Latest / Love, Happiness and Success with Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby / Mental Strength: Are You Actually Healing, or Just Getting Better at Explaining Your Problems? | Happiness | E566

Transcript

Mental Strength: Are You Actually Healing, or Just Getting Better at Explaining Your Problems? | Happiness | E566 · Love, Happiness and Success with Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: My close friends already know this. Now you will too,
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: that before I was a psychologist, I was actually into
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  Speaker 1: how we feel. And as we evolve over time, we
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  Speaker 1: out Before we jump in, I just want to thank
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: our amazing sponsors for making the show possible and also
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• 1:48
  Speaker 1: slash LHS. On with the show. There's a whole story
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: we've been told about how mental health is achieved. It
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: goes something like this. First, we need to talk about
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: the hard things. We need to process the feelings. We
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: need to create insight. Eventually, we will heal. Finally, we
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: will feel better. And then, and only then, we will
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: be able to do the hard things and take the
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: action that we need to take.
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: Allow yourself to feel those painful emotions is important. But
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: what you don't want to do is when we start
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: to throw ourselves that pity party, that's when we start
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: to think, my problems are worse than everybody else's.
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: Well, on this episode of Love, Happiness, and Success, we
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: are going to be turning this whole idea on its head.
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: We overestimate how difficult the circumstances are, and then we
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: underestimate our ability to cope.
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: And consider that waiting to feel a certain way, to
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: feel strong before you act, might actually be keeping you stuck.
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: We don't always need to work on building more good habits.
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: There's so many things out there about the fact that
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: we should have all these wonderful habits and consistency is key. And...
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: When you're in a lot of pain, the thought of
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: adding all of these good habits to your life feels
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: so overwhelming that you don't even know where to start.
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: At least I didn't.
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: That's where we're going on today's show. And if this
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: is your first time tuning in, I'm so glad you're
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: here today. I am Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby. I am
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: a psychologist, a marriage and family therapist, and a board-certified
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: coach here with you every week to talk about your growth,
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: your relationships, your well-being, and also the success you attain
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: through your career and through your life. And so this
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: episode is going to be really interesting for you, particularly
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: if you have been feeling stuck and like it's been
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: very difficult for you to make traction. Maybe you are
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: in therapy. Maybe you've been thinking you're doing all the
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: things to help yourself move forward, but kind of feeling
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: like it's not really changing. By the end of today's show,
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: you're going to have a playbook because we are talking
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: with a very special guest today, Amy Morin. She is
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: so interesting. She is a psychotherapist, a licensed clinical social worker,
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: and author of numerous books, including 13 Things Mentally Strong
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: People Don't Do, a book that sold over a million
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: copies of more than 50 languages. Her TEDx talk on
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: this topic has been watched over 25 million times, one
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: of the most watched of all time, as a matter
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: of fact. She's the former editor-in-chief of Very Well Mind
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: and here today with a new set of ideas from
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: her very new book, The Mental Strength Playbook. Amy, we
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: have so much to talk about today.
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: Welcome.
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: I'm so glad you're here. To start with, Amy, so
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: much of your career has been devoted to expanding this idea.
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: Mental strength is a thing and that by cultivating mental
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: strength intentionally, we can get a lot further a lot faster.
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: So how did this turn into such a profound personal
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: mission for you? I mean, seven books now at TED Talk,
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: you really devoted your career to it. Was there an
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: origin story?
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: So I was a therapist, as you said. I came
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: out of college and I thought, oh, I'm going to
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: teach people all of these strategies and skills and things
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: that came out of my textbooks. And about a year
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: into my work, my mom passed away suddenly. She had
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: a brain aneurysm that ruptured and She and I had
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: been really close. And to lose her so suddenly and
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: unexpectedly really did a number on me, even though I
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: was 23. I thought, oh, there's so many things I
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: had expected my mom to be there for. And imagining
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: my life without her was so painful. And I felt
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: like a lot of the things I had learned in
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: college that were supposed to help you through emotional pain
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: kind of fell short. And that's when I started my
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: own journey on learning more about mental strength. Like, how
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: do you get through tough times? But I didn't want
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: to just be resilient. Whereas people talk about resilience, like,
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: how do you bounce back from tough times? And I thought, oh,
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: I feel like if I just bounce back from this,
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: then I'll just be waiting for the next shoe to drop.
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: And I don't want to live like that, like just
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: always bouncing back from tragedy, waiting for something bad to happen.
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: And I'm glad that I didn't do that because on
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: the three-year anniversary, it was three years to the day
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: that my mom died, my 26-year-old husband died of a
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: heart attack. And much like how I had just lost
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: my mom suddenly and unexpectedly, my husband was gone and
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: I wake up and I'm now a widow. I don't
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: have my mom and I'm 26. It's the age where
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: a lot of my friends are talking about getting married
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: and having kids and launching their careers. And I thought, Ooh,
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: what do I do? Every dream I just had died.
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: Every plan I had thought I had for my life
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: has gone out the window and my two favorite people
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: aren't here to help me through it. And, To this day,
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: I still don't even really have the words to describe
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: what that period of my life was like, other than
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: to just say it was really dark and really painful
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: for a long time. And all I could even say
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: back then was like, it hurts to breathe. But one
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: of the things was I was a therapist and now
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: I'm down to one income and I had a mortgage
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: to pay. We had bought a house thinking that we
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: were both going to be living in it and paying
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: the bills. And suddenly I thought the last thing I
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: want to do is lose my house and have to move.
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: I felt like I had lost so much already. So
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: I had to go back to work not long after
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: my husband passed away and thought, oh, how do I
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: help other people deal with their problems? I'm a therapist.
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: My own life is in complete shambles myself. And my
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: job as a therapist didn't quite pay the bills. So
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: I had to figure out what else am I going
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: to do? One of those things happened to be freelance writing.
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: If I wrote a couple articles and nights and on
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: the weekends, I thought I can keep the lights on.
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: So that's what I did for a few years. And
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: then I was fortunate. I found love again. I got
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: remarried and life was starting to look good. And then
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: my father-in-law was diagnosed with terminal cancer. And I just
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: remember thinking like, this isn't fair. I just spent all
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: these years grieving and life starting to feel good. And
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: now I'm going to lose somebody else. And unlike when
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: I had lost my mom and my husband, this time
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: I knew what was coming. And I thought, I don't
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: know that I can do this. So on one of
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: my worst days, I wrote myself a letter about what
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: mentally strong people don't do. And I would just wake
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: up every day and say, if you don't do these things,
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: you'll get through it. And that helped. And then I thought, well,
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: if this helps me, maybe it will help somebody else.
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: So I published the list to the internet and I
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: thought like five people would read it. But 50 million
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: people read it. One of them happened to be a
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: literary agent who said, you should write a book. But
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: nobody knew the backstory. They thought, oh, you're a therapist.
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: You wrote this because you've mastered it. And it really
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: wasn't until the book came out that I told the
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: rest of the story. Like, no, actually, I struggle. I
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: struggle with mental strength. just as much as anybody else.
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: But here's what I did when I was struggling. And
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: that was in 2013. So here we are seven books
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: later and life has changed in the way that now
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: I get to speak about mental strength, not just one-on-one
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: in my therapy office, but more on a global stage
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: where I can tell people what I've continued to learn
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: along the way as I continue to work on building
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: mental strength. Oh, Wow.
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: What a powerful story, first of all, and I'm so
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: sorry for your losses. And I'm just so impressed how
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: you were able to, I mean, to use a trite phrase,
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: but really like journey within and put some things together
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: on a visceral level that you needed and also to
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: million other people needed that it gave birth to those
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: ideas and brought them into the world. And let me
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: ask you this. What do you think it was about
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: the things mentally tough people don't do. And of course,
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: I'm going to ask you what those are as well.
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: But I'm so curious around what do you think people
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: were like, oh my gosh, yes, this, this is it.
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: I think there are a few things that made it
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: go viral. One was it started with the number 13.
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: So I think that naturally intrigued people. If it had
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: been a list of 10, it might not have sounded
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: so interesting.
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: No, it's dark all the way through. Right.
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: But I think more than anything, people wanted to know, OK,
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: what do I avoid doing? Because for me on my
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: worst day, if somebody gave me a to-do list, which
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: I got plenty of, people would be like, Amy, you
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: should just exercise. You should sleep more. Make sure you're
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: eating a healthy diet.
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: Drink more water. Correct.
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: And I was like, gee, thank you for that advice.
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: But it's hard to get out of bed. And the
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: thought of like now having a checklist of things to
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: do feels overwhelming. And if I don't do those things,
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: I feel like a failure at the end of the day.
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: So the only thing I could tolerate in that moment
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: was a list of what not to do because I
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: felt like it was doable. Like, okay, Amy, just don't
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: do these things today and somehow you'll get through it.
