Mayim Bialik's Breakdown - Dr. Susan David: Build Emotional Agility, Avoid Burnout, & The Dangers of Toxic Positivity

Episode Date: July 25, 2023

Susan David, Ph.D. (award-winning Harvard Medical School psychologist) breaks down emotional agility, explaining how navigating our emotions can impact every area of our lives, why emotional labor can lead to burnout, the importance of not allowing emotions to guide us, and ways to prevent internalizing stereotypes about ourselves. She reveals the dangers of toxic positivity, how our negative emotions can disconnect us from our true selves, why the power of choice equates to growth and freedom, and the four most common “hooks” that prevent us from taking action. Dr. David provides strategies to change up your routine in a positive way, ways to align with your core values, and how to have your own back through self-compassion. She also shares her own personal grief journey and battle with disordered eating that led her to her life’s work.  Dr. Susan David's Book, Emotional Agility: https://www.susandavid.com/book BialikBreakdown.com YouTube.com/mayimbialik Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Force false positivity looks wonderful, but it is, it's an avoidance coping strategy. It is denial. It's denial wrapped up in rainbows and sparkles, but it's denial. And it doesn't help us to be in the world as it is. And so a crucial part of my work has been in the idea that there are no good or bad emotions. Our emotions are signposts of things that we care about. And that when we engage with the, discomfort that tough emotions bring us, we learn more about ourselves and we develop greater

levels of resilience and agility rather than fragility and shrinking. There is a body of research that shows that when we just say, oh, I'm going to win the marathon, gee, I'm going to, you know, all of this positive affirmation stuff, there is a body of research that actually shows that what it does is it tricks your brain into thinking that you've actually done the work now. So you don't need to do it. So actually people who engage in only positive affirmations do worse than people who say, I believe in this possibility. But here are some of the things that could go wrong.

And I'm going to think about how to plan for these. You hold the bothness of the vision and the what could go wrong with courage. the fear with courage, we can hold both, and we can walk forward. Discomfort is the price of admission to a meaningful life. We don't get to have a meaningful career or raise a family or leave the world a better place without stress and discomfort. It's Myambialy's Breakdown, she's going to break it down for you because you know she knows a thing or two.

I'm Miami-Bi-Aleg. I'm Myambi-A-Lic. and welcome to our breakdown, the place where we break things down so you don't have to. This is one you're going to need help with people. Emotional agility. I didn't even know what that meant. Then I read Susan David's book. And Susan David's going to be joining us.

Emotional agility, get unstuck, embrace change, and thrive in work and life. I really didn't understand what Jonathan was talking about when he told me that we have to have Susan David on because I didn't really understand what emotional agility was. I knew it was like the word fragility, but they took off the FR. But it turns out this is a really, really beautiful, a really beautiful book and set of concepts that really combined so many things that Jonathan and I both hold dear and also try to communicate here. Susan David has a website, susendavid.com, where you can take an emotional agility test. Valerie and I both took the quiz.

We did very similar in that we're both deeply feeling people who have a lot of work to do. towards making our lives integrated in terms of our needs and our desires and the way that we are executing them. So there you have it. But Jonathan, we're going to play a little game before we welcome Dr. David. I'm going to give you a prompt. I'm going to give you a prompt. And you are going to give the answer that you think is how Mayam would answer. Oh, okay. This is exciting. All right, Jonathan. You ready for the first one? I'm ready. Your boss makes a change that upsets you. You are most likely to. I'm answering on your behalf.

Yep. What would mind? Be very upset. Strategize for a day or two by calling three or four people on how to deal with it, then type an angry email, then remove the anger, strategize about how the wording reads, read it over three times, and send it. Pretty good guess. Okay.

The choices that Susan David gives us were ignore your frustration and anger. It'll go away eventually and you have other stuff to deal with. Nope. Definitely not. Think long and hard about what you'd like to say to your boss. That's already a no for me. Rehearsing the I'll say and he'll say lines over and over in your mind. Definitely not.

Or spend some time thinking about why the change upsets you. Make a plan to talk this through with your boss and then get back to work. Neither. None of those. None of those. Keep going. I picked a whole other option. Susan David.

didn't know about me. Question number two. Your three-year-old leaves his toys on the floor. I'm already raging. Your three-year-old leaves his toys on the floor. You come home from a tough day at work, trip over them and yell at him. Afterward, you're most likely to. I mean, before, I don't think you would yell at the kid. You would probably remove all the toys and you would already have a toy rotation going so there wouldn't be that many toys out anyway. But in this scenario, you've yelled at the child and now we're looking for options. You would probably make amends. You would probably talk to the child beyond his grade level.

Explain that you were going through a hard time and it wasn't about him, but Mommy still loves him and he's still a good boy. That's pretty good, but you missed the shame spiral that I would then engage in for the next eight months. The choices are... Oh, that would have motivated you to make the amends was the shame. I forgot about that. Your choices are... Susan David's choices for me were brush away your frustration and tell yourself,

it's fine, I just had a long day. Nope. Chastise yourself all evening. This is feeling like my am. Chastise yourself all evening for yelling at your son. Wonder why you always respond this way and conclude you're the world's worst parent. That's me. No, I would give you a little bit of credit to say that you would probably chastise

yourself a little bit, make amends, feel better that you made amends, and not feel like the worst person because at least you did something that acknowledged it where your parents would have told you that it never happened and made you feel crazy. The third option is a fusion of that. Sit down with your spouse to discuss your day. Realizing your reaction to your son came from your frustration with your boss, give your son a hug and an apology and put him to bed. Okay.

Last question. A little mix of two and three. This is possibly my favorite. Ready? You're going. I can't. I can't even scare a straight face. You're... Sorry.

You're going through a McDonald's drive-thru to get a vegan chicken nugget. There's nothing vegan. And they get your order wrong. You're going through a painful romantic breakup. You dot dot dot. Eat endless amounts of popcorn way too late at night until you pass out. Uh, that would, let's see. Well, choice one was go out drinking with friends to distract yourself.

No such thing in my world. There's no distracting. You might even meet some new people. That'll help numb the pain. Nope. Number two, choice, or B, sit at home alone wondering what you could have done differently. Why are you so bad at relationships? Yes, plus popcorn.

Number three, feel upset for a while, write about the experience, or talk to your friends, and learn from it. I mean, you're kind of a two-three combo. Well, it is time to welcome the good doctor, which we are going to do. Susan David, Ph.D., is one of the world's leading management thinkers and an award-winning Harvard medical school psychologist. She has spent the past two decades studying how we navigate our emotions and how that shapes everything, our actions, our careers, our relationships, our health, and our happiness.

her number one Wall Street Journal bestselling book, Emotional Agility, was heralded as a management idea of the year by Harvard Business Review. And it describes the skills that are needed to thrive in times of complexity and change, which I think we can all relate to. It's been translated into 30 languages, the winner of a ton of accolades. She has a TED talk on emotional agility that's been viewed by more than 10 million people. She writes for all sorts of important places.

she's advised for clients like the United Nations, Google, Microsoft. She's trained as a clinical psychologist. She did her postdoc at Yale on emotional research. And she's on faculty at Harvard Medical School. She's also a co-founder of the Institute of Coaching. She lives now outside of Boston, but she hails from South Africa. Please welcome. Why am I sounding like I'm a game show host?

