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The I in stress: When the present is overwhelming · Gabriel Ellis, PhD | The Curious Mind Podcast

0:03
Hello everyone, my name is Gabriel Ellis and welcome to the
0:06
Curious Mind podcast. I take a deeper look at
0:10
psychological, spiritual, self development topics because I
0:16
think that in the regular way in which these topics are portrayed
0:22
on the Internet or on YouTube, they are handled too
0:26
superficially. And so I'd like to invite you
0:29
and introduce you to more complex perceptions on topics
0:34
that sometimes are close to everyday experience, sometimes a
0:37
little bit further away. Today I would like to be quite
0:41
close to everyday experience with a topic of the eye in
0:45
stress when the present is overwhelming and this effects, I
0:51
think, many people in the workforce and in their private
0:55
lives. We have, at least in Europe we
0:58
have record numbers when it comes to sick days, sick leaves
1:04
due to psychological distress, mental distress and I would
1:09
assume that in other parts of the world this trend is either
1:13
catching up or just the same as we experience it.
1:17
In Europe, popular phenomena are burnout and obviously there is
1:22
much talk and information about burnout.
1:26
And also in relationships we have on a high level, we have
1:32
numbers of separation, divorce, single households and so on.
1:38
Not that this is seemingly exponentially rising, but the
1:41
trend is relatively high. Another indicator is the
1:45
frequent use of antidepressants, anxiety medication, all these
1:54
sorts of kind of crutches and helps.
1:58
Not usually. Not counted here is the abuse of
2:03
normal drugs, so to speak, alcohol, THC.
2:07
You know the drugs that are commonly available.
2:10
Surely people are self medicating in this way as well.
2:14
So there are surely many aspects that contribute to this
2:19
phenomenon. And usually when I talk about it
2:22
or I think also when you look at other content that is provided
2:27
by professionals or semi professionals, we look at a more
2:33
personal individualistic approach.
2:36
What can I do to reduce my stress?
2:40
How can I improve my relationship?
2:43
All these sorts of questions. Today I want to look at a more
2:47
systemic level because my experience in my clinical
2:51
practice is that when clients come to me for therapy, they
2:56
often have not talked in depth about the issues and because of
3:03
that they could not explore the interconnection of different
3:07
phenomena in their life. And as of consequence, often
3:12
enough they have the perception that they are quite alone with
3:16
their problem. They think that this is the
3:18
problem that only they have or that a minority of people have.
3:23
And surely A contribution to this is also the availability of
3:31
self help, therapeutical content, Instagram and so on.
3:35
So that there is a contrast between what people experience
3:39
and what they perceive they should be able to do, which is
3:43
to quickly fix themselves or that other people might not have
3:47
these issues altogether. When we generally look at mental
3:56
issues or the mind in general, we can distinguish between two
4:04
kind of improvement factors or blockers, hindrances.
4:10
So the one perspective is the perspective of challenges,
4:14
right? So I have my problems and either
4:17
I talk to friends, I read books or I go to therapy and then I
4:20
describe my problems, problems with myself, with my confidence,
4:24
with my partner, burnout at work and so forth.
4:28
Now often enough another perspective is lost here, which
4:32
is the perspective of resources. So while the challenges and the
4:37
problems are on the heavy side, what is supportive is called in
4:43
positive psychology resources. And the fact that I have a
4:48
problem can be due to a big problem that I have in fact, but
4:54
it can also be indicative of me having not enough resources.
4:57
So ideally, in therapy we want to do both.
5:01
We want to systematically look at how the issues continue to be
5:08
in my life, reduce the impact of the problems, solve the problems
5:13
if possible. But on the other hand, we also
5:15
want to increase the impact of the positives, the resources.
5:22
Now keep in mind, when I'm delving more into the
5:27
problematic side of challenges in this video, I don't mean to
5:32
say the challenges are negative only we need to be challenged.
5:35
We want to be challenged. Challenges is something that we
5:39
grow with, something that dramatically increases the
5:45
quality of our lives when we're able to handle them, something
5:49
that makes us grow and develop. But too much challenge is an
5:55
overburden for our Organism and for our mind.
5:59
Ideally, we should be able to have a few select challenges in
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our lives, concentrate on them, solve them, or get a grip on
6:10
them in some way. Sometimes solutions are not
6:14
possible and only processing as possible and then we can move
6:19
over to the next challenges. What is unhealthy is that if
6:25
there are too many challenges on too many fronts, and especially
6:28
challenges that I have no say over, that are overwhelming both
6:37
in the appearance in my life as also in the scope and the
6:43
frequency and the attention that they need.