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: And I don't care how much water you drank or
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: how much exercise you got. Just don't feel sorry for yourself,
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: which happens to be number one on the list. And
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: I think that resonated with people. Like we don't always
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: need to work on building more good habits. There's so
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: many things out there about the fact that we should
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: have all these wonderful habits and consistency is key and
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: When you're in a lot of pain, the thought of
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: adding all of these good habits to your life feels
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: so overwhelming that you don't even know where to start.
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: At least I didn't. So this idea of just get
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: rid of a couple of things, like if you get
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: rid of your worst habit, suddenly the good habits you
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: have are already so much more effective. That felt doable.
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: And I think it did for other people. And we
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: weren't really talking about mental strength. People talk about physical
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: strength and we talk about mental health. But what about
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: mental strength? And people talk about resilience and all these
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: other words that are just a little bit different, but
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: nobody was really talking about what it means to be
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: mentally strong.
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And, well, and this is already so intriguing, like,
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: you know, thinking of one of the principles of DBT,
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: dialectical behavior therapy, which is don't make it worse. And
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: to have a very concrete list of things, like avoid
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: dropping yourself into the swamp further, like making it easy.
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: So- I can't take the suspense. Number one on this
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: list is stop feeling sorry for yourself. I want to
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: hear more. But first of all, I mean, conventional wisdom
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: is like that's what we do in therapy. You come
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: in and you tell your therapist how deeply wounded you
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: feel and how awful it is and how sad you are. And,
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: you know, the self-compassion and those are all good things
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: in some ways. But what you're saying is that that's
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: actually in opposition to therapy. the goal of mental strength.
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's okay to feel sad, right? Sadness helps us
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: grow or grief. That's a process by which we heal.
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: So to allow yourself to feel those painful emotions is important.
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: But what you don't want to do is when we
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: start to throw ourselves that pity party, that's when we
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: start to think, my problems are worse than everybody else's.
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: Nothing is going to work to fix this. There's nothing
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: I can do about it. We overestimate how difficult the
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: circumstances are. And then we underestimate our ability to cope.
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: That's where it becomes unhealthy. It's not just about feeling.
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: It's about the thoughts that we have about it when
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: we think this is so bad that my life will
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: never get better. And when people believe that, that becomes
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: a self-fulfilling prophecy. I would see people in my therapy
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: office who would say, you know, had it not been
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: for that thing that happened 10 years ago, I'd have
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: a good life. But because I went through that thing,
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: I can't. My life is going to be awful forever
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: because of it. Yep, it probably will if you believe that.
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: And that's really what I didn't want to do. I
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: didn't want to go through what I had gone through
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: and then come to that conclusion like my life is
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: going to be terrible forever now. Because if I believe that,
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: I would make sure that that became the case.
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: Absolutely. You create your own reality and that by going
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: into this catastrophic, it's over helplessness, hopelessness, almost like a
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: victim narrative.
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly.
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: Is that the right word to use?
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: Yep.
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: You're going to make it worse. Okay.
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: But there's more. What's the second thing on your list?
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: I mean, is it okay to run through them? I'm
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: so interested to hear them.
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: Absolutely. So number two on the list is that they
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: don't waste time. No, sorry. That was number one. Number
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: two is that they don't give away their power. And
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: out of all of the things on the list, this
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: is the one that people want to talk about the most.
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: And this is about when we give other people the
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: power over how we think or how we feel or
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: how we behave. And it's really easy to do. So
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: you might say something like, my friend calls me and
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: talks incessantly and just wastes my time talking about her
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: own problems. Well, does your friend really waste your time? No,
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: it's because you didn't set a boundary. If you don't
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: want to stay on the phone and listen to somebody complain,
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: that's up to you. You're in charge of your time.
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: Or when we say somebody makes us feel bad, somebody
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: might say like, oh, my mother-in-law makes me feel bad
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: about myself because she's always picking apart my parenting experience. Well,
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: it's up to you to decide how you feel, how
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: you deal with your mother-in-law and what you internalize. You
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: don't have to believe something. Even if somebody puts you down,
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: you don't have to believe it. Right. Or we'll say
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: that other people are in charge of our behavior too.
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: Like I have to go to dinner at my in-law's
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: house on Sundays or my boss makes me work late.
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: But the truth is your boss doesn't make you work late.
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: Maybe there's a consequence if you don't get the work done,
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: but nobody's forcing you to do it. And just changing
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: your language sometimes is so powerful to recognize that what
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: you're doing is a choice. how you feel about yourself
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: as a choice, who you spend your time with, what
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: you do with your time. All of those things are choices.
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: And when we're in a rough spot, just remembering that
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: it can be tough because it says, all right, well,
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: it's my responsibility. If I don't like what's going on,
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: it's my responsibility to change it. But on the other hand, yeah,
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: I have the opportunity to change it. And sometimes that
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: can be freeing too. Yeah.
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: Oh my gosh. I, This is really good. So anytime
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: we are even unconsciously attributing what we're doing or how
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: we're feeling or the rules we need to live by
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: to someone else, you're saying we're living in a state
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: of disempowerment. And this can be subtle, but I totally
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: resonate with what you're talking about. Just this idea that
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: literally everything you do is a choice. I have a
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: I remember so clearly being in graduate school and I
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: was sitting in one of these horrible weekend classes. You
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: ever do this thing? It's like a full Friday, a
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: full Saturday, a full Sunday. And it was a beautiful
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: summer day. Like the rest of the world is like
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: going to the pool and eating popsicles like outside the
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: window and having such.
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: A good time.
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: And I'm in this like stuffy classroom and it was
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: like applied statistics. And I was like, oh, and just
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: feeling like so kind of agitatedly stressed about being there. Like,
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: I can't believe I have to do this and this
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: is bleh. And then I just had this moment where
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: I was like, wait a minute, I could get up
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: and walk out of this room right this very second
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: and do whatever I wanted to do today. And then
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: I had this moment where I was looking at the
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: door and was like, I can do it.
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: I can get up.
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: I I would have to take this class again and
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: I would like to graduate with this degree and I'm
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: actually choosing this. And nothing changed. But immediately I was
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: just like, I'm here because.
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: I want to be here. What a powerful example of
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: just saying I'm going to shift my mindset.
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: All the time.
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: It's like, no, I have decided to be here. I'm
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: in control of this. So I just wanted to share
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: that as an example of how powerful this is. And
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: that's a simple example. But I mean, we can all
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: do that all the time. Absolutely.
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: And I love that example because it's a really concrete
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: way of saying, yeah, no, like this isn't ideal. However,
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: what's the alternative? Would I rather be here than skipping
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: class and then I have to come back? No. And
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: I think anytime we recognize that, like, all right, maybe
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: I don't love my job, but what's the alternative? I
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: stay home today and then I don't get paid. OK, well,
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: maybe being here isn't so bad.
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: So there are more. I feel like this has been huge.
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: We could have podcast episodes about just both of the
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: things you've shared so far. We have 11 to go.
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: I'm riveted.
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: All right. Shall we dive into the next one then?
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: That mentally strong people don't dwell on the past. And
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: I think that we can learn so much from the past.
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: But if you stay stuck there, You just actually don't heal.
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: So often we think, well, if I just go back
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: and I kind of like relive this thing or I
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: repeat this pattern from my life that somehow I'll go
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: through the wound again and this time it'll be different.
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: But we're often doomed to repeat things. And in my life,
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: I was tempted to stay stuck in the past just
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: because that's where my mom and my husband lived. And
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: I thought, well, if I stay there, then I don't
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: get to enjoy the present. I don't get to make
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: the future as good as it could be. And I
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: could boil it right down to concrete things like what
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: am I going to do with my, my husband's belongings, right?
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: His toothbrush sat next to the sink for six months
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: to a year probably. And I thought, Ooh, you know,
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: just how do you get rid of those things or
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: what do you do with them? But, and it was
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: a process. I don't recommend anybody just, you know, pack up,
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: move on and say out with the old in with
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: the new, but on the other hand, moving through that
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: grief often meant giving myself permission to let go of
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: the things from the past so that I could create
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: a new identity, a new me and a new future.
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: And I would see people in my therapy office too,
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: who would often like get stuck. Maybe it's a mistake
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: that they made 10 years ago or somebody hurt them.
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: three weeks ago, and they just really wanted to keep
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: reliving that thing. And it would really get in the
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: way of living their best life. So I think it's
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: important to learn from the past, but to make sure
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: that we're not beating ourselves up for it, that we're
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: not staying stuck there, or that we're not afraid to
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: enjoy the present or to make a better future for ourselves. Yeah.
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: I completely agreed. And let me ask you about this part.
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: So I'm imagining We have quite a few therapists that
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: listen to this show. And for anybody who is a
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: therapist and who is listening, you are also invited to
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: join me on Love, Happiness, and Success for Therapists. It
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: is a different show just for you. So come on over.
