Latest / Hardiness with Dr Paul Taylor / Can We Really Choose Our Attitude?

Transcript

Can We Really Choose Our Attitude? · Hardiness with Dr Paul Taylor

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Hey everyone, welcome to this week's Mojo Monday. I have
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: just re-read Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning. It was
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: part of an online book club that I'm in. If
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: you're not familiar with Frankel, he was a psychiatrist who
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: survived the Nazi concentration camps. It is an amazing book.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: I think everyone should read it and reread it. He
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: talks about what he went through, also what he observed
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: in his fellow prisoners and how they behaved under such
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: horrific and unimaginable conditions. And in our book club discussion,
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: someone raised a question about one of Frankl's best known ideas.
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: And it actually reminded me that it's something that I
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: had been thinking about that I wasn't completely clear on.
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: So what it is, is Frankl describes what he calls
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: the last of the human freedoms, to choose one's attitude
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: in any given circumstances, to choose one's way. So this
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: was written... by someone who had almost every other freedom
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: taken away from him. So it's a really powerful idea.
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: But then I was thinking, well, what does it really mean?
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: Can we really choose our attitude? And what is an
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: attitude in the first place? And so that's what I
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: want to talk about today. When we're going through challenging times,
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: we don't get to choose the emotions that show up.
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: So if you are going through a divorce or if
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: someone you love might be suffering or your child might
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: be being bullied at school or work deadlines are piling up,
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: whatever it is, the emotions arrive automatically and we can't
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: control them. Even everyday challenges like being stuck in traffic
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: or getting the kids to put their shoes on can
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: bring up strong emotions. So what is an attitude? So
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: I looked it up and the Merriam-Webster dictionary defines it
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: as the particular way a person thinks or feels about
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: something or someone. It also says that our attitude is
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: often shown in our behaviour. So that something or someone
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: is what Frankl calls our circumstances, so the situation that
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: we find ourselves in. And this is where I've been
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: confused because if our attitude includes how we feel and
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: we can't choose how we feel, how can we choose
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: our attitude? So I think the answer is that we
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: can't choose our first reaction. The feeling, those feelings just
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: show up. So what we can choose then is what
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: happens next. So for example, just say a simple example,
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: you're stuck in traffic, you're running late for an important meeting.
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: you feel frustrated, it's shown up, you start thinking about
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: how many people are going to judge you, you start
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: cursing at the person driving slowly in front of you.
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: Those reactions are automatic. What you can do is notice
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: what is in your control and what isn't. You can't
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: control the traffic, you can't control the person in front
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: of you, can't control what people think of you. What
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: you can control is how you walk into that meeting.
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: So you might apologise, you might lighten things up with
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: a joke, So you're choosing your attitude at that point.
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: So the frustration is still there and so are the
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: thoughts about being judged perhaps, but they're not deciding what
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: you do. So maybe that's the freedom that Frankel is
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: talking about. And I think there are two things that
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: need to be in place before we can really exercise
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: that freedom. The first is self-awareness. It's so easy to
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: get caught up in rumination. We've all done this. We
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: feel trapped in our own heads with our thoughts just circling.
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: And then of course we have the emotions and then
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: the emotions about the emotions. And then we can start
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: spiraling down into that emotional vortex. What we can do
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: is step back and observe or notice what is happening.
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: It's really hard to do this. Most of us don't
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: manage to do it. When we feel trapped, because we're
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: not noticing what's happening internally, we don't realize that we
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: have a choice in how we behave. At that moment,
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: it can feel like there's no freedom at all. So
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: in ACTS, which stands for Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, we
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: call it being fused with our thoughts and emotions. So
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: we want to create space to diffuse, which allows us
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: to then simply notice and So that freedom has to
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: start with noticing. So there's anger or there's sadness or
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: I'm having the thought that what this means and what
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: should happen. We're not judging the feelings or thoughts or
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: trying to push them away. We're just noticing them. And
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: this is where Morita therapy is really useful. If you
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: are new to Mojo Monday, Morita therapy was developed by
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: the Japanese psychiatrist Shoma Morita in the early 20th century.
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: And one of its core ideas is that we can't
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: directly control our feelings. They arise naturally in response to
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: whatever is happening to us. What we can do is
