Stories of Service: Embracing Healing for a Life of Meaning with Theresa Carpenter

The people want to be a part of your struggle and they want to hear your story and they want to know how they can help. And I think that it's incumbent upon us to share our problems and share our struggle, share what we're doing presently to work through it and be open to other suggestions on other ways of getting things done.

Hey there friends. Welcome to Happiness Squad. This is the podcast dedicated to helping you unlock your full potential by mastering the art and science of happiness. We bring on the best leading experts on these topics to help you unlock your true potential and live with more joy, health, love and meaning in your life. Your host is no other than the star combo of Ashish Katari and Anil Ramjiani who are both on a mission to provide you with an unfair advantage to be the masters of your experience and leaders in your industry. Get ready to be moved, challenged and enlightened on this podcast. It may change your life. Thanks for being here and joining the Squad.

Hey Happiness Squad. It's great to have you with Ashish and I as we host guests who are industry leaders helping individuals and organizations unlock their inner happiness and flourishing. Life is a series of building blocks. What is unknown is how those blocks will emerge and the lessons they will unlock as we journey through life and experience setbacks that may be even traumatic. How do you heal and come back from that? Our next guest opens up and shares her powerful stories with us. Meet Teresa Carpenter, an active duty Navy Commander where she has served for the past 27 years. She taps into her love of storytelling through the visual medium and shares her life journey online in raw, vulnerable and always honest format. She is a writer and a podcaster for SOS Stories of Service. She launched this in April 2020 and has over 100 episodes featuring ordinary people from all walks of life who show up in service to their respective communities. She currently lives in the United Kingdom and serves as the Chief Public affairs officer for NATO's Allied Maritime Command. During this heartfelt and insightful episode, we delved into a few specific areas with Teresa that included challenges that she faced constantly fighting the stigma of emotional and mental well being, as well as the opportunity for help as a powerful ingredient used by the greats to unlock their traumatic healing and so much more. You may see parallels between your life and the stories and reflections that we share. Are you ready? Let's get started. Please join Ashish and I as we welcome Teresa to the Happiness Squad and Hardwire for Happiness together. Hi Teresa, It's a pleasure to have you. Hey Ashish, how are you both doing?

I'm doing well. Thank you. Such an honor to be here and thank you for having me.

Neil, lovely to see you. We have to debrief later on your amazing trip to Italy and. And Teresa, such, Such. Such a plenner. The pleasure is just ours to be able to have a conversation with you and to share all the amazing things that you're doing to make our world a kinder, more authentic place where people can show up and voice and find company.

Thank you.

And grow together.

I really appreciate that. And it's definitely an honor to be able to have built the audience that I've built over the years and to get to this place because I wasn't always as confident in sharing my story the way that I do now. But like anything, you just. You keep at it and you do it over and over and over again, and then it just builds into. Into where we are today. So thank you so much.

Yeah. No, so let's start with Teresa, a little bit of, as you said, you've evolved so much, you know, over. Over the years. We all do. And one of the things that changes is even how we think about happiness or flourishing. So we always love to start with this question of, you know, what is happiness to you and how has that definition changed for you from your younger years?

So I think when I was younger, happiness meant a lot more of the material things that I was chasing. So I was chasing getting a partner. I was chasing promoting through my job. I was chasing becoming financially stable. And then as I got older, being happy meant more of a feeling of contentment. So I went from thinking, oh, my gosh, I have to have the next thing in order to be happy to things are just fine the way they are. And that was a real shift in my thinking. It's not to say that things can't get better or that there's things to work on, but if things stay the way they are, I'm still going to be happy. And when I was able to really embrace that mindset, I felt like everything just fell into place after that.

Yeah. You know, I love that what you're saying, and it's so in sync, you know, Teresa, is the work that we're doing at Happiness Squad. We're actually launching our new website in the next day or two. And one of the things that we're highlighting is. And it's these learnings. You know, people learn at different times. And I wish I had learned this earlier, just like you. I only learned this when I was 42. Right. Versus 43 versus much earlier, which is, you know, happiness is not an end to be pursued through, you know, career success, promotions, money control, fame, all of these things that we learn at an early age. If we, you know, if we get that, then happiness is the end and we want to be happy. But instead, happiness can be the means to pursue any end you want and things get easier. In fact, I loved, you know, Laurie Santos. Professor Laurie Santos, who does a lot of work on happiness, you know, actually made a call to say, hey, listen, we should actually change the word happiness, the science of happiness, to actually the science of human performance. Because that's really what we are talking about here. And oftentimes people confuse happiness with an emotion. It's that momentary high that I get when something goes well versus, you know, when we are happier. The science is clear. We are at our best. We are more successful, we are more resilient, we are healthier, we are more creative, we are more connected. You know, all of the things become easier to achieve. They do if we can actually just be happier. And it's a choice, right? And it starts with content. And we can stop fighting, right?

