#181: Unlocking Emotional Resilience In The Age Of Rage With Ralph De La Rosa, LCSW

Absolutely. I'm equally excited to talk to you as well. Yeah, thanks for having me.

What's not written in that bio? Or let's say, what's one thing that's not a part of your bio that you would love for people to know about you at the outset?

One thing that comes to mind when you ask that is I think it's relevant in these times, especially that a big piece of my career history, not just my personal history and my current career status is that I worked for some time in the clinical foster care system in New York City and in the community mental health system, specifically in Harlem, which brought me into contact in a very visceral way with the realities of poverty and racism and so many of the factors of oppression that we are having this new conversation about in our society. And that a lot of my— the awareness that I hold today comes from not only overcoming my own personal challenges, but contending with the challenges that people face and feeling into those challenges that people face in those sorts of vulnerable populations and really, really pretty extreme environments. And just seeing that possibility And hope and love and healing and joy, these things can all intermingle together. No matter how down we are, the human spirit has this natural organic capacity to overcome when in the presence of the right conditions.

I so agree with that. It's baked into our DNA. Absolutely. I believe we have

the

capacity to be ever resilient, and we're going to talk about resilience and define that a little bit today or put some language to how we might all look at it and perhaps define it for ourselves. I think it's true that each of us, I think, have our own way of looking at what that is, how we describe our capacity to come back and do more, more than just More than just bounce back, actually. So you and I have something in common. I grew up in New York. I don't know if that's your state of origin, but I grew up downstate in this town, this little town outside of New York City you might have heard of called Queens.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's this cheap joke, but it always gets a yuck. Yeah, no, I I grew up in a time in the '70s where New York was not that friendly a place. In fact, it might not be considered a friendly place today, but it's a lot friendlier. It's much more like Disney. It's been Disney-fied, if you will, because back then, getting on a subway, getting on a bus, being in the wrong neighborhood could really go the wrong way. Poverty and so many things were really very much more, I think, on display than Mm-hmm. Out in the open. I think a lot has been swept under the rug, or there's been attempts to sweep it under the rug, and now what we're seeing is that that's never— you can never do that for long. And it just— the buildup is so great, so enormous, the pressure to have things come to light and for truth to be recognized. I think it's just, you know, it would be like trying to contain a dam. You know, with a Band-Aid or with your finger. And I think that's what we've been sort of playing at for a long time, the idea that somehow or another we are not systemically, endemically perpetuating racism in this country and have for so long. You know, it's interesting that 2 white guys are going to have this conversation a little bit now. Mm-hmm. I'm not hesitant. I just want to be respectful of the fact that I can't know what that's like. I can't know what it's like to be Black. I can know what it's like to be discriminated against, but in a different way. I just feel like the economics of it is, from my vantage point, is so much a part of it. And I don't know if you— you and I said just briefly, we're talking about this before we turned on the mics, I figure why not bring it up. I was watching an episode of Bill Maher the other night with Wynton Marsalis. So Wynton Marsalis is people hopefully know is one of the icons of jazz, musician extraordinaire. I mean, just a great, great human being. I didn't quite know exactly how deep this guy was until I listened to him talk about race and talk about what's going on in our world right now. And he talked about the economics of it and how in so many ways it's— that's one of those great places to be looking At just how it is that in many ways it's looking at the cash registers, what he said. You want to find the source of racism and you just look at the cash registers, see who's benefiting, because it seems like the wrong people are at odds with each other. The disenfranchised, the poor. Poor is not a race. Poor is poor, is economic. just as many, if not more, poor white people as there are poor black people in this country. And for them to be at odds with each other, or for it— for that to be sort of the— that somehow or another that that's the opposing forces, it just seems ridiculous. But I kind of went on there. Any thoughts on any of that?

Yeah, absolutely. And I agree about Wynton Marsalis, just a man possessed of great love and great Has clearly done his homework. Does his homework. Yeah, yeah, in terms of conscious evolution and deep looking. But just to reference another really wonderful interview between David Letterman and Obama on David Letterman's newer Netflix series, Obama just nailed it with such clarity when he said, you know, we're being played, basically, that the real problem is we have these 2 respective streams of information that we are spoon-fed by the internet that is aware of our preferences and our feelings and our behaviors and what have you. And, you know, there's 2 different streams of information that progressives versus conservatives are receiving in this, in this country, and that accounts for these perceptions and the divisiveness and And what have you. And it's incredibly unfortunate that it's come to that because we are really all in it together. We are really all on the same team where we all want the same things: safety, love, respect, to feel like we matter, to, you know, to have our children protected, to have a sense of security about the future, etc. We're all after the same things. And we live in a society where we could all have it. There's no shortage of resources. A statistic came through today on NPR that, you know, who owns Amazon could give each of his employees, which are like 600,000+ employees, a 6-figure bonus this year and still be better off than he was before because they've engaged in that much profiteering during this time of enormous crisis. It doesn't have to be this way. It doesn't, you know?

