The Many Sides of Mental Strength With Amy Morin, LCSW | Ep. 138

Hello, welcome back to the Holistic Inner Balance Podcast. Today we are interviewing an amazing human being and author, Amy Morin, and Amy is a psychotherapist turned accidental author, is kind of how she describes it. She started her career as a psychotherapist, and she— her whole goal in life is to help people build mental strength. She has an amazing story, which we'll get into in the podcast, but she has written 6 different books, 6 books and a workbook on how to build mental strength as an individual, as a parent, as a woman, as a couple. And she's also written a book for kids and about how to build mental strength for kids as well. And so, you guys, you are going to love this episode. We get into all of the different areas of life and how we can build mental strength in all of these different areas, what mental strength really means, and how it's not just about being tough on the exterior. I think a lot of times we mistake that. We mistake strength for being tough, not crying, all of that kind of thing, and how mental strength actually is perhaps the opposite of that. And we just have some great banter. I feel like we are all long-lost friends that, uh, that just have an amazing time together. So do you have anything that you want to add, Dr. Cain?

One of the things that she teaches on is how your mind can be your biggest asset or your worst enemy. And so when you listen to this podcast, you're going to learn more about that. And What to Do.

Let's get into it.

Let's get into it. Amazing. Welcome to Holistic Inner Balance. We're really pumped you're here, my friend.

Well, I am thrilled to be here. Thanks for having me.

Yes. Oh my gosh, been so excited. I, um, actually started listening to your first book as well, so, um, the 13 Things Mentally Strong People Don't Do, and then I have been listening to them, the 13 Things Mentally Strong Couples Don't Do, and it's been fascinating. I want to listen to all of them, like, or read all of them. I, I love it. I mean, this is like so up my alley. Um, I would love for you to just kind of start with— I mean, your story is so profound, and so I would love to start with your story and just kind of how you came to start writing these books. You're a 6-time author, is that right? 6 times?

That's correct.

Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So I would love to just kind of start— I mean, you don't have to start from the very beginning, but kind of guide us through your story and how you got here.

Sure. So I started as a therapist in rural Maine thinking I was going to have the regular 9-to-5 job and I would see clients in my therapy office. And Uh, it was a really rural area. In fact, the only therapist in the town happened to be my sister, was the only other one. And so we had adjoining offices and I thought, well, this is kind of cool. But then, you know, I went through this series of losses pretty early on in my career. My mother passed away when I was 23, and then when I was 26, my husband passed away. And both were unexpected. My mother had a brain aneurysm that ruptured, and my husband had a heart attack, which I didn't even know you could have a heart attack at 26. He didn't have any health issues that we knew of at the time. And so I'm a 26-year-old widow. I don't have my mom, and I'm supposed to be a therapist who helps other people deal with their problems. And I thought, oof. And it was really in that time that I realized that so many of the things I had learned in college and so many of the therapy strategies that I knew about weren't enough. When I was really grieving and going through the hardest times of my life, I still felt like I didn't have the tools and the skills and the things that I needed. And that's when I really started studying mental strength for my own interest to figure out, well, what does it really take to be mentally strong? mentally strong for both the ups and the downs in life. And I learned so many things from the people in my therapy office. I had so many clients over the years who would come in and they inspired me and they motivated me. And I learned from them too, like, what's keeping these people going? And a few years after that, I had started freelance writing just as a way to basically not lose my house after my husband passed away. He was the primary breadwinner, but I had started writing some articles Uh, after work and on the weekends just so I could pay the mortgage. And a few years later, my— I was fortunate enough, I got found love again. I got remarried, got a new house, got a new job. Life was looking pretty good, but my father-in-law was diagnosed with terminal cancer right around the same time. And I thought, oof, why does this— why do I have to keep losing all of these people? This isn't fair. And I wrote myself a letter of what mentally strong people don't do. And there were 13 things on the list when I was done, and I found it helpful. I thought, you know, every day when I wake up, I just read this list, and if if I don't do these things, then I'll get through today. And it was all about putting one foot in front of the other. But because I was a freelance writer, I thought, well, I could publish this list online and maybe it would help somebody else. And I thought like 5 people would read it, but 50 million people read the list. And one of them happened to be a literary agent who said, you should write a book. And so within a year, my first book hit the shelves. And now it's been 10 years and 6 books later, and I get to keep writing and speaking and sharing about mental strength. And I'm thrilled that I get to do that.

And it's so cool that you have shared, you know, your first book, Things That Mentally Strong People Don't Do. But then you also have written books for couples, for parents, for women. What's the other one that I'm missing?

I have one for kids too.

