310: Why We Always Feel Awful - And How To Fix It with Dr. Robyne Hanley-Dafoe

Motivational quotes only work if you put in the work, right? Simply sticking those post it notes on your mirror aren't going to do anything unless you action it. And again, my background's as a behaviorist, so I'm really curious about the habits, the actions, the tools and the skills that we put into practice so we can build these big, bright, beautiful futures.

Hello everyone, this is Kathy Caprino and welcome to my podcast, Finding Brave. I've created this show for everyone who longs to create something bold and brave in their life. To rise up, speak up and stand up for who they are and to reach their highest and biggest visions. Each week I'll be speaking with inspiring guests from all walks of business, leadership, entertainment, the creative arts and the entrepreneurial world. And they'll be sharing their intimate stories of Finding Brave and offer their best strategies for building your most rewarding, joyful and meaningful life, business and career. Hey folks, is it finally time to make a big change in your career? But you just can't. You can't figure out how to do it. It's time for help and time to invest in yourself and finally understand and shift what hasn't been working for you. Join me as I coach and guide you through powerful, proven steps that will unlock your fullest and happiest potential. I've worked with thousands of professionals across six continents and the results have been transformative for them for a limited time. Also take advantage of my 10% discount for you, my amazing finding brave listeners. Save 10% off my one on one succession career and leadership breakthrough program and my most powerful you video training course that helps you close the seven most damaging power and confidence gaps that are in the way of your ultimate success and happiness. You can work with me in both of these programs from the comfort of your own home at your own pace. Now's the time. Don't wait. Build the career you're ready for. Check out the show notes below for details and I can't wait to support you.

Hello everybody.

Welcome to another episode of Finding Braid. Kathy Caprino here. So excited. You hear these words every time, of course, but honestly, you know what I feel about this show is it allows me. It's like a master class in life, in wellness, in career and leadership growth, in in how do we live the life that we are longing to? How do we heal? And today is no exception. I am so excited to have the inspiring Dr. Robin Hanley Defoe with us in the middle of her amazing book launch. Thank you Robin.

Thank you for joining, Kathy. I'm so Excited to be here with you and your listeners. Thanks for having me.

Oh, my pleasure. And we are talking about Robin's new book. Let me get the title perfectly right. Stress Wisely. Yes. Oh, how to Be well in an Unwell World. Holy crow. And we are specifically talking about why we always feel awful. Not always, but a lot. And how do we address that? How do we fix that? So before we dive in, let me tell you a little bit about Robin because it is incredibly impressive. And you can read her full bio in the show notes. I hope you will described as one of the most sought after, engaging, thought provoking and truly transformative international speakers and scholars in the field not heard about. So can we dive in first? You have a definition of resiliency and you also talk about the way I interpret it is we don't wake up saying, I want to be resilient. We're forced to be resilient. Is that accurate? Can you just tell us a little bit, you know, ground us in what is resiliency?

Yeah, absolutely. Kathy, again, thank you for asking such a big, beautiful question. So one of the things, again, I've been in this field for many, many years, and when I was working with some of the most resilient people you could imagine on the planet and learning about their practices and how they were able to manage everything, one of the kind of themes that kept coming up was they would say things like, robin, I, I don't see myself as being resilient. I don't think I'm particularly strong or tough yet. You were, I would say, but you were like, look what you've survived, look what you've accomplished, look what you bounced back from. And what they said that was so beautiful, Kathy, was, they said, robin, I was resilient because life didn't give me another choice that like, I had to show up because I had, I had a family counting on me. I had a community, I had a parent, I had a neighbor. I, I had to be able to find a way through this super D of my life because this work mattered to people I cared about. And that just radically transformed how I approached my research and my work around human resiliency and well being. Because again, as I said, people don't sign up for this. But when they're called upon, people will rise. People will find a way through even the most darkest hours.

I know your content is amazing because I've already written five questions that I need to understand. Like, I'm writing furiously. Let me dig into that for a second. May I please and people, we don't prep for this. So I'm. I'm really launching at you with. You may not be. Of course you're prepared to talk about it, but not in the way that you've thought about it one second before this. Do you find in all your research that people who have people counting on them, there might be a shorter trajectory for resilience because they feel they have to?