Stop. Stop hustling. I think is what I learned is that when I learned how to say no and had some boundaries and just was just brutally honest, not, not to the point where I ever hurt people or any of those things, but just it was. Was so succinct in what it was that myself or my team needed in order to thrive. I found that I was a lot happier. And I also stopped putting unrealistic expectations on myself and my teams. I think that I put a lot of pressure, unnecessary pressure on myself to be at a certain level. Because when you play that comparison game, you always lose and so don't compare. I think is the keeping up with the Joneses almost. Yeah, there's nobody you gotta keep up with. Just try to do your best to incrementally push the, you know, push the can down the road a little bit each day. And even on days that you don't and all you do is sit around and watch Netflix. Well, hey, maybe you needed that day to sit around and watch Netflix. So, yes. So I think that's been my key to happiness, is just having that grace with myself and then going, okay, it's time to stop, you know, not being productive. And now, you know, you got to kind of give yourself a little bit of a kick in the ass because you know that when you do those things, you're going to feel better because you've accomplished Something. And so sometimes it just starts with finding those little baby steps, like the make your bed analogy. Like, I'll do that at work. I'll go throw away some cardboard in my office. Because it's. I did that this morning. I started the day with tearing apart the cardboard that was sitting with some mailboxes, you know, some stuff I got in the mail. And I was like, well, that's, you know, I started with something small that was productive. And it kind of led to other things that were productive.

It's, it's almost interesting how we almost like, try to associate, you know, productivity with how happiness, like, so the more productive I am, the happier I'll be, or the more I feel X, you know, the happier I'll be. And it's almost this back to your point, Ash. It's like, you know, I'm, I'm chasing it, you know, and it's like, you know, when you chase something, you know, you never feel content, never feel fulfilled because you're on that treadmill that we talk about, right? You're constantly climbing, constantly going. And I. What I find, you know, really interesting about your story, Teresa, is, you know, you've, you've been through a lot. And I know that some people like to fill the void. Some people that emptiness that they have, that loneliness they have, that anxiety that they have. But you've had a very traumatic, very checkered past. And when I read about you and got to know you better, I was inspired by kind of the work that you're doing now. And so what I'd love to do is for our listeners to get to know you a bit better. If you could share a story from your background that maybe just helps us understand a bit more about what encouraged you to open up, you know, how did you leverage, you know, one of those lessons, you know, that basically helped you form your current mission to inspire and help others, you know, on their path. Like what, what was it that moved you? What was it that shifted you? Just help us get to know you a bit better on that front.

Well, I think that as I was growing up, I sort of had these moments of, I would say despair or moments where my life just kind of kicked my ass. And if I hadn't had those, those growing points, I mean, I grew up in a home, you know, middle class environment. It was, you know, I never, never went hungry, but I, I definitely didn't feel that I got the, the love and support that I needed from one of my caregivers. She, she was, she was not emotionally Available. And unfortunately, I think that set me on a path of, of resentment and anger for a lot of years because there was something I needed to have from that person that unfortunately she just couldn't give. And so that dynamic and that unhealthy environment where I didn't feel welcome sort of set me on this path where things were very difficult for me. But a lot of that was self induced because I had so much anxiety about performance and I had so much anxiety about being perfect and about failure, fearing failure. So I think that what helped me gradually, and like I say, I think your life journey is not this like pivotal moment and shift where you just suddenly change. It's these small little building blocks, you know, starting with my nervous breakdown at the age of 20. And then once the nervous breakdown happened, I would say like the next pivotal moment was having to fight my way to become an officer and explain and re traumatize myself by having to go through this whole incident again to become an officer because they wouldn't want me to be an officer if I had, you know, these psychological problems. And so that put me on a path of feeling stigmatized about my, my mental health. And so I never would talk to anybody. I threw away all my medical records about my psychotic episode. And so then I think my next pivotal moment was throughout my journey as a junior officer. I kept trying to get qualified for things and it was always very difficult. And I always felt like, well, if these other people can become the battle watch captain, then I can become the battle watch captain. If other people can be the command duty officer on an aircraft carrier while it's at port, in port, I should be able to do that. And I would get some sorts of pushback. Either I wasn't the personality type that typically, you know, shuts up in colors and people could sense that, or I was somebody that they just couldn't really categorize or put in a box in a certain way. And so I was, and I was a public affairs officer, I wasn't an operator. So in the military we have the, you know, the people who are actually running the things on the ship. And then we have people like myself who are advisors who. But then they gave the opportunity for another advisor to become a command duty officer, our lawyer. And I'm like, why can't the PAO be a command duty officer? And so I always kind of had that sense of right and wrong and sense of, well, what is fair for all, for everyone should be fair for all as long as you meet the standards and you Meet what is required for that particular assignment. So I think that to long answer to your question is I can't really pinpoint one story to say it was this one thing that happened that got me to open up. Rather, it was sort of these crucibles that would happen over and over and over again. And I'm probably still got crucibles in my future.