For kids? Yes. Oh my gosh. It's so— it's so cool. I'm like, yeah, I'm going to read all of them. I don't have kids yet, but I want to read it just to be a good aunt, to be a good Friend. Like, yeah, so good.

I kind of want to circle back to that, that moment. I find that there's so much in the richness of a rock bottom, kind of the dark circle of hell moments, and how when we're in that kind of rock bottom, dark circle of hell, that, that is a turning point for many people where We become succumbed to the grief or the trauma or the loss or whatever it is that brought us there, or we alchemize that. And so if we were to zoom in on that moment for you when it's like, oh my God, like, talk us through that. Like, how, how did your story turn into a story of alchemy?

You know, it was such a surreal experience. Like, even after all these years, I'm an author and I'm a therapist, and like, I don't even have the language to describe. But, you know, like, circle of hell is a great way to describe, like, what my 20s were like. And the day that I lost my husband was the 3-year anniversary of the day that I lost my mom. And so the fact that it coincided with that, to me, was like, like, what are the statistical chances? Like, this was my biggest fear in life after losing my mom, was always like, what if I had lost my husband? And I'd seen my dad lose my mom, and they had been together since they were 18 and 19. So then to see my dad, and I thought, oh, gosh, to lose your spouse. And then here I was. And again, I just felt so lost, thinking, now what do I do? Like, the 2 favorite people in my life are now gone. And I just felt like it took so much hard work to dig myself out of that, to then figure out, well, what's my new life gonna be like? As a 26-year-old widow, how do I want to reinvent myself? And— What dreams do I have to give up and what ones am I still gonna hold on to? We had been foster parents, so I had to think, do I still wanna be a foster mom? Do I wanna let go of that? Are there, uh, other things I wanna hold on to? Like, it was really important for me to try to keep my house at that time. And I just felt like I worked so hard. And then when I got remarried, I thought, well, this is great. Like, life is finally taking this turn. And then to find out that my father-in-law, who had become my biggest fan when it came to writing and so many things in my life, and I thought, and now I'm gonna lose him too. Like— I just can't catch a break. How come I can't finally, like, be happy or enjoy life? Or how come when something good happens, the other shoe has to drop? And knowledge-wise, I knew that that wasn't, like, always gonna happen. Like, when something good happens, something bad happens right afterward. I knew that that's not how the world works. Yet emotionally, it felt like no matter what happens in life, right around the next corner is gonna be something awful. And I thought, well, what a terrible way to live if I just lived in this place of doom and gloom, like, waiting for the next bad thing to happen or bracing myself or not being able to enjoy life to the fullest because I was waiting for somebody else to disappear out of my life. And then really, I think I had to make a conscious decision to say, okay, this was the hand I was dealt. Well, what am I going to do and how am I going to make the best of it? Obviously, I didn't intend for an article to go viral or to become an author. That was an amazing thing. And finally, it was like something really good happened that was unexpected too, not just something incredibly bad that—

I think about people who are listening. I wonder if they relate to that where it feels so karmic or so out of control or just so awful. And we could feel like we're like the divine focus of smite. And I've talked about this before where I have a lot, a lot of years of trying to reprogram myself to not believe that God is some like bearded white guy in the sky looking for me to do something wrong to punish me. And so I coped and for so many years arguably it's probably still stuff I'm counteracting now is trying to use magic and karma to control the uncontrollable around me. So if I'm just nice enough to this TSA attendant or if I'm generous enough or like what if I pick a penny up off of the street, and instead of giving it away like my grandmother told me I needed to do, I put it in my pocket. And so I, I feel like there, for, for at least me, there's this like ingrained mythology that directed so much of how I coped with grief and loss. And that didn't get me anywhere useful. In fact, it was so much mental energy, but it was in the wrong direction. And so I'm curious How you got to that place of looking at your thinking patterns and your habits and releasing that need to try to control bad things or even good things from happening, but rather just working on your existence in the moment. I know that was kind of a long-winded statement, but take, take whatever part you want to resonate with and go with.