Yeah, 100%. It's so hard to advocate for ourselves, to look after ourselves yet when we're doing it for a loved one, when we're doing it for a person in need, when we're doing it for somebody who can't do it for themselves, we will find a way. And that's what's just so remarkable about the human condition, is that we're social beings, that we have this whole other ability to be able to show up and protect the people around us. It's how we've been able to survive this long is that we do genuinely care about other people.

Okay, so that's fascinating to me. Now, another thing you talked about, and I, I think it's important for people to understand. You talked about in another video. I watched hope. And the way you talked about it was so practical and so grounded. I felt, you know, I've been through the dark side of the moon and still go through it. I mean, nobody's life is really, every day a walk in the park. We have to pivot, we have change. Things are coming at us that we never expected. You know, I'm an American. You can imagine what, what's going on here. But can you talk about how hope fits into resiliency and how you define it? Yes.

So in my work, we identified that there were like five variables or these pillars that held people up and helped them build comebacks when they were going through a difficult time. And, and hope is one of those pillars. And so often I think people overlook the power of hope. But hope is a strategy we have to. That better days are ahead. We have to believe wholeheartedly that there is going to be a way through this, that there is going to be this opportunity, there's going to be possibility that things are going to get better. And when we lose hope, to me, that's actually part of the definition of actually depression. When the body loses the capacity to hold on to hope. And what we know is that actually starts to lead to the downfall. When we're able to cultivate practices, routines, habits where we're choosing to live, hope filled. It radically transforms our physiology and our psychology and allows us to see what's possible. And it put those moments together. So it's one foot in front of the other because other people have walked this path. We're not alone in what we're navigating. And when we trust and sometimes even surrender. Kathy. Which is hard because when the world is falling apart we want to grip it tighter. But when we just surrender that. Not that everything happens for a reason. And I'll tell you that's one of those kind of sayings that actually gets my heart hurting because not everything happens for a reason. Some things are just awful. Awful. It's what you do with the pieces afterwards that's really going to talk about the quality of your life.

My God. Can we talk for seven hours? Let me say a few things then. I want to talk about the five, five pillars. But I do want to respond to that. I do think that things happen for a reason. But not the reason the a human brain can access. Exactly. Not a reason you would ever sign up for in this human life. But I've seen past lives. This is getting crazy. Woo woo. But I've seen glimpses of future. I feel we're bigger than this. Yeah. And our soul signs up for things he the human life would not. So that helps me have hope and it helps me give other people hope. Because being in the long arc of people's lives, like I was laid off in the worst possible time in what I felt was the worst possible way after 9, 11, never would I have signed up for that. But I. When you're in the long arc of someone's life you see that the thing that they dreaded the most was the thing that was needed the most.

Yeah. I. If it's okay to share. I wholeheartedly echo your sentiment there. And I think it's when we try to put like kind of what we talk about, like earthly eyes on things that we try to process it and make sense in this reality in terms of like where we live. And again, I don't think that this is. Woo woo. This is science. We are energetic beings. And so I wholeheartedly believe that there is such a bigger story being told. And when we try to look at it from just one page, it will never be in context. But when we trust and that's where that hope comes from or some call it faith or whatever we want to call it, that's what actually is one of our greatest strengths. That we can surrender that all things will work out in the end. And it's when people are able to give themselves permission to trust. Right? To give themselves just that, that gift of having that faith or having that trust that this is going to be okay. We actually know that. Again, that's what's really holding so many people back right now. And. And again I see it each and every day. And I love how Albert Einstein actually quoted. He said, you either have to believe that everything is a miracle or nothing is a miracle. You're not allowed to pick and choose. And again. So to me it' just trusting. It's just trusting that all of this is working for good.

And did he believe everything was a miracle?

He believed everything was a miracle. Einstein. I know.