Yeah. Resilience. It's the unsung hero in every success story that you will ever hear about. And in times of massive change and disruption, the kind of rapid change that we're all experiencing as leaders, as business owners, as entrepreneurs, we have to learn how to not only increase our own resilience, but that of our teams. So right now we have a powerful opportunity for you to find out just how resilient you are. Some years ago, my team and I created the resilience assessment that more than 5,000 business leaders across the globe have taken. And all you have to do to get your own free resilience leader assessment is go to resiliencerank.com. It takes less than 3 minutes, and it's our gift to you for being the leader that you already are. Other free resources and tools will accompany your score instantly. So go to resiliencerank.com and find out just how resilient you are. It's almost like on some level there's a lacking of some conscious— not consciousness, but conscience. That there's a conscience gene that seems to be lacking in some. in some places because the planning involved in systematically keeping some people silent or just ensuring that certain voices are not heard at the polls or wherever it is that those voices are shut out, it's just— it's so calculated. It's so covert. And that, to me, is a product of money and power. Yeah. There's obvious prejudice involved. But ultimately, the desire is for people to either keep their money, keep their power, or more often, I think, to gain greater power and greater money, greater wealth. And that is— I think that's what Wynton was talking about, is that you've got to look to those places. I don't want to put things in enemy terms because I think that's an issue all by itself, but— Indeed. That's the place we've got to create the common focus to look at. That's where the issue stems from. Poor feels like poor. Pain feels like pain. It transcends religion. It transcends race. It's a human condition. Mm-hmm. And as you said, you add up the number of people who share pain and suffering and poverty and hunger and so many other things in this country, it's a vast number. It's a shockingly large number.

Yeah, yeah. And this is really— I mean, we could start tying together some of the threads of trauma, of the trauma lens and trauma theory, and what's going on in society here as well. Because really, power, greed, clinging to wealth, shoring up far too many resources when others have far too little, it's really about safety. At the psychological level, it's really about the human organic imperative of feeling safe. And we don't understand this as a society, that that is the fundamental guiding principle of our being, is that we need to feel safe. And there is a way in which that can become overwrought, you know. And that's what power really is, that it's a little more grounded than that, a little more human than that. We all have this need to, you know, feel secure in some way. And it's just gotten so out of hand where more and more people just— or actually less and less people are shoring up the resources in this overwrought kind of way. Yeah, you know, thinking that it's going to shield them from pain.

Right, which if you know any people in your life or have had the experience of being around people that have had great wealth and even great power, both perhaps, were those people that were without pain? Were those people that were without the scarcity, the insecurity that others face? I mean, I know my experience has been the answer is no, that a lot of very wealthy and successful people live in fear. Their fear is a different fear than not being able to feed your kids. But it's clearly a fear of it disappearing, of it being taken away, of it not— there's this element of fear there and there's this other element of, well, I'm still not there yet. I'm still not loved. I still don't feel love for myself. I still don't feel that others really truly love me and respect me. The more money and the more power doesn't necessarily beget more peace. You're a psychotherapist. Do you find that there's a person that walks in the door that because they have more, that they somehow have less of the other emotions that take you into those dark places?

Yeah, when I meet that person, I will refer them to your podcast so that we can find out their formula because yeah, no, not yet. Not yet. I mean, and just to bring it back to the trauma piece, I mean, that actually speaks to wounding. You know, that if somebody holds trauma, either with a lowercase t or a capital T, within them, that defensive propensity for security, safety, belonging becomes that much more exaggerated. And one thing that we don't have too much of a sense of in our consumerist culture is enoughness. When is it enough? When are we loved enough? When do we feel good enough? When have we done enough? with our day? And certainly, when do we have enough resources as well? Because we just need enough of all of these things.

