Latest / Pathological Positivity / How to Stay Positive Without Pretending Everything Is Fine – with Dr. Robin Hills – Episode #702
Transcript
- This is Live On Purpose Radio episode 702. How to stay positive without pretending everything is fine with doctor Robin Hill. Now is the only time to create and live the life you love. I'm doctor Paul Jenkins, the positivity psychologist. My job is to connect you to powerful positive psychology principles that immediately upgrade your relationships, business, and mental health. Are you ready? Let's jump in. Hello, everybody. Welcome back to Live On Purpose Radio. This is doctor Paul, the shrink who expands your life with another episode of Live On Purpose Radio. Joining me on the mic today is a resilience expert and author and coach and teacher. Doctor Robin Hills is here to help explore what real positivity looks like. When we develop emotional intelligence, we build resilience under pressure and learn how to navigate difficult emotions without getting stuck. So listen in as we jump into this conversation. Welcome, doctor Robin Hills, to Live On Purpose Radio. Doctor Paul, it's a pleasure to be your guest on episode seven zero two. Seven zero two. Yes. We've been at it for a while, And and I am glad that you and I get to have this conversation today about emotional intelligence and resilience and what that has to do with positivity. I think some people misunderstand positivity and they think it's well we're just going to ignore the pain or ignore the problems, paste on a smile and pretend everything's okay. That's not true positivity. Where's your brain going with this? I would just love to know why this is important to you and what you can share with us about what you've learned along those lines. Well, sure. I think what we've got to do is to look at this word positivity. And as you say, it's not a case of everything being absolutely right. It's not a case of looking at the world through rose tinted spectacles and ignoring the pain and ignoring the problems and ignoring all the negativity. I think the the key elements to being positive is having what I would term realistic optimism. Mhmm. And the key word there is realistic because the world does not revolve around me. I have to fit in and adapt to the world as it changes around me. I don't necessarily like some of the things that are going on in my life or the outside of my life, but I've just got to look at those and think, well, what am I in control of? What can I change? What can I do about it? And the rest, you just have to put up and shut up and work around it with this degree of optimism that you can make things better with the things that you can change and the things that you can control. You know, I've... I'm reminded as you share that, Robin. I'm reminded of something my dad told me years ago when I was doing a home improvement project. Now I'm a psychologist. I'm not a plumber. And so I called my dad and and consulted about this little job that involved a little bit of minor plumbing. And he said, you know, there are only two rules to plumbing. And I'm like, okay. That would be helpful. He said water runs downhill. That's rule number one. Okay. Kinda knew that. What's rule number two? Don't lick your fingers. No, if you've ever replaced the toilet, you know how important that is, but I, and he was kind of joking around, but here's the truth of it. I think the same rules apply. And I heard this in what you were just sharing. Some things we control, other things we don't. And that's like water runs downhill. That should be obvious. Right? And then the don't lick your fingers rule is this. Pay attention to what you do control. Put your energy there. And I heard you say, oh, something similar. Pay attention to what you can control. Ask yourself what can I do about this? And the other stuff, I think we get to not worry too much about. Well, we do worry about it, and I think that's human nature. And there are things going on in the world and, on the broader world stage and locally and within our family that we have absolutely no control over. I think what we've got to do is just to accept that people are going to react and they're going to work and they're going to operate at different levels to what we operate at. But what is it that we can control? Well, we can control ourselves. We can control what it is that we do, and we can control our behavior. And then knowing that, I think the key bit is to identify what is in our control and what is it that we can do to affect the changes that we need to make. Anything outside of that stop us from worrying about them, but, you know, there's not a lot we can do about certain things. You talk and teach a lot about emotional intelligence. And I... I've sometimes wondered, okay, what does that mean? You know, as a professional psychologist, what does that mean? And what you're sharing right now, I think is is reflective of what emotional intelligence is all about. And and it's an acceptance. You use the word accept. Right? I think the more we try to accept rather than expect, the less disappointment we're going to feel. But being aware of that has some power. Could you speak to that for just a minute? This concept of emotional intelligence. Well, let's look at emotional intelligence, and let's define it for your listeners so that everybody knows what it is that we're talking about. Emotional intelligence is the way that we combine our thinking with our feelings in order to build up authentic relationships and take appropriate action. So when we are being emotionally intelligent, we are aware of our emotions, and we're aware of the way in which it... The way in which they affect our our thinking. And that then drives the way we behave, and it drives the way that we act. So having that understanding doesn't make any easier, but it's easier to understand. And and how important is that? Because then