Yeah. You know, I, I'd always had a really strong faith, and I knew that somewhere I had learned, like, God won't give you more than you can handle. But there were those moments where I'm like, really? And just so many things that happened that it just felt like, like, like almost like, yeah, either I'm being tested, being punished, something. And the fact that, you know, when I lost my husband, it was the 3-year anniversary of the day my mom died. Like, really? Is that a coincidence? And 2 weeks after my mom passed away, my parents' house caught on fire. There were all of these things. And I can remember my boss at the time. I remember like telling him like, hey, my parents' house is on fire. I have to leave work early. And he made some joke about my dad being Job, you know, like losing everything from the biblical story. And thank goodness, like both my sister and I were therapists. We developed sort of a dark sense of humor over the years and were able to do a lot of things that were really helpful because And I think that, that was a big factor in a lot of this, was just like a dark sense of humor of like, I'm just gonna own this. Like, this is what happened. And like, the first Christmas after I lost my husband, like, I hung one stocking up over the fireplace because we always used to throw this incredibly big Christmas party, and that was a big deal to us. And I thought, well, this is depressing and sad. So I hung up one stocking sort of as like a joke because I knew when people would come over, they'd be like, oh my gosh, this is so sad. And I'm like, let's just get it out there, right? This is kind of awkward. And so a lot of things like that I actually found to be really helpful is like, I'm just gonna, um, still appreciate life and find the humor in it. And this is what happened. And so I think going through all of this in a strange way made me appreciate the small things in life that I hadn't appreciated before. And I tried to remember that, like, all right, I am so fortunate that I got married young. So I had my husband in my life as long as I did. And while I wished he'd been in my life a lot longer. Like, all right, well, what are my options? I can at least appreciate that we put so much life into the 5 years we were together and, and try to focus on that as opposed to focusing on, yeah, I'm being punished, or I was— I must have messed up somewhere along the line, or my faith wasn't strong enough and it's being tested. And I still get some of that from other people where they'll say, well, that's great you got to write a book because that you deserve that. Because you went through those things. I'm like, it doesn't equal out, trust me. And it's not that I went through something hard, so then I deserved something good to happen. Life isn't like that. And I think by reminding other people of that, it also reminds me that life doesn't work like that.

And I love that you also— that you wrote the blog posts and then the books about things that people don't do. And I'd love to talk about that a little bit, too, because you know, as someone who helps people with habits, a lot of the time, you know, we're trying to implement these different habits, but we also need to take a look at the habits that they are doing that are not serving them as well. And sometimes those are, are more hidden, and people don't talk about them quite as much. Like, people are like, you need to meditate and cold plunge and do all of these things. Right. But what about the things that they're doing that aren't Serving them. So do you wanna just speak to that a little bit? Like speak to, um, why you decided to do the list of things that people don't do rather than a list of things that people do do?

Yeah. As a clinical social worker, I was trained to really build on people's strengths. So when they come in your office, point out what they're doing well, tell 'em to keep doing that. And I thought, that sounds great, but like, what if I went to see a physical trainer and they said to run on the treadmill and lift weights? Like, great, I'll keep doing that. But I would hope that they would tell me, don't eat all this junk food that's outdoing all the hard work that you're doing. And I know for me, when I was at some of the lowest points in my life, I got so much advice from people like, well, just try to exercise, go for a walk, meditate, read books. I'm like, thank you. That's all great information, but I'm just trying to put one foot in front of the other. And having a long list of more things I should be doing just felt overwhelming. So that's why I wrote myself a letter of what not to do, because somehow that felt doable. If I wake up today and I say, Amy, me, just don't do these certain things. Don't feel sorry for yourself. Don't give away your power. Like, okay, no matter what else, I can get through the day. And it just seemed like it was much more doable to have a don't-do list because I felt like this is something I can do today, is to make sure I don't do anything on this list, as opposed to then feeling guilty that I didn't go for a walk or that I didn't meditate.

And you said in a podcast interview, or actually you were in a TED Talk that I watched, Amazing. Everyone, you should watch this TED Talk. And you said good habits aren't enough. It only takes one or two bad habits to hold you back.

Yeah, like I would have therapy clients that would say, yes, I've been writing in my gratitude journal for 10 minutes every day, but they would spend 20 hours a day then complaining about all the bad things in their life. And then saying, well, how come my gratitude journal's not working? I have all these things about gratitude that are supposed to make my life better, but it's not. How come? Or somebody would say, uh, you know, I've, I've really been working on this one area of my life, putting all this energy into it. And then we'd look at this other area of their life where maybe some of their habits just were the one thing that was keeping 'em stuck. And again, if we talked about physical health, if somebody said, well, I've been running, uh, 20 minutes a day, but I don't feel like my health is improving. Well, maybe they're smoking. So you're like, well, you know, if you quit smoking, you could probably run twice as far and feel 10 times better. But the 5 cigarettes you're smoking before you go running is really outdoing your progress. And I saw so many people doing that in terms of their mental health that they would have so many bad habits, yet they were reading all of these to-do lists and they felt like they were checking everything off their list. Like, oh yes, I have been Shutting my screens off by 9:00 PM, and yet I'm still not sleeping. Well, what are you doing after 9:00 PM? Well, maybe you're just complaining to your partner for the next 3 hours, or, you know, so it was really about saying, well, let's take just your worst habit sometimes. And if we get rid of the worst habit that you have, all of those things you're already doing become so much more effective. And so many people, by the time they came into my therapy office, had all of these amazing habits. They had heard about them on podcasts or read about them in books, and they just knew. If I do these things, it will improve my overall well-being. But they just felt stuck. And often it was just that one or two little things that if they tweaked that, all of a sudden all those things became effective.