It's really a pleasure to welcome Susan David to the breakdown. Dr. David, welcome. Break it down. Thank you so much. I'm delighted to be here. Do you like to be called Dr. David? Do you like Susan? Do you like Sue?

I am completely unfast. Sue or Susan is fun. Okay, terrific. Thank you so much for being here. Your book Emotional Agility is one that I'm actually holding Jonathan's copy because I wanted to see what he underlined and dog-eared in your book. to prepare for speaking to you today. Jonathan, maybe you want to talk a little bit about what you know about Susan David's work

and sort of your interest in having her here, and then we can go ahead and formally get started. The part that hits me the most is, number one, a notion that agility or the ability to have emotional strength, maybe that's not how you describe it, is a learnable skill that can be cultivated and grown. And also how our ability to self-reflect and understand our personal narrative and how we make sense of the world influences that, two things that I think maybe people don't understand and they definitely don't always understand the relationship between the two. Yeah, I think that's a really interesting observation. A core part of my work has really been this idea.

that so often when we think about achievement or goals or relationships, we think about externalities. And yet what we know is that how we deal with our inner worlds, our thoughts, our emotions, and our stories actually shapes and drives everything because it is the impetus that then says, you know, are you going to reach out or not? Are you going to shut down or not? So there are these foundational skills that we need as human beings to thrive in a changing world. So interested to hear that that's, you know, a core observation that you had from the book.

I guess one thing I'd like to ask, you know, there's a lot about this book and your approach that are very useful, meaning they're very practical and I really appreciate it in particular. and hopefully we can talk about some of them. You know, you have things like the common hooks, you know, that we kind of get stuck in. I like to think I'm a specialist in those things, which is my problem. And also just sort of like notions of, you know, practical ways, you call them tweaks, you know, ways that we can kind of like make small changes that can, you know, ripple out into larger changes. But can we start really basic?

Like there's this notion that you talk about that many people, don't even know that like there's a self in there, meaning we're distracted by so many other things, we're driven by so many other things. Can you explain in kind of the simplest terms what that premise is that you sort of base this book on? So in a world in which there is a lot of change and complexity, and especially in a world in which there are huge numbers of distractions,

as human beings, one of the most profound ways that we unsee is the unseeing of the self. And that can get shaped over time as we are raised, as we are drawn away from things that actually matter to us, the disconnect with our values, the disconnect with our emotions. A core idea in my work, for example, has been that the overarching narrative, even in psychology, is that emotions are good or bad, positive or negative. Now, if we grow up in a society that tells us that some of our emotions are bad, then that fundamental premise is that when you experience these difficult emotions and they are so-called negative or bad, we then learn a whole lot of sense.

strategies to try and suppress them, do away with them. And we do this because we, you know, again, have this narrative around us. But what it leads to is a greater and greater disconnect with the core of who we are, with our values, with what we care about. And there are profound consequences. So an example of this is when we don't actually have a sense of what we care about as human beings, what's important to us, then we become far more subject to everyone else's dictates about what we should be doing, feeling and following. Really, you'd ask me before we came online, which is you asked me where I come from. And the accent is South African.

And I often like to think about my work in the context of growing up firstly in South Africa, but also this extraordinary word that you hear every day on the streets of South Africa. And the word is Savabona. Samabana, it's a Zulu greeting. Savabana basically means hello. You literally hear thousands of times a day. But when you strip behind what Sababona means, Sowerbona basically means I see you and by seeing you I bring you into being.

And that is really beyond the academics. That is the core of my work. This idea that when we are more able to see ourselves with compassion and with clarity, then we are more able to thrive and be healthy in a complex changing world. My NBi Alex's breakdown is supported by Superpower. We all know the feeling of leaving a doctor's office and kind of feeling like we didn't get anything out of the experience that was useful. Maybe they're like, you're fine, drink more water.

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I wonder if you could speak to, you know, we talk here and there about, you know, Mazel's hierarchy of needs, right? and a lot of times what Jonathan and I sort of, you know, way as we do this podcast and as we began this podcast as a way to sort of democratize, you know, access to mental health information, really. You know, what is elitist that we talk about? I don't mean you, but I'm saying as a society, you know, so many people are worried about, you know, very basic needs that they're not having met, right? You know, there's homelessness, there's addiction, there's, you know, mental health challenges.

But I believe very strongly that the rejection, you know, of believing that what you're talking about is crucial is part of the problem. And I wonder if you can speak to that a little bit, because some people might hear this and be like, I'm too busy just like trying to figure out how to pay the rent and go to school and, like, deal with my crazy mom or whatever. Well, well, so very, I'm going to be a little bit provocative. The first thing, if we're going to talk about Maslow's hierarchy of needs, is Maslow never actually developed a triangular-like hierarchy, saying that these fundamental needs of, you know, food and water are at the bottom, and then only if you've got that, everything can follow.

In fact, what Maslow described in his work is about how human motivation is, complex and multi-layered and interactional. And that this idea that we've got to have one in order to have the other is actually, firstly, not true to Maslow's work, but it's also not true to the science. And, you know, there is a, there is a, I think, paradoxically elitist view that I've come across in some of my work, for example, when, you know, when we think about these skills, someone might say, well, you know, happiness or the pursuit of happiness or the pursuit of well-being or even focusing on these kinds of skills is elitist because people are, you know, concerned about a whole

range of things. And what I would suggest is what that does, it's actually a potentially very patronizing view of human well-being, which essentially suggests that the movement to psychological and mental health is only, should only be attainable or accessible to people once they have achieved abiancy. Whereas actually what we know when we look at the science, particularly around the kinds of skills that I work with, which is skills like being connected with your values, capacities like being able to step into your purpose. These are core capacities that help people to advocate for themselves. They are capacities that are crucial to help you to be present with your children, you know, these are human dimensions that enable us to thrive even in a complex

world. And one way that I've come across this more recently, for example, is, you know, if we think about complexity, and there's a lot of talk about AI, what we are entering is we are entering a world in which traditional knowledge, fact-based knowledge, is becoming increasingly commoditized. And so the psychological set of skills that enable people to connect with their purpose, their values, connect with other people, advocate for themselves, negotiate with and for themselves from a sense of calm, be kind to themselves, develop empathy, develop this kind of capacity. These are skills that all of us need and that the world needs. So I think it's beautiful that there is this interrogation and questioning around these ideas. I think it's so

important. And I would, you know, I would also say that we live in a world in which systems and processes and policies can and do impact us. The belief that we are completely subject and subjected by systems and processes and policies and that we have no voice, we have no say is one of the greatest forms of disempowerment. And the idea that it's all about me and I'm the only person that matters in my own well-being. And it's all, you know, that idea is also untrue.