6:47
Under these circumstances we just become frightened,
6:50
overwhelmed, depressed or you know, even develop some sort of
6:56
trauma symptoms. What we need in order to grow
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from challenges is self efficacy.
7:06
The ability to choose to focus, to process, to digest, to
7:11
develop an implement. OK, so keep that in mind.
7:15
Challenges can be good, but under certain circumstances.
7:20
Now, I talked about resources, and since this is a sometimes
7:25
neglected aspect as a very important contributor to a
7:32
successful overcoming of challenges, I want to highlight
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them a little bit more. There are inner resources and
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there are outer resources. Both are equally super
7:45
important. We cannot do without one of
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these. We cannot live on inner
7:50
resources alone. We cannot live on outer
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resources alone. Well, what are inner resources?
7:56
Examples here are a sense of optimism, resilience, self
8:01
compassion, motivation, perseverance, problem solving
8:06
skills, and intelligence. A sense of humor that helps me
8:10
to get an outside perspective. Creativity to help me to elevate
8:16
my problems onto a realm that where art is kind of tapping
8:23
into the aspects of our mind that allow me to deal with
8:30
things from a different perspective, to look at them
8:33
from a different perspective, not from the ego perspective all
8:37
the time. Gratitude is another resource.
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It makes my heart glad. It softens my mind.
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Mindfulness. Why?
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Because I can be in the present moment, I can detach for a
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little bit from the burden of the problems that I have, and
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for other reasons as well. Social intelligence is a
9:01
resource because it helps me to create out of resources which I
9:07
will get into just in a bit. Emotional intelligence can help
9:13
me to understand myself, to help understand others self efficacy.
9:17
I've mentioned that the ability to learn how to influence the
9:22
inner and outer circumstances in my life, and for some people at
9:26
least, spirituality, a spiritual practice or a spiritual mindset
9:31
can be a resource factor that makes me more resilient, more
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detached from the immediacy and the urgency of the situation as
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it is the difficult situation, as it is OK, so these are all
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inner resources. They are based in my character.
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They are based in my personality.
9:51
Outdoor resources are first and foremost supportive
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relationships which can be friends, family, community.
10:01
This is something quite existential.
10:03
We can really not live without other people.
10:07
They In other videos I go more into the complexities of how
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supportive relationships or relationships in general work,
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but they help us to bring out a very fundamental set of needs
10:23
that is inside of us. We are also existentially social
10:28
being so the recognition from others, the support from others,
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brings a very fundamental aspect of me into existence that I
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could not live without and for so many other reasons.
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So just take it for granted or reflect on it of how important
10:46
supportive relationships are and how difficult and challenging
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life is when we have no supporting relationships at all.
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Another important resource out of resource is the access to
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healthcare, which it doesn't mean that I have to use it all
11:06
the time, but to have access to healthcare just put my mind at
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ease and makes me more relaxed. I'm not too worried about
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situations when, for example, I cannot work or I have a serious
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illness. Other people depend on me.
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So for many reasons the access to Healthcare is important.
11:26
The access to education just as well meaningful work, purposeful
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work is an out of resource. We spend a lot of time at work
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and when we connect work with purpose in our lives then we
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feel that we have done something meaningful, something enriching.
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We are interested. We develop with the work For so
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many reasons. Purpose for work is quite
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essential as an out of resource of course financial security and
12:02
I've mentioned money, socio economic status in financial
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security, not in the 1st place because it is mostly symbolic.
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Financial security is something that I connect with the
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potential to do things, to buy things, to buy access to people,
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to services, to goods. But as such money is overrated
12:30
as a factor. We always have to keep in mind
12:34
that money is always symbolic. It represents the potential to
12:38
get things. So This is why I put it at this
12:42
place. Positive role models are
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important for us because this is partly how we develop.
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Surely when we're young this is quite important in the form of
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parents, friends, mentors, but also later on when we learn and
12:56
we develop as adults. Cultural traditions are an
13:00
outdoor resource that can make us feel at home and embedded in
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the community where we live. People who live as expats
13:08
somewhere else, they sometimes see how markers of culture and
13:17
of tradition are missing. And it might be maybe annoying
13:21
to be exposed to the cultural traditions that where we have
13:26
grown up in, but they can have something quite comforting and
13:31
enable us to feel at home, which is again another important
13:35
resource. The access to nature is
13:39
important. And here the this is a challenge
13:43
for urban community planners and for urban population.