In naturopathic medicine, we call these obstacles to cure. And I always use the metaphor of somebody comes into a doctor's office and he has toe pain. And so then the doctor's like, okay, we'll wrap your toe and we'll give you an Aleve or an ibuprofen. Or maybe if they're natural, they'll give you white willow bark. And so then a week passes. Guy's like super happy. He's like, yeah, thanks for my treatment. Comes back next week and his toe is hurting again, and now it's quite swollen and blue. And so the doctor's like, okay, I'm going to get a stronger painkiller. We're going to wrap your toe again and we're going to say, be careful with your toe. And the guy's like, thank you. Thank you for the treatment. I'm so excited. I know it's going to work. And he leaves. And this time the doctor checks in like halfway through the week and the guy's like, oh yeah, it's getting better. This is working. But then he comes back the third week and his toe is not only black and blue, but now it's fractured. There's evidence of a break. And so the doctor stops and is like, I feel like I'm missing something because my treatment of the symptom, my treatment of the wounded toe isn't working. So he asks a little bit more and then He asks, well, what happens when this flares up? And the guy's like, okay, well, I go to bowling league every Thursday and I drop my ball on my toe. So that's, that's one, one thing. But then we could take this 10 steps farther, right? And this is where we, where we could do better. The question that should follow Is why, why, why is he dropping his ball on his toe? Like, yeah, we'll, we'll try to remove the habit of ball dropping on toe, but if we follow it upstream just a little bit, we— it turns out that he has peripheral neuropathy in his fingers and he can't feel his fingers very well. Mm-hmm. And so then we could go back stream and say, well, why can't he feel his fingers very well? Well, he does have really high blood sugars. And then we say, well, why do you have high blood sugars? And he's like, well, I, I have an addiction to Coca-Cola. I drink a Big Gulp a day. And my doctor told me that if I just use insulin, it'll be fine. Mm-hmm. So, so what I really appreciate about what you're saying is, is looking at what the obstacles to cure are, looking at what getting in the way of us getting the life that we want? If we're not sleeping, what's going on around that time? And then continuing to be curious about, well, what's behind that? And what's behind that? Because if we keep looking and digging, we're very likely going to find either the root cause or the multiple root causes. And then, then we're in good shape.

I love that story. Because how often does that happen in the therapy office that somebody comes in with a problem, But the problem isn't really the problem. The problem's a symptom of something far bigger in their life, and you have to do some digging. But if you didn't do that digging, you'd be treating something that isn't actually going to make their life better. It might make the moment better, but it's not going to make their life better, and it's going to come back and keep coming back until we get to the deeper rooter, bigger cause of that issue.

Yeah, there's a part in your— the couples book that, um, that you talk about how this couple came in and they were, um, wanting help with the division of labor in their household. But you're like, yeah, I don't think this is a division of labor issue. I think there's something behind this issue. And I think that was the wanting to keep in mind why you fell in love. I think that was that chapter. And it's so good. It made me think of couples I know who argue about the division of labor and stuff. And I'm like, yeah, it's not actually— that's not actually the issue. There is that underlying thing behind it. Yeah.

Yeah, the issue around who's gonna do the dishes tonight or who's picking something up. Often there's so many other things going on about, I feel like you don't appreciate me in life, or I feel like, uh, like we aren't working as a team in so many ways. And it just comes down to the, the fight over the socks who— that are left in the middle of the floor. And then people think we're really just fighting about socks. This is stupid.

Mm-hmm.

But it's so important to then dig back those layers of like, why am I so upset about this? Why am I frustrated about, about this? What does it say? What's the deeper meaning that I attribute to this? If you leave your socks in the middle of the floor, suddenly I feel like you don't care about me because you're making me do something that you could have been doing. And the list goes on and on. So with relationship issues, yes, that's another area that it's so important to peel back those layers and figure out, well, what's the real problem here?

So you make this list and you, you needed this list because then you lost your father-in-law and it really, really helped you in that suffering. Can you tell us some of the things that were on that list?