I love every quote. What a genius. So far ahead of. Okay, a few more questions and I promise I want to hear about your framework. I have lived in the past. That kind of hope. How do I want to put this? That said everything's gonna work out. And it was when I was dumped out of corporate life after 911 and I said, I'm done with it. I can't ever return to that pain. And became a therapist and a coach. But I wasn't making enough money and we needed the money that I made. But I kept saying, it's gonna be all right. It's gonna be all right. It's gonna work out. It didn't work out. And I will say I'll attribute to it not working out in some part because I wasn't looking at the right thing to. To fix. I. And part of that was saying it's all going to work out. So this is a hard question, but do you see times where hope is blind and in fact it stops us from taking the actions we need to take. Does this make sense?

Yeah, it totally does. And I think that's leading up along that edge or that riff of our own toxic positivity where it's like everything is rainbows and butterflies and we just have to, you know, manifest the future and it's going to be great. It's like, you know, it's. Dreams don't work unless we do. And so it's doing that high level of self awareness to realize, is this getting me closer to my goal? Is it getting me farther away from my goal? And again, when you look at stories of people who have had comebacks and overcome like you described, like, you know, this, you know, all of a sudden your identity is shattered and you have to rebuild part of that, that rebuild, you're in that messy middle where you're picking up pieces to see whether or not this fits together. But if we do that with just this kind of like, again, that, that toxic positivity that is just like, oh, I just have to trust. I have to trust. It's like, unless you action it up and you are ruthless in terms of looking at, is this getting me closer or farther away? Am I aligned with my values and my intention? Am I doing it for the right reasons? And I think what happens, those roadblocks are actually meant to be there. Because what it's doing is it's actually seeing first. Do you really want this? Right. Giving you that chance to see, like, are you willing to push through that obstacle or that barrier? But also it's asking yourself, like, it's giving us, I think life gives us these little pause buttons to actually say, is this really what you want? Because there's going to be consequences on the other side of it. And it's giving us time to reevaluate to, to see whether or not this is what I want to be doing or if there's a place where I could be better served somewhere else.

Well, fantastic. Did. Could you repeat what you said? Dreams work only when we work. What's that?

Dreams only work if you do like, you know.

Is that your quote? That is. I just, I adore it.

Yeah. It's like, I love how people, you know, and I, and I, even in my first book, I have a note where it's like, you know, motivational quotes only work if you put in the work. Right. Simply sticking those post it notes on your mirror aren't going to do anything unless you action it. And again, my background's as a behaviorist, so I'm really curious about the habits, the actions, the tools and the skills that we put into practice so we can build these big, bright, beautiful futures.

I love it. And I, I know you would agree with this. I think I have found that insight doesn't change our life. As you're saying, it's action, but not any kind of action. It's action different from what you've done before. Exactly. That's what I feel that people aren't doing. They're doing the same kind of action, but that's. It's digging a deeper hole. All right, we're getting to the five pillars, but one final question. Oh, where'd it go? Hang on. It was about resilience and it's gone. Oh, no, it's gone. So it'll have to come back later. So let's talk about the pillars. The five Pillars. What do we not understand that we need to understand and that we need to do that. We're not quite. Oh no, here it was.

Oh good, I'm glad you said the.

Human system isn't designed for what we've got. It's so important for you to tell us about this. What's. Tell me what you mean.

Well, so I love this question. So what we've come upon in our research and we, we don't again as you said at the beginning, we don't practice resiliency for resiliency's sake. We do it because we want to live big beautiful lives. And one of the things that I got really curious about in my research is that the persons who had their well being practices like really dialed in before something happened, they were better resourced to be able to be resilient when called upon. So I got really curious about what was that all about. I wanted to unpack that. And what I came upon was if we think, for example we just take our nervous system or our biology. It was not designed for 24 hour news cycles. It wasn't designed for 5am Clubs and hustle culture. It was designed to have moments of rest.

Rest.