I think you put your finger on it. We've been programmed in many ways. We're always kind of being programmed. I mean, that's part of the human condition, right? From the beginning of time, but through lots of different sources, religion and media and everything else, but we've been programmed to be consumers. Whereas years ago, hundreds of years ago, we were not programmed to be as much consumers as to be creators, like that you needed to create something in order to live, in order to survive. And there is something in, I think, this insatiable appetite to consume that ultimately becomes a riddle in everyone's life, that no matter how many houses I buy, Mm-hmm. It's a great rush for a minute and then I'm back to, I'm aggravated at the architect. I'm aggravated at the designer. I'm aggravated at the person that manufactured that $10,000 couch I had to buy. I mean, it's like, so where's the peace? Where's the content? Where's the personal self-unconditional acceptance and love for self? Those are things that just don't come out of that pursuit, it seems. Listen, I don't mind nice things and I've been after them like everybody else has at times and more at times than others. And you and I are both in nice places right now. We're not in places that aren't—

Indeed.

And at the same time, it's a question I raise it for myself and I think it's a great question for us all to raise for ourselves. Just what represents enough? Is there someplace where you just go, You know what? I absolutely have enough and I don't have to hoard and I don't have to protect or defend my stuff, which enables you to have an ease, a freedom, peace, and the ability to also give, to be able to be generous with others and of your things, including your time. Most importantly, your time, I'd say.

Which is ironically a huge contribution to an inner sense of enoughness is when we're generous. When we're giving, when we have that openness of heart, it actually, it's quite paradoxical. And when we're generous, it puts us in touch with how much we have, you know, and that we do have enough and that, you know, and the connection involved in giving is worth more than anything we could hold in our two hands. Certainly. So there is this kind of bait and switch that happens when we hoard it and it does lead to this increased sense of insecurity because it's failed to address the hole in our hearts that so many of us carry from childhood on into adult life.

I read a book some years ago which was a really very important book in my own development related to the topic of childhood trauma. It's called The Presence Process. I'm not sure if you've heard of it. David Michael Brown is the author. He's a South African author. Most people that I've mentioned it to, it's interesting enough, He just never really— he just didn't have the desire to sort of, I guess, see it everywhere or whatever. I mean, book launches and selling a book is not an easy thing. For a book to become, you know, a thing that everybody knows about is sort of a mysterious thing. It has to do a lot with celebrity and influence. And if, you know, Oprah picks up your book and says it's on her list, well, you know, people are going to find it. And The Power of Now being one Good example, and The Untethered Soul, Michael Singer's book, another great book, great example, but The Presence Process, not so much. I want to talk about your book, which I think has just got killer titles. So, I mean, I'm an author and I work with people often about building their own brands and books have a lot to do with that. So, Don't Tell Me to Relax: Emotional Resilience in the Age of Rage, Feels, and Freakouts. Yeah. So I want to find out about the book and I want to start with the title. And I had said to you right before we turned on here that the word feels in the middle of that, just, I didn't quite myself get it. I mean, I have a sense of it, but what's the word feels doing in the middle there? And maybe just unpack the title and subtitle for us a little bit, if you don't mind.

Yeah, absolutely. So just starting with the title as a whole, my publishers approached me and wanted there to be a book that spoke to the impending crisis of the election, not knowing that we would have this dogpile of crises ahead of that. And we collaborated heavily on the whole book, but on the title as well. And we wanted there to be a book that spoke to emotional intelligence, to resilience, to meditation, to conscious living that wasn't about passive mindfulness, that wasn't about just reducing the stress, but actual real things that speak to the systemic situation. And so Don't Tell Me to Relax, you know, just a little bit intense of a title for a book on meditation, of all things. About a lot more than meditation, but I mean, that's primarily the audience. It's really about the validity of our feelings. You know, I say in the introduction, the book could have easily been titled, you know, don't tell me how to feel. Because so many times when we're upset about the harm and atrocities that are going on, you know, people will look at us and be like, you know, could you just let that go? Or could you feel a different way? Or could you relax about that? And it's like, could you direct your attention to what I'm actually upset about, please? Because that's important. And so, yeah, The Age of Rage. It's interesting in that in between the time we wrote that title and the book coming out, there's a documentary now about The white nationalist movement that has that title, Age of Rage. And then feels, really just a kind of a modern vernacular, maybe a little bit obscure, but just really pointing to the— just the abundance of different emotions that we are having simultaneously. You know, in the same moment, we could be grateful for our good fortune that maybe we haven't lost our job and things are basically okay for us. Mm-hmm. Sad for our friends that are less fortunate than us, angry about sociopolitical situation and everything going on there. And then, you know, like you said, like, I'm feeling great today because things are lining up for me and I feel like I'm doing good work in the world and that's really satisfying. You know, I'm making the contribution to clean up, you know, at least my end of the universe. And we have these layers of emotions. That it's very— emotions are one of the things that mystify us the most in life, what they are, why they are, how they dynamically interact, and what have you. And to have so many of them at once, I think it's difficult to process. And that's one thing that I really wanted to place as a down— you know, put down as a centerpiece in that work for people to help start You know, sifting through all of our reactions and discerning what's what, and more importantly, how do we relate to what's present for us? How do we meet it, work with it, resolve it, move forward with it, and so on?