Yeah. So number one on the list was that mentally strong people don't feel sorry for themselves, which, because that's where I was right in that moment and, um, needed that to be on the top. Uh, another thing was don't give away your power, which is really about saying, I'm gonna take control over how I think, feel, and behave. I don't want to say to somebody else, you have the power to ruin my day, or that you wasted my time. It's up to me to say, how do I want to spend my time? Who do I want to spend it with? And how do I feel about myself? Another one is to not keep making the same mistakes over and over again. Of course, how many of us say, I'm never going to do that again, and then you do it 24 hours later? And, uh, and not giving up after the first failure, to know that failure doesn't have to be the end of the road, that we can learn from it and that we can keep going. And another one's about not feeling like the world owes us anything, which really goes back to that idea when people would say, you know, you deserve this, uh, to be able to write a book because you went through something bad. Nope, that's not how the world works. And it goes back to those questions that we were talking about before with feeling like karma, or that if we put enough goodness in the world, then we deserve good things to happen.

Yeah, it's so good. I love the one about, um, failure too. Don't give up after the first failure. As I feel like perfectionists out there who listen to this, me included, um, it's— yeah, not giving up after the first failure is huge for us because, uh, because the most successful people are the people who have failed the most too.

Exactly. And I, whenever I failed, I was embarrassed. I didn't want anybody to know about it, and I would just like pretend it didn't happen.

Yep.

And you think, well, some of the biggest lessons in life I've really learned have come from failure. And sometimes the best opportunities are right around the corner. But I spent most of my life thinking that if I failed at something, it was just proof that I wasn't meant to do that or that I wasn't good enough.

Totally. Yeah. Something that I talk about with my clients is like, how many times can you get rejected? Like, let's make it a game. Let's make it as much of a like, oh, I'm just gonna see how many times I can get rejected or how many times I can fail. And then it's like when you succeed, it's like a, you know, cherry on top. It's like, oh cool, wasn't expecting that. Expected to fail, but now like I succeeded in this area. So cool. Right.

And it's not as bad, as catastrophic as we think it's going to be. And, and I find too, when you talk about failure, it really lets other people be like, you know, actually I failed at that too. Stuff that even your close friends have never admitted or talked about and things that seem like big in the moment. And a year later you tell somebody, Actually, I had a job interview and I didn't get it. And they're like, oh yeah, I did that too. And it's not a big deal, but it feels like it is in the moment.

Yeah. Oh, it's so good.

So what about mental strength? So I feel like there's fortitude and strength that comes from that and maybe a little bit of kind of fake it till you make it because we don't feel that mental fortitude in the beginning, just like going to the gym for the first time. You don't feel like You're fit and deserve— I'm air quoting those for listening— to be at the gym. So talk about that a little.

Yeah, I think it's important to separate like mental strength from acting tough because we use the word strong in so many strange ways. Like after my husband passed away, like if I wasn't crying, I remember people being like, oh, you're so strong. And it like That's not really a hallmark of strength, like my ability to not cry. Well, actually, I'm just outta tears. You can't cry 24/7. But so I think we use it in some ways that isn't necessarily helpful. Or we think if somebody's fiercely independent, then somehow they're really strong. But when you think about it, experiencing an emotion and expressing it, that's actually what takes a lot of strength sometimes, is to say to somebody, hey, I'm having a hard time, or to ask for help when you need it. That is what real mental strength is, not pretending like you don't have any problems or saying nothing ever bothers me. me. Like, no, talking about these things, being vulnerable, being open to it, asking for help when you need it, having these, like, difficult conversations, recognizing you need people in your life, all of those things are signs of strength. And of course, nobody feels strong all the time. We all have moments and areas in our life where maybe we feel a little stronger than others. And sometimes it is about saying, you know, I don't feel like I am somebody who could go back to college, but I'm gonna do it anyway. It takes some courage to make that call or to sign up for that class, and I'm gonna do it because I think that I, that I can, or I think that maybe this will work out in some way. And then to know too, sometimes when things don't work out, I'll be okay anyway. Sometimes people tend to think if you are mentally strong, then everything's gonna work out. Of course it's not. We're gonna fail, we're gonna stumble, we're gonna make mistakes. And the other big thing I think about mental strength that people misconstrue is the idea that it's about never quitting. And this one really gets me, 'cause I see so many people who set out to reach a goal and then their values aren't really in line with what it's gonna take to get there. So somebody who says, I'm gonna become a triathlete, and then they realize that training for this triathlon means I don't have enough time to spend with my family, and that's what's important to me. So by all means, change your goal. You don't have to run that triathlon. Or if somebody says, I started a business, And it's failing, but yet I'm gonna keep going cuz that's perseverance. And the more that they keep going, the more money they're losing. And like, no, it takes a lot of mental strength to say this isn't working and I'm gonna stop. And sometimes it's pivoting, but sometimes it means I'm not gonna do this thing at all. I'm gonna abandon the goal. That's what true mental strength is sometimes. So I often have to work with people on tweaking the definition and recognizing what does it really mean? And it's not just about Bouncing back, like resilience talks about how do you bounce back. But I think life would be awful if we spent every day just preparing ourselves for, for something awful to happen around the next corner. So mental strength's about enjoying the good times too, so that when life is good, you can fully embrace it and enjoy it. So then if something bad happens, you know, it's just the emotional roller coaster. Life's ups and downs. Not everything's gonna be permanent. Things will get better again. Yep. They'll probably get worse, but That you can handle the ride along the way.