It was designed to have seasons of ease and peace and restoration. So you know, our nervous system. And that's why I always kind of say this jokingly but there's the truth in it, like I don't trust anything, I think after 8pm because I know after 8pm I have burned through all of my resources that I was designed with my brain chemistry to be able to process in the most healthy way. And that's why we aren't sleeping really well. It's why our thoughts get away from us and we really get nervous. You know, we get those, you know, Sunday scaries before we go back to work work on Monday because we haven't had time to rest our nervous system. So we're very much addicted to the stress cycle behavior that I'm seeing in my work right now, Kathy. And you know, we were meant to have a lot more ease. Even when we look back on generations and different ecosystems where people were under enormous amounts of pressure, enormous amounts of global economic challenge, they still had opportunities for rest. And we're not doing that. We're selling ourselves short.

And is the biggest problem scrolling on our phones constantly?

I think the biggest problem is that we have no peace. And sometimes peace is having some pretty good boundaries where I'm not going to scroll my way through this. Instead I'm going to turn off the phone, I'm going to go outside and go for a 15 minute walk which will do enormous amounts of benefit to you physiologically. It's turning off the phone and taking a 20 minute nap so your body can process some of that adenosine so you're not plagued with, with really poor brain health. It's doing those things that we know physiologically our body is craving, yet we are really not really tuned into what it is. And what I often share with persons is like, I, I, I love our culture. I love being able to work really hard and earn and be able to support my family. And I love my children growing up with privilege a hundred percent. But I'm not doing at the cost of my well being anymore. And I'll share with you if it's okay. I had this experience several years ago. I was sitting at the kitchen table, I had a horrible no good day at work. And I was sitting there just kind of, you know, complaining about this frustrated situation, which again, it was just the reality of what it was. I felt really trapped in it. And my young, my oldest son said to me, he was 15 years old and Hunter said to me, he goes, mama, you told me when I grow up I can be anything I possibly could imagine if I work hard and my intentions are aligned. And I said, yeah dude, you could be anything you want if you work hard and your intentions are right. And he said, why can't you? Like, how do you get to where you are and you have to stay in this environment? And I said, well, you know, the university, it's safe. That's how I'm able to provide for you guys. And he said, mama, I'd bet on you every single day. He's like, there's no one that will work harder. And he's like, can you just go do whatever it is that you want to be doing? And that was the moment. Next day I left my post at the university and took up this. You know what? I had something to say about resiliency and I wanted to write a book. And I had got this whole new opportunity because I recognized what I was doing up to that point. It was like living the dream shouldn't kill you. And it was burning me out.

How old is he now?

Now he is 20 and out of.

The mouth of babes or teens. Absolutely, absolutely nothing like putting a mirror up. I mean, if we're not doing what we are teaching, what the heck? I mean, come on. What a great. However, what we're not talking about, maybe that's one of your pillars. We'll get there. My God, in 10 minutes. The reason people don't do it is risk. We're terribly afraid, terribly afraid. So let's talk about that, but through your framework. But I do want to say this. When you talked about those wellness strategies, I realize at this wise old age, if I am not walking, usually for 90 minutes a day, if I'm not getting sun, if I'm not touching nature, I am not, well, like it. And frankly for me, sun makes a big difference. So I, I do have seasonal affective disorder. I have a lamp, I need to touch nature or I am not myself. And the second thing, and maybe this is helpful to people, but here in the US I mean I, because I write and I want to be abreast of current events, I can find myself on the phone reading news constantly. I today, that's it. No, I am going to read maybe seven headlines, watch the certain news show. I watch and that has to be it. Yeah. So I think that what we're all asking here is I think you know, if you tune into yourself, what makes you feel sick.