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Because if they don't have parks, recreational areas right
13:55
in front of the doorstep, then it's a logistic little
13:59
logistical challenge to visit them and just to enjoy the quite
14:08
primitive satisfaction that comes with being surrounded by
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nature. And the final resource that I
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want to mention is social support systems.
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There are so many, I would count even some bureaucratic services
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among them. All the things that enable us to
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live a normal life in society are part of the outer resources.
14:35
So having described the inner resources and the outer
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resources, when resources are missing, like I said in the
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beginning, when they are missing, it's quite difficult to
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deal even with smaller issues. Because, you know, a metaphor
14:54
for resources can be my battery. And when my battery is empty and
14:58
challenges demand more energy and attention, I simply have
15:02
nothing to give. So we need those resources as a
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balance, as a battery, to enable us to deal with problems at all,
15:12
to have a good quality of life. The foundation for the inner
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resources that I mentioned Optimism, self compassion,
15:22
motivation, perseverance, all of these things, the foundation for
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those inner resources, They come from childhood, earlier
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childhood, from the way that we are raised, from the 1st circle
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of friends and that goes into young adulthood.
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When we go to school, we finish school and university.
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These are the formative years. This is when our personality
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develops. Of course we remain to be
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malleable. We always adjust with the
15:57
circumstances, but the foundation of the personality is
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laid and laid down in those years.
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Parents nowadays especially are quite aware of the
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responsibility that they have in child rearing and they seem to
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put more and more effort into correct child rearing and to the
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positive values in education. To instill positive values in
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education is I think, something that most parents nowadays are
16:36
quite aware of, that you should encourage your children that you
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should teach them self efficacy, not to be afraid to count on the
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support of the parents and so forth.
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Yet it seems that even though it's quite a present prominent
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theme for parents that they want to do the right thing, they
17:00
don't want to make the mistakes of the past.
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Where children were often given a stern treatment, punishment of
17:12
many sorts, so that they developed a self-image that was
17:15
negative, that the self-image was too conditional, too
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dependent on performance and so forth for the past generations,
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parents more and more actively want to avoid these mistakes and
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want to raise the children with a sense of in quotes,
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unconditional love, broad support, base accountability,
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and so forth. But in a way, it seems to be
17:46
more and more difficult to implant those positive ideas and
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those positive self views into children and young adults.
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Which means, or as a consequence, we have bigger than
18:01
ever it seems, an industry of self development that seeks to
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remedy the lacks of personalities that see
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themselves in a negative light. What does that mean?
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Kind of an abstract description of what is happening, which is
18:26
that we are bombarded in social media and conversations and so
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on with all those well meant tips, hacks and so on.
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How to improve, how to love oneself, how to set borders, how
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to be positive, how to identify red flags and other people, and
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so on. And yet in both my clinical but
18:52
also from a sociological observation and publications.
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You can read up on it in sociological publications,
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statistics and so forth. And yet this seems to be rather
19:07
the expression of a symptom, not a solution.
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In other words, the fact that all this great information is
19:14
out there. How to treat yourself well, how
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to have good relationships and so on.
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It doesn't seem to solve the problem.
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If it were to solve the problem, the necessity for this content
19:27
would disappear. Instead, it seems to be quite
19:31
stable or even increasing separation rates.
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Divorce rates don't go down. Prescription of antidepressants
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doesn't go down, burnout numbers don't go down.
19:45
So whatever the content and the self help and self development
19:51
community and the audience of it is, it doesn't seem to solve the
19:55
problem. Let me highlight a few more
20:03
other problems that contribute to the calamity that we seem to
20:09
be in collectively on a psychological level.
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As I mentioned, supporting relationships are very important
20:19
as outer resources. Now the life that we lead puts
20:25
some problems to this resource, to social supportive networks.
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Why? Because often enough, and I'm
20:36
simplifying, so I will not, I'm not able to catch everybody's
20:40
everyday experience. But work wants us to be
20:44
flexible. Flexibility means flexible
20:48
hours. It means to be flexible
20:50
geographically. It means that we might have to
20:55
move away, spend long hours. Apart from our friendships and
21:02
relationships, we need to do overwork sometimes when the
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pressure of life circumstances affects us in a way that we are
21:16
removed geographically from the locations where our friends are.
