Latest / Hardiness with Dr Paul Taylor / Mojo Monday - Anxiety and the Desire to Live Well: Two Sides of the Same Coin

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Mojo Monday - Anxiety and the Desire to Live Well: Two Sides of the Same Coin · Hardiness with Dr Paul Taylor

• 0:09
  Speaker 1: Hi everyone, Carly Taylor here for this week's Mojo Monday.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: So this morning I noticed something written on our bathroom mirror.
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: So Paul, who is obviously my husband, he had scrawled
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: you lucky, lucky bastard with a whiteboard marker on his
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: side of the bathroom mirror. So if you are a
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: Monty Python fan, you will recognize this line. And for
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: Paul it has become a bit of a mantra and
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: it just happened to be written on the bathroom mirror
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: this morning. And just as a side note, Paul does
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: have a habit of writing little messages on the bathroom mirror.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: And I know some of you, with your OCD around cleanliness,
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: will probably be horrified at that. I know a couple
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: of my friends are. They're like, no way, I couldn't
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: do that. But there are things that he sees every
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: morning and every evening and they're reminders that whatever he's
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: working on, it kind of grounds him and they're triggers
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: for him in his thought process. So I'll just give
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: you a bit of a context. So some of you
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: may know that Paul is heading into open heart surgery
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: in January, and it's quite a big operation. He has
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: a congenital defect on his heart. It's aye. He has
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: a bicusp but altic valve. Where most of us have
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: three tricuspet valve, he only has two, and over time
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: the muscles around this valve have weakened. And while he
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: had no symptoms, the doctors told him that it's time
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: that he needs to get it fits because there is
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: a bit of wear and tear there. And the interesting
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: thing is is that he discovered this completely by chance.
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: He just decided to get a check up. He's got
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: a friend on his soccer team who was a cardiologist
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: and it kind of triggered him to go, oh, do
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: you know what, I might just go and get my
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: heart check, no symptoms, no other reason than I'm just
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: going to get it checked to see how i am.
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: And it was so it was a preventative measure, and
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: then this defect showed up. So I think it's a
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: reminder for us all that sometimes even when you're fit
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: and healthy and feeling great, it's actually worth being proactive
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: around your health because you never know. Anyway, this morning
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: I asked him why he'd written you lucky, lucky bastard
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: on the mirror and he told me it was to
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: remind him how lucky is that he caught this in time,
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: and to appreciate this amazing life that he has. And
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: he said, there's no time for negative thoughts here. And
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: when he said this to me, it actually reminded me
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: of a concept from Japanese psychology, and that is our
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: lives like two sides of a coin. So on one
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: side of the coin is our desire to live fully,
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: to thrive, to have things turn out well. But on
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: the other side of the coin is anxiety, fear, sadness,
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: the worry that things might not work out. And Shoma Marisa,
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: who was a Japanese psychiatrist who founded Marita Therapy, he
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: tells us that two sides of the coin can't be separated.
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: They exist together. So you can't have the desire to
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: live fully, the desire for things to work out well,
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: without the anxiety that comes from wanting things to go well.
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: They're two sides of the same coin. They're inseparable, and
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: they are essential to the human experience. So let's go
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: back to Paul's surgery. So on the mirror he's written
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: something from one side of the coin, and that is
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: around gratitude, gratitude for his life, for the chance to
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: fix his heart so he can then live well. And
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: on the other side of the coin, which is also
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: present otherwise you wouldn't have written those words on the mirror,
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: is the fear that comes with having major surgery. And
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: here's the thing. In our Western culture, we tend to
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: focus only on that one side of the coin, only
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: on the anxiety, the fear, or the sadness, and we
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: see these as symptoms to fix, problems, to eliminate before
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: we can then go on the other side of the coin,
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: before we can move forward. But by doing this, we're
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: ignoring the other side of the coin, and that's the
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: part that reflects what we deeply care about. The anxiety
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: exists because we want life to go well, and if
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: we wait for those feelings to disappear before we can
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: live fully, before we can get on with our lives
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: and live the life that we want, we'll end up
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: waiting for a very long time or waiting forever. Because
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: they are a part of life, they're a part of
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: being human. So by turning the coin over, we're doing
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: a couple of things. We're taking our attention away from
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: the pain the anxiety. We know it's still there, but
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: our attention is then put onto something full of purpose
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: and meaning, and maybe just this simple shift in attention
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: will take the intensity out of the emotion, so then
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: we can get on with living the life that we want.
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: And if there's less intensity, the fear then doesn't control us,
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: or the anxiety doesn't control us. It quietens down, just
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: like background's noise, like a radio playing quietly in the background,
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: and then we can move forward and live the life
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: that we truly want. So here's a little exercise for
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: next time you're feeling anxious or sad or afraid. Take
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: a coin in your hands and look at one side
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: and then name how you're feeling, maybe it's fear or
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: worry or sadness, and then flip the coin over. What's
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: on the other side. What does this feeling tell you
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: about what you really care about? So, for example, if
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: you're anxious in social situations, then flip over the coin.
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: It's like, what is on the other side of that coin.
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: Maybe it's that you value connection and meaningful relationships. Or
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: if you're nervous about speaking out in a meeting, maybe
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: you value contribution. If you've got fear around a health diagnosis. Yeah,
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: what's on the other side of that coin. It's because
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: you want to live, you want to live well. And
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: if you're grieving somebody, then on the other side of
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: that coin is love. So the two sides of the coin,
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: they're a packaged deal. You can't have one without the other.
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: So if you want to get rid of the anxiety,
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: get rid of the fear, then you also have to
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: get rid of the desire to live well. So next
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: time you're grappling with a difficult emotion, rather than trying
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: to get rid of the emotion, instead flip the coin
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: over and that way you can see the whole picture
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: and remember it's all part of being human. Thank you
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: so much for joining me this week. And if you
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: are enjoying the podcast, whether it's Mojo Mondays, or whether
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: it's The Wisdom Wenesday, The Wisdom Wednesdays, or the Saturday
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: podcast with the guests, it would be wonderful if you
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: could leave a review on your podcast platform because that
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: really helps us to keep the podcast going. So I
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: will catch you next week.