Because what that says is it says that, oh, well, you know, if you unhappy or if there's something going on, it's your problem. You know, the truth is that context matters. And the truth is that even in the acknowledgement that context matters, we have a world of, research and practices and processes done across the globe that show, I'm going to use this metaphorically, that show a posture of feeling open and connected with the world and with the values and who we want to be as individuals versus a posture of being. in myself and shut down and shrinking. And my work is about the enablement of stepping into ourselves

in a way that it has clarity and calm and health. So a long answer, but a very important question. Yeah. No, and I really appreciate that. I really appreciate that very well said. I took your emotional agility quiz. I went ahead and did it. I did not do very well. Well, I know you're going to say, like, of course you did. You were yourself. But there's things to work on. Let's just say that. But what I did find very interesting, so there's part of the quiz. It's a brief quiz. I recommend people take it. You can go to susendavit.com. But there's a page where you list a variety of values. And it says your personal values are what you care about and consider important. They're at the core of what you find meaningful in life. And at first I kind of like rolled my eyes. metaphorically. And I was like, well, I don't know. Like, this is not a big deal. Like, I don't know. And then I started reading them. And I started getting really curious because I started thinking about, oh, there's people for whom accuracy is a very significant thing for like, I know those people, right? I'm not that person, but I know those people. And then I kept going. And it was just a really interesting,

just this part of the quiz was such an interesting experiment for me to be able to say, like, what are my things? What are your things? What are your things? What are your things? I was also surprised when you said accuracy wasn't a big one for you. If I had to have pick one for you, I would be like, accuracy is big. Accuracy is big, but if I have to choose like the three that are, that I kind of feel like

best describe me over all realms of my life, no. Like, I'm a kind of person who's like, if there's not the spice that the thing calls for, I'm going to make it anyway and I'll make it delicious. You know, like I'm not that person. Okay. Mine were belonging. Yeah. I'm an eneagram four, which by definition is someone who believes they don't belong.

They can never belong. Where do I fit in? No one's like me. So I was like that, that's like every aspect of my life. It's about do I belong here? I'm an imposter. Belonging. Big one.

Also, side note, Susan, can we work on that with her? Maybe we'll build her, of course. We can. This is so helpful. It's so, yeah, I want to connect more. Another one, because I had to pick three. Another one was generosity because I'm a person who like always wants to, I do. I always, I mean, to a fault.

I want to like give, I want to give money. I want to give Reese. I always want to like connect people to like help them that certain ways. It's beautiful. I guess so. But it could, you know, it's not, it's not uncomplicated. And then the third one was hard to pick because, you know, know, I really want a life of simplicity, but I don't know that I could say that it's sort of like

one of my, Jonathan's shaking his head now. And then I was like, oh. Just judging by your actions, it's not one that's in near term. That's really, I think this needs to help us with just that interaction. I can pick whichever I want. And then, you know, there were things like, exactly, Jonathan. Exactly. Your values are what you care about. Just because. Just because Because your value it doesn't mean that you're doing it. Okay, that's okay. Well, that's, that's, that over there is, is the core. And I want to circle back, I want to circle back later to what you were asking about the elitism. It's because let's talk about that. That's right. Well, you know what? Susan, that brings us to the third, which I'm sure you're not surprised as an issue of

mine, confidence. And I think you can see why. So I love that. And let me, let me, can we step into the conversation we've just had about, is this something that only matters for some people versus others? Right. So let's talk about values. And we might on the face of it say, well, you know, it's great. We've got time to think about what our values are because, you know, we've got the space and we've got the energy and all that kind of thing.

and this feels very, it feels like the kind of thing that people might say, well, gee, you know, I'm in the workplace and I'm just trying to get by. Okay. I don't have this capacity. Now, when you look at data in the workplace, and I'll just use workplace as an example, but this applies across the board, and you look at data on burnout, what we find is that when people go to work and every day they do what we call surface acting. So you put on your smile.

That's just what I do every day of my life in every aspect. You put on your smile no matter what you feel, you put on your smile, you engage in huge amounts of emotional labor. Because this is emotional labor. you basically just faking it in a sense. So this emotional labor is associated with huge amounts of burnout and lower levels of well-being. Now, you take those same individuals and you say to people, like, when you go and you're working as a receptionist in a hotel, like, what do you care about? and the person says, I care about like generosity or I care about relationship.

And I care about the fact that when people come to this reception area, there is a way that I can see them and be in relationship with them. That person who now is connecting their values with their actions has significantly lower levels of burnout and higher levels of well-being. And this is profoundly important because all of us engage every day in actions that can either bring us towards our values or away from our values regardless of our circumstances. And they don't need to be huge things. They can be smaller things, but there are aspects that involve. thinking about how we can make changes that allow us to reflect in the way we come to ourselves or others, the stuff that matters in our worlds. What I heard you say is that no matter what you're doing,

even if you're not aware of your values, they can be shaping how you feel about what you're doing. We know that in general, in times of stress and complexity and busyness, which all of us experience, often what we do is we move to autopilot. The autopilot is what I, in my work, talk about when I talk about rigidity. Autopilot is the idea that your husband starts in on the finances and you leave the room because you are automatically in that defense mode. Autopilot is that you feel cynical every single day when you go to work and it's actually crushing you inside. You stuck in that story.

and you've now stopped engaging with your colleagues in a way that actually might be healthy or health promoting for you. Autopilot is that you come home from work and you are so stressed that your beautiful five-year-old child comes to you with a picture that they've drawn and looks up at you, the person who is there to love them and see them. And they say, look, you know, look, look, look what I drew. Look what I did today. And you're so stressed that you don't look up from your cell phone. So these are autopilot ways of reacting. And, you know, what is happening is that we know from a cognitive perspective that when

there is a huge amount of information and complexity and stress in our environment, what we tend to do is we have cognitive narrowing. So we have this focus in on black and white thinking, labeling people, labeling ourselves, othering, stereotyping, all of this kind of thing we see in times of stress and complexity. Actually, what stress and complexity are asking of us, in this open posture is you used earlier, I am the language of curiosity, compassion, connection, values. This is actually what is being asked of us. So what I am describing in a lot of my work is

what are the core psychological strategies that enable us to move from a rigid world-shinking perspective into an orientation in ourselves and others that feels open, courageous, compassionate and centered. Because I believe that every single one of us, every one of us inside of us has wisdom and capacity. and calm. And the world and our autopilot often lead us to forget that. And what we need to be able to do and a lot of the principles of emotional agility

are about us being able to reconnect and re-see and re-engage with ourselves. And one aspect of that is about this values connection. This idea that, you know, if we simply start to connect with like, Who do I want to be as a parent? I want to be present. What does that look like? What is a small moment in the day that I can do that?