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And by the way, there can be other reasons as well.
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For example, many people have their friendships at university
21:29
and then when you finish university you move away.
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So it's not only that you know relationships or work kind of
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inhibit a healthy in person, social network and friendships.
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It is also circumstances like that.
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But when that happens, when we are geographically separated,
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time wise separated, because we have to deal with our family,
21:55
our work time is unpredictable. So we cannot go regularly to
21:59
sports clubs and so forth. When that happens, what I
22:04
mentioned is one of the important or the most important
22:08
outer resource becomes problematic because we don't
22:15
have access to it. So a major source of life
22:19
satisfaction, of recharging, battery, of comfort, feeling
22:23
connected, acknowledgement, support, love falls away.
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So the social support is a question mark nowadays for many
22:38
reasons modern the modern way of living contributes to that.
22:44
Another factor is the increased individuality.
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Now this has been in sociology quite known phenomenon.
22:55
Partly this has been observed since the dawn of the Industrial
23:01
Revolution. The effect is that we become
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more and more individual and specific in the expression of
23:13
ourselves. We have a more and more
23:17
individual and demanding fingerprint of needs that we
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want to see satisfied in order to be satisfied.
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It's not just enough to have three people that we talk to
23:32
about some nonsense and football and so on.
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They have to be the right people and everyone has their criteria
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of what the right people are. And if they are not right, they
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turn from from being a resource. They become an issue.
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They take energy away all the time.
23:51
We meet people that we are not really in tune with.
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We come home and we, you know, let go where we have a sigh of
23:58
relief because finally this demanding social situation is
24:03
over and I'm questioning whether I should meet them again.
24:07
So individuality just makes it difficult for us to connect to
24:13
circumstances. For them to be satisfying.
24:17
I need a specific satisfaction at work, of course, in my
24:22
relationships and friendships and so forth, So this is a huge
24:28
factor of our times. Has it been increasing or just
24:33
plateauing on a high level? I don't know.
24:36
But individuality is a factor that sociologists have
24:40
identified as can be gratifying but problematic in the sense
24:48
that it makes it difficult to be fulfilled and satisfied.
24:53
And just to mention, as a separate challenge that we have,
24:57
it is connected with the first two time, the lack of time.
25:05
Nobody seems to have time anymore.
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Of course there's an exaggeration, but how often is
25:09
it possible to just call a friend and they would have time
25:12
to talk? People are busy.
25:15
This is connected also with the huge amount of possibilities
25:18
that we have. The Internet has awarded us and
25:23
rewarded us with so many possibilities to spend our time
25:26
with. And here a joy, something that
25:30
was a joy in the beginning, becomes a habit and then becomes
25:34
A to do. This is a typical progression
25:37
from our leisure time. We introduced some sort of a
25:41
hobby, a sport, some recreational activity in our
25:47
life. It starts with fun and then it's
25:49
A to do list. It becomes part of our RTD.
25:54
OK, let me focus on another systemic aspect that is
26:01
important in describing today's life, which is work.
26:07
Again, we know from sociological studies that over the decades
26:11
the range of demands on the normal employee has dramatically
26:21
increased. There were tasks that in the
26:25
past were limited to management, and today many normal employees
26:33
have to make the same considerations.
26:36
Now management. In the past the deal so to speak
26:40
was I have a lot of responsibility, a lot of
26:44
complexity and hence my pay grade, right?
26:49
Hence my income is higher and because normal employees kind of
26:55
have more dull routine work, they just execute what managers
27:00
ask them to do. That justifies that the pay is
27:05
lower. So even though again this is
27:08
quite a simplistic view, but keeping it simple as that, in
27:14
the past it was more common to have a stressed and challenged
27:20
rather small group of management, middle level high
27:25
level management and employees who were of course challenged
27:32
with work but not in terms so much of responsibility and
27:36
complexity. They to put it in simple words,
27:40
they could do their job and then go home and not having to think
27:45
too much about work if they were not stressed out by other
27:48
colleagues or the the bosses were not treating them well, but
27:52
work as such was not such a big deal.
27:55
Now this over the last decade. So I'm talking about the trend
27:59
that went on shortly from the 50s on after World War 2.
28:05
More and more of many managerial responsibilities fall onto the
28:11
normal employee. A lot of complexity.
