find is
Speaker 1: they asked people like, how good of a runner do
Speaker 1: you think you are? And people said they were not
Speaker 1: good runners because in their head they thought of the
Speaker 1: absolute best runner they knew. But when the researchers said,
Speaker 1: list out in your life ten people you know personally
Speaker 1: and how well they run, and now evaluate how good
Speaker 1: of a runner you are, people were like, oh, I'm
Speaker 1: pretty good. And so it's like, I think it's really
Speaker 1: easy if we think about, you know, how successful am I?
Speaker 1: We think about Mark Zuckerberg and we're like, I'm so unsuccessful.
Speaker 1: But then if you actually put it into perspective, like
Speaker 1: you're in the top five percent of all money brackets
Speaker 1: or what or whatever it might be, or you think
Speaker 1: about your peer group, you're usually not like far far
Speaker 1: far behind everyone else. And so I think actually having
Speaker 1: a wider comparison range can put things into better perspective. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I also think that ideas around what types of comparison
Speaker 1: can actually be helpful is really interesting. Yeah. Absolutely, So
Speaker 1: comparison is sort of inevitable. So then it starts you
Speaker 1: start to think about when I have when I noticed
Speaker 1: myself comparing or I noticed myself being envious of someone,
Speaker 1: what is helpful to me and what is harmful? And
Speaker 1: so what is helpful is to take a step back
Speaker 1: from that emotion and say, what is my envy telling me?
Speaker 1: So envy can reveal what you value. So it might
Speaker 1: be you really envia colleague who just got promoted, and
Speaker 1: what you learn is that maybe you really want to
Speaker 1: be promoted to or you really want to do well.
Speaker 1: But then it's still useful to kind of drill down
Speaker 1: of like, yes, you want that, but do you want
Speaker 1: the day to day of that? Because it might be
Speaker 1: that you're envious of a CEO because they're successful and
Speaker 1: you've been sort of socialized to want to be the
Speaker 1: most successful, But do you actually want to do everything
Speaker 1: it takes to be a CEO? Is that the work
Speaker 1: life balance you want is that you want to make
Speaker 1: the same sacrifices And so I think it's about really
Speaker 1: asking yourself this series of questions that can then highlight
Speaker 1: when the comparison isn't useful and it's flawed, and then
Speaker 1: it allows you to more easily step away from it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I really love that idea of really thinking about I'm
Speaker 1: looking at this thing that I think I want, what
Speaker 1: does that really entail? What do I really need to
Speaker 1: do to get there? What are some questions that are
Speaker 1: helpful for getting into that. I think you guys call
Speaker 1: it the nitty gritty, right, getting into the nitty gritty
Speaker 1: of like I look at somebody and I'm comparing myself.
Speaker 1: The CEO one is A is a great one. You know,
Speaker 1: I could think about I could look at somebody a
Speaker 1: male model, Men's healthcover model, and look at them like, well,
Speaker 1: I want to look like that. Well, when I think
Speaker 1: about the way that guy has to live, yeah, I
Speaker 1: suddenly go ah, well, you know, I think I'm doing okay,
Speaker 1: you know, like I'm not sure that I want that life. Yeah, absolutely, Yeah.
Speaker 1: So I think the first question is just like what
Speaker 1: do they have that makes me feel less than than
Speaker 1: that example, It's like they have whatever this body that
Speaker 1: is on the cover of a magazine. And then it's
Speaker 1: also useful to think about like do I really want that?
Speaker 1: And am I willing to, like you just said, like
Speaker 1: live the life that would lead to that, And often
Speaker 1: we say no. So one example I share in the
Speaker 1: book is I'm an introvert. The worst days or when
Speaker 1: I have like back to back meetings, I'm just exhausted,
Speaker 1: and I have a friend who's very successful, was promoted
Speaker 1: and like took over a team of two hundred people,
Speaker 1: and I initially was really envious of her, and then
Speaker 1: I saw her Google calendar and it's just like, Nope,
Speaker 1: you know, I can not do that, that it's not
Speaker 1: for me. And then it just really helped those feelings
Speaker 1: a bait quite a bit. So I think the day
Speaker 1: to day question is really great. But then it's also
Speaker 1: useful to ask, like what void would having that fill,
Speaker 1: because often we anchored too much on the specific thing
Speaker 1: versus like what actually is like the bigger need behind
Speaker 1: the feeling of envy. So it might be that it's
Speaker 1: not really that you want the body that's on the
Speaker 1: cover of magazine. You just wish you could feel more confident.