And I keep coming back to this comment and this conversation at the beginning because it's so important. I want to again just highlight this in the context of, of what we were talking about, this idea of elitism. And this is the idea that if youth, If you look at research on children who have grown up in communities that tell them constantly,

or in families that tell them constantly, you don't matter. You're never going to go to college. You're never going to make anything of your life. You never, okay, so that child hears that constantly. And so what the child starts to grow up with is, is a stereotyped. We often think of stereotypes the things we have about others, but we can actually internalize other people's stereotypes, and we start to have a stereotype

view of ourselves. Gee, I'm not cut out for college. Okay, now imagine you are a child who studies, who works, who just does their best, and you make it into college. Okay, so you make it into college, and then what happens? in your first semester, as is going to happen, you fail your first test or you flub an essay, you do poorly. At that point, what we know is that the vast majority of those kids are likely to take those stereotypes that they've grown up with and then turn them back on themselves. So they'll start saying, oh, everyone was right. You see, everyone was right. I'm not cut out for it.

around 70% of kids at that point will drop out of college. Now, if you take these kids and you spend literally 10 minutes with them, saying to them, think about just for 10 minutes, why are you studying what you are studying? What is your purpose here? What are your values? What is the thing that sits behind the what is the want to? in what you are doing here. A child who spends just 10 minutes affirming their values

is protected three years down the track from taking those stereotypes and turning them against themselves. So again, I keep belaboring the point, but I think it's because these are foundational skills that enable us to be healthy human beings in a world that will constantly tell us we do not deserve to be. Well, and one of the things that you mention kind of to speak directly to that point, you talk about choice. And this hit me really, really hard. I have a 17-year-old and I have a 14-year-old.

And I know that I've missed the mark all the time. and, you know, I really had to push aside as I, you know, got to that point in the book, I really had to push aside like the instant kind of like shame and, you know, I'll never make it right. And I missed out so much because I was on my phone so much when I thought I, you know, was doing my best, whatever. I pushed that aside and I'll keep it aside for the moment because what I wanted to have you talk about a little bit was something that is so simple and so difficult. And what it is is you talk about that every opportunity you are presented with a choice to either step into what you have designated are your goals and the things that you want to be

and step away from all the things that stop you. So you give one very simple, I mean, you give us several examples, but one simple example was if I want to be the kind of parent, who is present, you know, and my child comes to me, I then have a choice. It's an active choice. It may be difficult. You may be thinking of all the things that people are waiting for you to respond about, you know, on like our Slack channels here and all the places that people are trying to reach me. But in that moment, there's a choice that has to be made. And can you talk about, I mean, obviously the skills, the tools that you give in the book are the things that support this. But can you speak about why it is so hard for us? to literally say, I know I want to be this person, but I'm still not choosing it consistently. Well, when we think about choice, and I speak about this in the book,

and I'm sure at some point on the podcast you've spoken about this beautiful Victor Frankl idea, this idea that between stimulus and response, there is a space. And in that space is our power to choose. that choice lies our growth and our freedom. And Viktor Frankl, you know, he survived the Nazi death camps and he's describing this idea. Now, it's, I think, one of the most extraordinarily powerful ideas. And it's helpful thinking about what pulls us away from choice. What pulls us

away from choice very often are getting hooked in difficult thoughts and emotions. So a thought might be the thought of, I'm not good enough and I've already stuffed up, okay? And I've already, you know, you said like, you know, this idea of, okay, so now when we do that, we're living in the past. And I've sometimes had people that I've worked with. In fact, I had this remarkable experience of working with an individual who was part of a massive government agency that was literally bringing food to people in a war zone who were otherwise going without food. And I was speaking with this person and he said to me that in order for him to do his work effectively, there was someone in this government agency that he needed to deal with

and he hated dealing with this person. And he said to me, because the person always speaks to me badly and they they remind me of the way my father used to speak to me when I was a child and so I said to him so what do you do and he said to me so I just ignore his calls and it was so remarkable to me because you know here is this person who has this value that is is literally about literally about saving lives and who who is getting stuck in a thought, an emotion, or story that says, I'm going to avoid this person's calls because when I speak to this person, he makes me feel like my dad used to make me feel. So this is, you know, now, now this sounds like a dramatic example, but this is what

psychologically we call fusion. Fusion is the idea that you have a thought. The thought might be, I'm not good enough. There's no point. I've already stuffed up. So there's no, I may as well not even bother. So we have these thoughts. We have these emotions. Emotions might be emotions of anxiety. There might be sadness. It might be experiences of grief.

We might have stories. Our stories, some of them were written on our mental chalkboards when we were five years old. Stories about whether we're good enough, whether we belong, whether we're creative. And a core component of my work is this idea that, you know, in a world of social media that tells us you've got to only think positive things or you'll manifest, you know, a reality that, you know, this world of magical thinking, that is nonsense. Our thoughts, our emotions and our stories, including the difficult ones, the challenging ones, the ones that feel horrible to have. Our thoughts, our emotions, and our stories are completely normal. You know, they are your body and your psychology trying to help you make sense of the world. So a core component of my work is this idea that there is nothing inherently good or bad about a thought, an emotion or a story.

They are part of our sense-making evolutionary machine. What very often happens, though, is we get stuck in or hooked by a thought, an emotion, or a story. There's no point in trying. I've already stuffed up with my kids, so I'm just not even going to bother phoning them. You know, there's, I'm never going to get the job, so I'm not even going to apply. So what you see here in Victor Frankel's terms is there's no space between Stimede. and response. You know, all there is is an autopilot. And so the reason I go through that is because I think that there is this idea of choice that on the one hand can feel very empowering, but on the

other hand, it can sometimes feel almost like a manifestation of a success philosophy. You know, it's like just choose and everything will be okay. And so a really important, part of my work is the recognition of, number one, we get fused. Number two, when you get fused, it's really important to be kind to yourself because these thoughts, emotions, and stories are normal. And so we aren't just coming to choice in a way that is like, I'm being gritty and every moment I've just got to do this. It's actually a posture that is, elevated by compassion with the self. It's elevated by curiosity. Gee, why do I think that there's no point in trying or that it's the end of the relationship? You know, what is that

telling me? In fact, what is it even telling me about what I care about? And how can I, even in this moment of discomfort and unknowing of whether this person is going to reject me, How can I still, with kindness and compassion towards myself, move towards my values and reach out to them because this is important? And so to circle back, it is about choice and it is about making moves that are towards our values rather than away from. but it's a choice that is made with a posture of curiosity, with courage and with compassion towards the self.