It's a lot to discern. It is a lot. I mean, the range of emotions in a typical day, I would think for most people, I know for myself, it's It's very varied. I mean, I— and I think there's a lot more that just sort of is even triggering more extreme emotions right now than I've seen in a long, long while. The word resilience is of particular importance to me, not just because of the work that I do, and I speak to audiences of all kinds, but a lot of times it's corporate audiences. Mm-hmm. that bring me in to help their workforce become more resilient, learn about what is resilience. Is it a soft skill? Is it a necessary skill? Is it something you can actually learn at the age that you're at, start to make some changes to be able to be more resilient moving forward? Because this is hardly the last crisis that we're going to face. I mean, this is one in a series of things that just in the last 20 years, you can go from 9/11 and move forward. And we've had lots of things that have been major disruptions and even crises on so many scales— environmentally, economically, politically, socially, you name it. Wow. The pace of change over the last couple of years has been rapid. And if you're a leader, a business owner, an entrepreneur, you know exactly what I'm talking Every day it's something different and something new. But the one thing that I've learned in performing at the height of all of those roles has been that we must be resilient. In fact, it's the unsung hero in every success story that you will ever hear about. And it's the reason why my team and I created the resilience assessment that more than 5,000 business leaders across the globe have taken. And all you have to do All you have to do to get your own free Resilient Leader Assessment is go to resiliencerank.com. It takes less than 3 minutes, and it's our gift to you for being the leader that you already are. Other free resources and tools will accompany your score instantly. So go to resiliencerank.com and find out just how resilient you are. Given the fact that it's not likely that the pandemic is the last challenge we face. How do you define resilience? And do you think it's something that we're all born with? Is that it? We've got this little thimbleful or a 5-gallon container full of resilience. Somebody's got one size, somebody's got another size, and that's it for their resilience capacity for their lives? Or is it something that you can actually learn and develop with awareness and with training?

Absolutely. We are born with a natural capacity for it. In fact, I would say that not only do we all have that capacity, but it's actually how self-actualization is achieved, is through meeting with difficulty, getting knocked down 10 times but getting up 11, learning and growing from that process, developing the confidence after going through hell and difficult circumstances And then finding the resourcefulness that, that puts you in touch with. When we're backed into a corner, we've got to get out-of-the-box creative. And if you do that enough times and overcome those challenges, you stop being so afraid of life and so afraid of difficulty. And I actually have a slight addiction to finding new challenges now or taking on big things as a result of having been through so much. And Here I am. I'm not only still in the ring, I'm still swinging, man.

Yeah. So speak to that a little bit. Only— and I'm curious, and I'll be selfish, because the book that we're incubating is actually a book about leveraging the power of uncertainty. And so that book will be out in the spring. But so that's what I think you're talking about, is that in the midst of this, the chaos, the uncertainty, you're finding that you're resourced well enough To find yourself rooted and still reaching like a tree toward the sky, that only makes you go, well, what else might help me grow? I guess that would— well, what do you mean by what you were just saying earlier? I don't want to put words in your mouth.

Just to use an example I think most of us can relate to, finals season in college. I did 12 of those back to back over the course of 6 years. And it was— it started to dawn on me, and this is maybe the most valuable thing I got from all that schooling, was the experience of end of semester. I'm supporting myself through it. I've got, you know, my spiritual life, my social life, all these other, you know, my creative life, and I have grad school and, you know, this insurmountable to-do list of like papers and things to study for, etc., and to tend to. And every final season, I mean, I would cry, I would freak out, I would smoke cigarettes and become despondent and like, you know, all the things in reaction to that level of stress and feel impossible. How am I going to get this all done by Wednesday? But Wednesday would come and maybe there would be an extension to Thursday or Friday that would be requested. But that's part of it, right? You get resourceful, you figure it out. You figure out, oh, I can wake up at 4 in the morning and finish that paper even though it seemed like hell when I thought of— when I realized that that's what I was going to have to do. And then it's impossible, it's impossible, it's impossible right up until it's done. And then you're on the other side of it going, well, wait a second. That impossible feeling was exactly that, a feeling. And it's an experiential lesson that happened through the process of like, if I just Sit my ass down and chip away at this stone, and even if it feels awful or I don't believe in myself the whole time or it's painful, you know, if I just keep going, one day you do look up and you are being handed a master's degree, you have a book out in the world, your traumatic experience is fully healed, your relationship is progressing, you know, that we can apply this to. Yeah. really any arena of our lives. And I really want to underline the piece around you don't have to believe in yourself. You don't have to wait till you're not afraid. You don't have to wait till it doesn't hurt or it's not difficult. You just put your head down and get to it and keep going.