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: But this idea that actually grinding on the past and
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: being overly focused on the history and the rehashing things,
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: replaying things over and over is in some ways an
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: opposition to many of the conventions of modern psychotherapy, talk therapy,
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: which is the meta agreement in some ways is it
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: is valuable and useful to tell the stories over and
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: over again. to make contact with the feelings. And of course,
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: that is part of how we metabolize trauma, which is
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: putting into words the difficult things we've lived through, making
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: contact with the pain, but that there's a point at
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: which it isn't productive to keep doing that, right? What
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: is productive is to figure out how to effectively say
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: goodbye to a past chapter, like the way you described,
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: so that you can say hello to a new one.
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: And so for someone who wants to apply this idea,
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: like don't stay stuck in the past for longer than
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: is helpful. How would you help somebody like draw that line?
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: Because you're pretty good. Like we need to make meaning,
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: we need to understand, but then how do you know
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: when it's too much?
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: I think it's about a process of just deciding, like,
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: am I sitting with an uncomfortable feeling? That's good for
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: us sometimes, but to stay stuck there, right? If I
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: made a mistake last year. Well, I could beat myself
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: up about it over and over and over again. And
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: at some point I'm just driving shame. I'm not teaching
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: myself to do better next time. So I think it's
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: about asking ourselves that, like by replaying this conversation, by
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: ruminating on this thing, by hoping that something will change
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: about the past, by thinking about it even longer and harder, like,
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: am I helping? Am I solving a problem? Or am
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: I just maybe punishing myself for having done that thing
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: or for having been there or to feel like I
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: don't deserve to be happy. Because I encounter a lot
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: of people that will feel like that. They'll say, you know,
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: I messed up. And so therefore I don't deserve the self-compassion.
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: I don't deserve to forgive myself. So if I just
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: keep replaying that horrible thing that I did, eventually I'll
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: feel like I've punished myself long enough. But they never
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: get to that point where they think, okay, today's the day.
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: They just keep allowing themselves to stay stuck. So I
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: think it's important to examine our motives. Like, why am
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: I rehashing this? Why am I reliving something that already happened?
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: Am I trying to heal an old wound? Am I
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: trying to punish myself? Am I hoping that I'll learn
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: something so I can prevent it from happening again? And
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: then once we get to some of those answers, then
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: to figure out, well, how would I let it go?
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: What would I need to have happen in my life
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: in order to feel like I could let that go
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: and to enjoy right now and to make my future better?
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: And for a lot of people, it's journaling that helps.
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: Sometimes it's meditating. Sometimes it's talking to a friend and
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: really hashing it out. And sometimes it's about talking to
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: a mental health professional if you're able to, to say,
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: how do I let this thing go? Definitely.
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: Okay. Great advice. But, you know, and just a through
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: line here, and I'm sure we can continue this, is
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: like everything that you're advising so far, it also takes
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: a high degree of understanding. Self-awareness, you know, in my
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: experience as a therapist, it seems like the hardest thing
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: is the very first step in some ways, which is
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: simply to get visibility into what you are thinking about and,
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: you know, your own internal process, because a lot of
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: times it's happening on such an automatic level. We don't
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: even realize it's something that is happening, much less something
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: that we might have control over. But these three are fantastic.
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: And it is becoming aware about what you're telling yourself,
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: what you're doing, the loops that you might be trapped in,
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: because then you can have alternatives. Yeah.
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely. I agree. It's easy to think, oh, I
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: don't do any of these things. Well, I'll tell you,
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: when you start paying attention to them, you might realize, oh,
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: maybe I do these more often than I'd like to admit. Yeah. Great.
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: So number four.
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: That they don't make the same mistakes over and over again.
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: And like who among us hasn't done this where you're like, oh,
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: made a mistake last night, never going to do that again.
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: And then 24 hours later, you find yourself repeating it.
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: And it might be right. It might be like a
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: diet that you'd say, you know, I'm going to make
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: some changes to the to my nutritional habits. Well, it's
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: easy to say when you feel motivated on a Monday morning,
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: but come Tuesday afternoon, it's a little tougher to stick
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: with that or. Yeah. Maybe you say, I'm not going
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: to text my ex anymore. But then on a lonely,
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: sad night, you pick up your phone and there you go.
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: And for other people, it's other things. Like maybe it's
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: a financial mistake and you keep repeating that or a
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: relationship mistake or some kind of social blunder that you've
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: made over and over. You lose your temper. I mean,
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: there's so many mistakes that we can make. But I
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: find that sometimes people want to stay stuck in them. Like, well,
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: I'm a bad person. I can't change. And they give
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: themselves sort of permission to repeat those mistakes. But then
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: I see other people who are like, well, you can't
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: dwell on that. Got to move on without spending even
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: a moment figuring out, well, why did I do that?
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: And how do I do better next time? Right. And
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: sometimes we're just so like embarrassed or ashamed of our
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: mistakes that we want to sweep them under the rug.
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: So we pretend that they didn't happen even to ourselves.
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: It's tough to admit like, well, that didn't count or,
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: you know, everybody does that. So we kind of minimize
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: it and we don't come face to face with the
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: truth of what we've done. And therefore, that makes it
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: hard to create a change and stick with it as well.
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: Definitely.
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: These are all so good. Number six.
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: You know, along the same lines as mistakes, it's that
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: they don't give up after their first failure. You know,
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: feeling feels terrible. It's embarrassing. It's awkward. It often gives
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: us a hit to our self-esteem that we think, oh,
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: I'm not the kind of person I thought I could
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: be or not as good as I'd hoped. And when
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: we get there, it can be tempting to be like, well,
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: I'm just not going to try again. I don't want
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: to risk failing. I don't want to put myself out
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: there because what if it doesn't work out? And then
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: you never really figure out what you were capable of
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: or what you could do if you tried. And however,
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: I know how tempting it is. There's so many times
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: in my life where if I think I'm not going
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: to be good at something or I think it's not
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: going to work out, I don't want to put in
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: the effort. And then if I do and it doesn't
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: go well, I just draw a conclusion of, well, see,
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: it wasn't meant to be. I'm not the kind of
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: person who can learn to play the violin or I'm
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: not the kind of person who can own my own business.
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: But I won't know until I try again. Like nobody's
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: good at something the first time they try. It's really
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: about learning from every failure. But I think as a society,
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: especially in the age of social media, it's tougher than
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: ever to talk about our failures because we just want
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: to tell people what went well. We don't want to
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: tell them about the mistakes and the things that didn't
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: go well. We want to celebrate our achievement and our
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: accomplishments rather than say, but you know what? Actually, I
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: did four things this week that didn't work out. And
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: here's what those four things were. Instead, we want to
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: talk about the two things that we did really, really well.
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: And that can keep us stuck in a way that
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: really inhibits our growth over time. Right.
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: That's such a good point that we don't share with
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: people how that sausage gets made and that there is
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: such a powerful component to experiential learning. where we try things,
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: we fail, we learn, we do it a little bit differently,
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: assuming that we're not making the same mistakes over and over.
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: And this is, I'm thinking of the growth mindset concept, right?
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: Around that everything that we do, there's a learning curve
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: that is earned, right? It's not effortless and to expect that. Yeah. Okay.
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: These are so good. And so I know we have
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: a few more to go, but I'm so curious. I'm
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: imagining you, Amy, like in the depths of darkness. I mean,
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: to experience those kinds of losses at that point in
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: your life, one right after another. I mean, it is
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: difficult to fathom what that place might have been like
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: for you. And I'm just, I'm sort of imagining you
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: in my mind's eye. You're writing with a pen and
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: a notebook these things. Maybe you weren't.
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: Maybe you were typing.
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: That's what's happening in my head. And the realization that
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: maybe you had been engaging in some of these things
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: within the darkness that were somehow making it worse and
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: that getting visibility into those allowed you to see them
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: and step out of some of those loops. When you
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: stopped doing the first few things that we've discussed, what
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: did you start to notice as changing inside of yourself?
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: It was a huge sense of relief. Like, it's okay.
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: You don't have to have all the answers. You don't
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: have to have everything all together. but as long as
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: you don't do these things that you'll be okay. And
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: I just remember feeling like, okay. And then when I
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: would do those things, which I did, and I still
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: do to this day, if I'm being honest, it's just
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: a reminder that yes, all of us have this natural
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: tendency to do a lot of the things on the
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: list and that's okay. It doesn't mean I'm a bad person.
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: It just means I have to be more aware. Like,
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: what is it that my brain and my body sometimes
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: tell me to do? What does my heart tell me? Like, oh, don't,
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: don't do that thing. Cause you might fail and then
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: you'll be embarrassed. Well, Yes, but I can handle being
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: embarrassed or it's not that bad. And I really have
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: to balance my emotions with my logic. You referenced DBT earlier. Well,
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: we know how important that is to use your wise
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: mind when it comes to making decisions and knowing that
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: just because I think I need something or I think
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: I can't handle it doesn't mean it's true. And if
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: I just take a step back, take a moment and say, no, like, actually,
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: you'll be OK or you don't have to put yourself
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: through that or it's OK to feel bad, but you
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: don't have to stay stuck there. And it really just
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: gives me permission to say whatever I feel is OK,
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: but I don't have to stay stuck in that place
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: if I don't want to.
