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