Speaker 1: And then it's useful to think, like, oh, there's actually
Speaker 1: many other ways that I can improve my confidence that
Speaker 1: don't have to do with me, like never touching anything
Speaker 1: with sugar in it again, Right, I just go over
Speaker 1: to Chris's and look at his body and I suddenly
Speaker 1: feel way way better. It's not nice, and I'm just kidding.
Speaker 1: I'm just kidding. You've got a question in there too
Speaker 1: that I love, which is, you know, swap out the
Speaker 1: question why don't I have that with do I have enough? Yeah, again,
Speaker 1: it's so easy for us to anchor our comparison benchmark
Speaker 1: on people who are better than us or not better
Speaker 1: but like seem like they're doing better. That was in
Speaker 1: correct wording, and it is then really useful to think, like, actually,
Speaker 1: I'm pretty happy with my life, and you know, I
Speaker 1: don't want for many things, and so right now I'm
Speaker 1: really just comparing myself to this. Maybe ten thousand extra
Speaker 1: dollars you know, every two years would be really nice,
Speaker 1: but fundamentally, like I live in a safe country with
Speaker 1: a stable government, and like it's just useful to remind
Speaker 1: yourself of that as well of like all that you have,
Speaker 1: as opposed to only focusing on everything you do not have. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I had a moment. I've shared this a couple of
Speaker 1: times on the podcast, but it was a really poignant
Speaker 1: moment for me. It was years ago. We were relatively
Speaker 1: early in doing the podcast, and we went out to
Speaker 1: l A and we interviewed Lewis House, who is going
Speaker 1: to be a huge podcasting It's been on like Ellen
Speaker 1: and all this stuf. And so he had this really
Speaker 1: nice apartment in Hollywood and I went out on this
Speaker 1: balcony and I was just looking down at the view
Speaker 1: and I was just thinking, like, man, Louis has got
Speaker 1: it all, like wow, this is incredible and feeling, you know,
Speaker 1: a little bit of envy. And I looked up over
Speaker 1: my shoulder and what I saw were these just incredible
Speaker 1: houses on the hill, and I went, you know what,
Speaker 1: I bet Louis looks over his shoulder at those houses.
Speaker 1: And to your point that that never ends, that is
Speaker 1: an endless process. And so that's one of the best
Speaker 1: things for me. And why I like that question of
Speaker 1: you know, do I have enough? Is when I really
Speaker 1: start to recognize that. Again, I think what you're saying
Speaker 1: is that recognizing what we're envious can tell us a
Speaker 1: little bit about what we value, which is true, and
Speaker 1: sometimes it can be really helpful to realize this thing
Speaker 1: that I think if I had it, then I would
Speaker 1: just that I would be happy to realize, Like that's
Speaker 1: not true, Like the happiness doesn't work that way. It
Speaker 1: doesn't come from like, oh, if I just was in
Speaker 1: Bali this week like those people are, I would be happy.