how we behave and how we act is what creates our results. And I think...... What people that's what people react to. The people don't react to our emotions. People don't react to our thinking. People will react to the way in which we behave. And when we create these results, one of the errors that I've seen, and perhaps you have observed this a bit in your career as well, we then look at our results and we are affected by that. That affects how we feel. And we obviously have stories and narratives about that, what we're thinking, and so it creates this loop. And and people get stuck there. They get stuck thinking that they are a victim of their circumstance, and they don't see how their own thoughts and emotional responses to those thoughts are actually creating their results. What have you drift along those lines? I'm curious. Well, I, let's have a look at emotions. Let's unpick them and explore the middle a bit more detail, shall we? Because a lot of people very, rightly to a certain extent, but very incorrectly, look at emotions as being positive or negative. Now as far as I'm concerned, emotions are physiological and psychological, events or or states that we find ourselves in due to changes in our environment, and emotions contain data. Now data itself is not positive. Data itself is not negative. It's what we do with the data that becomes positive or negative. So if we look at anger, often labeled a negative emotion, but if we are looking at using it in a constructive way, it can be used for positive good. It helps us to right a wrong. It helps us to behave in ways that will operate within our values to make the changes that need to happen around us for us to feel better about that. Sadness. Sadness is often labeled a negative emotion. Doesn't feel very good. It's not a comfortable emotion. It's not a pleasant emotion, but we have to go through periods of sadness in our lives whether we like it or not in order for us to recognize what it is that we've lost and then move on. So grieving is an important part of, sadness, and it helps us in in... To know that when we are going through these these stages of phases. Now happiness is often labeled a positive emotion. But have you ever tried communicating with somebody who is deliriously happy? They often overlook critical details and will take unnecessary risks. Certain things will happen around them that they may be very, very positive about. But what about the people around them? How are they reacting to that joy, that exhilaration, that happiness? The awareness seems to make a big difference. Awareness of of what's going on because I think awareness precedes choice. And until we're aware of those processes, we we tend to default toward whatever our programming is, whatever we're used to. And it can be reprogrammed too. I think this is good news because rather than being stuck, when we become aware of those processes that are going on, as you were pointing out, our thoughts, our feelings, and that leads to our actions. Back in psychology school, we called that the cognitive triad. And becoming aware of it puts us in a position of choice where we can actually start to consider some alternatives. And this is good news because you and I can actually have a job helping people to become aware of it and then possibly to reprogram that. It is. So there's a very, very short period of time in between becoming awareness and making that choice. It's seconds, maybe, or even microseconds in some cases. But Yeah. We've got to remember that we still have a choice. Now having a choice doesn't make any easier. But, rather than somebody is making me angry, somebody is behaving in a certain way, and I have certain choices. So one of the choices that I have made is the fact that they are, pausing me to choose to become angry at their behavior. A very long convoluted way to get to the same point, but it puts the person very much in control of their own emotions and in control of their own behavior and to have exactly what you've just defined, that awareness. It's so common for us as humans, like you were saying earlier, to label emotions as good or bad or positive or negative, when really it's just part of a rich, full human experience. And this is one of one of the misconceptions, I I believe, about positivity. It's not just ignoring the pain. In fact, I think it would be more accurate to say that it's fully experiencing all of our human emotions. And and realizing, as one of my colleagues put it, that he made his whole career off of these two words, feelings change. Yep. And they do. They tend to be fairly transient unless we throw gas on the fire, and we do that sometimes through our narrative. So if we get a story in our head that this is bad, I I teach my clients sometimes, Robin, that our brain has two main jobs to keep us safe and to prove us right. And both of those get in our way all the time. But once we decide something is bad, our brain starts to work overtime to prove that to us. Have you noticed that as well? Yeah. Yeah. One of the things I would say around that is you don't have to prove me wrong to be right. And a lot of people will go out with this, vision that they have to convert everybody to their way of thinking. Just allow other people to be. You may not necessarily agree with them. All you have to do is to understand. And it's through that understanding that a major component of emotional intelligence is realized, and that's empathy. Yes. I think sometimes we we misinterpret understanding to be agreement. And sometimes I see people get... Dig in their heels. They don't want to reflect understanding because then they're afraid that, well, then they'll think I agree with them. And you're pointing out an important distinction here. Understanding is not agreement. And... It is, but it's very hard to do, particularly if somebody has a totally obnoxious opposing view to what you've