Yes. We are constantly growing and evolving. There is no one moment. Right. We unfurl. It's always I think about, you know, there is our beautiful soul, and then we cover it up like layers of an onion, each event of a time. And as we turn inwards, you have to go layer by layer by layer. Right. To find your core essence, to find your core soul, to normalize, to integrate our past that resulted in those armors we put up. We need to integrate it. We don't need to demonize it. We need to integrate it. We need to take the learning from it. They're there for a reason, but we need to actually use that to say, why did that happen? And what can I do with it? What meaning can I make? And Teresa, I have loved the meaning that you've made with it, which is you said, listen, I want to inspire others to open up. I want them to tell their stories.

Yes.

Because it's so important, you know, it's so important to do that. And we were in the conversation we were having before the podcast, you know, I was sharing. I'm like, what I love about what you're doing is, you know, one you're talking about, you know, help making normalizing conversation around mental health. Because there is such a stigma.

There is.

There's a stigma with this in the armed forces. There's a stigma in business there, and there's a stigma everywhere. There's, you know, oh, if I say I have, you know, if I'm struggling mentally, it's somehow you become a pariah or somebody that needs pity. You know, you don't. Second is many people who struggle with it don't realize how prevalent and how common it is.

No, no. And everybody, I think, goes through life with mental health issues. They might not call it that, but they have problems and things that they need to talk to someone about. And I think that whether you have a friend or a family member or you go see a professional, to me, it's all the same. And it's interesting to me as I've gone down this journey, like, anxiety is normal. It sort of baffles me that we have these labels for things like anxiety and ADD because to me those are just symptoms of a deeper issue. I feel the same way about depression. And I think that until we kind of get our arms around the fact that these are more than just labels and pills, there's something that, in my view anyway, that I think needs to be processed and needs to be looked at and examined and explored. And if you don't take the time to do that, whether you do it with a friend, whether you do it with your journal, whether you do it through some sort of healing mechanism, all you're going to do and as my therapist says is you're going to keep playing this game with a different partner. Like you're just going to be in this dance somewhere else. And I can so attest to that because when I had my bad dynamic with my caregiver, I repeated that dynamic over and over and over again with different people and I just danced with a different partner. But I was still playing the game.

Absolutely. You know, it was funny. I was sharing with somebody and like for me I have had a very similar, you know, journey. Teresa in terms of, you know, I was suffering from anxiety. I was actually suffering from extreme anxiety. Even though I didn't have, you know, any so called traumas growing up, there was nothing about the future that was troubling me. You know, you have to have something to be anxious about, right? Like relationships, work, money, health, everything was green, right? Like every dial was green and I was waking up every morning feeling like I needed to throw up every morning, right? And thank God I basically was bullheaded enough to not take the advice of every well meaning colleague and friend. One said, you know, this is very common in these high senior roles. Just, just take some Zola off. Just take some, take some, take the edge off, right? Take the edge off, right? Take, take a pill. And somebody else said, you know, you just go see a therapist and they'll help you. But you know, what you talked about was everybody needs to process it. We need to go inward, truly go on a journey inwards. So I decided to go inwards and I think that's what put me on the path that, that I'm, that I'm on now, right towards the work, towards the work that I'm doing.

Ashish, can I, can I just, can I compliment that? Just, just for a moment, just want to compliment that before we go to the next question for Theresa. I, you know, so my mom has isthmatic depressive, you know, and for the last 30, 40 plus years she's been in and out of you know, mental health institutions. And, you know, I always thought growing up, my sister and I, that, you know, okay, this is genetic. We're going to suffer from this too. Something like that might happen to us, too. And there were times when I would either feel depressed or I would feel off my game. And I would always initially think, ah, you know, this is pre Google days. You know, okay, this is my form of depression. This is my form of. And I didn't actually ask anyone or ask for help. And thankfully, my sister would check in on me and go, hey, how you doing? And I would say, I'm. I'm baseline versus okay, I'm actually depleted and negative versus, hey, I'm not feeling good and I'm positive. And I think just. I want to just emphasize the point that both of you have made there. That is, you know, this is an opportunity for folks. We're not mental health experts. I'm not. But I think it's important for folks to at least just contemplate reaching out and trying to understand and asking for help and making sure. And I know we're going to come to that shortly, but that was something that helped me. And I am hand over heart. I've not been on any medication or anything. But I do feel you both are right, that despite all the technology we have, I don't think people can fully understand and appreciate what this can mean and what this can do to a man or a woman. So I just wanted to highlight that and share that. But, Ashish, back to you, mate. And the question for Theresa.

Yeah, I wanted to ask you, why is it, Teresa, that it is so important to inspire people to tell their stories and not keep it inside?

