Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #319 The A to Z of Feelings with Andrew Fuller

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#319 The A to Z of Feelings with Andrew Fuller · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

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  Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families podcast. It's the podcast for the
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  Speaker 1: time poor parent who just wants answers.
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  Speaker 2: Now, some people have feelings with operatic intensity, and they
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  Speaker 2: just dynamos in terms of the emotional world.
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  Speaker 1: And now here's the stars of our show, My Mum
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  Speaker 1: and Dad Today.
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  Speaker 3: We are Justin and Kylie Coulson, a husband and wife
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  Speaker 3: podcast team who have six children between us, and I'm
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  Speaker 3: the author of six books about raising happy families, founder
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  Speaker 3: of happy families dot com dot Are you Kylie? Really
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  Speaker 3: excited to introduce our guests today for a conversation that
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  Speaker 3: I think is going to be really important for a
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  Speaker 3: lot of parents, especially parents who are struggling with lockdown.
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  Speaker 3: But pretty much if you are a parent who has
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  Speaker 3: a child who has feelings, this is the conversation that
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  Speaker 3: we need to have. Andrew Fuller is a child an
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  Speaker 3: adolescent psychologist. He's the author of about four hundred and
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  Speaker 3: seventy nine books.
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  Speaker 4: Wow, that's oppressive.
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  Speaker 3: I'm exaggerating, but he's written like nearly two dozen books,
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  Speaker 3: twenty something books.
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  Speaker 4: That's still impressive.
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  Speaker 3: It's extraordinary, isn't it. And also has Andrew, how many
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  Speaker 3: kids of your own? Have you got? Two children? Of
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  Speaker 3: his own and wrote twenty two books. See that's why
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  Speaker 3: I've only written six books because we have six children.
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  Speaker 2: I've written to one with each child, so you've got
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  Speaker 2: six at least that are coming.
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  Speaker 3: Wow. Well, how do you write a book with a child?
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  Speaker 2: It's fantastic. That's a whole other issue. But I'll tell
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  Speaker 2: you what, if you ever wanted a critical editor, one
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  Speaker 2: of your kids are a fantastic person.
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  Speaker 3: So Andrew's got this huge reputation of being brilliant with people,
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  Speaker 3: especially tricky people. But he's written a brand new book
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  Speaker 3: called The Eight Z of Feelings. I've been reading it
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  Speaker 3: over the last couple of weeks, and it's delightful. I
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  Speaker 3: don't necessarily highlight paragraphs at a time, but little ideas,
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  Speaker 3: little insights, little quirks like there are so many ideas
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  Speaker 3: that have come to me as I've been reading the book.
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  Speaker 3: It's just wonderful. And So Andrew were thrilled to be
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  Speaker 3: able to talk with you today.
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  Speaker 2: It's great to be with you.
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  Speaker 4: Most people get that feelings are important, Andrew, but it
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  Speaker 4: can be sometimes hard to articulate how and why they
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  Speaker 4: are important. I'm wondering if you can kind of shed
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  Speaker 4: some light on why feelings matter so.
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  Speaker 2: Much, Thanks Carlie. Feelings are in our world, so we
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  Speaker 2: have perception of basically the outer world, and of course
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  Speaker 2: reading the outer world is incredibly important, but we have
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  Speaker 2: this other inner world which often we're less tune too,
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  Speaker 2: and so our feelings are in some ways our internal perceptions,
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  Speaker 2: bubbling up seeking awareness within us, and we get very
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  Speaker 2: confused about them. Quite often. I think about feelings a
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  Speaker 2: bit like their guests that show up unexpectedly agited party
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  Speaker 2: you didn't really know you were having. And some of
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  Speaker 2: the guests are hard to please, some too long, so
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  Speaker 2: I don't say anywhere near long enough, and often we
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  Speaker 2: don't have much idea about what to do with any
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  Speaker 2: of them. And so often our feelings are signals about
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  Speaker 2: what we need or what we are seeking. So one
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  Speaker 2: of the really useful questions to ask ourselves about any
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  Speaker 2: feeling is what is this seeking from me? What do
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  Speaker 2: I need at this point now? To confuse it just
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  Speaker 2: a little bit more. Feelings aren't always true, so it
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  Speaker 2: doesn't mean that we necessarily need to believe every feeling.
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  Speaker 2: And I'm sure if Kylie, you've had this experience where
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  Speaker 2: you've met somebody and you thought, oh, they're a bit dodgy,
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  Speaker 2: They're a bit kind of suss I, I don't think I'll
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  Speaker 2: hang around with them very much, and then later on
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  Speaker 2: you've kind of gone, oh, no, that wasn't kind of
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  Speaker 2: the right kind of perception of them at all. Actually,
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  Speaker 2: they're a really nice person. And so you get this kind
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  Speaker 2: of signal which is often useful but not always true.