Focusing not on happenings, but how you are throughout the ride.

Correct. Yes. And I think we get so much better when we start to figure out the question, like, do I need to solve the problem or solve how I feel about the problem? I think there's so much suffering in life that comes from taking the wrong angle. You know, you were gonna Friendship with somebody and maybe that's just not a good match for you, yet you're always trying to work on your feelings cuz you think, I, I'm doing something wrong, or I have to make sure that I feel okay about this. But maybe it's just not somebody that, that you are gonna be that close to in your life. Or we have a financial issue and it's so anxiety-provoking. So then we think the solution is, I just won't open the mail anymore. Well, that helps in the short term, but makes it worse in the long term. So again, when we get better at answering that question, I think that's where true mental strength comes into play.

Yeah. Oh, I feel like, I feel like having all of these things, having, you know, the, the 13 things in all of these different areas, partners and, and ourselves and our kids and all of the things, they're just such good guideposts. Like, I feel like every— I feel like your books, you could just have them on a coffee table and just pick them up and be like, what's What's the thing today? And because all of them just have— just are chock-full of so much wisdom. I'm curious, because it's your most recent book, if you would want to tell us a little bit about the couples one.

Yeah, I've been so fortunate that my readers usually tell me what they want to hear next. When I wrote the first book, they're asking about the parent, like, well, how do we raise mentally strong kids? So I wrote the parenting book and then one for women because so many women were saying, We talk about mental toughness in terms of Navy SEALs and elite athletes who are often men. So what does it look like to be a strong woman? And then I had so many people asking about their relationships, and I was thrilled to write this book because like, how do we really build strength? It doesn't just come from within. It's often about the relationships we have with other people. Mm-hmm. And what do our relationships say about us? And how do our interactions, uh, impact not just us, but them as well, their mental strength and, For couples, like, how can you grow stronger together? And I would see so many people in my therapy office who would say, you know, I could be stronger if only my partner would do X, Y, or Z. And, and they would often say, like, can you tell my partner to stop doing this? Or, uh, how do we make sure that my partner doesn't do this one thing anymore? And so then it was really about, well, how do we make you stronger? And then that will make your relationship stronger too. So in the couples book, I addressed some of the most common things I was seeing couples doing, like, blaming one another for the problems. Incredibly common thing that, that happens in relationships. And so I wanted couples to know that even if your partner's not on board, your partner doesn't necessarily wanna read this book. If you read it, you can create incredible change and within the relationship. And it's not about changing your partner. Got a whole chapter in there about that too, that you can't fix your partner, but that if you change your behavior, it's like a dance. And when you change your steps, the other person changes theirs just naturally. And so if you focus on what can I do to strengthen myself in our relationship? Mm-hmm. It can impact the relationship, and your partner is probably going to change their behavior too.

Totally. And I, I like how you say in the book, there's a part where, you know, people often talk about how we just, we just need better communication, or, you know, that's the advice for people is like, the secret to a successful relationship is good communication. But there's a lot more to it than just that. And, uh, and if you are talking about things but you're still doing all of these 13 other things, then that's actually not gonna be effective.

That's right. Some couples talk and they talk about the same problems over and over again. Well, talking more isn't the solution. If you have different religions, you're not gonna talk your partner out of changing their mind about what their beliefs are. Or if you, uh, are struggling with something like the socks left in the middle of the floor, talking about the socks in the middle of the floor isn't gonna get your partner to pick them up. In fact, you're gonna come across as though you're nagging. Or you're lecturing, or, and that can make relationships worse. So it's not always about talking more, but sometimes it's about digging deeper to say like, what's the, what are the other issues and what meaning does this have for me that, that we're struggling with this issue and how can we uncover that?

It's like the ultimate problem solving. Like, it's just like, how can we look at this from a lens of, of curiosity and like as a detective?

Exactly.

Yes. Yes. Yeah. So good. So good.

We'd love to give our listeners tangible, like, what can I do today strategies? If you could pick your top 3 tangibles, whether it's like what not to do or what to do, what are your tops?