Because I think that that helps you process it and make sense of it. So a lot of times, the stories that we tell ourselves are not necessarily true stories. As I am digging into my past and doing EMDR and exploring things that occurred to me growing up, some of the stories that I told myself, I thought were things that were wrong with me. And as my therapist always says, he says, we're exploring not what is wrong with you, but what happened to you. And I never really looked at the full picture of the different things that were going on and why I was acting the way I was, and to have that explanation and to have that new understanding of the ways in which a child responds to trauma and things that are outside of their control. It helped me so much to understand why in future relationships the same dynamics were playing out. And so when I tell my story and I share these insights. Let's say I share it on a blog or I share it online. It's so affirming because then someone else will say, yes, that also happened to me. I had that same perspective. Or you're also helping somebody else know that they're not alone, that this thing that they're dealing with is universal and it takes away the shame, it takes away the stigma. And we all sort of baseline together and say, okay, this is something we all deal with. I'm very open about the fact that I go to therapy every Wednesday at 4 o' clock in London and I don't hide that from my leadership. I don't hide that from my people. I want them to know that this is what I'm doing and that this is something I need for my mental health. And if it means working a little late after work and living by this work phone, I'll do that. I'll do what it takes to still meet the mission. But every single opportunity I can get to make that appointment, I'm going to do so. Because I also realized that the national health care system in the UK is also very, very good. And I'm taking advantage of a time where I can be seen and not turned away. People in the United States are getting turned away and sent to social workers instead of. Nothing wrong with social workers, but they can't diagnose mental health treatments and especially things like complex trauma. And so by me sharing that saying, hey, you may want to get a diagnosis from a psychiatrist while you're still serving, because if you still have these issues post military and you don't put in a veterans of affairs claim, you may not get continued care for this issue. That is an important message. And so I hope by sharing my story, others will understand that this is the process or this is how it helped me.

So much resonates with me on that front. I mean, by the way, I lived in London for a couple of years and I do agree it's easier to access that kind of care and that therapy. And ironically, I nearly reached out to folks in the US for support and help. And I think again, it goes back to when you're in a foreign country and you don't know what you need to do, let alone in your home country. How do you reach out and find the right form of help, the right therapist? And I actually doubted finding the right person in London while I was living there. And so I reached out to my sister in the U.S. to help me find someone in the U.S. so I think you Know what I feel that you're saying, Teresa, is it's being unapologetic about seeking therapy and the benefits of therapy. And what I really admired about what you just said there, too, is you're almost ring fencing that time and that space for you, because you know you need it. And when you get it, you're at your best. You're able to unlock what you need to. Within yourself to do your mission, whether it's for yourself or for others. And I admire your honesty, too, and your openness about it, your vulnerability to it, because some people, again, think it's a sign stigma to say, hey, I'm seeking therapy. It's like, oh, people might need to put you at an arm's length. And I think it's not that case. It's actually the opposite. It's like, you know, I'm. I'm opening up. Pull me forward. Don't push me away. And, you know, go ahead.

Oh, I was just going to say that it's. I do not understand now, looking back, why there's such a stigma on something like this. Like, it should just be the exact opposite. Because, you know, you. You notice that once you've received this kind of care, if you get the right therapist and you get the right help and you trust this person, your relationships with others just gets exponentially better. And so that's what I'm experiencing through this process. And I've only been on this journey with this therapist for about maybe five months, but it's very consistent. And as I'm doing it, I'm seeing that I'm getting over certain dynamics and I'm rising above certain dances that I used to engage in.

Yes.

And all of a sudden, the dynamics between me and certain people have changed. And that's been. It's been kind of groundbreaking. And so I know I've turned a corner on this one particular issue, and the ways in which I used to toxically, you know, in a toxic way interact with certain people. And so now I say to myself, gosh, you know, what could have happened if I had gotten this years ago? But quite frankly, I just wasn't ready. That wasn't the crucible that I was supposed to have in my 30s or in my 20s. There were other crucibles that I was going through during that time, but that wasn't, as Scott Mann says on my last show, the tap on the shoulder. That wasn't the tap on the shoulder at my moment then. This is my tap now.

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You know and it's a very interesting place we are in. You know I've been, I've been seeing how our collective relationship and our understanding even of well being, you know, is, is evolving. You know, if I go in the, you know, if I go all the way from the, you know, 50s and 60s and the things that, you know, what we knew about cigarettes and I still remember some of the, you know, commercials with like, you know, doctors with cigarettes operate, you know what I mean? And then we realized you, we're learning so much. I think if I think about well being for a lot of people, I think part of the reason we are at such a big crisis around mental health is people think about wellbeing as physical as body. And we all know mind and body are fundamentally connected. You know we had a, one of our very early podcasts was with a senior partner at McKinsey and he's a vipassana. He's a, you know, I would say he is a hardcore believer in the vipassana meditation and he, you know, he encouraged and he actually challeng to Anil for example to say hey, how much time do you spend taking care of your body? How often do you exercise? And you know, Anil's a triathlete and me not so much. I just ran my first trip last week one step at a time. But he said to him like listen, you know, if you went spend 45, 50 minutes a day on your physical health, how much time are you spending on your mental health? Are you Meditating.

So true.

Are you being mindful? You know, are you focusing on things that are positive versus the negativity bias that our brain has, which is always looking for what's going to get me.

Oh, yes. It's a reset that you have to constantly fight. I agree. I love the way you said that.

And so if you're not doing that, how will your mental health be at the same level as your physical health? Right. Like it will never be. And it directly affects it.

Mm, it does. It does. And you have to have both. I mean, I force myself most days to get out there and do the 10,000 steps. You know, I do my best. I have a little floor calisthenic workout that I do as much as I can. And you have to have both. Especially as I age, I feel this need to continue to make sure that my body is fit, my mind is sharp, because I want to live as long and as healthy as I can while I still have this time left.