Yes, absolutely. And the body's natural state is to be in a place of healing, right? So the body naturally tries to re regulate. So you're scrolling on the phone and all of a sudden you know all of this content's coming in, your body starts to feel anxious and then it's going to start to go numb, right? Because it's trying to protect itself. Or my favorite is when you're scrolling with your left hand and your hand goes numb because like the blood circulation's cut off and we just switch hands, right? So like our body is giving us so much data that this isn't what I want to be doing yet. We go on autopilot and it's just this big numbing, all of those big feelings. So yeah, it's so important that we tune in and self awareness is that starting point. And it's okay because I know right now and I talk to so many people that feel like, you know, they're so scared to miss out that they feel like they have to be doing everything and be tuned in everywhere. When you take a step back and have that like zoomed out view, all of a sudden you can say like, whoa, I'm not a rat in this rat race, right. Like I'm allowed to. And then what I love so much about the human condition is we do just like a bit of the right thing and we are going to feel remarkably better, right? Because we can't hate ourselves healthy, right? Like just running you know, running into a, you know, a class and jumping on a treadmill and beating yourself up and then jumping off and running to the next thing, like that's never going to bring us the peace and the groundedness. And again, it's not woo woo. It is science. Like there is such a different way to feel where. And what we saw, for example, is as you just shared that brisk walk in the morning, Sunlight, water and walking first thing in the morning. It radically transforms your day. It decreases all cause mortality by 60%. Yet people are chasing on, you know, these, on the treadmills and all that. It doesn't have to be that way.

Oh my gosh, say this again. You can't hate yourself.

Say it healthy. You can't hate yourself healthy. And that's probably the biggest misconception about all of this. We can't shame ourselves into doing better. We can't guilt ourselves into changing behavior. We gotta meet ourselves as a trusted ally that says, okay, you know what? This has gotten me to this point in my life and I'm choosing to find a different way through and it's possible. And the more and more people I see take this philosophy and psychology approach, it's a, it's a beautiful thing.

So much. I mean it makes me think of weight loss. It makes me think of people who are so driven to get on the treadmill and lift weights. And that's great if, if you're loving yourself in the process, but if you're looking yourself, yourself in the mirror doing it, you're hating yourself. All right, my dear, walk us through the five things we have to understand.

There you go. So thank you for asking. So the first of the five pillars is belonging. We have to have a home team. We need community. We're designed to be with people. That's where we get our psychological safety from. It's one of those things that no matter what happens, even the messy parts of me, I have this one person in my world. So our belonging matters. We also know it's perspective. Being able to like critically think and problem solve in the world, but also feel our way through the world. Knowing what matters most and making it matter most in real, in real time is important. The third pillar we talk about is acceptance. Working within our controllables, we really need to just focus on what's within our control and what's outside of our control and put our energy where it's most used. The fourth one was hope, as we already touched on and interesting. This is a wee bit of a wild card. The Fifth variable we learned about was actually humor. We learned that play, joy, merriment is actually a coping strategy for the most beautiful way of building this tapestry of human resiliency. And at first we thought it was a defense mechanism, really. But we learned, for example, when you laugh, your body releases a natural tranquilizer. It blocks your pain receptors. So for that moment in time, you cannot feel pain. And it's the body's natural way of helping us. Just, again, it doesn't solve our problems, but it gives us a moment of reprieve. Right. Just a moment to catch our breath, so that way we can respond versus react. So the five of those together, we see make the biggest difference.

I got questions. Bring them on. I have to tell you, I am one who. I grew up kind of without a sense of humor, and there wasn't a lot of humor and jokes in my house. But just lately, I went to a comedy show with my family, nine different comedians.

Yeah.

I laughed my. My tush off. And this Friday, which has already passed, when people see this, I'm going to see John Bish.

Bishop.

John Bishop, yeah. A UK comedian who's so big, and my son and I are going in the fourth row, and I watch his Instagram reels and literally spit up out loud. And I have noticed how much better I feel. Yes. Just doing that for five minutes. Yeah. So, I mean, there's my sample of one and your sample of 10 million. But I didn't know this. Say this again. When you're laughing, you can't. Can't feel pain.