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: put our attention on what we do. So we can
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: feel frustrated and speak calmly. We can feel afraid and
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: still do the things that matter to us. We can
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: feel disappointed and still treat somebody with kindness. Morita's approach
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: is a bit different because he didn't treat emotions as
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: the problem. He recognized that our thoughts and feelings don't
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: have to stop us from acting on what matters. So
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: that doesn't make it easy, but it does mean that
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: strong emotions don't have to trap us. And then the
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: second thing is getting really clear on our values, the
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: things that really matter to us in the core of us,
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: the person that we want to be. how we want
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: to treat others. So say we've noticed what we're feeling
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: and we're aware that we don't have to act on it.
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: That's the freedom that we have. What then guides our
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: next decision? Without this clear sense of what matters to us,
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: it's really hard to know which way to go. So
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: we can ask ourselves, what kind of person do I
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: want to be in this situation? Who do I want
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: to be? What qualities do I need right now? Do
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: I need courage, kindness, honesty, patience? And what do they
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: look like in action? Frankl would have been really clear
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: and connected with his values. So without those, he may
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: not have been able to choose his attitude in that
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: such horrific circumstances. So let's give another example. So imagine
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: you've been invited to a friend's party. You're tired. You
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: don't know what to wear. The anxiety starts building up.
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: You start thinking, I won't know many people there. I'll
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: have nothing to say. People will think I'm boring, yada, yada, yada, yada, yada.
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: By the afternoon, you just want to send a message
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: saying that you can't make it. So you can't switch
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: that anxiety off, but you can notice what's happening and
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: you've thought about what matters to you. So you have
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: something then to guide you. So maybe you value the friendships.
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: And you want to be someone who turns up for
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: the people that you care about. Maybe you value courage
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: and you know that doing hard things will help you grow.
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: So you decide to go, even if you only stay
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: an hour. When you're there, you put your attention on
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: the people. You use curiosity. You're talking to them, asking
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: them questions instead of monitoring constantly how you're coming across.
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: So you're really choosing your attitude there. You don't need
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: to pretend that you feel confident. You're acting on what
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: matters while the anxiety is still there. And so that's
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: not pretending, it's choosing. The anxiety may still be there,
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: but it's not making the whole decisions. It's not guiding
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: your actions. And for me, that's a much more practical
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: way of understanding what it means to choose our attitudes.
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: And I also think we need to be careful not
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: to oversimplify Frankel's experience. He wrote about men in the
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: camps who were really suffering themselves but who still comforted
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: others and even gave away their last piece of bread
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: to the sick. And he did acknowledge that these men
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: may have been few and far between. Those were extraordinary
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: acts of humanity and it was so humbling to read
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: about them But not everyone has the same capacity to
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: respond in that way. Survival in the camps depended on
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: so many factors outside people's control. And Frankl said that,
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: you know, the best of them did not return. When
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: people are overwhelmed by fear or trauma or suffering, their
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: capacity to make conscious choices can be severely limited. And
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: so that's what this discussion at the book club was
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: all about. So perhaps the freedom that Frankl described isn't
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: something that we can just call on whenever we want.
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: Perhaps it's something that we can develop. We develop it
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: through self-awareness, through learning to make room and accept our
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: emotions that show up and being really clear about our values.
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: And of course, we're not going to get it right.
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: None of us are perfect human beings, never met a
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: perfect human being. We'll say things that we regret and
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: react in ways that don't reflect who we want to be.
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: And when that happens, awareness gives us a chance to
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: then reflect. We own it and then we try again.
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: So this week we're Notice how often you're aware of
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: your emotions while you're feeling them. And how often do
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: you only notice them afterwards? And ask yourself whether you've
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: really thought about the values that you want to live by.
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: We can't always choose what happens to us and we
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: can't choose every feeling and thought that comes up. But awareness,
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: self-awareness and getting clear on our values, it gives us
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: a little more room in how we can respond. And
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: maybe that's the real lesson from Frankl. That freedom he
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: wrote about is something that we can build, we can
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: develop one response at a time. Have a great week, everyone.
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: I'll catch you next week. See you.