Quality of life.

Yeah, my quality of life.

No, and Ashish and I, we talked about this, I think it was a couple weeks ago on a previous podcast, which is, again, it's, you know, movement is not just going for a 30, 60 minute workout. It's actually incorporating movement throughout your day. It's not just about, you know, doing weight, you know, lifting weights. It's about finding that moment to calm and to actually take those deep breaths. And it's. It's ironic because again, we always use the old adage like, I don't have the time. Right? I've got either time for A or B. I can't do both without realizing that it's A plus B that actually gives you the satisfaction, the support you need. And I think we almost get locked into a bit of a path of. Yeah, but you know that 30 minutes is enough. Well, okay, that 30 minutes is enough. But are you up for that kind of, let's say hours or days of pain that you might struggle with or feel that stress or anxiety that just almost clouds you and it actually takes you back steps as opposed to moving you forward. So that's why I do agree it's a matter of how do we educate our peers to not only understand the importance of the body, but the mind and the spirit? And I do want to ask a question on the back of that, and we alluded to it earlier, which is around asking for help, something you've mentioned in your blogs. I love it. Teresa Tapestries, right? It's amazing. You said that that's something that's really defined and separated the greats is they ask for help. And I. I mean, I'm someone who. And I'll say it hand over heart. I've not. I've not had therapy yet. I've. And actually my coach, my last two coaches have said, we're not therapists, so don't seek out therapy from us. If I can go back in time, I would ask my father, hey, if there's one thing you could please do, is could you please go get a therapist and seek therapy? And I just wanted to kind of on the back of that, like, what has empowered you, inspired you around that concept of just ask for help?

I think that it's understanding that balance between when you need help versus I need to do it on my own. And I think that we tend to sometimes live in a world of extremes where you've got the people on the right hand side that say you need to just go out there and do it. You need to just make it happen for yourself. You need to figure it out. You need to empower yourself to do it. And then there's that other side of, oh, well, there's always somebody that'll help. There's always, well, guess what? Sometimes there isn't always somebody that will help. So sometimes there is. And I think that it's one of those things where, for me, when I'm completely depleted and I know that I need help, I know that there are people that I can count on who have been able to count on me. And I think that's also part of seeking help is, is that if you are a person that needs help, always be a person that is available for someone else to ask for help. So I try to be very mindful of that pendulum as well. And that's, to me, a part of having healthy relationships. And so one of the nice parts, I think, about therapy is that you don't owe the therapist anything, especially if your health insurance covers it. So for me, it's like I can spend an hour just getting help that I don't have to pay back. And I do feel like there is that healthy give and take. When you have a mentor or whatever, you have to balance how much you ask of others versus how much you figure out on your own. And so I think once you can kind of learn how to thread that needle, then asking for help becomes a lot easier because you've sort of empowered yourself to say, nobody's coming, we're going to figure it out. I joke with my team all the time. We're short staffed. And I say, no one's coming. We're going to figure it out. And I'm empowering them to find solutions and to think outside the box and to come up with creative ways to get things done, because ultimately our bosses aren't going to stop asking for stuff. So we've got to figure out different ways to answer the call because we don't have the people to do what we used to be able to do.

Yeah. And the world has changed, you know, it's gotten so much more complex. And I think in our work, you know, Teresa, that Anil and I do a lot of the work. We literally have to normalize and rewire leaders, mindsets and beliefs about what makes them a leader. You know, today, in the highly volatile, uncertain, complex world in which we are living, if you pretend like you have all the answers and not ask for help from your team and from your colleagues, I can guarantee you will fail.

You will absolutely.

You will fail. You will fail. And it will come at a high cost personally and to all of those others around you that you care, because life is messy. It is a lot more complex than it has ever been. And so this, by the way, relates to just as much about mental health struggles, but like, there is so much even outside of mental health, there are things that need to be spoken about and things where we need to reach out for help. Teresa, what in your mind, as you've kind of, you know, coached junior officers, coached colleagues, what are some of the biggest hurdles that you find that make people not share their struggles with the messiness of life? Right. Things they're trying to get done and they're not. They just don't ask for help. You know, they don't ask.