And also, and better understanding sort of what those hooks are. And you kind of touched on them, you know, it seems like we're always slipping into them, meaning the things that prevent us from making, I don't want to call it the right choice,

but from, making the choice that is most clearly aligned with what our needs are and our goals, which are going to vary person to person, the more we get stuck in these hooks, the harder it is to be in touch with literally who I am so that making the choices, it's hard when you can't get there. So I just want to let people know the foremost common hooks, and you covered this one, thought blaming, you know, I thought I wouldn't get the job so I didn't apply, right? I thought he was going to start in on our finances, so I walked out. Yeah. The second one is monkey-mindedness. You know, we talk about the monkey mind. That's something that comes up when you work in meditation.

That's, you know, often that kind of catastrophizing. It's sort of the, you know, it's that primal brain that is always scanning for devastation and fear. The third one is old outgrown ideas. And some of that, I think, you know, for those of us who grew up with parents who were doing the best they could, many of us have those ideas that kind of just they attach to us. And the fourth, possibly my favorite, is wrongheaded righteousness. Can you talk about that hook a little bit? Tell us what wrongheaded righteousness is. So wrongheaded righteousness we see every day. We don't need to go further than social. media to see wrong-headed righteousness, but we said in the workplaces we see it beyond. And it's this idea that we get so often so stuck on being right. Okay, I am right and you are wrong. I have had experiences with people saying to me something like, you know, I had an argument with my brother and I haven't spoken to him for three years and I can't

remember what the argument was about. All I know is I am right and he is wrong. And, you know, sometimes as human beings, we've got to ask ourselves if the gods of right, of the gods, if the gods of right came down and said, you are right, you are right, you are right, you are right. Your boss is an idiot. You are right. You are right. You're right. You know, your brother did something that hurt you, even though you can't remember exactly what it is. You are right. You're right. Yes, the gods of right are telling you that you are right. You still get to choose who you want to be. So such an important question for all of us is, I may be right, but is my response serving me? Is it actually bringing me closer to being the person, the loved one,

the partner that I most want to be? There's a, there's actually a, there's a Talmudic story about the rightness of God that just reminded me of that. And, you know, I also think of, there's a 12-step concept of, you know, do you want to be right or do you want to be happy? meaning, you know, you can dig your heels in for the sake of rightness, but it actually doesn't change anything about the other person or the interaction that you're having. What it does is it gives you the right to feel better about yourself, which you really end up doing all by yourself. Yes, yes.

And it shrinks you because there's this feeling of rightness, but that actually takes you away. often from the relationship, having the important conversation, being able to work through things, develop skills that enable you to be in the world as it is, not as you wish it to be, which is you being right all the time. And of course, you know, we all do this. Like it, you know, we all get stuck on rightness. We all get stuck in outgrown ideas in various ways. And a core part of the book has been really to explore. what are key movements that allow us to move into a different way of being that allows us to feel

more aligned and in integrity with ourselves? Because of course, integrity is about alignment between our values and our actions in the world. It's as if you knew what I wanted to talk to you about next, because that is the perfect lead-in. I'm going to be really honest with you. when Jonathan told me about you and about your book, I was a little bit nervous because this is generally not the psychology space that I feel most comfortable in. You know, I've been in classical psychotherapy since I'm a teenager. Like, I live and die by processing and, you know,

and Jonathan comes from, you know, a very different, you know, kind of psychological structure in that, you know, his business and his life is really about understanding the process of humans and how they function. And, you know, as an extension, he works at a company where a huge component of what they do is understanding exactly this. And for me, I choose a life where like, this is the company, like, Valerie. Like, we're just like sitting here and processing and, you know, like, I don't even have to wear makeup. It's amazing. This is one thing I really appreciate about the book is that I was nervous that it was going to be way too academic and way too cerebral and like way too many charts.

And what it is is like it's a really good balance of you explaining and also offering interplay with the reader. And some of it is questions and some of it is like little quizzes as we did in our intro. But there's this one section we got to. You say, how would you respond to the following? And I'm like, oh, I love it. There's a space. She stopped talking a little bit. I can ask myself a question. Great. And it says true or false. It says old people are helpless. And I was like, true. Like if I have to pick, I'd say true.

Number two, as I get older, things in my life will get worse. And I was like, I know that's true. Like, it's actively happening to my 47-year-old body. Number three, I have less pep this year than I did last year. And I said, well, if anything in God's world is true, it's that. And then you go on, you go on to describe a really interesting study by Becca Levy or Levy, I'm not sure. And what those questions and what this study that you then extrapolate on talks about

is how much of the stories that we tell have a direct impact, like a proportionally direct impact on how we think we understand ourselves and then how we operate in the world. And Jonathan's world is so much about stories. and the stories that we tell and what it means and what value it has. Can you explain a little bit what that quiz just revealed about me or anyone else who answered like I did and how that impacts our general wellness? Yes. So this is, Becca Levy's work is one example of a range of work that connects with an idea that I've

touched on a little bit, which is this idea of self-stereotyping. This idea that we often think about stereotypes as being things that others have about us, but we can actually have self-stereotypes. So the research is pretty remarkable. She asks people these questions, and then what she does is she tracks physical outcomes, like how long one person might live for longer relative to another. And the results are you killing me off, Susan. Are you killing me off?

I'm kidding you. I know that I'm old. The results are remarkable because what she finds, and I can't remember the exact number, it was something like someone who has these, these. 7.5 years? Was it 7.5 years, Susan? It was if you've got it, if you've got these self-stereotypes that no matter what, as I get older, things are going to get worse.

As I get older, you know, you've got these negative stereotypes. those people die seven years earlier than people who don't. Now, you might look at this and go like, well, what is that about? But if we step back and we say, well, this is interesting, how do we live into stories? I've given an example of there's no point in putting my hand up for the job because I'm not going to get it. That's an example of living into a story. So when we expand this out, what does living into a story mean when you say, well, no matter what, things are going to get worse as I get older? Does that mean that when you have an opportunity to go hiking versus sitting on the couch that you choose to sit on the couch because, you know, I'm beyond doing those things?

Does that mean that when you go to a party and people are dancing around you, that you say, gee, I'm too old for this, I can't be bothered and you shrink yourself? So what starts to happen is we have these stories that seem innocuous on the surface, but that become predictive of who we're reaching out to, whether we are feeling lonely, but we shut down versus connect, a whole range. of psychosocial outcomes that have real world consequences. I mean, Jonathan, I'm not killing you off.