28:15
The to keep in mind budgets. To feel responsible for budgets,
28:21
to have multiple tasks and projects at the same time, to
28:27
have project management skills. Also for normal employees, these
28:33
demands are more and more present than normal work
28:38
environments, which means that we have a much bigger range of
28:44
people in the workforce who are challenged by those
28:48
complexities. Now of course, there are
28:51
positive aspects as well of complexity.
28:54
It can help me to be more identified with work.
28:58
It helps me to grow as a person, but again, keep the simple
29:02
formula in mind. Ideally I choose my battles or I
29:05
have very few and I will come to the psychological aspect of that
29:10
in a minute. Next to the issue of more and
29:18
more responsibility at work, many people also live in some
29:24
sort of a gig economy. They're freelancers, have their
29:28
own small company or they are attached as in quotes freelances
29:35
to a company. But the fact remains they don't
29:39
have long term goals or not presented to them from work and
29:46
they don't have a sense of ownership.
29:50
They have to do the tasks that are asked from them.
29:54
They cannot participate in the success, not financially at
29:58
least. The reward of successful work is
30:02
not more time or more money. It's basically assumed that
30:06
everybody does that complex work.
30:10
The result can be, in these cases boredom, purposelessness
30:16
or exhaustion at work. Change seems to be constant.
30:27
Now this is an exaggeration. Not everything changes all the
30:29
time, time, but they seem to be big changes, foreseeable quite
30:37
often and this destabilizes the mindset of the employees.
30:44
They start to worry about what would happen.
30:48
About 20 years ago, mergers and acquisitions were quite popular
30:52
management strategy. They happen today as well, but
30:55
not as often. And then people were always
30:59
afraid. OK, so the companies advertise
31:02
the synergies that happen from merges and acquisition.
31:05
What that means is I could lose my job.
31:07
So when that is announced, when a big change is announced,
31:12
people nowadays quite regularly ask themselves is do I have to
31:17
pay for it with more work, more insecurity, compromises and
31:22
salary and so forth. And that goes along with a more
31:29
professional, benevolent language at work.
31:32
People nowadays treat themselves, each others so much
31:36
more respectfully on the language level.
31:38
And this is in contrast to the harsh reality of insecurity.
31:45
And this contrast contributes to a perception of cynicism.
31:50
Or some people interpret it in a cynical way.
31:54
Hypocrisy at the workplace. We have to be super kind and
31:59
helpful. While in reality my job could be
32:04
on the line just in a few weeks or months.
32:07
I know that everybody's competing for the next position.
32:12
Resources are limited. Again, another contrast to the
32:16
language network. So many people become cynical,
32:21
distrustful, not being able to make meaningful relationships at
32:28
work. At least not with many people,
32:30
because the next person can be my competitor.
32:35
So what suffers is often the sense of authenticity at work.
32:42
Now granted, authenticity is not something that is the nobody
32:47
expected in the past also to be super authentic at work.
32:51
But when I feel that I constantly have to promote
32:55
myself to create an image, to sell myself and what I've done
33:01
to others, then this surely increases the gap of the
33:06
perceived me, of the real me and what I present on the outside.
33:12
All of this costs a lot of energy to maintain a persona.
33:18
A facade is something that is draining, and when I come home,
33:23
I need time to recover. And the weekend.
33:26
Often enough, even though I have great plans to do so many
33:29
interesting, purposeful things, I spend them just doing.
33:35
Not much, just switching off my brain in order to recharge.
33:42
OK, and here I come to the psychological perspective of all
33:45
this. I mean, after all, this is not
33:48
primarily A sociological but a psychological podcast, a
33:55
challenge. In the big picture.
33:59
Mentally, a challenge is something that the Organism
34:02
cannot deal with, otherwise it wouldn't be a challenge.
34:07
And I've described the so many challenges at the workspace,
34:11
from the individualization of society, the lack of access to
34:15
supportive social networks, all of that.
34:20
These are challenges exactly because the Organism cannot deal
34:25
with them. So what does an Organism, the
34:28
human Organism, do when it has an issue it cannot deal with?
34:32
It elevates the issue to consciousness.
34:37
Now, in the unconscious we have the archive of problems.
34:42
I have successfully dealt with walking.
34:47
Not much of an issue anymore. Binding my shoes.
34:51
Not so much an issue anymore. Make a small presentation here
34:54
and there. Participate in a group.