Yeah, it almost seems so simple or that you might think it was simplistic. The advice of just keep going, put your head down. I mean, tenacity is a word I've just, for me, I've always said that was one of my great assets, is that I'm pretty tenacious. People that know me know that about me, and I don't know that it's always so appreciated in people around me, but it has this tendency to be able to move to a direction. I'm not saying move through things. Right. All the time because sometimes you have to go around them. You have to go, you know, as the old expression, over, under, around, or through. But it's that willingness to just progress. And I think that's an important thing because often in my work with people that want to— they have some vision for doing something greater in the world. They want to speak about it. They want to impact people's lives and that kind of thing. The distance between where they are and where they want to be is quite great or it seems like it's quite great and they don't know what to do. And that's daunting and overwhelming itself. And typically, I always say, well, it just— we're going to start with one thing. Let's get one done. Yeah. And the one leads to the next. It's a domino effect. And dominoes are a great example because the domino example is one that you can see visually. One thing knocks over the other. They're sequenced and there's this momentum that's created. But what often isn't also part of the domino discussion is how dominoes have a capacity to not only knock over something of equal size, but they actually can knock over something slightly bigger. And so, just the physics of it means that when you're able to get one thing done, you know, if it's to write a paragraph, you want to write a book, how about let's just start with a word? I know it's really very basic. Start with a word. Start with the first word. Start with one paragraph. And if you wrote a paragraph a day 10 years ago, you'd have a book today. You'd have several books today.

You'd have a library, yeah.

So, you go— there's a great old, I think it's an Eastern saying that the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago and the next best time is today. So, now is always the time for everything. But to look at your circumstances wherever they are and say, so they're not nearly what I want them to be, rather than the overwhelm that comes from, well, here's the distance. How do I get from here to there? It's really just as simple as you begin. Right. And you can recalculate like you do in your car. You make a mistake in your car, the GPS kindly, with no judgment, With no, you know, no sarcasm, that GPS will just say, yeah, recalculating, redirecting.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, I think the first— the hardest part is that getting started piece. The surrender involved in that always has a sting to it, or what Ram Dass calls the lions at the gate that you just got to pass through. Or to bring it to physics, you know, liftoff philosophy, the liftoff velocity of a spaceship, you know, that is trying to leave the planet, that will burn— I think it's 60 to 75% of its fuel just leaving the Earth's atmosphere. Yeah. Once they get into space, cruising, you know, but it's just that initial push that we just have to over-under, scratching, clawing, dancing by any means necessary to get through.

So, so 2 things I want to just track there that you said. One is surrender, because the word surrender, I think, for a lot of people has this ring of resignation. So I'd love to have your definition of surrender in that context. And the other thing will be to just track back to trauma and talk a little bit about that after.

Yeah, absolutely. So the definition of surrender that I love the most is To join the winning team.

No, please repeat that.

To surrender is to join the winning team.

Oh, Ralph, that's a goodie, man. I love that. Do you recall where you first heard that?

I think in a 12-step meeting, actually, once a while.

I wouldn't be surprised. I

mean, in a different incarnation.

Yeah, I mean, you went through that time in your life, huh?

Yeah, yeah, indeed. And surrender isn't actually the same as resignation or giving up. It's more of an allowing of what is, to stop struggling with what naturally is true, which might seem like resignation, might seem like giving in at face value. But it's another one of these important paradoxes of which there are innumerable paradoxes, you know, on this path. But To allow what is, is actually to find your sense of empowerment within it because as James Baldwin said, nothing can be changed until it is faced. Or another principle is that a problem clearly discerned, accurately discerned, is a problem that's already half solved.

Right.

But how can you clearly discern a problem if you're not allowing its existence in your life? You're struggling to wall it off. Disavow it, medicate it, distract yourself from it, etc.

Right.

No good. That's actually, that's actually reactive. I would say that that's a disempowered kind of personal situation. So to allow what is despite the pain, despite our fear, despite maybe some overwhelm, is to open the door to being able to meet it and work with it and grow from it. This is how humans You

utilize it.