Speaker 1: Like that's not true. I've been on vacation and beautiful
Speaker 1: places and been perfectly miserable. You know, it just helps
Speaker 1: me to recognize that sort of unwind some of those feelings. Yeah. Same,
Speaker 1: I've also been, you know, on the trip of a
Speaker 1: lifetime and just been not happy at all. It's in
Speaker 1: the book when you talk about something called the new level,
Speaker 1: new devil phenomenon, which is actually from video games, but
Speaker 1: it's often yet it's like when I achieve X, I'll
Speaker 1: be happy. So it might be when I become a manager,
Speaker 1: I'll be happy. But when you become that, your peer
Speaker 1: group also changes somewhat, and so now everyone around you
Speaker 1: is also a manager, because now you're going to manage
Speaker 1: your meetings, and so it's sort of normalizes this thing
Speaker 1: that seemed really unattainable at some point, and so you
Speaker 1: just start looking upwards again. So it's kind of like
Speaker 1: whatever level you get to, there will be a new
Speaker 1: devil of the new thing that would quote unquote make
Speaker 1: you happy. Yeah, we've talked about it is sort of that,
Speaker 1: you know, if this thing, then I'll be happy. And
Speaker 1: one of the things that a getting older and be
Speaker 1: having some degree of success will do for you. It
Speaker 1: doesn't always do this, but it can confer a certain
Speaker 1: degree of wisdom because you have enough opportunities where you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: I got what I thought I wanted, and look it
Speaker 1: didn't do it right, Like it didn't fix me, you know,
Speaker 1: it didn't, And and you really start to go, oh, okay,
Speaker 1: you know, what are the skills that I can have
Speaker 1: that allow me to actually inhabit where I'm at right
Speaker 1: now more fully? Yeah, totally is a way through that. Well,
Speaker 1: we're nearing the end of time. What other things from
Speaker 1: the book really stood out to you or from this
Speaker 1: work that you feel like would be really helpful for
Speaker 1: listeners as as a last couple of things if anything
Speaker 1: comes to mind. If not, I can certainly draw up
Speaker 1: another question or two. But yeah, I think something that
Speaker 1: I found really valuable actually comes from our chapter on
Speaker 1: to Spare, and it's this concept of time chunking, which is,
Speaker 1: you know, the emotions we're talking about are really hard.
Speaker 1: There's often messaging that's like, you know, this was meant
Speaker 1: to happen for a reason. You know this is a
Speaker 1: learning experience, and that you know, like it's a sure
Speaker 1: Maybe it's a learning experience the year from now, maybe
Speaker 1: you can look back on it and craft a meaningful story.
Speaker 1: But I think most of us, something like grief or
Speaker 1: deep regret. We'd rather not experience it. And so in
Speaker 1: those moments when it's just like so so hard, I
Speaker 1: think it's so easy to be like this is how
Speaker 1: I'm going to feel forever. And what I found really
Speaker 1: valuable is time chunking, which is then I need to
Speaker 1: get through the next hour, and it might be like
Speaker 1: I need to get through the next moment, and then
Speaker 1: I need to get through the moment after that. I
Speaker 1: think it's fine to say there are days when my
Speaker 1: goal for the day is to make it through the day,
Speaker 1: you know, and like, just what do I need to
Speaker 1: do today? Because maybe after a sleep, tomorrow will look
Speaker 1: a little different. Maybe I just need to like watch
Speaker 1: Netflix all day. Maybe I need to, you know, like
Speaker 1: fly on the couch and just be sad. And often
Speaker 1: when we talk about these big emotions, there's not enough
Speaker 1: that's focused on just like how do you just make
Speaker 1: it through when you're in the worst of it, And
Speaker 1: in those moments when it's actually hard to believe there's
Speaker 1: a better and it's hard to believe that this will
Speaker 1: ever be a memory that is meaningful has created meeting
Speaker 1: for you, And I think it really comes down to
Speaker 1: like one foot in front of the other, or like
Speaker 1: one breath at a time if you're lying down and
Speaker 1: can't get up. The time chunking is something I've come
Speaker 1: back to, yeah, as a recovering alcoholic, right, I mean
Speaker 1: a I think is the place that sort of probably
Speaker 1: didn't invent it, but certainly the place that made one
Speaker 1: day at a time, like the popular phrase that it
Speaker 1: became because it's so valuable. You know, when you're first
Speaker 1: getting sober, it's so overwhelming to contemplate like I have
Speaker 1: to do this forever? Are you out of your mind?
Speaker 1: Like there's no possible way. So okay, just today, And
Speaker 1: like you said, sometimes it's like just this hour, just
Speaker 1: don't take a drink this hour and hope that something shifts. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that time chunking is such a valuable skill to be
Speaker 1: able to do. And I love what you said about
Speaker 1: recognizing like, Okay, maybe this is a growth lesson and
Speaker 1: I'm going to grow from. This is one of those
Speaker 1: things that I always find it when somebody's in despair.