34:57
All this? Not a big deal.
34:59
Routine habit for the mind. Great.
35:03
Worst case, it can be boring and empty, but it's not a challenge
35:08
per SE. When something is a challenge,
35:13
it needs to be solved, and then the Organism, the mind elevates
35:19
it to the level where that is. Basically that's main purpose is
35:26
to solve complex issues, which is the eye, the conscious eye,
35:33
the level of consciousness, being aware of an issue,
35:39
churning it, keeping it in mind, finding for solution, observing
35:44
outside circumstances. If they give me a hint of how to
35:48
solve this issue, Researching on the Internet, in conversations
35:53
with friends, in therapy, researching what could be a
35:57
solution to the issue. These are all functions of the
36:01
conscious eye. Now the conscious eye has a few
36:05
characteristics of which I want to single out two.
36:09
One, it is amazing for complex complexity.
36:16
It can deal with a lot of complexity.
36:20
I fold a topic back and forth. I can look at it from the
36:23
outside, from the inside. This is an amazing contribution.
36:27
But its bandwidth is relatively small.
36:31
So this is basically the price we pay for the ability to deal
36:35
with complexity is we cannot deal with too much complexity
36:41
and we cannot deal with many complex topics at the same time.
36:48
When that happens, when we have many topics that need a lot of
36:56
differentiation, that have an impact on my future, and they're
37:02
elevated into the mind, it cannot switch off.
37:06
It is in a state of constant survival mode, of constant
37:12
alertness, Be the problem, real or not, because our culture, our
37:20
work life, our private life surely often mimics existential
37:25
threats while they are not. Sometimes we are just afraid to
37:31
face them, and a part of clarifying problems with
37:37
friends, with books and therapy, is to get a clear perspective of
37:42
what seems to be an existential threat.
37:46
And again, I have other content where I describe why and how it
37:51
comes to be that something takes the shape of an existential
37:57
threat. To pick out one example, the
38:00
possibility to be left to be rejected by a friend, to be
38:05
hated, to be left by a partner. All of these in real life, is
38:13
not a catastrophe. It becomes a catastrophe exactly
38:16
because we are existentially social beings.
38:20
Nothing dramatic will happen if a friend of mine stops talking
38:24
to me, but for me, automatically seeing myself, defining myself
38:29
as a social human being regressing into the state of a
38:34
child that is in fact dependent in its life on the support of
38:40
its parents. In such a state, the possibility
38:44
of being rejected, of being abandoned, not loved, hated, is
38:48
indeed frightening. And for example, in therapy we
38:54
can look at it from an adult, mature perspective, alleviate
38:58
the fears of the inner child, and come to a more realistic
39:02
assessment of where we are, what we can be afraid of, what we can
39:06
endure, and so on. Leaving that aside from a more
39:10
naive perspective, when many threats come at us, the Organism
39:17
elevates them to the level of the conscious eye, of the
39:19
conscious problem solver. We easily might get a sense of
39:26
overwhelm. And here I tied back to what I
39:32
described before, the systemic challenges that so many of us
39:37
face today. Isolation, the difficulty to be
39:43
really satisfied because of our individual fingerprint, the
39:48
possibility of separation and divorce.
39:51
It's no secret anymore. Everybody knows that divorce
39:53
rates in urban societies are about 50% or something.
39:58
So it is something that is at the back of my mind, this
40:01
relationship, this partnership that I'm invested in.
40:04
It might be over at some point. And that poses a threat,
40:08
especially when children are in the relationship, when there is
40:12
income insecurity, when there's an inequality of income.
40:17
All of this becomes quite challenging.
40:21
Just the possibility that it might happen now, the struggles
40:26
that I face in the relationship, is it the bump?
40:30
Can I be chill about it or is that the introduction to our
40:34
future separation? These are very complex issues.
40:39
It's not easy to identify. It's not easy to distinguish a
40:43
challenge in the relationship from the end, the beginning of
40:46
the end of the relationship. So a lot of capacity goes into
40:50
that. Mind, power, consciousness,
40:54
power goes into that. What about work?
40:57
Is it enough that I'm invisible and doing my job?
41:04
Is it a problem if I stick my neck out and try to solve
41:07
myself? Maybe too much?
41:09
How is that perceived, the next opportunity when people have to
41:14
be let go off? Or if my economic situation is
41:19
somewhat dire and I rely on the opportunity to earn more in the
41:24
next negotiation round, how exactly do I navigate the work
41:29
field so that I look better, so that I am perceived as a better
41:34
employee, so that I get this next career step?