They feel they're scared. Yeah. They're scared of being vulnerable, they're scared of looking weak, and they're. They're scared of what people will think of them if they are authentically themselves, which is really sad. So they don't ask for help or they don't bring up problems because they think that nobody is going to care if they have problems. But what I have found is that when you speak openly about problems, people want to be a part of the solution. There's always somebody in the room that maybe knows a different way to look at the issue and has a different mindset. Like the other day I had a chief of staff meeting. I'm filling in for my boss. And the first thing that came out of my mouth was, well, our graphic designer quit on Friday. So we'll be sending everybody over to Base Graphics. And I really put that out there to not say that we won't facilitate or help them work with Base Graphics. But I want to set the table that, hey, I'm going to need help because I can't just spit out a new graphic designer. Um, this onboarding and all these things take like a year. So guess what? I'm going to have a guy who isn't trained even to do video, but our videographer, he's going to have to take over and just use existing templates on Adobe InDesign. That's what he's going to do. And I'm just blunt with that. And people appreciate that. They laugh and I, and I say it in a joking around way. I try to make light of it and not take it too seriously. But then people feel like, oh gosh, we're now part of her struggle. And then they feel a little bit of a kinship with you because they see that you're trying the best you can with what you have. And so that's what I have found. You have to know who you can trust. I mean, there are some shady shysters on every staff and you got to know who those are and you got to be careful what you say to those people. But with the right people and most people, I don't think most people are shady shysters. I think they're a very small percentage. But the people want to be a part of your struggle and they want to hear your story and they want to know how they can help. And I think that it's incumbent upon us to share our problems and share our struggle, share what we're doing presently, to work through it and be open to other suggestions on other ways of getting things done.

Yeah, you know, be vulnerable. Call out problems that are right. To your point. I think it's one of the biggest drivers that leaders can do to set an environment of psychological safety. Don't show up as perfect and everything under control, because guess what? Everybody else will feel they need to kind of live up to that for you.

Right. And I think that that's also one of the things too that I see in a lot of staffs is that we've got this pressure to be present at work all the time. Even though like 99% of what I do as a PIO can be done anywhere. This very much this pressure to constantly be on. But people really want authenticity and they want you to be yourself. And if you make a mistake, just own it and move on. Explain how you'll do it better next time. And I just think that when you learn how to be yourself and you are confident in who you are, the world just opens up. And I think that's one of the biggest lessons I've learned my entire life, to be honest.

Do you know there are a couple of thoughts that come to mind from, let's say, a few different spaces. Right. So my sister's in the medical space, and I know that when she's had conversations with peers, they've been asked. She's been asked, hey, how you doing today? And she's quite candid. She's an open book. And she's noticed that there were several times where individuals that she'd speak to and open up to would actually turn around and almost share that with others. And it's like, whoa, hang on a second, you know, and that, that can shut a door. And I think that, you know, it's just, you know, it's a tip for listeners out there. And it's, it's, it's a, you know, it's an invitation if someone's going to open up to you. And asish ironic, but I feel like we've talked about this before. Funny enough, if someone's opening up to you and sharing with you how they're feeling and they're being vulnerable, they're not going to control the outcome. You know, it's almost that invitation to, to respect that request and almost how you support them. I, you know, I find on the business side in corporate that we sometimes aren't given the time to say, hey, I've made a mistake, or, hey, you know, I'm not operating at my best. You know, more recently, I would say I am able to, whether it's ashish to you or it's to my wife or to my peers, I'm like, you know, hey, just not in a good space right now. There's something else that's on my mind, but, you know, let me come back. And I think it's just giving ourselves space. And sometimes we don't do that. We almost feel like if I don't keep up, if I don't keep the pace I'm used to, I'm not going to get ahead not realizing that that space is actually what helps you get ahead. Otherwise you end up falling back. And I, and I do. It's an invitation again to our listeners that, hey, if you find yourself in a situation where you feel like life's messy, you feel like you're not able to kind of keep things in check, Open up. And if it's. If you're opened up to, you know, hey, respect that, you know, encourage that, support that. Because I think that's the type of trust, that's the type of network we need to start to build around ourselves. Otherwise, I do feel like, you know, we're just going to make things. Things are only going to get messier, if you will.

Yeah. And actually do. I mean, I love, you know, I'm going to tie, Teresa, a couple of things you said earlier to this, right. Create the space. Don't beat yourself up. If you need a Netflix day, right, where you just need to kind of wedge out, it's okay. But then pick yourself up and let's get back in the fray. You know, we are get back in the fray because that's what life is about also, you know, there are so many ways in which we can. We can actually take care of ourselves, you know, which sometimes we don't have to numb. We can do it in more nurturing ways, like going for a walk in nature, talking to a friend, dancing to music. But really, like, be unapologetic about taking care of yourself. I loved Teresa, what you shared also about, listen, I block in my calendar. This is the time I go see the therapist and I'm open about it. Right. That can be the same as, hey, this is the time I go for a run. It's okay. It's absolutely okay. You know, we have to protect and we have to, as you say, we have to protect the asset. We have to take care of us. And that is just not something that when it comes to the human side, we just take for granted. We never do it with our cars, we never do it with our machines. Yeah, we don't do it with our workstations. But somehow we feel as humans, we have this unlimitless level of energy. And if we stop for a moment, there is some, you know, where people are going to reject this. Don't take the time.