I'm not kidding you off. No, it's fine. I hear the message. I hear the message. Jonathan, I wonder if you can talk a little bit because I think it would be interesting for Susan to hear this from you. Jonathan had a hip replacement almost two years ago.

He is a young man, but he is tall and athletic. And Jonathan, I wonder if you can talk a little bit about the stories that, you know, really for the past 15, 20 years, you told yourself about your body and how that kind of shifted, because I think it might be an interesting touch point here. I had no concept that I needed a hip replacement and my mobility and my ability to do physical activity, intense physical activity, just continued to be reduced to avoid pain.

So I would, you know, be active, get a pain response, be like, like, oh, I'm not in shape enough to do that. And then I would do less. And then I would do less and do less. And I began to be fairly miserable because being active across a variety of different sports is one of the greatest pleasures in my life. And I have a now 15 year old son. And so from the time he was about eight years old, nine years old, I was in a good amount of physical pain that I really hadn't registered what was going on. So I always thought, like, I'm sitting too much. I'm working too much.

I'm needed to do more stretching. I need more physical therapy, but I don't have enough time to do physical therapy. I do physical therapy for a month. And then it doesn't get. And so I thought it was all, you know, self-induced. And it really began to shift everything in my life from the things that I looked forward to, to how I would spend time with my son, to the amount that I would play with him. and lo and behold it got to a certain point where it was so bad that I sought medical attention

because it hit that breaking point where I like stopped being able to put my shoe on and be able to bend down that much. And you know, I went through the process of, oh, what is this going to mean to have that very, you know, intense surgery and rehab and get on the other side of it? But having that switch, all of a sudden, you know, like the lights came back on and oh, it's not that I was unable to do that, but there is a path towards being more active. And, you know, it was a fascinating view and perspective change once I began to have a different understanding of what was happening for me. I also, can I add one thing?

And then I do want to hear, Susan, I'd like to hear you kind of talk about this, because I think a lot of people have this kind of experience, sometimes with emotional pain, sometimes with a relationship that's painful. Right? But what I also want to point out is that, there was a certain amount of resistance, and this is not a criticism of you, Jonathan, or men in general, because I do think this happens a lot of times with men.

There was a real resistance towards a set of choices, you know, even for getting more information, right, about what was going on with his body. And it was, and I'm, as I think of the hooks, you know, and look, it's easy to spot it. I'm sure Jonathan spots these in me all the time. I have a list. It's easy for me to spot, you know,

the old thoughts and that kind of, you know, that thought trap of, I know what's going on. There's no more information. This is just what it is. And that the choice to actually say, and in this case, I think it took, you know, me going with him and being, you know, having a partner in that. Which I think is missing for a lot of people. But it was that ability. Once he made that choice that I'm going to get curious and I'm going to get more information, it was like everything opened up.

I have so much to say. These aspects of, I think there's three really core aspects of emotional agility that are elevated by what you've just described and that is this curiosity, even with difficult emotions. You know, what am I feeling? Often when we feel something, we especially when we, especially when we, we trained by our culture to think that some emotions are bad, what we can start doing is we can start hustling with ourselves.

We can start saying things like, you know, I'm sad, but I don't have a right to be sad because I've got it better than most people. Or I'm angry, but I'm not allowed to be angry. We grow up with these display rules around which emotions we feel we are allowed versus not allowed. So we can have these emotional experiences and then we can start shrinking ourselves. And this idea of curiosity is just profoundly important. It's like I'm feeling lonely. And if you imagine taking a piece of paper and writing lonely or sad or angry on a piece of paper, a world that tells us we've got to be positive all the time

would ask you to turn the piece of paper over and say, right, now think about what you've got to be grateful for. Whereas a core part of my work is this idea that our emotions actually signposts our needs and our values. So if you turn this piece of paper over, what is the need or value that is being signified by lonely? it's very often about intimacy and connection. Bordom, you know, boredom at work, boredom in any part of our lives,

when I turn the piece of paper over, the emotions, because emotions are data, emotions on directives, you know, emotions are data, emotions signpost our needs and our values, they're not directives, just because I feel something, doesn't mean that thing is a fact and I've got to listen to it. but our emotions signpost our needs and our value so if I turn the piece of paper over boredom is signposting that I value learning and growth and that there is something that I can access from that difficult emotion so core part of this that that seems really important from the the conversation about Jonathan but also the metaphor around emotions is this idea of curiosity what are my emotions telling me, what are they signposting about my needs and values? It's about courage because there is courage in having a difficult conversation. There is courage in going and exploring surgery that is, you know, life changing.

And then there is also compassion. And I've spoken about this a little bit before, but it's this really. beautiful if you enter your psychodynamic processing kind of on the on the edge of this which is you know John Bolby's John Bolby's work so John Bolby who and Mary ends with he's most known for his attachment theory but but John Bolby describes this idea of a secure base and I want to play this out for people who are listening because it's really important and it starts to the importance of self-compassion. So we've all gone to a restaurant where we've seen a little kid, maybe 18 months old, two years old, get down off the chair, like chubby little bottom,

and run away from his parents or caregivers. And the child is something that is so beautiful and extraordinary. The child takes a couple of steps forward, going and exploring the restaurant saying hello to people, complete strangers, trying to get into the kitchen. But what does the child do? The child very often turns, looks back at the parents or caregivers at the table. And then does it go back to the parents or caregivers? No. It then takes a couple more steps into the restaurant. And what John Balby described is the idea that the caregivers are the secure base. the caregivers are the internal recognition for the child that if something goes wrong, you will be safe. Someone will be able to step in to help you. Someone's got your back. And it is the essence of that

knowledge that actually allows the child to do what is so developmentally important for the child at that time, which is to learn, to explore, to grow, to try, to practice, etc. Now, think about self-compassion. What self-compassion is, is it is an embodiment of the secure base for the self. What self-compassion does, we often talk about self-compassion and it feels fluffy. But self-compassion, this idea of, I've got my own back. if something goes wrong, I will be kind to myself. I will love myself.

I will recognize that I wasn't effective or successful in this area, but I still will be kind to myself. It is this knowledge that allows us as human beings to grow, to explore, to take risks, to be courageous, to do all these things. So self-compassion is foundational. You know, there is in every single person listening, there is a five or a six or a seven-year-old child inside of you. And as you go through your busy, stressful autopilot day, that little child is like tugging on your shoulder saying,

see me, see me, see me, love me. And it's so profound. when we start asking ourselves, what is my seven-year-old need right now? And it could be more fun or more creativity, but what is that? And then there is also a 75-year-old or an 80-year-old that is tapping you on the shoulder saying, see me, love me. And what this is about is it's about how do we become present in what, is while taking care of what could be, not getting stuck, but taking care of what could be.