Yeah. Your body releases a natural tranquilizer. So when you're laughing, it's like this state because you. You can't hold, like, worry and laughter at the same time. So it gives your body just a pause button on all that worry, all that stress, all that. All that negative energy, it just pauses it. And then all of a sudden, your body gets just this little blast of. Of light, this little blast of joy, merriment, curiosity. And what happens is all of those endorphins are going. The oxytocin gets released, their tonin starts to flow. And, you know, it's the same, actually, as, you know, laughing is one of the other one we talk about is like, petting a dog. Right. We actually know that's why people right now, I think, are more connected to their animals than some people, because it's just this pure joy of being able to, like, have this. You know, dogs show us with their actions, obviously, not words, the importance of bonds. So again, yeah, there's like all of these things that are naturally in our environment. We are designed to be able to heal ourselves, to re regulate. And again, it's not woo woo. That's what we see in this physiological research. And I came to share with you that the notion of laughter as that kind of medicine isn't new. Like they used to call it like gallows humor. When people were in the gallows being executed, they would be called, they called it lunacy, where people would be joy filled and they'd be laughing and joking around and folks would be like, hey, don't you know what your outcome's about to be? And their bodies would just, just come, they would say it would just come over them because it's the body's natural way of just easing the heaviness of the world.

I never knew what gallows humor meant.

Yeah. Oh, that makes sense. They call it newsroom humor, er, humor. It's just the way that humans cope. And again, I've done work with, you know, Navy seals and like they have some of the most, you know, remarkable stories of things they've been exposed to yet. Their, their camaraderie, their brotherhood and their humor is actually one of the strategies on how they're able to do what they do.

Oh my gosh, this is so good. All right, I let, this is my way of digging into each of those pillars. Can I ask a quick question on each of those and then I'll let you go. Belonging. From what I'm seeing, a lot of people think if they only have one good friend, it's not enough. And they see other people having, you know, 20 friends. I have a lot of friends. I play tennis, I sing. But I have one or two who I can tell anything to. My guess is belonging doesn't mean you have 50 friends.

Yeah.

Can you tell us the opposite? Can you tell us one, you know, one message about that?

Yeah. I think there's this pressure, Kathy, that people are just trying to fit in and fitting in is different than belonging. Fitting in is. I have a friend that's going to love the messy parts of me and I know no matter whatever happens, that person has my back. It's this, it's just that allyship, it's that deep connection and that bond. So we can have a lot of acquaintances, but more often than not, those big groups we're fitting in. Whereas you gotta find your person and it doesn't have to be the same person for your whole lifespan. It could be different at different seasons, but it's really nurturing. And protecting those relationships. And what we do see is those larger tribes in those larger social groups, people report higher levels of isolation and more competition. Right. So at the highest level of, let's say, two women as friends, at the highest level, it's collaboration. At the lowest level with other women, it's competition.

How about men? Is there competition too?

Yeah, it doesn't. Yes, there is. A hundred percent. It looks different. So usually we see high level that there's going to be more competition. But that ties into our evolution psychology where when there's more of this in the mix, competition starts to take over. So they actually see that again, that small group builds more collaboration. So there is a little bit of a gender difference there. But for women, especially at the top, they're collaborating. Like all of the top women who we have seen rise to really amazing accomplishments. They've collaborated with the right people. At the bottom, it's competition.

Oh, my gosh. I love every word of this number two perspective. What came to mind when you said it? How do I want to put this perspective doesn't come just because you want it. There are conditions, I have found, that are conducive to gaining higher perspective. Can you speak to that?

Yeah. So our impre. Our perspective increases in relation to our lived experience. The more experiences we have, our perspective is going to grow. So if you're, for example, like a. Just a really practical way thinking about it. If you're, for example, trying to have a difficult conversation with someone who doesn't have a lot of perspective because they're. They haven't really ever grown that perspective, essentially you're trying to have a conversation with an unskilled person. So instead of just getting so frustrated and kind of going around in circles for your own self to be able to just have that moment of reflection where it's like, wow, I'm trying to have a very difficult conversation with an unskilled person instead of me carrying that negativity, carrying that frustration, and I'm just going to let that go. And again, it's not. It's not a matter of like, judging other people. It's. It's protecting our peace. Right. So often we get ourselves tangled up in all of this discourse when, you know, again, ultimately we're, a lot of us are trying to have, you know, do the work with unskilled persons. And it's, again, it's robbing us of our joy. It's robbing us of the spaciousness to just feel healthy and grounded and able to do the good work.