And I think it's, again, it's driven from that insecurity and that anxiety that I think so many people feel. I mean, let's face it, I don't think there's very many people that got everything that they needed growing up. They may not have had what they. What some would consider trauma, but there's been experiences in everybody's life, I feel, that have been less than ideal. And it may not have happened in their childhood. It might have happened in their 20s or their 30s, might have had a toxic work environment. What have you and Those issues are still trauma, and they're. They impact us. And that's okay because it happens to everyone. And so I think that that's something that we have to normalize, is that we have to normalize trauma because everyone is impacted by it. It's not just something that people from wars go through. And that was something that was really hard for me to get my mind around, was that I had complex trauma, because I thought that and ptsd, and I thought that that was just something that only war veterans get or I didn't really understand the whole adverse childhood experiences. And, you know, I wasn't. I wasn't sexually molested. I wasn't beaten. And so for me, that was very difficult for me to understand that abandonment and attachment are real, real critical things. And if you don't, that stuff doesn't get right in your childhood, it doesn't matter what comes next. I mean, people that have had amazing childhoods then do go and experience combat sometimes, and because of their resilience from childhood, they're able to deal with that stuff better than the person who didn't get that same kind of upbringing. So that has also really opened my eyes, is just understanding some of these things, and then it makes it easier to take that time for yourself because you understand that that's truly what you need or you're just going to continue to repeat those behaviors in that cycle.

You know, Teresa, I would prove to you and to our listeners, we actually had Amy Fox on our podcast just very recently, and I invite people to listen to that podcast because we actually covered this topic on trauma. And I mean, her work is so amazing. She works with an unbelievable teacher, Thomas Hubello, who wrote a book called Healing Collective Traumas. And he defines, you know, traumas beautifully, you know, and as you said, you know, oftentimes people think about trauma as just as, you know, I got molested or I got jumped or I had come back.

Oh, yes.

You know, we all, through our childhood pick up traumas. In fact, we also pick up generational trauma. Yes, right. That kind of goes through. So nothing need have happened to you. But if your ancestors and your ancestors ancestors suffered trauma, it goes through us. So a big part of the work that we all need to do is to explore our past, to explore the lenses through which we see the world because we see them uniquely, to recognize it, become aware of it, and then from that place, choose to reframe, rewrite, integrate, and use that past to become stronger and more in service of others. So, I mean, it's I highly encourage folks to go back and listen to that podcast and see the amazing work. In fact, one of the things that she and I love, she was one of my biggest teachers and you know, she highlights and we love is in the business workplace, there is. She used this word that really stuck with me in our last meeting where she said, there is so much trauma sitting underneath the corporate table. You know, we walk around as adults, but really we are actually operating oftentimes when we face conflict from the place of our 2 year old or a 6 year old or a 12 year old, because that's where we go. And if we want to be effective leaders, if we want to truly make peace with this deeper anxiety that lies within us, we actually have to do that by actually looking at our past, really examining it, become curious about it and finding the growth in it.

So true, so true. Everything you said is just like, yes, yes, yes. I mean it is so, so incredibly true. I think that reframing your past is, is really important because it helps you make sense of what happened and why you became the person that you did today. And it allowed me, I think, to let go of a lot of that resentment and anger that I, that I've carried. Because again, when you, when you disengage from the game and you start to learn that it's your reaction to others behavior, that's the issue, not their behavior. There are certain people that are just not going to change. No matter what you say, no matter what you do, they are who they are. And you have to make your peace with that. Even if you wanted them to be something else, they may never be what you want. And so then it becomes on you to say, how am I going to change? Characterize the way I interact with this person? And if you want to keep them in your life or if they're a coworker and you have no choice but to keep them in your life. So I think that becomes incumbent upon you to learn a new way of understanding that relationship and rising above the petty interaction that you're currently in. Like I say, the dance that you're in or the game, as me and my therapist were saying yesterday. And once you've learned how to do that, it's so empowering. It's so empowering.

Totally agree with you both. I think this is where, you know, again we, as we climbed the first mountain, I think now it's like we look ahead and like, what's the next journey? I think it's just an open invitation to our listeners to say hey, give yourself the space. Open up your awareness. See what's needed in your life. Because as you said earlier, Teresa, you want to live a long life. You've got one body, one mind, one soul. How do you nurture it? How do you keep it healthy? How do you form those habits, those practices that actually will take you further, faster, longer in the days to come?

Anil, can I just say something before we kind of wrap up with the rapid fire questions for Theresa? You know, what you just said, Teresa, in that moment and reflecting on your constant dance that we get into with different partners when, you know, we kind of have the same dance, right? Different theater, same dance.

Yeah.

I just wanted to add, because it came up is this notion of the move from. By the way, there's also so many people who roam around with, I'm a victim. Most people think they're a victim. They're never the cause of the problem, Never. It's always the other person. And I'm just having to deal with it. What came up for me in what you said is this notion of responsibility, right? Which is take responsibility. And you might say, wait, what do you mean take responsibility? What I mean is you always have the ability to respond in the way you want. Nobody can force you respond one way or another, even if that's been the repeated pattern. And just maybe, just maybe, if the next time you respond differently versus how you have always responded and you do the same the second time and the third time, maybe while you have zero shot at changing the other person by telling them what to do, but by maybe dancing differently, they start to dance differently too. So the change begins with you. And through that, you change the other. And together you change the world. So this notion of responsibility just came with me, came to me as I heard and heard and kind of replayed back your conversation about getting out of the same dance, first, recognizing that you are actually creating the same dance, it is you, it's not the other, Right. And making a choice to start the change, start the change from you.