41:38
Complex questions, no clear answers.
41:41
So start to look and get feedback from head hunters, from
41:46
the Internet and so forth. All of that is time.
41:49
All of that adds complexity. Nothing becomes simpler because
41:52
of that, in spite of some hacks and tools and tricks and so on
41:59
that people try to sell us. So the eye for many, many people
42:06
is in constant alert mode and this is an abuse of the
42:12
conscious function. It's an abuse of the I function
42:15
abuse in the sense of it's a misuse the consciousness was not
42:21
built for that, was not built for handling many multi
42:26
complexity topics at the same time.
42:29
This is something that is a symptom of our modern life, of
42:37
our contemporary life. And yet interestingly, it seems
42:45
that many people feel alone with that because there is not enough
42:49
emphasis in the social discourse on the similarities between
42:55
people's lives. It was different in the past
43:00
from the high time of industrialization, 30s, forties,
43:06
50s and so on. There was, yes, the threat of
43:11
communism, but communism as a perspective laid emphasis on the
43:16
systemic level. And we can say somehow there was
43:21
of course, big developments in society.
43:23
But let's say that the hippie culture and maybe the beginning
43:28
of the 70s were still an outflow of a systemic level.
43:34
People struggled, argued about politics, what is the right
43:38
economic model, labor, work time and so on, exploitation.
43:45
All of these were big, big topics back then.
43:49
From then on, starting from the 60s, the 70s, the 80s, it seems
43:55
that people became more and more private.
44:00
This economic model that we are running today, democracy, social
44:05
democracy, whatever color it has in your particular location,
44:10
became the dominant model and was not fundamentally challenged
44:14
anymore. The perspective of individuals
44:18
became more inward oriented, more psychological.
44:22
People had the same problems, but we don't perceive them
44:26
anymore that much as much as in the past, as systemic issues,
44:33
issues induced by a way of life, by society, by an economy that
44:40
exploits our resource of work, our mental capacity for its own
44:47
purposes. And in this trend, in this
44:51
development over the past decades, I think that we clearly
44:55
oversteered. There's far too much emphasis on
44:59
what I, as dividual as an individual, has to do in order
45:03
to solve my issues, my mental issues.
45:07
And we have forgotten to keep in mind that there is a systemic
45:12
aspect to my burnout, There is a stomach aspect to my lack of
45:17
friendships and a systemic aspect in the problems in my
45:22
relationship. And the bigger the systemic
45:27
aspect is, the more hopeless it is that I as an individual could
45:34
solve them. So I might sound a bit
45:39
pessimistic here and I don't want to devalue the purpose of
45:43
therapy and self development and so on.
45:47
But I want to give you a perspective that helps you
45:51
understand that not only you are not alone, you are sharing the
45:57
basic issues that you are facing with probably a majority of
46:03
people. Now not everybody develops a
46:06
burnout, but most people have the burnout at the horizon.
46:13
It might might come to fruition to them or an anxiety or a
46:20
depressive episode. The official numbers are quite
46:26
high. The World Health Organization
46:28
World Health Organization says that depression will be one of
46:33
the major is already and will in the future will be one of the
46:36
major threats for economies because of sick leaves.
46:44
We can count burnout as a specific, specific form of
46:48
depression because there's no official diagnosis in most
46:52
countries of burnout. So this kind of overwhelm.
46:57
It is real and it is to a good part systemic.
47:01
For sure. It is to a larger extent
47:04
systemic than we usually perceive nowadays, so keep that
47:10
in mind as a context to when you try to solve your issues.
47:16
Keep in mind they are not created by you alone.
47:20
It's not your negligence or your stupidity or your lack of effort
47:26
or whatever. Only it's more tragic rather
47:31
that we as individuals nowadays have to fix issues that were
47:35
partly instilled in us by the way of life, the society that we
47:41
live in. And these are my closing remarks
47:45
for the topic today. I think it's quite interesting
47:50
and fruitful to reflect the community aspect of our mental
47:54
well-being more in the future, and I hope I've contributed to
48:00
open your eyes a little bit to that perspective and maybe look
48:05
around you inside the work situation, your company and
48:09
society as a whole to see how there are contributing factors
48:15
to the challenging situation that you see yourself in.
48:20
Thank you and until next time.