That is so beautiful. I really, really appreciate. I think that's the best analysis of Jonathan's hip that I've ever heard. The other really nice thing and really helpful thing about this book in particular, again, which I'm just being totally honest, I was very skeptical that I would sort of be able to access this material. And I was really, really pleasantly surprised. You have, you have four kind of strategies. These are tweaks, you know, things that you can do to sort of try and, you know, like throw a wrench in your routine, your mental, in a positive way, meaning to kind of mix things up. The four things are, well, the first one you call the no-brainer, switch up your environment so that the choice that you end up being most aligned with is also the easiest.

That's a great one. The second is the piggyback. Add a new behavior onto an existing habit. The third is pre-commitment. Anticipate obstacles. Prepare for them with if-then strategies. And the fourth is offset a positive vision with thoughts of potential challenges. So I wonder if you can speak about, I mean, obviously there's so many tools in this book.

And I love these. And they're very, like this was the part where I was. I was like, I get it. I get what that looks like and you give great examples. But I wonder if you can talk in particular about offset a positive vision with thoughts of potential challenges because I think a lot of what we're told is like, you can do it. You're amazing. Be positive. Like just think positive. And this is a really important part of both the stories that we tell ourselves. And I love that you mentioned magical thinking. Like not something I thought would be, you know, in this kind of book. but I wonder why you kind of choose to take this on.

And you also do it in a way that didn't make me feel like, oh, I'm going to mess up. She found the part that I'm going to mess up. It's about really being like not just realistic because that feels like a really banal word, but it's about being kind of authentic. Can you talk a little bit about some of the fears that we should have about sort of toxic positivity?

I'll give you a story. And then I'll talk about why I'm so driven by this work. The story is me being a five-year-old and going through what many five-year-olds do at that age, which is recognizing your own mortality. It's very normal that kids at that age start to realize that their parents aren't going to be around forever. And I had this fear. that I was going to wake up in the morning and that my parents were going to be dead. And again, a lot of kids have this.

And so night after night, I would find my way into my father's bed and my mother's bed. And I would lie between them because I was so scared that if I went to bed and I work up the next morning, they would be dead. Again, this was my five-year-old mind. And I remember saying to my father, daddy, daddy, daddy, promise me you'll never die. promise me you'll never die. And my father did something so powerful in the way that he comforted me through those long dark nights. He didn't say to me, oh, don't worry, Susan, everything's going to be fun, you know, I'm going to be around forever. he didn't try to buffer me with forced false positivity.

He held me and he loved me and he said to me, Susie, we all die. It's normal to be scared. And this became a profound marker of what then threaded my career. because, firstly, I was growing up as a white child in the white suburbs of apartheid South Africa, a country that was committed to denial and to just pretending that everything was okay. And then I had this father who was saying to me, this is the reality, and I'm going to hold you through that reality. So I had these two stark differences that I was experiencing.

as it turned out 10 years later my father was diagnosed with terminal cancer and after he died I was praised for the smile I was praised for being strong and I was praised in a society that wants us to oh you're so strong you've got it all and there was this beautiful teacher who refused to buy into my story of triumph over fear and over grief. And she said to me, it's normal, like my father, it's normal to grief. It's normal to be said. So why am I saying this? Because even in psychology, when I was trying to be advised in the field of emotions in my PhD, emotions were seen as good or bad, positive or negative. This is bound into psychology and it's bound into our society. And at the same time, when we engage in

forced false positivity, forced, false positivity looks wonderful, but it is, it's an avoidance coping strategy. It is denial. It's denial wrapped up in rainbows and sparkles, but it's denial. and it doesn't help us to be in the world as it is. And so a crucial part of my work has been in the idea that there are no good or bad emotions, that our emotions are signposts of things that we care about, and that when we engage with the discomfort that tough emotions bring us, we learn more about ourselves and we develop greater levels of, resilience and agility rather than fragility and shrinking.

So to come back to the quick thing that you were asking about, which is this thing about, you know, just think positive, there is a body of research that shows that when we just say, oh, I'm going to win the marathon, gee, I'm going to, you know, all of this positive affirmation stuff, there is a body of research that actually shows that what it does is it tricks your brain into thinking that you've actually done the work now. So you don't need to do it. So actually people who engage in only positive affirmations do worse than people who say, I believe in this possibility. But here are some of the things that could go wrong. And I'm going to think about how to plan for these.

you hold the bothness of the vision and the what could go wrong with courage, the fear with courage. We can hold both and we can walk forward. I mean, I don't know what book you're working on now, but here's what your next book needs to be. Tell me. Well, as you were talking about this, I could not help but think about how much.

I mean, look, I live in Los Angeles and I was raised here, and like, that's my world and the, you know, cultural, milieu that I live in. What you described is a lot of what exists as what we're supposed to think culture is, meaning social media is reflecting in so many cases, you know, this like, uber positive, uber shiny, uber sparkly, like, you can do it, girl, like, you're going to be amazing, like, which I think some of that is great. I believe in positive affirmations. I believe in visualization. But what you just talked about, it sounds so much like what a lot of our culture, and I do believe it's a Western, it's a Western notion that is really invading, you know,

the whole world in terms of like, we're going to present something that is literally designed to not feel authentic. And yet it's what everybody is kind of chasing after when we know it's not even real. It's not real and it actually promotes, actively promotes, a shrinking, because then what we do is we say, gee, I'm not going to have difficult conversations with people because they've got different views to me. Gee, I'm not going to go there because that feels uncomfortable. It actually promotes a shrinking. I think it promotes low levels of resilience in us. discomfort is the price of admission to a meaningful life. We don't get to have a meaningful career or raise a family or leave the world a better place

without stress and discomfort. And so the ability to keep on moving, I don't mean gratuitous pain, but the ability to keep moving forward and not feeling better in a positive way, but feeling. better, feeling what I'm feeling better so I can understand myself better, not get stuck in it, I'm moving towards my values, is the essence of what helps us to be anti-fragile. I mean, I love everything that you're talking about. I think about this most of my day and how to articulate it, which you just are such a powerful speaker. I want to get really specific because there's a study that you write about in the book that talks about men who have been

laid off and are unemployed and how getting more self-reflection. And like this idea, this word self-reflection, I want to know what my emotions are. I'm curious. Like to a lot of people who are listening, like, that's outside of their vocabulary. It's that we're not speaking their language. So like, to get super tactical. Instead of ignoring my emotions, I do X, and it led to this very specific benefit in my life. Can you explain that a little bit more? Yes, yes. So, firstly, one of the things I talk about is this idea of showing up to difficulty emotions,

that we shouldn't avoid them, we should show up to them with compassion. So this is a crucial aspect of it. The work that you talk about is work that's been done by James B. Kenne Baker. And this is how we show up to our difficulty emotions, but I mentioned earlier, emotions are data, not directives. And what do I mean by this? They data, they signpost our needs and values, but we don't need to listen to them. Okay, because I feel sad and I don't want to get out of bed doesn't mean I need to stay in bed the whole day because my value in this case might be growing a connection with someone or exercising or moving my body.