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  Speaker 2: That's a really interesting kind of process.
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  Speaker 4: I love the imagery that you've created there, Andrew with
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  Speaker 4: this idea of our feelings being expected guests that just
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  Speaker 4: shot off unannounced, and we have to we have to
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  Speaker 4: work through that process. And how you also touched on
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  Speaker 4: the fact that feelings are just feelings and not necessarily true,
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  Speaker 4: and I think that that's something that I have had
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  Speaker 4: to work personally with in recent times, learning that process.
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  Speaker 4: That's been tricky for me.
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  Speaker 2: I think there are days for all of us where
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  Speaker 2: after that at the end of the day we kind
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  Speaker 2: of scratch our head and go, why the heck did
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  Speaker 2: I get into which I kind of stressed out situation
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  Speaker 2: or got so upset by that particular thing, And it
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  Speaker 2: doesn't often make sense. And so feelings can be related
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  Speaker 2: to the current events in your life, but which we
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  Speaker 2: can hold onto some history in ourselves. Car we that
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  Speaker 2: basically means we misinterpret stuff. And if we keep doing
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  Speaker 2: that and getting it wrong and believing that our feelings
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  Speaker 2: are true, then we can up in all sorts of
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  Speaker 2: bother because we're misreading the world and misreading ourselves in it,
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  Speaker 2: and that becomes a major problem. Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: One of the things that I say to parents all
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  Speaker 3: the time, Andrew, is the have you ever noticed that
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  Speaker 3: the angrier you are, the more right you are?
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  Speaker 2: Yes, that's right, and so you become absolutely certain, don't
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  Speaker 2: you really? You know, we know from even from the
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  Speaker 2: work of Sigmund Fraud that basically what we do is
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  Speaker 2: we take the least acceptable aspects of ourselves and project
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  Speaker 2: them onto other people. So we're often very prepared to
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  Speaker 2: see negative values in other people that we're not prepared
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  Speaker 2: to look at in ourselves. So when we're really furious,
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  Speaker 2: when we're really angry with somebody, is the moment we
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  Speaker 2: should smell a rat about ourselves and be a bit
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  Speaker 2: suspect about what's going on internally.
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  Speaker 3: Hey, we want to talk about lockdowns for a sec
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  Speaker 3: because half the country's dealing with that right now.
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  Speaker 4: I'm wondering, Andrew, how do parents stay on top of
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  Speaker 4: their own big feelings. We've just gone through the craziest
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  Speaker 4: last twelve months, which is extending now.
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  Speaker 3: Eighteen month and counting.
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  Speaker 4: And how do we help ourselves when we've got really
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  Speaker 4: big emotions.
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  Speaker 3: About politicians, or about lockdowns, or about the kids being
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  Speaker 3: under our feet, all the lot oh that.
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  Speaker 4: My husband's left is shoes under the table, any number
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  Speaker 4: of things.
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  Speaker 2: Well, the first thing to say about lockdown, I just
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  Speaker 2: imagine for a moment that you were with a really
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  Speaker 2: good friend, but you were an enforced isolation with them
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  Speaker 2: for say a week, and your friend during that period
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  Speaker 2: of time decided to embark on a process of improvement
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  Speaker 2: for you, pointing out perhaps some of the things you
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  Speaker 2: were doing wrong and helpfully suggesting improvements that you might
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  Speaker 2: make in your life. I wonder how long that friendship
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  Speaker 2: would last.
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  Speaker 3: Kylie and I have been through these kinds of exercises together,
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  Speaker 3: where usually it's me saying I love the word that
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  Speaker 3: you used. I have a program of improvement that I'd
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  Speaker 3: like to put you on for the next Week's sweetheart,
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  Speaker 3: what do you think about.
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  Speaker 5: That didn't I didn't go, So that's pretty much the
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  Speaker 5: situation that you can be in lockdown with parents and children,
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  Speaker 5: and so unsurprisingly kids often want a head for the hills.
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  Speaker 2: They want to get out of this. They had way
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  Speaker 2: too much parenting going on, and so this isn't the
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  Speaker 2: times that are catching up and kind of missing parenting.
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  Speaker 2: It's a time for giving people space and giving them
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  Speaker 2: a chance to feel free. But to come back to
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  Speaker 2: the idea about big feelings, it's really interesting to think
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  Speaker 2: about big feelings because some people have feelings with operatic
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  Speaker 2: intensity and they're just really there. They're dynamos in terms
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  Speaker 2: of the emotional world. And it's interesting when you meet
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  Speaker 2: people like that because sometimes they will be so bouncy
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  Speaker 2: in their feelings so expressing everyone else is shattered and
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  Speaker 2: kind of leaving them a bit trembling, but they're fine,
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  Speaker 2: whereas there's a group of other people who sort of
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  Speaker 2: just putter along very mildly with the feelings and they
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  Speaker 2: don't really have a great kind of amplitude in terms
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  Speaker 2: of their emotional range, and they very even tempered. It's
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  Speaker 2: a really interesting kind of process. I think it's just
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  Speaker 2: interesting to learn about your own pattern of feelings and
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  Speaker 2: how you might handle them.