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely. Oh, there's so much here. And, you know,
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: there's so much validity behind it as well. And I
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: know we've only scratched the surface, Amy, and your work
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: has carried forward into a number of other things. including
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: the Mental Strength Playbook, which I cannot wait to hear
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: more about. But like, it's almost a different way of
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: approaching a very well-established theory of change and well-being, cognitive theory, right?
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: I mean, just what you said, don't believe everything that
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: you think is the foundation of of cognitive approaches to
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: mental wellbeing, but you're sort of doing it in reverse
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: in some ways. I think that the conventional wisdom is
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: like to retrain the way that you think, the way
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: that you talk. And what you're saying is just be
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: aware of it and make a decision to not participate
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: in that same type of internal narrative anymore, like that
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: that can even be enough.
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I would find a lot of people would think, well,
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: it's kind of like putting a Band-Aid on an axe wound, right?
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: I'm having a bad day. And like, let's reframe your thoughts. Like, OK, well,
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: maybe it wasn't so bad or at least this good
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: thing happened. Yeah, it was. For a lot of people,
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: that feels more like toxic positivity. And they would struggle
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: even more because they're like, well, I'm supposed to be
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: grateful that at least I have broccoli to eat. But
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: I'm also unemployed and it doesn't feel really all that
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: good right now. And so I wanted people to have
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: that idea like, okay, well, you don't necessarily have to
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: reframe everything into something positive. But sometimes just reminding yourself, well,
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: this is the path I tend to go down. When
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: I'm in a dark place, maybe I tend to feel
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: sorry for myself. How do I catch it when I
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: start doing it? And then what could I do differently
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: to avoid it? Sometimes that's, I think, all we need
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: as a reminder without the exact reframing thoughts that we
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: need or without the exact uh script that we should
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: be repeating to ourselves because that doesn't always feel good
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: when somebody says well just remind yourself of this or
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: here's a phrase to repeat or a mantra or positive
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: affirmation give yourself a high five in the mirror and
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: you'll feel great because if we don't feel good about
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: ourselves like telling yourself you're amazing you're the best person
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: on the planet there's research that shows that actually backfires
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: if you don't believe it your self-esteem goes down instead
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: of going up so My hope was that because this
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: worked for me in a really dark place, I didn't
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: have to be overly positive. Just a reminder of what
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: not to do, that it could help other people too.
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: Amy, this is so good. We have to take a
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: super quick break. But on the other side of this,
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: I would love to hear more of your guidance and
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: insights about the things that we can stop doing, but
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: also start doing about how to cultivate this mental strength.
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: I'd love to hear the rest of the things we
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: should attempt to avoid. But also, I know in your
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: newest book, The Mental Strength Playbook, you have a lot
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: of recommendations about what to do differently that are more actionable.
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• 36:26
  Speaker 1: hear your first cha-ching. My friends, we're back with Amy Morin.
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: She's a psychotherapist, a licensed clinical social worker, and the
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: author of 13 Things Mentally Strong People Don't Do, a
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: huge book, and she's here to talk about her follow-up,
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: The Mental Strength Playbook, and all of these different skills
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: and strategies and My new idea is that we can
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: all deploy to our own benefit to cultivate some more
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: mental toughness, especially during times that we don't feel great. So, Amy,
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: before we took a break, you were talking us through
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: some of the like, if you want to become stronger
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: and feel more able to manage whatever it is that
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: you're going through, here are some things to stop doing.
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: Start it with recognizing the fact that you are doing
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: with them. We dove into a number of examples, but
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: can you run us through the remainder of the list
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: so that we could just get visibility into what those are?
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: And then I'd love to hear your thoughts about what
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: this looks like in action.
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: Sure. So let's see. Mentally strong people also don't shy
• 37:40
  Speaker 2: away from change. They don't waste energy on things they
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: can't control. They don't worry about pleasing everyone. They don't
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: fear taking calculated risks. They don't resent other people's success.
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: They don't fear alone time. They don't feel the world
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: owes them anything. And they don't expect immediate results.
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: Okay. Now, what would you say to one of our
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: friends sitting here with us listening into this who's like,
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: but I do all of those things and I Those
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: things don't feel true to me. I have emotional responses
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: in all of those situations that feel like they're outside
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: of my control. How could I possibly stop that?
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: Well, if anybody says I do those things, I would say, well, congrats.
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: Welcome to the club because we all do. And I
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: would applaud them for their honesty. When people are like, no,
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: I don't ever do any of those 13 things. I'm like, well, congratulations.
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: Good for you. But you're probably not going to make
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: any progress. Because the truth is, who doesn't repeat a
• 38:41
  Speaker 2: mistake sometimes, right? So, you know, I'm always impressed when
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: people can say, yeah, I've struggled with those things. Probably
• 38:49
  Speaker 2: some more than others. And at certain periods of my life,
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: some of those things are really much more difficult than others.
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: It's easy when your life's going well to probably say, no,
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: I don't resent anybody else's success. Well, wait until you
• 39:02
  Speaker 2: are in a rough season in your life and it
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: feels like everybody else around you is doing amazing. And
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: tell me how difficult that one is then. So for
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: people who struggle with it, well, you can write down, like,
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: what is it that I gain from doing this thing?
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: But also, what do I lose from doing it? What
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: am I giving up? What is it costing me? So
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: let's take resenting somebody else's success. Maybe it's harming your relationships.
• 39:26
  Speaker 2: Maybe it's taking away from your own happiness. Maybe it's
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: less energy. energy that you have to work on your
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: own goals or to enjoy the achievements that you do have.
• 39:35
  Speaker 2: Just reminding yourself and becoming more aware of when you
• 39:38
  Speaker 2: do it and how it plays out in your life.
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: And then you make a conscious choice. If I didn't
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: want to do this anymore, what would that look like?
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: What would I be doing instead? And when we start
• 39:47
  Speaker 2: answering some of those questions, I think we then create
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: our own roadmap of how to create positive change.
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: Definitely. And I will also just add to piggyback onto this.
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: I love it. Like, what am I getting out of
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: this versus what is it costing me? Like, that is
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: so powerful. Yeah. I'll share, you know, for, for a
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: number of these too, I found it useful in my
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: own life and also with, with my clients to actually
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: like listen to the dark emotions a little bit, like
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: a feeling of resentment is telling me that I am
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: very jealous of X, Y, Z. And what does that
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: mean about what I want in my life? How is
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: this shining a light on my desire and the gap
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: between where I am in my life and where I'd
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: like to be? So, even though I'm having this like
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: weird experience with this person to step back and like, okay,
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: so if I listened to this, how could it inform
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: the decisions I make about what I try to attain
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: in my own life? I think that that can be
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: very interesting, but I think that also goes into this
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: balance around stepping in to these spaces and like listening
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: to it. indulging in the thoughts and seeking to understand them.
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: But then stepping back out of it again, like you
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: kind of, I got what I needed and now I'm
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: going to step back rather than staying in it.
• 41:18
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: Does that make sense?
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it does. So a lot of people will come
• 41:21
  Speaker 2: into my therapy office and maybe you see this too
• 41:24
  Speaker 2: with people who think like if they just unlock one
• 41:26
  Speaker 2: more insight, then suddenly everything's going to change. Like, well,
• 41:30
  Speaker 2: if I could just really understand why. I keep texting
• 41:34
  Speaker 2: my ex, like, is it a childhood wound from when
• 41:36
  Speaker 2: I was seven? Is there something else going on? And
• 41:40
  Speaker 2: even when they find an answer, well, actually, it's when
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: you are kind of sad and lonely on Sunday nights
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: when everybody else is with their families and you're sitting
• 41:47
  Speaker 2: at home. It's those times that you're tempted to do this.
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: And they're like, yes, but what happened to me when
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: I was seven? Or what happened to me as a kid?
• 41:54
  Speaker 2: And let's keep digging. And at some point, you have
• 41:57
  Speaker 2: to realize, like, okay, it's great to trace some of
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: those threads, to have a better understanding of what drives
• 42:02
  Speaker 2: your behavior. But then you actually have to take the action.
• 42:05
  Speaker 2: So what do I want to do differently? And it
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: might be something like, you know what, I'm going to
• 42:10
  Speaker 2: put my phone on the other side of the room
• 42:13
  Speaker 2: when I'm tempted to do this, or I'm going to
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: only charge my phone to 25%. So by Sunday night,
• 42:18
  Speaker 2: it's not fully charged. I'm going to reduce the temptation
• 42:21
  Speaker 2: or I'm going to find somebody else to text instead.