What an important concept. How I take that in this moment, you know, I've recently had a situation where there was a schism and no amount of my talking about it, and look at me, I lose my voice is going to get through. I walked away. Yeah. And what this requires is boundaries and self love and an understanding that you can bloody yourself against the wall all you want, want. But the message that you're trying to get across probably isn't going to be met with the understanding you are hoping for. If it's an unskilled thinker, is that the right way to put it?

Absolutely. And so often what people say is like, you know, Robin, I just, like, I just can't let it go. Right. Like I. How do you let things go? And my gentle invitation is, if we want to radically change how we're feeling and you're kind of stuck in that tug of war, go find somebody to help. Literally. Like, literally volunteer to take out somebody's, you know, trash at the end of recycle for some. Drop off the, you know, the. Their bin of donations that they drive around in their car for three months. Be like, hey, can I. What can I do? Give me something to help you with. Because the best way to have that energetic shift psychologically to get out of that tug of war is just go help somebody, anybody, help. Even just put people focus off, you.

Know, woe is me.

Yeah.

And, yeah, there's so much here.

I just put a gator, a cold Gatorade for your delivery person. Like it does. Like as soon as you do an act of service, it gets you out of that tug of war. So you recognize I'm having a conversation with an unskilled person. I don't encourage you to tell the person that. Right. That's just knowledge for you.

Yeah. You're so unskilled.

Yeah, that's just for you. But what it does is it lets go of those chains of the tug of war and then just go help somebody.

Oh, my gosh. Beautiful. All right, we're almost there. Acceptance now. I think it's. All of these things are so nuanced. That's why you all have to read Robin's book. But there's a certain kind of acceptance that leads to resignation, sadness, hopelessness. That's not the kind of acceptance you're talking about. Can you frame it for us?

Yeah. I think sometimes where people struggle with acceptance is this idea that they think it means approval, and it's not approval. I can actually detest something that's happening, but recognize it's what my reality is right now. And instead of asking, why is this happening to me? I'm going to say, what's my next right move out of it. Who do I need to talk to? How do I level up or skill up or what do I need to do? I'm not going to sit there and let a situation drain me of my resources. I'm going to put my energy, my influence, where it's going to have the biggest kind of of return on the investment. And that's something I see people get stuck for decades asking why questions. And I don't think that there are answers in our lifetime to some questions and asking yourself, what do I do with this situation? What's my next right move? Who is somebody as a trusted ally that I can lean into to help show me the way or the path through this? And again, that's why it comes back to communities. It's the people we bring into our lives, that people whose paths cross ours that make such an important impact on our recoveries and being able to be resilient.

Okay, one more question. Because we talked about hope, we talked about humor, but let's dig into this one thing. I'm struggling. So, you know, I use my amazing podcast Guess as my therapist when you're talking about something enormous, let's say, like Covid. But what I'm talking about is many people in my country on either side of the fence are feeling so scared and so worried about where things are going. And I think many of us also worry for our children, whether that's climate change, whatever, whatever issue people that you is on your mind. When I see something as big as that, I think that some of the practices we have have are not big enough.

This like it.

This is a existential worry. That's what I would call, you know, whether you're talking about the political landscape, the climate, where we're going, war. Do you have one? And I do not mean to reduce any of this to some little platitude or some, but when you're talking about an existential fear, what is the best way to handle that?