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  Speaker 4: And you might have been sitting in a wall, sitting
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  Speaker 4: on sitting on our wall.
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  Speaker 3: I was going up. Those two different people tend to
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  Speaker 3: marry one another, don't they.
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  Speaker 2: Well, there is that idea that we have essentially two
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  Speaker 2: types of people. There are maximizers and minimizers.
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  Speaker 6: And maximizers basically you go, this is fantastic, it's great,
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  Speaker 6: there's amazing, all like that stuff, or it's dreadful and
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  Speaker 6: it's awful, and the minimizers go, it's all right, not bad,
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  Speaker 6: it's okay, so so, And there is a tendency, of
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  Speaker 6: course for maximizers and minimas to end up marrying one another.
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  Speaker 2: That's true.
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  Speaker 3: We need to talk about how we can deal with
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  Speaker 3: our big emotions and the big emotions that our children
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  Speaker 3: are having, especially for those who are dealing with lockdown,
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  Speaker 3: but even people who aren't in lockdown at the moment
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  Speaker 3: are still experiencing those challenges. We're going to do that
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  Speaker 3: right after this break.
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  Speaker 1: It's a Happy Families podcast.
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  Speaker 4: For a happy your family.
• 9:00
  Speaker 5: Try a Happy Families membership, because a happy family doesn't
• 9:04
  Speaker 5: just happen. Details at happy families dot com dot au.
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  Speaker 4: It's the Happy Families Podcast, the podcast for the time,
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  Speaker 4: poor parent who just wants answers now. And today we
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  Speaker 4: are having such a delightful conversation with Andrew Fuller.
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  Speaker 3: He's the author of The ad Z of Feelings, his
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  Speaker 3: twenty second book. That's such a lot of books, and
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  Speaker 3: we're talking about well, feelings, big feelings, especially for families
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  Speaker 3: that are dealing with lockdown. But even if you're not
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  Speaker 3: in a lockdown, the kids still have these big emotional moments.
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  Speaker 3: Andrew love to ask you, how do we manage our
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  Speaker 3: own big feelings? How do we sort of well should we?
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  Speaker 3: First of all? I mean, my guess is that we
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  Speaker 3: need to be in control of them and regulate them
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  Speaker 3: reasonably well. And more to the point, how do his
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  Speaker 3: parents not only stand top of our own but help
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  Speaker 3: our children to manage theirs.
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  Speaker 2: It's one of the critical skills of life, isn't that
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  Speaker 2: being able to dial down your own emotions when they
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  Speaker 2: get too big. Because of course, we know that the
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  Speaker 2: world doesn't really suited for people dealing with expressing every
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  Speaker 2: sort every feeling that they have. We're all in the
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  Speaker 2: business of managing our feelings, and I guess that's partly
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  Speaker 2: why I wrote the book, because the level of self
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  Speaker 2: knowledge that you need to have at times when you're upset, agitated, angry,
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  Speaker 2: or whatever it might be, can be preoccupying and it's
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  Speaker 2: very difficult to kind of start to go, well, okay,
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  Speaker 2: what helps me get out of this feeling? Now? The
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  Speaker 2: first thing, obviously is a bit of distancing, so being
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  Speaker 2: able to ask yourself, well, why am I feeling this way?
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  Speaker 2: I was going on, but the only thing is to go, well,
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  Speaker 2: when I'm feeling this way, what should I do? Is
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  Speaker 2: it wise to go for a war because good to
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  Speaker 2: listen to music? Is there something I should do? But
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  Speaker 2: you need to whatever you do, you also need to
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  Speaker 2: reflect on the meaning of that feeling and then to
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  Speaker 2: evaluate its validity. It's truth, I mean, all feelings are valid,
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  Speaker 2: but they're not always validly true, and so you're just
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  Speaker 2: starting to kind of critique them. So otherwise, if you
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  Speaker 2: don't do that, you're not using all the information that
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  Speaker 2: you have so basically understand what's going on in your world,
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  Speaker 2: and so being able to read your own emotions, decipher
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  Speaker 2: their signals and then start to be critically thinking about
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  Speaker 2: what they mean for you. It says a really important
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  Speaker 2: art in life, because otherwise you don't change your game plan. Now.