Yeah,

it's like alchemy in that sense.

Indeed. Yeah, nobody gets, you know, stronger sitting on the couch rather than going to the gym, right?

Not that I've seen.

I would like it to be that way.

Not that I've observed on my couch anyway.

Yeah, so, but there are There are factors. Just to kind of circle back, if I may, to one thing you said about my example of tenacity and grit sounding kind of simple, which it is. We could also make it a little more complex and look at some of the research on resilience, on some of the robust predictors, factors that tend to bolster somebody's ability to both withstand difficulty and bounce back and even thrive as a result of encountering difficulty. Could I unpack just a little list here?

Please. Thank you.

Yeah. So, I mean, one of the most— I would be amiss to not say that robust predictors of resilience is a level of material privilege that will certainly shield us from difficulty and help us to have the resources to bounce back. But if that's not you, If you identify as a member of a more vulnerable or marginalized population, the ship has not sailed because we have community is one of the biggest ones. You know, just who are you connecting with? How real can you be with them? Where do you go? You know, where you share language and certain beliefs and assumptions that it's nurturing for you. Really huge. Who do you call when you need to say all the wrong things and just get it off your chest? Really, really big. Your sense of identity, who we are. This is where, you know, the race, class, gender piece comes in. And also, you know, beyond those demographic factors as well. Who are you? How do you identify? What do you stand for in this world? What matters to you? Being super clear on who you are. And then there's emotional literacy. How many of us can't discern or don't have a lot of language Around what we feel. You know, how many of us are only familiar with, you know, anger, frustration, and anxiety? You know, but when it comes to more vulnerable feelings or even the positive ones, there's not a lot of subtlety for us. That's really important.

Hmm.

Which dovetails into emotional intelligence, right? So not only discerning how you feel, but how do you work with it? How do you self-regulate in a moment of anger? How do you hold back from saying the nasty juicy thing that's totally going to end your relationship in the heat of an argument? You know, and then there's self-talk, you know, how we're talking to ourselves. I think it's wild that we say things to ourselves that we would never say to another person or that we would never allow another person to say to us.

Oh yeah,

something to look at.

Isn't that true? If you just could replay, you just have to listen to a recording of your own thoughts about yourself in a day, you'd

be like, get off my back, guy. What's wrong with you?

What's your problem? What's your issue? I grew up in New York. It'd be like, can I help you? You got a problem? Who are you looking at? It's like, you got to be kidding. Yeah. most of what we probably said in a day and had to listen to it again at the end of the day, we'd cringe. But we're all a work in progress. So, I mean, this is not about trying to create any perfection, but more like, how do you progress? Like, I think about tenacity. I think about what we said, this progression and progress over perfection. So, we've also looked into this topic, and more than anything else that kind of stunned me in the resilience research was the idea that a predictor, to use your term, one of those robust predictors of resilience, were people that had rituals for recovery.

Mm-hmm.

They themselves were able to routinely recharge their battery the way we routinely recharge all of our devices. You know, that's very obvious to us, that if we don't plug our phone in, we're going to do without our Facebook that afternoon or our computer or iPad or whatever. And we just wouldn't even think of doing that, but yet we run ourselves on empty habitually.

And then wonder why we're freaking out.

Wonder why, right, that the coffee isn't working and the sugar's not working and now you're— yes, you're anxious. Anxiety is angry and reacting to things and kind of just screwing up so many areas of our lives and probably more our relationships than anything else. I really hope you're enjoying this episode of the Change Proof podcast. If you've not yet gone out and gotten your own copy of Change Proof, it's not too late. You can get your copy right now by going to changeproof.com and not only getting the book and all the bonuses there, but getting access to our proprietary Resilience Assessment Tool. It'll just take you 3 minutes to do, and it's something that will really help you to utilize the book even more effectively to create practices and rituals and habits that will increase your mental, emotional, physical, and even spiritual resilience for the long term. Again, go to changeproof.com to get your copy today. I want to circle back to your rituals for recovery, your rituals for resilience. But before we get there, I just want to ask about trauma again and try to connect the dots between— if it's something we can do— between the resolution of our early childhood trauma and how it is that we We are able to continue to move forward. I think the reason that the suicide rates are as stark and startling as they are, including the fact that in June, of those surveyed between the ages of 18 and 24, 1 in 4 had contemplated suicide, young people between 18 and 24, in the month of June. It's just, as a parent, we have 4 kids that are all between 19 and 28, and Just the thought of that is just shocking to me. So I can't help but think that a lot of resilience about how we either feel hopeful or hopeless is rooted in things that we experienced when we were children. And I'd love to just get your thoughts on that.