Speaker 1: I feel like I'm always trying to balance when I'm
Speaker 1: trying to help somebody who's in despair, Like ninety seven
Speaker 1: percent of me is going I feel you. I simple
Speaker 1: like I'm with you. Three percent of me wants you
Speaker 1: just to keep your eye just a little bit on
Speaker 1: the horizon that says like this is going somewhere for you,
Speaker 1: so not to minimize what you're feeling. Like the vast
Speaker 1: majority of it is like it's okay not to be okay.
Speaker 1: And I know when I've been in despair, it's always
Speaker 1: helpful to have just a little bit of looking at
Speaker 1: the horizon where I realized, like this will change, I'm
Speaker 1: going to grow from this. What's the right balance of that?
Speaker 1: I think is always challenging, but I find it really
Speaker 1: helpful to have both those things in my awareness a
Speaker 1: little bit. Yeah, absolutely, I think that often when someone
Speaker 1: comes to us or when we just notice that they're
Speaker 1: suffering or going through something, it feels good to like, Okay,
Speaker 1: have solutions. I'm going to help you fixure this. And
Speaker 1: that's not a bad thing necessarily, but I agree with you.
Speaker 1: It's like, first you just need to say, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe I don't totally know what you're going through, but
Speaker 1: I acknowledge that, like this is really hard, and I'm
Speaker 1: here for you, and you know, just like it's okay.
Speaker 1: Whatever you're feeling, it's okay, I'm here. And I think
Speaker 1: that is just so so crucial before you start doing this,
Speaker 1: like it'll get better or there's like a light at
Speaker 1: the end of the tunnel type thing. I think too
Speaker 1: often we just skipped that part entirely. Yeah, there's a
Speaker 1: psychologist at the University of Michigan. His name is Ethan Cross,
Speaker 1: and he wrote a book called Chatter. I don't know
Speaker 1: if you're familiar with it, but he had some really
Speaker 1: interesting studies about helping people who are going through really
Speaker 1: difficult times. And what these studies seem to point to
Speaker 1: was only sympathizing with people didn't lead to good results,
Speaker 1: that you did need some degree of that solution oriented peace,
Speaker 1: And when I was reading it, it it just sort of
Speaker 1: struck me the like, of course, it's both right. We
Speaker 1: all know if you skip right past the empathy sympathy
Speaker 1: part of the game and you try and shepherd somebody
Speaker 1: right to solutions like that doesn't work. Nobody wants Nobody
Speaker 1: wants that. So it is a matter of like, Okay,
Speaker 1: how can I be with you in this first and
Speaker 1: how long that takes really depends on the person right,
Speaker 1: Like I can't say, like, well, all right, I gave
Speaker 1: you your fifteen minutes and now we're going to talk solutions,
Speaker 1: like it really does depend on the thing. But I
Speaker 1: found the research interesting that it sort of said you
Speaker 1: kind of need both, and it made me think about
Speaker 1: the argument that I here a lot between men and
Speaker 1: women where you know, women are saying I just need
Speaker 1: you to hear me, and men just want to solve
Speaker 1: the problem. And when I was reading it, I went like,
Speaker 1: we're both right, Like there's value in both of those.
Speaker 1: How do we make sure that they're both there? But
Speaker 1: you can't get to the second one. I don't think
Speaker 1: effectively without the first one. Totally. Yeah, I agree with
Speaker 1: all of that, and that research is super interesting. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for coming on the show. It
Speaker 1: is such a pleasure to have you back on. I
Speaker 1: love the book, Like I said, I love the way
Speaker 1: it's organized, I love the title how to Be Okay
Speaker 1: When Things Aren't Okay, And I love the drawings. It's
Speaker 1: really well done. We'll have links in the show notes
Speaker 1: to where people can get access to you and the
Speaker 1: book and all of that. Um is therey where you
Speaker 1: want to point people to now shout outs. The book
Speaker 1: is available everywhere books are sold, so hopefully you can
Speaker 1: drag it out. Yeah yeah, and it's called Big Feelings
Speaker 1: How to be Okay when things are not okay. Thanks again, Liz,
Speaker 1: it's always lovely to see you you too, Thanks for
Speaker 1: having me. If what you just heard was helpful to you,
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