Well, first of all, I think we have to first acknowledge it's happening, right? I think so many people are ignoring and overriding. They're not actually holding space to say, you know what, this is scary. This is a big deal. Lives are at stake. This is gigantic. So first of all, it's just calling it what it is. And in that same breath, I believe that we are at such a special time in our evolution because we are coming into what's called the Fourth Turning. And what I mean by that is if we look historically at groups at other times when they felt like all hope was lost, when they thought that this is the darkest days, look at what comes on the other side of that. Look at what comes on the other side of the First World War. Then we went into the 20s. Historically, as a species, we have been able to rally, we have grown, we've learned, learned, we've evolved, we've adapted. And I am so hope filled for the future, for, for my children, for my grandchildren, like down the road, people I haven't even yet met yet in my ancestry. I'm so encouraged because I believe again, after these very difficult crisis seasons, what we see historically is that there's going to be a recalibration and yes, it's going to be painful to get there. And then we're going to realize that we have to do this in a different way. And this is not the first time human history, in human history that we've been put in a situation. It's our first time. But there is so much wisdom from the people who've gone before us and in our ancestors who have shown us the way through it. So I think right now it feels very scary because it is very scary. It is so uncertain right now and there is still so much beauty and joy and hope. And when we look at life like go, you know, I. I was recently working with a group of educators and they said, these principals said to me, whenever I lose hope in the education system, I go read a book to the kindergartners, to the little preschool kids, because hope is bountiful there. And we have to find a way to shift from everything that's wrong to despite the things that are wrong, the things that are actually right. And we're having difficult conversations in the workplace that we've never had before about women's rights. We are protecting marginalized groups in different ways that we've never had those conversations before. This is the messy middle. But we're going to get to the other side and the future is so very bright.

I want to say nothing after that. I just want, although I'm dying to know, is there a fifth turning? What is a very. Is there?

Yeah, it's a concept in, in history about the cycles, about. It's kind of the same notion that, you know, every third generation, we start to see a hit financially to the fourth generation because you had one group that works really, really hard for it and then you have that group that's raised by those hard workers. And then you get a really privileged group that comes out of that next. And then they have a tendency of making poor choices. And then it starts again. So from an economic perspective, a sociological perspective, this is something. This is not my field at all, but this is the field that I lean into and I learn from to give me hope sometimes when the psychology field feels a little bit hopeless. So again, using different pieces of information, we see history does repeat itself, but we also can learn some beautiful things from it. It's there, it's there, it's out there. We just have to find it.

I find you so inspiring and uplifting. I feel so much better than I did an hour ago. Thank you for all the work you're doing. Thank you for your two books. Thank you so much for the research. Where can people learn all about you? Where do they get your book? Tell us. Us. Tell us, Tell us. Link to it below.

Thank you. So the book is available wherever you get your favorite books. If you find an independent bookstore, that's great. It also could be shipped tomorrow too, if you go for something quicker. And also all my information's on the website at drrobin Ca.

Thank you so much. Thank you again. What a joy, people. I will say to you, I hope you feel uplifted and I hope you have a question. You know, look, I couldn't get through, you know, five seconds without writing 52 questions. It's so rich and so deep. That's what why we know it's so important, the work you're doing, Robin. But we'd love to hear from you and we'd love a question, reach out to either of us wherever you see this about the struggle that you're having. I know something in Robin's book will will address it. It must. But we'd love to hear from you and we hope. This is uplifting. To me, it's the definition of the Finding Brave path, really. We need bravery. When we're feeling down and hating ourselves, we need bravery. And all of these steps are on that path.

Yeah.

Thank you again, Rob, and come back again.

And I'd love to. Thanks.

That would be. So when you're with your next book or sooner, please and everyone, I hope you enjoyed this and I wish you a beautiful Finding Brave two weeks. And we will see you next time. Bye. Hey, friends. Kathy here. I am thrilled to announce an event that is truly special coming up on June 13, designed for folks who would like a stress reducing calm and enlivening Retreat Experience in New York City's Central park for the first time, I'm teaming up with my dear friend and top stress management expert Jordan Friedman, who I've had the honor of interviewing on my podcast twice now to offer a live retreat and tour experience in the heart of New York City's iconic Central Park Park. We'll start with a two and a half hour walking tour guided by Jordan, who's a fabulous licensed tour guide of some of the most beautiful and relaxing spots in the park, followed by an energizing and supportive Q and A session where Jordan and I will help you directly address and navigate some of the biggest stressors you're facing today. We cannot wait to spend this special and meaningful time with you surrounded by nature, beauty and the deep calm of the urban oasis of Central Park. Spots are limited, so check out the details and Register today@thestresscoach.com Central park retreat Jordan and I will love to offer you this special experience and be with you on June 13th. Hope to see you. Thanks so much for joining us today and please don't forget to check out findingbrave.org for more programs, resources and tips. And tune in next time for your weekly dose of finding brave.