• 42:23
  Speaker 2: I'm going to reach out to an old friend or
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: I'm going to call a family member. But just finding
• 42:28
  Speaker 2: some other strategies without feeling like until I get to
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: that one thread that's going to unlock everything, I can't
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: make any change. I think that's when we sometimes stay stuck,
• 42:37
  Speaker 2: when we just keep telling ourselves like a little more
• 42:39
  Speaker 2: insight would unlock this and change my behavior. But it doesn't. Wow.
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: And you know what? I'm just realizing that one thing
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: that I didn't share with you when we first started chatting. So, yeah,
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: I'm a psychologist. I'm a marriage and family therapist. But
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: about 10 years ago, I made a hard pivot. into
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: coaching psychology for this exact reason. And I will now
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: have conversations with clients sometimes where they're like, yes, but
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: what about the time my dad yelled at me when
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: I was up? And I will literally say, hopefully in
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: a not minimizing or triggering way, but will communicate the
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: fact that it doesn't actually matter why in some ways,
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: like Yeah, there can be a benefit for getting some
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: insight and visibility into our process or what does this
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: mean about me? Sure. And insight is not going to
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: change anything.
• 43:34
  Speaker 2: It really isn't.
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: It is when you translate this into action. And that
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: is one of the things that I took from your work, Amy.
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: And what I was so excited to learn more about
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: is this perspective around how the things we do can
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: get us so much further, so much faster, but also
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: create the self-awareness and self-understanding through the experience rather than
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: wanting to have all the dots connected or imagining that
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: we need to feel a certain way before we could
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: take action. And I think that that's where you go
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: into in your work.
• 44:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely. And I'm glad that we're on the same
• 44:19
  Speaker 2: page with that because... We think, well, if I just
• 44:23
  Speaker 2: felt ready, if I felt more motivated, if I had
• 44:25
  Speaker 2: more information, if I had those dots connected, then I
• 44:29
  Speaker 2: would really want to change this behavior. I'd really want
• 44:32
  Speaker 2: to do things differently. I'd understand. Why do I keep
• 44:35
  Speaker 2: doing this? But sometimes you have to take the action first, right?
• 44:39
  Speaker 2: And the feelings follow. Or you take the action and
• 44:41
  Speaker 2: then you learn, oh, so maybe even though I'm really
• 44:45
  Speaker 2: motivated to make this change, at the end of the
• 44:48
  Speaker 2: day when I'm really depleted and I've been fighting my
• 44:52
  Speaker 2: willpower all day long, I kind of run out. By mid-evening,
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: I tend to reach for that thing that I said
• 44:58
  Speaker 2: I didn't want to do. Or on Friday nights when
• 45:00
  Speaker 2: I'm bored and I'm lonely, I do that. So what
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: am I going to do differently? And then when you
• 45:04
  Speaker 2: try experimenting, then you figure out what works for you.
• 45:06
  Speaker 2: It's kind of like I could read a lot of
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: books about how to play the piano, but I don't
• 45:11
  Speaker 2: actually become good at playing the piano until I try,
• 45:15
  Speaker 2: until I learn, oh, this doesn't work. That sounds terrible. Oh,
• 45:18
  Speaker 2: I just messed up. And it's those things that I
• 45:20
  Speaker 2: learn from. So when it comes to practicing changing our
• 45:23
  Speaker 2: lives and doing things differently and applying new habits and
• 45:27
  Speaker 2: giving things up, you got to get out there and
• 45:28
  Speaker 2: do it, not just read a book about it or
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: think about it or talk about it longer. It's really
• 45:33
  Speaker 2: about the practice that helps us to create the change.
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely. Well, what would you say to people with
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: this core belief? And I frequently have this conversation with
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: clients where there is this very powerful expectation that they
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: need to feel ready. They need to be free of anxiety, fear,
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: pain in order. Like they believe that they need to
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: experience like a desire that feels good to go do
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: something when a lot of times really is this gritty
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: resolve to do it first, even if you don't feel great.
• 46:14
  Speaker 2: Right. And how often are we tempted? And I say
• 46:17
  Speaker 2: we because me included. I'm going to put my life
• 46:19
  Speaker 2: on hold, right? Like if I could just cure my anxiety,
• 46:25
  Speaker 2: I'd have a good life. But until it's cured, I'm
• 46:27
  Speaker 2: just going to kind of sit here and wait for
• 46:29
  Speaker 2: it to get better. Or if I had a better
• 46:32
  Speaker 2: fill in the blank, a better relationship, I'd have a
• 46:34
  Speaker 2: happier life. If I didn't struggle with these habits that
• 46:39
  Speaker 2: are holding me back, then I'd feel amazing. But sometimes
• 46:42
  Speaker 2: you have to do the opposite. Like how do I
• 46:43
  Speaker 2: create an amazing life? And even though I feel this way,
• 46:46
  Speaker 2: what steps do I still want to take? What am
• 46:48
  Speaker 2: I able to do? And then, you know, in terms
• 46:51
  Speaker 2: of acceptance and commitment therapy, then we know the thing
• 46:53
  Speaker 2: that you're struggling with often becomes a lot smaller rather
• 46:56
  Speaker 2: than becoming the focal point or the big challenge that
• 46:59
  Speaker 2: keeps you from living your best life. Instead, you commit
• 47:02
  Speaker 2: to living your best life. And the thing that is
• 47:05
  Speaker 2: bothering you becomes so much smaller and just becomes part
• 47:08
  Speaker 2: of the journey, but it doesn't become the obstacle that
• 47:10
  Speaker 2: you imagined it was. Yeah.
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: Oh, so beautifully put. So take us more deeply into
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: the mental strength playbook. So where do you take your
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: readers through that latest iteration of your work?
• 47:27
  Speaker 2: So after writing six books about what mentally strong either people, parents, women,
• 47:32
  Speaker 2: couples don't do, people kept asking, okay, but now what
• 47:35
  Speaker 2: do we do? How do you put these things into practice?
• 47:38
  Speaker 2: And I wrote it specifically more geared towards the workplace
• 47:43
  Speaker 2: because a lot of the skills and strategies we can
• 47:45
  Speaker 2: use at home, you can't really do at work. And
• 47:48
  Speaker 2: for me, the example was I had to go to
• 47:50
  Speaker 2: work after my mom died and after my husband died.
• 47:52
  Speaker 2: And I don't think we talk about this enough. Like,
• 47:55
  Speaker 2: how do you show up at work when your own
• 47:57
  Speaker 2: life is in shambles? And unfortunately, we're all going to
• 47:59
  Speaker 2: go through grief. We're all going to go through tough times.
• 48:02
  Speaker 2: They're going through divorces or dealing with aging parents. You know,
• 48:07
  Speaker 2: I get a call at noon that says my mother-in-law
• 48:10
  Speaker 2: fell and she's not doing well. We'll have a meeting
• 48:13
  Speaker 2: at two and I have to take the meeting. Or
• 48:16
  Speaker 2: my child's getting bullied at school. The teacher just called me,
• 48:19
  Speaker 2: but I have a presentation tomorrow. So am I supposed
• 48:21
  Speaker 2: to go home early or what do I do? And
• 48:26
  Speaker 2: sometimes at work, you can't just like cope with the
• 48:29
  Speaker 2: emotion that you're experiencing. Just because I have anxiety, I
• 48:32
  Speaker 2: can't say to my boss, I know that project is
• 48:35
  Speaker 2: due later today, but I have some anxiety. So I'm
• 48:37
  Speaker 2: going to put that off till next week. Probably won't
• 48:40
  Speaker 2: serve me very well at work. At home, I can
• 48:42
  Speaker 2: usually do that, right? If I'm going to tackle something
• 48:44
  Speaker 2: and I think, oh, it's too anxiety provoking to make
• 48:47
  Speaker 2: that call. I'll put it off till tomorrow. I can
• 48:50
  Speaker 2: do that. Or if we're really sad at the office.
• 48:53
  Speaker 2: I mean, people are like, sit with your feelings. Let
• 48:55
  Speaker 2: yourself cry. Well, have you ever walked into like a
• 48:57
  Speaker 2: sales meeting and you're crying? Like it's not going to
• 48:59
  Speaker 2: go well. And When I was a therapist, I couldn't
• 49:02
  Speaker 2: cry at my desk because I was missing my husband.
• 49:04
  Speaker 2: I had people coming in who were telling me about
• 49:06
  Speaker 2: their problems. Nobody's going to talk to a therapist who's
• 49:08
  Speaker 2: crying about their own life. So it was a matter
• 49:11
  Speaker 2: of figuring out, okay, but how do I get through
• 49:12
  Speaker 2: this next hour? So the Mental Strength Playbook is all
• 49:15
  Speaker 2: about strategies so that we can cope with our emotions
• 49:19
  Speaker 2: while we're at work. work. And it's not about suppressing them,
• 49:21
  Speaker 2: but sometimes it's about shelving them and saying, this isn't
• 49:25
  Speaker 2: helpful right now. I'm going to deal with it later.