Absolutely. I mean, we take in such great adversity in the years that we are the most tender, the most vulnerable, the most dependent on others for literally everything we need. Every bite of food, every drink of water, every piece of clothing on our back, you know, and we are born in, you know, with incredible joy and curiosity and hunger, appetite for experience and learning and what have you as well, but also really dependent on folks who have been through their own struggles as well. And so it's really impossible. For a human child, childhood with something, some sort of adverse experience that they couldn't or wouldn't or didn't have the know-how to process to full resolve. And the research shows that when that— that necessarily has to go somewhere and it goes to our bodies, it goes into our nervous systems, goes into our cells, goes into our gut. And so I really think that that is By design, actually, because it's terrible. It hurts a lot. And I'm speaking as somebody who experienced really adverse violence growing up, and it's awful that anybody should go through it. And also, what's necessary for us to heal it is— use the title of that book— the presence process, right? Like, to cultivate presence, to cultivate earnestness, to cultivate a willingness to look deeply within ourselves. And most importantly, compassion. And when we can be compassionate towards our own struggles and wounds, that's what really moves those stored adverse experiences in us forward. That's really where we move to clarity and shift to great openness, and which allows for increased creativity and all sorts of courage, connection, all sorts of capacities that are natural to us. They all— And so in that way, trauma can be a gift. And it seems like really bad news to have, you know, trauma and the repetitive patterns it creates in our lives. But it's actually an invitation to open our hearts and to go deeper, to cultivate a rich and meaningful life.

Yes. And an invitation, I also believe, to reexamine Maybe the most fundamental precept that we live by, and that's our definition of love. And that's one of the great things I got out of that book, The Presence Process, was this exploration of what love means and how I personally define love and when I learned that definition, where I learned it, under what circumstances. Mm-hmm. And then the opportunity to define it now from the position I'm in versus living my life based on a very outdated definition and one that was not accurate to begin with. Because we see that people define love often in the strangest ways. Like somebody who was abused as a child actually feels that that's how they experience love is through abuse or another. And you go, no one would ever consciously go, that's what love is. But you can't wrestle That idea away from a child that's 7 or 6 years old or something, who's not in their cognitive stage of development anyway. It's just in the cells of their being that that's the resonance, the feeling of love. Yeah. And so none of this will make sense on one level, and, and then on another, it just makes all the sense in the world to re-examine those things and And so, I'm a big believer in the power of the reframe, and that's a resilience skill. And so, what we're talking about when we look at this is an invitation to examine, to learn, to explore, to then grow out from here based on that willingness, that openness, and that surrender, as you said earlier. It's really positive. I mean, it's life itself, the process of life itself. Yeah. Which is not linear, not always pretty even.

Yeah, more of a spiral than a line. Hopefully an upward spiral for us, you know, who are engaging in this work. That's beautiful. I love everything that you said. And we would call that in the psych world that I dwell in, reparenting. Actually, that mental reframe and that Reteaching oneself, looking at, processing, deconstructing, and evolving the definitions, the beliefs, and what have you that we inherit as children. Very hopeful thing that that's possible for us to do. We're never done.

No, that eternal vigilance, so to speak. It's never get it done and And don't have to. So Ralph, when we talk about rituals for resilience, rituals for recovery, can you share one of yours with us?

Yeah. I mean, I'm going to give you the really obvious one, the core one, which is meditation, which there's lots of different ways to meditate, obviously. But what's really important about That ritual for me isn't so much the calming effect of focusing on the breath or the nervous system regulation or whatever. It's actually the habit itself of every morning, no matter what's going on in my life, no matter how I feel, no matter what's going on in the world, I have a significant moment with myself. And even if that significant moment is complete chaos, Realize that 18 minutes into the 20-minute meditation that I'm meditating, for example. Very common experience. Just the habit of creating like a stable base of connection and warmth and inner relationship relating to my inner world. Just that stable base, that returning to it over and over again, no matter what, I find It's offered indirectly in many ways, directly but also indirectly. So many things can grow out from having that habit. So many possibilities open up, so much cognitive and emotional flexibility, so much insight. It's more profound than stress reduction.

Right.

It definitely is. So that's, that's the big one, that without A sincere and frankly, for me, non-religious, just body, earth, breath, mind. You know, I have some rituals and some props, there's some trappings and chants these days, but the core of it is just an undistracted space to be with yourself and to open to what is. It's deceptively simple.