That's how you lose that victim mentality, is by realizing that you have a choice and your choice is to dance differently. And when you understand that you can dance differently, like you say, Ashish, you might not be able to change everyone, but you will change some people with the way that you're differently dancing. And by changing those people and showing that there is a different way to interact, you might change the world. You will little by little bring about another type of interaction and another way of interacting with one another. And People like the Andrew Tates of the world, they're just going to be so insignificant. Like, I can't get over how popular that guy is with young men. And it's, it's sad. It's a reflection of our society and how broken and how lost young men are. To see somebody like him gain so much prominence, and that's a, It's a reflection of that. It's a reflection of the troubles that we're having with mental health, the troubles we're having with, with masculinity. And so, unfortunately, people like him are rising in prominence. And so until we get our arms around some of these issues and really talk openly and deeply about the things that are plaguing our society, we're not going to be able to have the growth that I think we're all capable of doing.

Yeah.

Thank you.

That's why we're grateful we're on this mission together with you. Right. To help people be comfortable, to open up, to ask for help, to identify their state and to, to do the work, to take the responsibility and to really own it. Teresa, we've got a few rapid fire questions that we'd love to ask you as we bring our conversation to a close. So these are, these are fun. Okay, so here we go. First question is the last book that you read or the book that you're reading right now?

The last book that I read was Surf when youn can by Brett Crozier. He's a Navy captain. Crozier. He was the one who was let go of the USS Theodore Roosevel. But now his story is public and it's inspirational and had him on my show, and it was just an amazing, amazing experience.

Awesome.

The teacher or thinker, and this could be someone that's spiritual, psychological, philosophical. Who has influenced you the most?

Oh, that's a tough one. Well, what motivated me to start podcasting is sort of a conglomerate of different podcasters. All men, basically. Jocko, Jordan Peterson, and Joe Rogan and all for different reasons. You know, Joe Rogan just makes me laugh. He's entertaining. He's not afraid to take on controversial issues. Jordan Peterson, because he can think very deeply. He emphasizes personal responsibility, and he's just a wonderful order orator in the way that he delivers his messages. And then with Jocko, he just has that, that, that toughness, that, that resilience. And, you know, I admire what he's done in business. I admire the way he has made the Navy SEALs so prominent in some of the things that he talks about. So, so they were my. My podcast mentors, I want to say. Like, as I was deciding to start my show, I saw those three, and I said, you know, I don't see a woman out there with some of the same values that. That they espouse and love that. Love it.

Agree. All right. The last show that you binged Ozarks.

We'Re still binging Ozarks tonight.

It's awesome.

In fact, like, I was at a. Like, a dinner the other night and with a bunch of, like, academic think tank people for the Sea Power conference, and I was like, now I understand what it must be like to be in the Russian mob. That's your working environment every day. Like, oh, I might get killed if I do this wrong. I mean, it's just. It's a fascinating show on so many levels, psychologically. Just in terms of the drug cartel issues. I. It's probably not sticking to the facts, maybe, but it's. I do love it, and I love the. That's the thing. Whenever they say something that they don't want to say what they're really thinking, they go. And I've adopted that sometimes when I'm just like, I don't know what to say, and I'm like, hmm.

So love it at that almost. I love it when they have the images at the start of the show and you're, like, trying to.

Oh, yeah, we always call them out, me and my husband, and we're like, oh, when are we gonna see it? When are we gonna see that frying pan? When are we gonna see that? Yes. Yes.

All right. And then what is your go to practice for renewal? To be at your best.

Oh, gosh. I would say my go to go to practice is. Is. Is exercising. I mean, to be honest with you, I. It is. It is the thing that I know when I'm, like, in a bad head space, I'm like, I think I need to run, or I think I need to get my YouTube lady out totally for free on YouTube. Healthy fit with Ty. And I just like her because she seems kind of real. Like, she seems like somebody I would be friends with. And, you know, her workouts are free. And I just. I stick it on my phone, I put my headphones on, and I just do whatever she's doing, and I don't think.

Awesome. All right, and the last one. What's one tip to your younger self based on your life experience today?

I would say relax. And you've got this. You've got it. Like, you've got life. It's beautiful. It's worthy of living well and being happy and so be happy.

Teresa, thank you. It was such a joy to speak with you and benefit from your wisdom. Thank you for all the amazing work that you're doing. Really, really grateful.

Well, I definitely want to have you on my show. I've slowed down so much because I'm constantly traveling. My husband's the travel planner over there and next week we're going on a med cruise and every week either a work trip or a personal trip. So. However, I definitely want to have you on my show, so let's keep in touch. And yeah, I know that this show and the things that I'm doing is leading to something and I'm not sure what. I'll just keep on keeping on until that comes to me and hopefully continue to inspire and stay in the military as long as they give me jobs that that I know I can be happy with and make a difference doing.

We're truly grateful for you. Thank you Teresa.

Awesome.

Wish you best and lots of love and big hugs.

Take care.

All right, thanks guys. I'll talk to you guys later. Bye Bye.

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