got or what I've got. So actually try to understand that and try to empathize with that view is incredibly difficult. And I think that gets back to what we already discussed a bit, and that is that we we make an error as humans. In fact, one of my guests on this show before you, doctor Robin Hills, was doctor Richard Nisbett, and he wrote a book called Thinking, which was endorsed by Malcolm Gladwell. Well, doctor Nisbett told me on the mic, he said the number one error that... And he called it an error. Right? The number one error we make as humans is that we believe what we think. And I think that's true. And it has us knowing that we're right. And in knowing that we're right, we end up treating each other terribly. We do. And we have this very, very strange... I... I'm using that word. It's the wrong word. Understanding of reality because, our understanding of reality is so real, and it is such an important part of who we are and what we are that we have this assumption that everybody else has the same reality, and everybody else experiences the world in exactly the same way that we do. And, you know, we can often talk about that to try and understand it. I am wearing a blue shirt, whilst I'm recording this with you, doctor Paul. You can see that it's blue because it's on camera. Those who are listening to the audio can't see it at all. But, I see it as blue. You see it as blue. But is my blue the same as your blue? You might be seeing it in, a different color. You might be seeing it as red, but you will call it blue. And your reality is such that all blue things are blue. But to me, they're blue as well. But to you, they're red. Even though we might see it very differently, we've chosen the same labels for it. Yeah. And it's very, very, very difficult to distinguish it, to to tease that out in such a way that I have that understanding that you're not seeing the world the same way that I am, because your color system is completely different. And if we're looking at it at a very, very basic level, that is a very basic level. It's just swapping colors around. What happens when we swap sounds around? What happens when we swap smells around, tastes around? The way in which we, interact with time, the way in which we interact with the environment around us. Do we have an understanding of coordination and and distance in the same way? These are major differences that are never really explored. We just assume, oh, this is the way I experience the world. So does everybody else. And that may or may not be the case. Don't know. I think I I happen to...... Need to explore the difference. And be open. Right? I think... I I love the way humility has come to me. I've come to a definition of humility that we give up our need to be right in exchange for being open and being open to the possibility that other people are going to experience a little differently from me and being okay with that and seeing maybe what we can learn from that. There was... You don't have to prove me wrong to be right. Yes. And I think we're all right in that our perception is all we have, and we're right about what we feel because what we feel is a 100% consistent with whatever the story is in our head about our circumstances. And the natural physiological responses that we have to the world around us and to our circumstances and our interactions with other humans. I think... And if it wasn't right, we couldn't engage with the world in the way in which we do. So we've just got to accept that that's a fundamental part of being human. So I'm curious, Robin. You've you've made a work out of emotional intelligence and resilience and helping people to be more aware of how how all of this works for us as humans. What direction would you point our listeners today for for learning more about this or connecting Where would you send them? Well, I have a a website, which is eiforchange.com, and I have the most comprehensive range of online courses based around emotional intelligence at emotional.intelligence.courses. Now what I have been doing over the last, few months in 2026 when we're recording this. But what I have been doing is actually creating interactive learning tools so that people can get personalized understanding around their current situation and apply it within the field of emotional intelligence. So it takes my courses well away from just video or PDF based courses into actual interactive dynamic learning systems so that people can get learning based upon their own current levels of reality and their own circumstances. This is a game changer when we begin to learn, the way I put it, how to operate the equipment. And that equipment includes our mind and our brain, but also how that interfaces with our entire system and the people around us. For me, that's what this this idea of emotional intelligence is all about. So once again, folks, it's ei,standing for emotionalintelligence,four,thenumberfour,change.com. Did I get that right, Robin? Yep. Spot on. Ei4change.com. That's where you can connect to the resources that doctor Robin Hill is making available with his team to, improve our life and help us all to live on purpose. Robin, is there some final thought that you wanna share with our listeners before I turn you loose today? Well, I I think that everybody's got to recognize that they are here for a purpose. What is that purpose, and what value can you bring to other people? And if you actually then ask yourself that question on a regular basis, then you are engaging with the world in a most appropriate way. Love that. And the name of the show is Live on Purpose. Alright, folks. You've heard it. It is time to apply it. Let's go live on purpose. Did you get what you came for? Give yourself the gift of taking real action on what you realized today. Please share this episode with someone you know would value it, and leave us a rating too. It's time now to live on purpose.