I love that. I love that. A stable base, like a base camp that you make for yourself at the beginning of the day. And, um,

yeah,

as my grandmother would, would probably say, that's starting the day on the right foot.

Yeah, or the stable base of a good parent too, right? Like that toddler who wanders out and then like comes back right away to just kind of explore the world, then come back, or like maybe go in the other room but then peek around the corner. Are you still there? Are you still with me?

Exactly. Well, this conversation was just what I'd expect, actually. I'm not receiving anything I wasn't thinking would happen, so that's just terrific. You're up in Tahoe, and it reminds me as we conclude this show that I delivered a TED Talk. My TED Talk was up in Lake Tahoe, which was wonderful, a couple of years back, where I get to share, among other things, 2 things that you'll be— well, one you'll be amused by. I sat down on the stage, got myself into what would look like the meditative position, and I declared out loud what a crappy meditator I am. So I kind of called myself out for not being so good at it, but I've been really good at crafting and creating stillness, especially at the beginning of the day. And for me, my ritual begins upon waking. So it even goes, it's the first thoughts and the first words that come out of my mouth at the beginning of the day, and that's what I shared in that TED Talk were these This one process that is a— it's a stable base. It's become a stable base for me for so many years. And the great news about being in the business that I'm in, which is so different than being a lawyer, having traveled around the world to speak on these topics and been blessed to do that, I've got to share this ritual, among others, with a lot of people. So, I hear from folks on a regular basis. Our company hears people all the time that this was sort of a catalytic thing for them, that they still do it or they still consider it. And that is 3 steps to wake up, which I know how profound that is, right?

Yeah, to appreciate what we take for granted, right?

Yeah, wake up, right? There's so much to that. And in the waking itself, there's so much to be appreciative of, to be grateful for. Saying gratitude is so powerful at the beginning of the day. And then I really think that those words that we say to ourselves internally, which go by so fast, they're just like, you know, it's such a fast-moving movie. We can't always keep track of it all. But what is slower is what comes out of our mouth. Even though I speak fast as a New Yorker, ex-New Yorker, it's still the thoughts are so much faster than the words. So the words are easier to capture and they're powerful. I think we truly do in many ways speak our lives into being. We speak a prophecy every moment that we are speaking. So I choose these 4 words at the beginning of the day, I love my life. That's it. The 4 words are simple, maybe simplistic on some level too, but especially right now, man, to be able to just Just what, you know, what if you loved your life no matter what is the question I asked that TED audience. I said, you know, what if you decided to love your life in the middle of COVID in the middle of all the chaos of, you know, confusion and every other thing that we can talk about that's happening in people's lives with COVID and without COVID? Can you love your life no matter what? So that's the question.

Unconditionally.

Yeah, exactly.

To place conditions on something is not to actually love it. It's to make it into a transaction.

Right.

So if you can love it in the messiness, that's real love.

Exactly. Yeah, that's the gist of it. Thanks for getting that, Ralph. I appreciate you reflecting that back.

Yeah, likewise, likewise. That's a beautiful Beautiful morning practice. I teach something that's incredibly similar to it called the 5-3-1-1 that folks can look up if they're so interested. It's all over the net at this point, Insight Timer and SoundCloud and all of that. So cool.

Well, we have show notes. So as we're concluding here, a couple of requests from our audience and our community. So first of all, we'd love to get your comments. So, whatever you were thinking and maybe questions you even have for us, you can go to adammarkel.com/podcast to leave your comments, questions there. Subscribe to the show if you like it, if you love it, and if you want to refer it to someone, that's always so greatly appreciated that our community is expanding in really diverse ways. If you know somebody that would love to hear this conversation, you think would benefit from it, please share this episode. with them as well. And there'll be full show notes so you can get more information about Ralph's work, about Dr. DeRose's work, about his book, which I absolutely love, Don't Tell Me to Relax: Emotional Resilience in the Age of Rage, Feels, and Freakouts. And meditations and things that you can find, I imagine, on your website will also be in the show notes. So thank you again. I really appreciate your time and just everything you brought to the

Yeah. Thank you as well. You're a fantastic interviewer and it's truly a pleasure to have this opportunity to connect with you, Adam.

Awesome. Everybody, ciao for now.

Thanks for listening, everyone. We hope you now have the tools and greater insights to navigate your own pivot. Help us inspire others by sharing this episode and leaving your comments over at adammarkel.com/podcast. For more tips, strategies, and support as you consciously pivot into a new business and lifestyle you love, join our Pivot Community on Facebook at pivotfb.com.