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  Speaker 2: Life is an improvisational art. It requires different things to
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  Speaker 2: different people all the time. And so the ideal is
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  Speaker 2: that you become more flexible as you mature, and we
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  Speaker 2: help children to become more flexible and to have more
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  Speaker 2: schools to their boat. The problem is that some of
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  Speaker 2: us become more rigid as we get older, and I
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  Speaker 2: think it's important that what causes that regidity is not
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  Speaker 2: pausing and thinking what the heck's going on for me?
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  Speaker 2: And what do I need to learn from this that
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  Speaker 2: I can do to better of my life.
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  Speaker 4: Should we have strong feelings about strong feelings? Are there
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  Speaker 4: some feelings that we should be concerned about, especially when
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  Speaker 4: our children are displaying them? Or I guess adding a
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  Speaker 4: caveat to that, how do we as parents become comfortable
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  Speaker 4: with our kids' strong emotions?
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  Speaker 2: I think it's important to learn our children well, and
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  Speaker 2: parents of course know their children, but anybody else will
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  Speaker 2: ever know that your child and kids do have a
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  Speaker 2: different range of feelings and while their intensity of say, anger,
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  Speaker 2: or attachment or jealousy can be scary at times, it's
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  Speaker 2: important to kind of just realize that that's how it is.
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  Speaker 2: And I think it's not about trying to stifle it.
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  Speaker 2: It's about trying to help them to use whatever the
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  Speaker 2: intensity of a feeling is in some positive way. I mean,
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  Speaker 2: I could talk about this for quite some time, obviously,
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  Speaker 2: but anger is one of the ones that's obviously an
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  Speaker 2: important one to consider. And the ATA set of feelings
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  Speaker 2: are right about the idea that when we feel effectively angry,
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  Speaker 2: we care, and we care deeply about things, and so
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  Speaker 2: using anger to create positive change in our lives can
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  Speaker 2: be incredibly constructive. But we often see people scatter their
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  Speaker 2: anger and blame everybody else, and they don't gather together
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  Speaker 2: their anger to do some positive action. Whereas when anger
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  Speaker 2: a big feeling is used almost like a fortress, that
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  Speaker 2: you basically have this kind of clarity around yourself and
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  Speaker 2: you gain strength through anger to basically empower you. That's
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  Speaker 2: a very different way of approaching anger. And helping parents
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  Speaker 2: to understand that anger is not always a bad thing,
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  Speaker 2: it can be a really good thing is important because
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  Speaker 2: there are times in our laugh when we should be
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  Speaker 2: incredibly angry at stuff.
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  Speaker 3: I'm also thinking in response to that that sometimes feelings
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  Speaker 3: simply become dysfunctional. Sometimes feelings become that they interfere with
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  Speaker 3: our ability to operate effectively in life. So a lockdown situation,
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  Speaker 3: for example, we're seeing in the data that there are
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  Speaker 3: more kids who are reporting anxiety and depression than ever before.
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  Speaker 3: So I guess we should have strong feelings about our
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  Speaker 3: kids having strong feelings if those strong feelings and interfering
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  Speaker 3: with their ability to function effectively. I mean, you're a
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  Speaker 3: clinical psychologist, are you seeing lockdowns have this effect that
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  Speaker 3: other data seems to point to?
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  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, so, I mean kids are incredibly lonely, and
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  Speaker 2: in some ways they're shocked by their landladers too. I
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  Speaker 2: think this was the generation you would have put money
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  Speaker 2: on who would have said, well, virtual connections are going
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  Speaker 2: to be sufficient, And I guess what they've learned really
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  Speaker 2: quite dramatically, is that they're not. Then it's not a replacement.
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  Speaker 2: So while virtual connections can be good, nothing really beats
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  Speaker 2: face to face hanging their friends, and they are feeling
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  Speaker 2: it more than any other generation in my view now.
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  Speaker 3: Andrew Fuller is the author of the eighties Out of Feelings,
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  Speaker 3: a clinical psychologists working with children and adolescents, and today
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  Speaker 3: he's been talking to us all about the importance of feelings.
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  Speaker 3: Why they matter, how we can manage them effectively because
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  Speaker 3: it's such an important life skill, and particularly what we
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  Speaker 3: can do when our kids are having those big feelings. Andrew,
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  Speaker 3: what a delightful conversation. Thanks for joining us.
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  Speaker 2: It's been great. Thank you so much.
• 15:25
  Speaker 3: If you'd like more information about making your family happy,
• 15:28
  Speaker 3: you can jump onto happy families dot com dot au.
• 15:30
  Speaker 3: The Happy Families podcast is produced by Justin Ruland from
• 15:33
  Speaker 3: Bridge Media, with Craig Bruce as our executive producer. Oh
• 15:37
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