• 49:27
  Speaker 2: Or it's about the thoughts that we have. So when
• 49:30
  Speaker 2: you're distracted by the fight you had with your partner,
• 49:33
  Speaker 2: but it's noon and you need to work on a report,
• 49:36
  Speaker 2: what do you do? Or... When you have a big
• 49:40
  Speaker 2: project coming up, you can't think straight because you're kind
• 49:42
  Speaker 2: of stressed out. How do you sit down and do that?
• 49:44
  Speaker 2: So this book is 50 plays. We just like any playbook.
• 49:48
  Speaker 2: If you're a coach, maybe a play works in one situation,
• 49:51
  Speaker 2: but not another. And it's got plays that will help
• 49:54
  Speaker 2: reduce your anxiety, deal with dread, increase your tenacity and
• 49:59
  Speaker 2: help you deal with all of the normal human emotions
• 50:02
  Speaker 2: that we experience in the workplace.
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, this is so good. Okay, I cannot wait to
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: dig into the specifics here. But and I also just
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: want to say like, absolutely, we need that kind of
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: playbook to keep going at work when we're not great.
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: But just as you're talking, I'm thinking about so many
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: different dimensions of life where you still need to show
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: up and do stuff, even if you're not 100%. Like
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: being a parent is following through on commitments to friends
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: and family. I mean, how many times have I felt like, oh,
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: I know I told them I would go to the thing,
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: but I don't really feel like, and you know what?
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: You still need to show up, right?
• 50:38
  Speaker 2: Yep.
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: So it's like, how do we not fall apart and
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: continue functioning in a good enough way to when we
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: are going through hard things and have this toughness, and
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: I hear what you're saying, like we don't want to
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: put it on a shelf forever. And I can also
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: relate to what you were saying, like being a therapist
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: in the aftermath of my own mother's passing several years ago,
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: you know, sitting in sessions, having all this stuff come up.
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: And I think all therapists to a degree can develop
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: this ability to compartmentalize it. It's you know, probably a
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: little bit horrifying actually in retrospect, but, but there's like
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: a too much, but, but to be able to cultivate
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: this ability to not have your emotions or your circumstances
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: be this tsunami that takes over everything.
• 51:35
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: And, and prevents you from being able to live your life.
• 51:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, absolutely. And I don't know why
• 51:43
  Speaker 2: we don't talk about this more, right? I feel like
• 51:45
  Speaker 2: so many people are like, oh, they come into my
• 51:47
  Speaker 2: therapy office and they'll tell me what they're going through.
• 51:49
  Speaker 2: And I'm like, wow. And you're still showing up at
• 51:51
  Speaker 2: work every day. And maybe your coworkers have no idea.
• 51:54
  Speaker 2: You're still functioning. You feel like you're bubbling over, like
• 51:58
  Speaker 2: you just are holding it together by a thread. And
• 52:01
  Speaker 2: yet here you are. Let's talk about how to do
• 52:03
  Speaker 2: that in a way where you don't feel like you're
• 52:04
  Speaker 2: going to break or you're going to burst at the
• 52:06
  Speaker 2: seams if you keep going.
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, or that it doesn't become unhealthy because there are
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: extremes to that as well. Okay, so Amy, we need
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: to take another super fast break. And then on the
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: other side, let's dig into some of these.
• 52:35
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• 54:42
  Speaker 1: All right. So we are back with a very special guest,
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: Amy Moran. psychotherapist, author of 10 Things Mentally Strong People
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: Don't Do, and author of the new book, The Mental
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: Strength Playbook. And so just before the break, Aby, you
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: promised to share with us some strategies that are things
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: we can all do in those moments when we are
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: dealing with stuff and we need to show up anyway
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: and be strong. What does that look like?
• 55:14
  Speaker 2: So, you know, one of my favorites, a lot of
• 55:15
  Speaker 2: people will say when I'm struggling with something, like I
• 55:18
  Speaker 2: just can't get my mind off of it. And it
• 55:20
  Speaker 2: might be a health diagnosis. Maybe your marriage is in trouble.
• 55:23
  Speaker 2: Maybe it's something with your kids, your parents, whatever. But
• 55:25
  Speaker 2: you're at work and you're trying to work on a
• 55:27
  Speaker 2: boring spreadsheet. And that thing keeps popping up in your head.
• 55:30
  Speaker 2: And you're like, oh, I need to concentrate. I need
• 55:32
  Speaker 2: to be present for this meeting that I'm in. One
• 55:35
  Speaker 2: of my favorite strategies is to schedule time to worry.
• 55:37
  Speaker 2: This is straight out of cognitive behavioral therapy, but it
• 55:41
  Speaker 2: works really well. If you schedule 15 minutes a day
• 55:45
  Speaker 2: to worry about something, there's research that shows you can
• 55:48
  Speaker 2: compartmentalize it and just contain it to just that 15 minutes.
• 55:51
  Speaker 2: So let's say somebody is going through a divorce. Maybe
• 55:55
  Speaker 2: it's ugly stuff with lawyers and custody issues and lots
• 55:58
  Speaker 2: of stuff to think about. Well, instead of thinking about
• 56:01
  Speaker 2: it 24-7, you just say from 7 to 7.15 every evening,
• 56:04
  Speaker 2: I'm going to worry. And when your worry time rolls around,
• 56:07
  Speaker 2: you sit around at the kitchen table and you just
• 56:09
  Speaker 2: let your mind go wherever. Maybe you write it down.
• 56:12
  Speaker 2: And whenever you catch yourself worrying outside of that time,
• 56:14
  Speaker 2: you just tell yourself, it's not time to worry about
• 56:16
  Speaker 2: that yet. I'll worry about that later. And when you
• 56:19
  Speaker 2: practice that, the first week is really tough because your
• 56:22
  Speaker 2: mind's going to keep saying, yeah, but what about this?
• 56:24
  Speaker 2: What about that?
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: Or what if?
• 56:27
  Speaker 2: But once you prove to your brain, I'm going to
• 56:29
  Speaker 2: give you time to think about that. It will stop
• 56:31
  Speaker 2: pinging you all day long because what often happens when
• 56:34
  Speaker 2: we have a thought is we think we just try
• 56:36
  Speaker 2: to suppress it. We shove it away. But the more
• 56:39
  Speaker 2: that we try to shove it down and keep ourselves
• 56:41
  Speaker 2: from thinking about it, the more our brain's like, no,
• 56:43
  Speaker 2: this is important. You need to think about it. And
• 56:45
  Speaker 2: it backfires. And we think about it even more. So
• 56:47
  Speaker 2: if you just give yourself permission to worry, but just
• 56:50
  Speaker 2: set a time limit on it, and then you actually
• 56:52
  Speaker 2: follow through with it, same time every day, after a while,
• 56:55
  Speaker 2: your brain will say, okay, I don't need to keep
• 56:57
  Speaker 2: reminding you of this all day long because I trust
• 56:59
  Speaker 2: that you're going to do it. And people who will
• 57:02
  Speaker 2: practice this, they'll come into my therapy office, maybe two
• 57:04
  Speaker 2: weeks later, and they look like the weight of the
• 57:05
  Speaker 2: world has literally been lifted off of their shoulders. And
• 57:08
  Speaker 2: they'll say, I can finally pay attention or I feel
• 57:11
  Speaker 2: so much less stressed throughout the day because I'm not
• 57:14
  Speaker 2: always thinking about that thing or all of the things
• 57:16
  Speaker 2: I can't control. Suddenly, I feel like, okay, I can
• 57:19
  Speaker 2: concentrate on this. And I know, I trust that I'm
• 57:21
  Speaker 2: going to give myself a chance to worry about that later.
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: That's so good. You know, like from this mental hurricane
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: where it's like, you know, like all the thoughts and
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: the ruminations and all the things to be able to
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: have something actionable to do that we're not Saying it's
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: not important. We're just saying I have a time and
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: a place to do this and the space it opens up.
• 57:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. And then to, okay, I don't have to
• 57:48
  Speaker 2: worry about this 24-7. I'll just worry about it for
• 57:51
  Speaker 2: 15 minutes. I think can be quite freeing.
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: So good. All right. I might start practicing that one today, Amy.
• 57:59
  Speaker 2: Oh my gosh.
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: Is there another favorite that you have is something that
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: you're like, this is my go-to. This is the one
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: that has the most power for me.
• 58:12
  Speaker 2: So one of my favorites is, it's a dread diffuser.
• 58:17
  Speaker 2: I've got a whole chapter on things that you dread,
• 58:19
  Speaker 2: whether you dread meetings or seeing your specific coworker or
• 58:22
  Speaker 2: doing a boring task and the sections about dread diffusers.