Oh, so I'll give you 3 to-dos if you want to grow mentally stronger. One would be just name your feelings. There's tons of research that shows when you put a name to an emotion, it moves it from one part of your brain to the other and helps you process it differently. So if you can say, I'm anxious or I'm sad, your anxiety goes down, your sadness goes down, the intensity and the duration of it. And so get used to that a couple times a day. Maybe check in with yourself and say, ooh, how do I feel right now? And you might need a list of feeling words because our emotional vocabulary. Sometimes isn't big enough to know how do you even identify how you're feeling. So that would be step 1, check in with yourself a few times a day and name your emotion. Number 2 would be then to ask yourself, is what I'm feeling right now my friend or my enemy? So we tend to think of emotions, people will say they're positive or they're negative, but they're not. Like any emotion has the power to be helpful or hurtful at any moment. Like anger is bad when you fire off an email to your boss and you say something that you later regret. But anger's helpful if you stood up for somebody who maybe wasn't being treated kindly, or you stood up for yourself because you were angry. Or we think of excitement as a good emotion. It is like when you're excited to go on vacation, that's amazing. But what about if I came to you with a get-rich-quick scheme and you get so excited about it that you then forget that there's an incredible downside? So just ask yourself, is what I'm feeling right now my friend or my enemy? If it's your friend, you embrace it. If it's your enemy, you can then change what you're thinking or change what you're doing. That's the best way to change how you're feeling is to say, I'm gonna do something different, or I'm gonna change. The way that I'm thinking about this. So that would be number 2, ask if your emotions are your friend or your enemy. And number 3, I'd say practice gratitude every day. I mean, there's so much science behind gratitude and what it can do for your life. Everything from it improves the quality of your sleep to improves your relationships to decreases depression and anxiety. Grateful people live longer. The list goes on and on. And you don't have to do it at the expense of saying, minimizing the difficult stuff in your life. Like, well, I'm grateful I have all of this stuff and I shouldn't be upset about the fact that I, I'm struggling with these problems. You can acknowledge both at the same time. You can say, all right, I'm struggling financially, but I'm really grateful that I have this neighbor in my life who comes over for coffee. I'm grateful that I have clean water to drink today. But just recognizing a couple things a day to be grateful for can help you be on the lookout for the positive things so that even when you are going through something bad, you don't feel like the whole world is bad. You can say, all right, I'm gonna train my brain to to be on the lookout for some good things too.

I'm going to recap those just in case someone missed it. So number 1 is naming your feelings, and there is neuroscience behind that. I love that because I'm always like, what does the science say? And so it helps shift it from one part of the brain to the other. Number 2, you said, is name your feeling. What am I feeling right now? And is it my friend or my enemy? And so then you gave a couple of examples. And then number 3 is a gratitude practice. Is sure, there are lots of things that are difficult or obstacles or painful or whatever, but there are also something— there's always something that we can find, whether it's big or small, to be grateful for.

Absolutely. And I think if we put those 3 things into place, it puts us on a path to saying, all right, I'm more aware of how I feel. I'm becoming more aware of how those feelings affect my decisions. And then Also becoming more aware of the, the good things in life too.

Yeah, and I love the naming your feelings too. Like, everyone just Google, Google list of feelings or like list of emotions, because that— it's actually— you can make it kind of like a game. You can make it fun. I always like making things fun, um, because you can be like, what is like the exact emotion? Because a lot of times we'll just say like, I'm stressed, but like That's a catch-all for like literally any emotion that you don't want to feel, right? So can you get really specific on, on what you're feeling? I love that.

And, you know, I find—

I was gonna say the feelings wheel is like a good place to start. Yeah. Like all DBT therapists are like, the feelings wheel, just look at that. Amy, what were you gonna say?

Yeah, I work with— I'll do trainings with like executives and I'll tell them like, I'm gonna give you 30 seconds to write down as many feeling words as you can. Like, ready, set, go. And like, for the first 6 seconds, the pencil's flying as they're coming up with, you know, happy, mad, sad. And then literally people will say, I kind of ran out after about 6 words because we don't use feeling words in our everyday language. People are like, oh, I had butterflies in my stomach rather than saying I was nervous, or I had a lump in my throat. That feels more comfortable than saying I was sad. We use feeling words so infrequently that people struggle to come up with the less often talked about ones, whether we say discouraged or disappointed or frustrated, because we just don't use them often enough. So I do think having like a wheel or something in front of you sometimes then builds your emotional vocabulary so you feel confident in your ability then to pinpoint those smaller emotions that we don't talk about quite so often.

Oh, so brilliant. I'm looking around my room because I feel like I have a feelings wheel in here and I'm not sure where they are, where it is.

I wouldn't doubt it. I would definitely believe that you have that.

The feelings wheel pillow. And I just saw it. I looked this way, and my dog is on it, so we can't get it.