• 58:27
  Speaker 2: This one is called Text to Motivation Buddy, and it
• 58:30
  Speaker 2: works really well. So I like to write books, but
• 58:33
  Speaker 2: I don't love to edit my books. The editing, I think,
• 58:36
  Speaker 2: is just cumbersome and slow. And when I go to edit,
• 58:40
  Speaker 2: I can find a million things I'd rather do, whether
• 58:42
  Speaker 2: it be check my phone or go down some internet
• 58:44
  Speaker 2: rabbit hole or do the dishes. So what I've found
• 58:48
  Speaker 2: is really helpful. When I sit down to do something
• 58:50
  Speaker 2: that I'm not thrilled about doing or I'm just not
• 58:52
  Speaker 2: in the mood, I'll text somebody and say, hey, this
• 58:55
  Speaker 2: is what I'm working on. Check in with me in
• 58:57
  Speaker 2: an hour to ask me how I'm doing. So it
• 59:00
  Speaker 2: might be my friend who is also a writer who
• 59:02
  Speaker 2: would understand. It might be my sister who I know
• 59:04
  Speaker 2: will actually follow up in an hour. And suddenly when
• 59:08
  Speaker 2: you put that social pressure on yourself, and you give
• 59:10
  Speaker 2: yourself that deadline and not too far into the future,
• 59:13
  Speaker 2: usually an hour is plenty. Suddenly you'll find yourself more
• 59:16
  Speaker 2: motivated than you've been in a really long time because
• 59:18
  Speaker 2: you're going to want to report that you have some progress.
• 59:21
  Speaker 2: So in 60 minutes when your buddy checks back in
• 59:23
  Speaker 2: and says, hey, how are you doing on that? You
• 59:25
  Speaker 2: can say, I've gotten 17 pages done or I've gotten
• 59:29
  Speaker 2: how many lines done on my spreadsheet or my slideshow
• 59:31
  Speaker 2: is almost done. Thanks for checking in. It makes a
• 59:34
  Speaker 2: huge difference. Otherwise, a task that maybe only takes three hours,
• 59:38
  Speaker 2: we could easily make linger into the whole day. And
• 59:41
  Speaker 2: then at the end of the day, you're thinking, well,
• 59:42
  Speaker 2: I didn't get much done and I feel bad and
• 59:44
  Speaker 2: I'll have to do twice as much tomorrow. And we
• 59:47
  Speaker 2: get caught up in this cycle. But there's something about
• 59:51
  Speaker 2: reaching out to somebody, asking them to hold you accountable
• 59:54
  Speaker 2: and giving yourself a tight deadline that will make you
• 59:56
  Speaker 2: take more action in that 60 minutes than maybe you
• 59:58
  Speaker 2: have in like three days. And I find this one
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 2: to be so helpful anytime I'm bouncing through a million
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 2: emails I need to check or sometimes when I'm doing
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 2: something that's kind of boring and I just, or I'm
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 2: just distracted or I just have a day where I'd
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 2: rather be doing anything, but staring at my laptop, having
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 2: somebody check in with me makes all the difference in
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 2: the world.
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: I've been needing to clear out my basement for literally
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: a year. And I'm going to text you and say, hey, Amy,
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: check in with me later today because I'm going to
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: clear out my basement.
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 2: And that's the thing. I think these can work just
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 2: as well with personal tasks as they do with the
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 2: professional ones for things like that. Or somebody says, I'm
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 2: battling depression and my room is a mess. Can you
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 2: check in with me in an hour? And I'm just
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 2: going to try to pick the clothes up off the floor.
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 2: Might be as simple as that. Or I need to
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 2: tackle the dishes because my kitchen's a disaster right now.
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 2: Can you check in with me in an hour and
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 2: see how it's going? We can accomplish so much more
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 2: in an hour than we think that we can. And
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 2: for some people, it might even just be in 15 minutes.
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 2: If you can check in with me in 15 minutes
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 2: to see how I'm doing. Once you get started, it's
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 2: usually easier to keep going. It's that initial hurdle of like, oh,
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 2: this is going to be too much and I don't
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 2: want to get started. That often keeps us stuck.
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: That is a good one. Okay. Remembering that. Is there
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: one more to share?
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 2: I would say another one is a confidence catalyst. So
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 2: when we're filled with self-doubt, we often think like, oh,
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 2: I can't do this. I don't fit in. I don't belong.
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 2: I'm not going to do as well. We look around
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 2: at other people and we think everybody else is so confident.
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 2: How come I'm not? Clearly I wasn't meant to be here.
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 2: So one of my favorite strategies is to just act
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 2: as if, and it's not the same as fake it
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 2: till you make it because I don't want anybody to
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 2: act fake, but it could just be, if I were
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 2: the most confident version of myself right now, what would
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 2: I look like? How might I enter the room? What
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 2: would my posture be like? How would I be interacting
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 2: with people? And then if you just start doing those things,
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 2: even though you don't feel it, your brain kind of
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 2: catches up with your behavior. It'll be like, oh, we're
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 2: shaking hands and looking people in the eye. So we
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 2: must feel good. And suddenly you start to build confidence
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 2: right in the moment. So Take a networking event. A
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 2: lot of people are like, oh, I'm so awkward. I
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 2: sit in the corner. I don't talk to anybody. And
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 2: I've had that exact same feeling. But if you said
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 2: to yourself, if I walk into this networking event and
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 2: I'm going to be my most confident self, what would
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 2: I be doing? And it may be it's I introduce
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 2: myself to people. I look them in the eye. I
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 2: ask them an interesting question. Well, just start doing that,
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 2: even though you don't feel like it. And just watch
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 2: what happens. It can make all the difference in the world,
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 2: whether you're giving a presentation at a meeting or you're
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 2: walking into a room where you don't know anybody. Just say,
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 2: how would I act if I were the most confident
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 2: version of myself?
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: And just to support what you're saying, and I'm sure
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: you've encountered this as well, but there's a lot of
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 1: research to support that, like that your behavior actually precipitates
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 1: the way that you feel. Even something as simple as
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: smiling or as you're saying, talking to someone that you
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: will feel better because of it. And again, just if
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: anybody's holding onto that idea that you need to feel
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: confident before you can do that, or that you need
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: to feel happy before you can show up in a
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 1: positive way that don't dismiss the power of behavior to
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 1: create the mood state that you'd like to experience.
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 2: Absolutely.
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 2: How often do we think, well, I'm, I'm smiling because
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 2: I feel happy. But the inverse is true as well.
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 2: Like if I start smiling when I'm in a bad mood,
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 2: sometimes you can induce feelings of happiness. And I don't
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 2: think that we need to like plaster on a fake
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 2: smile all the time or we don't need to be fake.
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 2: But if you can just put forward like that best
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 2: version of yourself, amazing things can happen.
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 1: Absolutely.
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: This has been so good, Amy. And so thank you
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: so much. First of all, by the way, for sharing
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: these specific things with us just so generously. And I
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 1: know that in the mental strength playbook, there are 50
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: of these. And so there's a lot more where that
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: came from related to, uh, your strategies. But I have,
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: I have two last questions if it's okay. Um, so
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: I guess a couple of different angles here. Um, First
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 1: of all, for someone listening, and I think that this
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: is something that should be discussed, right? All of these
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: strategies are powerful. They're such a well-established basis for all
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: of these and a lot of what we know about
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: psychology that works, right? The active ingredients, so to speak.
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: And I think that as therapists or maybe personally, we
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: have people in our lives who can be avoidant, who
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 1: can minimize stress. who want to push away hard things
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 1: and just kind of keep going on without actually spending
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 1: enough time with the feelings or understanding the lessons of
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 1: the past. And so for anyone listening who might have
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: those concerns or maybe have those tendencies, like how would
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: you recommend somebody use these ideas in a healthy way
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: without going to the place where they are potentially avoiding
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: things that are actually valuable, productive, and need to be addressed,
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 1: like as a therapist.
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 2: I think there's a huge difference between being mentally strong
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 2: and just acting tough. Yeah. They get confused all the time, right?
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 2: We have a lot of Navy SEALs out there or
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 2: athletes even who talk about mental toughness. And they'll say
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 2: things like, you know, just like suffering is something to
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 2: be glorified. And the more that you can push down
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 2: your pain and the more you can endure, the better
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 2: off you are and never let them see you sweat.
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 2: And what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. And all
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 2: of these slogans and attitudes are really about suppressing emotions,
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 2: about pretending like you don't care. It's about, you know,
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 2: just trying to put yourself through pain for the sake
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 2: of pain's sake. But then when you really ask yourself, like,
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 2: what takes more courage saying, no, I'm fine. Nothing's bothering me.
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 2: Or does it take more courage to say, actually, Lisa,
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 2: I'm really struggling and here's what I'm going through. It
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 2: takes way more strength to be able to be vulnerable
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 2: and to talk about those things or to ask for help.
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 2: So when it's ourselves, I think we can ask ourselves
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 2: that question. Like, am I being strong right now or
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 2: just acting tough? Am I putting on that mask because
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 2: I want other people to perceive me as tough? Or
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 2: am I really doing what it would take to be
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 2: a strong person? And I think when we see other
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 2: people who are acting tough, to give them some grace
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 2: and to know it's probably really painful for them to
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 2: go there, to acknowledge their feelings, especially to talk about it.