Aw. Nice. That's so cute. Shiva.

Yeah.

Oh my gosh. So good. I'm also really curious about the kids' book. I, if you like, for just, just want to give us a little taste of like, what are the things that the mentally strong kids don't do? Like maybe 1 or 2 or 3.

So this is my only one that's in the to-do format. All my other books are about what not to do. And so this one is called 13 Things Strong Kids Do. It's for about the 8 to 12 year old range. But my hope was if we raise kids to do these things, they won't grow up to develop the bad habits that us grownups have. So I talk about things like perseverance and about how to make sure that you're practicing self-discipline and perseverance, that you're managing your emotions, being kind to other people, that you know what's important in life. Talk about values and how to, how to stick to those values. So every chapter has a story about a kid who's struggling with something and how they solve the problem. And there are different ways to, uh, think big, uh, feel good, and act brave, which is the subtitle of the book too. So we talk about the, the thoughts, feelings, and behavior, and it's really based on lots of cognitive behavioral things that I was doing with kids in my therapy office about what do you do when you feel bad? What are the coping strategies that work? And I had written a parenting book first because I wanted parents to know, like, how do you teach your kids? How do you guide them? How do you coach them? Because if you give your 8-year-old a book, Chances of them changing their life is probably slim. But if you also know a lot of the skills, and one of the coolest things I found though is from families who say, you know, I bought these, this book for my kids, but the parents will say, I never learned these things when I was a kid. Mm-hmm. So I feel like I'm learning right alongside them. And now I have the language to be able to talk to my kids about feelings, or I have the skills so that when my child comes to me and says, I'm really nervous about this, I don't just say, oh, don't worry about that. thing you have on Friday, you'll do fine. Instead, I'm teaching them how to change their thoughts so that I'm not the one who's doing it for them.

Oh, that's so brilliant.

I have just like chills all over. My heart is just so full. That's so sweet.

It was so fun to write a kids' book too. And so we had an illustrator and it was just, it was like the coolest thing. It had always kind of been my dream when I got to be an author. I was like, oh, it'd be so cool to write a kids' book someday. And then I was waiting for like the right moment to be able to come out with a kids' book, and I'm so happy that I did. And I've had teachers who have adopted it as part of their curriculum in the school, and it's available in all sorts of countries. So I have kids in other countries. This kid in India just did a presentation on the book in front of his classroom and sent it to me. And so it's just incredible to see kids around the planet learning about mental strength.

Oh, that's so cool. I— my sister's a 4th grade teacher. I might need to buy her— that's the exact perfect age, right?

It is. Absolutely.

Oh my gosh, that's so sweet. Yeah, I'm just imagining these parents like reading these books with their kids and stuff, and just— it's so sweet, so wholesome,

right? My— one of my favorite stories is I had a parent that read my parenting book, and in that book I talk about the importance of having kids have chores and responsibility. And so the parent, um, let the kid start doing chores and earning money. The child really wanted a pet rabbit And that was their goal. So they had to do so many things in order to show that they could be responsible enough. Well, eventually the kid earns this pet rabbit after the parents read my parenting book. And then there's a picture of this child reading the kids' book to her pet rabbit in bed one night.

Oh, awesome.

Oh,

they sent me the photo and it's been my favorite, like, photo of, I think, of all time of anybody with any of my books.

Oh my gosh, that's so sweet. I love that. And how fulfilling for you to be able to see all of those things. Yeah.

It really is. It's been an incredible journey now to see see and hear so many people using mental strength in their everyday language and talking about it and to be, to be sharing my books in so many different communities. It's been incredible.

That's amazing.

Oh my gosh. This has been a wonderful conversation. And I'm sure that people are going to want to hear more from you. And I know that you have some projects inbound. And so how can people stay in touch?

As to my website is amymorrinlcsw.com, as in licensed clinical social worker. And on there you can find information about all my books as well as info on my podcast, which is called Mentally Stronger with Therapist Amy Morin.

Amazing. Yeah, definitely. If you can, if you're not driving, then hit pause on this podcast, go and bookmark her website because she's amazing. And I'm really excited about what you have in the hopper. I won't, I won't do a teaser yet, Okay, that was a teaser, but I won't do anything else.

Okay, but there are exciting things in the works.

There are exciting things. Yeah.

Amazing. Oh my gosh. Yeah, and everyone go out and get all of these books because they're amazing.

Where fine books are sold.

Yes, wherever books are sold.

Thanks.

And I'm gonna go start binge listening to your podcast also.

Awesome. Thank you.

Seriously. Awesome, everyone. Well, thanks for listening, and we'll see you next time on The Holistic Inner Balance.