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 2: But one of the best things we can do is
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 2: to just role model like, you know what? It's not
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 2: that I'm going to try to impress you with how
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 2: perfect I am, but instead I'm going to tell you
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 2: what I'm struggling with. And even the toughest of people,
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 2: when you say, hey, I'm really struggling with something, they'll
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 2: often say, oh, I can relate to that or me too,
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 2: or I've been there. And that can be enough to
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 2: open the door to help somebody else feel like it's
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 2: safe enough to be vulnerable and to acknowledge that they
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 2: don't have all the answers or to admit that they
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 2: make mistakes or that they're struggling with something as well.
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely. So just paying attention to, is this a facade?
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 1: Is this a front that is maybe getting in the
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 1: way of my ability to be authentic or to have
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 1: emotionally connected relationships with people who know me? And to
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 1: what degree is this a defense mechanism versus having that
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 1: insight to be able to manage it and understand, I
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 1: don't know, it seems like there's a message here of balance, right?
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: That mental toughness and the strength that is required to
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 1: manage yourself, manage your thoughts, not go down spirals that
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 1: are self-destructive in a lot of ways, versus also being
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 1: open enough and self-aware enough to have a healthy connection
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 1: with your thoughts and feelings and the painful parts of life.
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 1: That's not easy to do. And I think something that
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 1: we all probably need to actively manage as we go
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 1: through the world. So thank you for kind of talking
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 1: about your thoughts there. And so the other thing, and
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 1: this is a curiosity, as a therapist, I'm, well, I
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 1: don't know. I mean, you experienced the things that you
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 1: did very early on in your career. You mentioned being
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 1: in your 20s, which is still in. Baby therapists are
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 1: being shaped.
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 1: And so I'm curious if there was ever a period
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 1: in your career where you were operating more like a
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 1: conventional therapist or the processing of the feelings, the insight, the,
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 1: conventional ways of being, and then made a shift into
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 1: more of a focus on the mental strength approach? And
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 1: if so, if you noticed a difference between what your
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 1: clients were experiencing as a result of those two different
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 1: approaches that you were using as a therapist?
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 2: Oh, good question. And I think as you say, when
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 2: When I first lost my mom and I first lost
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 2: my husband, I was straight out of college with the textbooks.
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 1: You were thinking like- Still get bacon in the oven, right? Correct.
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 2: It's like a 10-year trajectory. Right. I was going to
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 2: stick to textbooks, CBT, and all of those sorts of things.
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 2: And I think as time went on, I went through
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 2: my own experiences, the more I, after I wrote the
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 2: article and I thought, oh, this resonates with people. If
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 2: I'd written an article that was like, about improving your
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 2: mental health. So I'm not sure we'd be talking about
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 2: it in corporate America or things like that. So it
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 2: just made me realize that we all have these universal struggles.
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 2: What we call it often matters and that people find
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 2: more hope. I think in knowing that while maybe you
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 2: feel bad in terms of your mental health, there's still
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 2: choices in what you do, like in terms of mental strength,
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 2: just like if my physical health were struggling, I can
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 2: still choose to go to the gym. If my mental
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 2: health is struggling, I can still choose to build mental
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 2: strength every day. And I think that sort of new
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 2: framework reminded me that people just need to know, like,
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 2: what are some strategies? What do I need to give up?
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 2: What helps? And that the same thing doesn't work for everybody.
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 2: It's not the cookie cutter textbook strategies that I thought
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 2: were going to work for people. But People often find
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 2: their own way as long as they have somebody who's
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 2: supporting them and encouraging them and helping them to experiment
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 2: and figuring out exactly what works for them. And I
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 2: think that's one of the reasons why I wrote the
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 2: playbook is I wanted people to know, I don't know you,
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 2: I don't know your boss, I don't know your situation,
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 2: but there's a play you can run and it's going
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 2: to be, I'll give you the science back strategies that
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 2: I know works. And then the art form is you
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 2: get to pick which ones you want to try.
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 1: Absolutely. Oh, so good, Amy. And, you know, just to share,
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 1: I could really see many people resonating with this and
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 1: that it feels more almost like energetically congruent and appealing.
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 1: You know, when we think of mental health, a lot
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 1: of times the meta message is that you're sick. And
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 1: we will restore your mental health, right? Or there's like
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 1: this healing component versus this ability to become stronger, I think,
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 1: lands better with a lot of people who can really
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 1: benefit from the kind of work that you're talking about,
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 1: but who might... have some, I don't know if resistance
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 1: is the right word, but don't necessarily want to get
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 1: in that pool where we're going to be focusing on
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 1: healing as opposed to the cultivation of strength. And so
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 1: I appreciate that that brings, um, a path forward for
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 1: a lot of people who might not have wanted to
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 1: participate in it without that framing. Is that the right
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 1: way to say it?
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 2: I think so. I think so. Exactly. You know, to
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 2: be able to, to talk to people from all walks
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 2: of life about how do you build mental strength has
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 2: been an absolute honor.
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 1: Um, Well, and I know you do so much of that.
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 1: So before we glide to a stop here, where can
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 1: people go to learn more about you, stay connected with you,
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 1: check out everything that you have to offer? Because there's
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 1: so much. There are numerous books. There's TED Talks. What's
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 1: the best way?
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 2: So my website is The Best Place, which is Amy Morin, M-O-R-I-N.
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 2: L-C-S-W as in Licensed Clinical Social Worker dot com. And
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 2: on there, you can subscribe to my newsletter, find more
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 2: information about my books, my talks and all the other
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 2: things that I do. Amazing.
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 1: Well, Amy, thank you so much for spending this time
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 1: with us today. This has been such a fascinating conversation,
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 1: and I'm glad to get to know you.
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 2: Well, thanks so much for having me, Lisa. It's been
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 2: an absolute pleasure to be here. Amy Morin is one
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 2: of those therapists that I love connecting with because she
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 2: has a.
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 1: Well-established point of view that is grounded in evidence-based practice,
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 1: but brings a really fresh perspective and a different way
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 1: of attaining, um, fantastic outcomes for people through, um, a
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 1: process that is a little bit different than a traditional
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 1: therapeutic approach. And I really appreciated it. And I hope
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 1: you got some interesting new ideas out of listening to
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 1: that conversation as well. Um, And one of the things
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 1: that was standing out for me as I was talking
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 1: with Amy was how everything she is advising is founded
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 1: on this ability to know yourself, like to have insight
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 1: into your own mind and in the moment to be
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 1: able to be even just aware of that you are
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 1: engaging in a way of thinking that maybe isn't particularly
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 1: helpful for you, and that you have control over that,
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 1: as well as, you know, in the moment, this ability
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 1: to almost have a conversation with yourself, like what, what
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 1: play in the playbook shall I run right now, which
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 1: requires insight into the circumstances, the way you're thinking, feeling,
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 1: and behaving in that circumstance currently, and then an intention
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 1: to do something different and then follow through. And so
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 1: these types of ideas are really powerful, but only if
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 1: you have the ability to intervene on your own behalf
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 1: in some ways in the moment. And this ability begins
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 1: with your own work.
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 2: Certainly.
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 1: Talking about your own internal process is one way to
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 1: get that visibility. You can also journal about it, but
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 1: it requires becoming curious about your own mind. And then
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 1: also sometimes having a partner who can help you shine
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 1: a light on your opportunities for change. There are so
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 1: many things that we all do, the way we think,
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 1: the way we behave, our instinctive patterns that are not
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 1: in our own awareness because they're just the way things are,
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 1: it takes sometimes an outside perspective to be able to
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 1: see them in a different way. Amy talked about providing
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 1: that to her clients through therapy. And that is also
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 1: something that I and the other clinicians that I work
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 1: with here at Growing Self do day to day, either
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 1: through psychotherapy, if the goal is to help someone with
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 1: depression or anxiety, or or through coaching modalities that we
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 1: use to help people make some positive changes that help
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 1: them get where they want to go in a more
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 1: action-oriented way. And so if you would like some support
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 1: for yourself in doing the type of work you heard today,
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 1: get in touch. It all starts with a free consultation.
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 1: You can come to growingself.com. Click the Get Connected button.
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 1: Tell us a little bit about yourself, what's going on,
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 1: what your hopes and goals are for this. And then
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 1: we'll create recommendations for you to have a totally free
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 1: consultation with one of the coaching therapists on my team.
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 1: So you could talk more about your hopes and goals,
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 1: learn more about their approach and see if it's a
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 1: good fit.
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 2: Before moving forward.
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 1: Growingself.com, get connected. All right. Other than that, I hope
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 1: that today's episode was as good for you as it
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 1: was for me. I've got some takeaways too. I'll be
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 1: back in touch with you next time for another episode
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 1: of Love, Happiness, and Success.