So we need to be able to move into being compassionate and showing up to our difficulty emotions, but ultimately we own our emotions. They don't own us. And so we need to also be able to step out of our difficulty emotions. Psychologically, this is called taking the met of you. You know, it's this idea that you have an argument with someone and you feel upset and angry with them. And even as you angry with them, there's a voice inside your head that says, Susan, you're being ridiculous. Of course he loves you.

You know, you kind of are able to rise above your emotions. You're able to phone a customer service agent and you're outraged by the fact that they've lost your bill yet again. But there's a part of you that is able to rise above that outrage because you know that If you just express your outrage, the person will conveniently cut you off. So we all have this ability to feel a difficulty motion, but then to step out of it and to almost meta view or helicopter view above it. So I'll give you an example of what I mean, and then we can talk about the pennebaker. So when you say something like, I am stressed, okay, we all do this.

I am sad. I am stressed. you can hear the fusion that is happening in that language. I am, all of me, 100% of me is defined by anxiety, by sad, by stress. When you define all of you by that difficulty motion, there is no space for calm or wisdom or breathing, love, courage, connection. there's no space for any of it. So language matters.

If we are able to simply notice our thoughts and our emotions and our feelings for what they are, which is thoughts, emotions, stories, they're not fact, what we are able to do is create some space. So here's what this looks like linguistically. I am sad. I'm noticing that I'm feeling sad. I am anxious. I'm noticing that right now I'm feeling anxiety. What you're doing linguistically is you just creating a little breath between you and the emotion so you can start unsticking from it.

So Jonathan, you asked about the Pennebaker work and I'll give a practical example of this because this is what I'm calling stepping out, this idea that we can meta view and it helps us to move forward. So how did I come to this work? I came to this work because after my dad died, I was struggling. My mother had lost the love of her life. The creditors were knocking and our family started to completely disintegrate. and every day I would go off to school and then I would come home from school and I would binge and purge

unable and unwilling to experience the weight of my grief and no one knew and in a world that values relentless positivity, it seems like no one wants to know sometimes. And then there was this teacher. Her name was, I'll call her Mrs. F. She was my English teacher. And one day she handed out these blank journals. And she had this invitation, which felt like it was an invitation to the class, but it actually was, I thought, directed at me.

And she said, write, tell the truth, write like no one is reading. And it was a silent revolution that happened in my heart. Because for the first time, I felt like I was going beyond the confines of faking it into really showing up to what I was feeling. And so, Jonathan, what I started to experience is all of the writing to this teacher, every day I was. would write in this journal, I would hand it to her, and she would write back in pencil. And I started to realize that over time, it was that showing up to the difficulty motion in that journaling experience that actually completely shifted my sense of capacity in the world. I moved from a feeling of fragility into the sense of resilience. And I don't mean that in a

fake way. I mean it in a sense of I didn't ask for what happened to my dad, but I had a sense of capacity and insight and gratitude that came out of the time that I had with him. There was so much. And so I started to become just really focused on this idea, like, what is it in our culture that keeps asking us to turn away from and unsee ourselves to unsawabona ourselves? And what is it that engages us in seeing ourselves? And the recognition that when we see ourselves, effectively, that is the pathway to well-being and, capacity in our lives. And so I know I'm being long on this, but here's the research. The research is this. James Pennebaker asks people for 20 minutes a day, for three days, to simply journal. And they need to, one group needs to journal about difficult, emotionally salient experiences

that they've had. People write about being raped. People write about, really tough things that have happened in their lives. The other half are asked to write about arbitrary stuff, non-emotionally salient things. And what is found after 20 minutes of journaling over three days, 20 minutes, 20 minutes, 20 minutes, is the people who write about their emotionally tough experiences have high levels, six months later, higher levels of well-being, lower levels of depression, lower levels of symptom reporting and so on. And the research then is extended looking at how this applies in different contexts. And the study that you cited is an example of people who've been laid off from their jobs,

who are at a period in their careers where they will likely never be rehired and are basically devastated. This is the only organization company that they've worked for. And half of the people are asked to write about the impact. And people write about their sense of rejection and so on. And what is found six months later is the people who write about these difficult experiences are rehired. Around 50% I believe at that point have been rehired. And so we need to ask ourselves the question,

what is it that is happening linguistically when people are writing or talking in therapy or with a good friend? And it is about we start seeing, if you count words, we start seeing an increase in insight words, an increase in words like learning, understand. I didn't ask for it, but I'm growing. So I don't know if that's helpful, but all of these strategies are strategies that can help us to move from feeling stuck and victimized by our story or our circumstance into finding some breathing room in which we, the us, the beautiful us, can stop to step forward. I mean, so powerful. So powerful. Susan, thank you so much.

The book, Emotional Agility, Get Unstuck, Embrace Change, and Thrive in Work and Life. And Jonathan, I want to talk to you a little bit about the work stuff once we let Susan go. Also, the book has an adorable little fish cookie on the front, which has like a little bit of frosting and these sprinkles, and it makes me very, very happy. Susan, thank you so much. We really, we are so great. that you came and spoke to us. And also, thank you for sharing, you know, a bit of your specific

story because, you know, this is a book that clearly is the result of you doing a tremendous amount of personal work and also committing to finding a way to articulate that for the rest of us. And, you know, we wish you so many good things in your life. And, you know, I really do hope you'll write a book about how our current culture and social media is making us emotionally fragile. Thank you, Susan, for being part of the breakdown. Thank you. Thank you. So appreciate it. Thank you both. All right. So first of all, that was amazing. And I know that forever, for the rest of time, you're going to say to me, I was right about Susan David. She was amazing. She was amazing.

There's a bunch of guests. You're like, what are we going to talk to them about? And then you get into the interview and, like, you have so much to talk to them about. Well, here's what we're going to talk about now. and I promise that I would do this. She's got a chapter called emotional agility at work that's kind of mind-blowing because it's like, I think it's potentially revolutionary.

Here are signs that you're hooked at work. And like, this is one, I wish we had like the ability to do like a live quiz. Here are signs that you're hooked at work and hooked is a term meaning you're stuck in patterns that are not healthy that are not serving you. And I hope that Valerie is not answering yes to all these. You can't let go of an idea,

or of being right, even when there's an obviously better course of action. You stay silent when you know something is going wrong. You busy yourself with small tasks without considering the bigger picture. You become apathetic. You volunteer for only the least difficult assignments or tasks. You make backhanded comments about coworkers or projects. You rely on assumptions or stereotypes about your colleagues, and you aren't taking agency over your own career development.

There was another thing she said in this interview, though, about, I mean, which also, I think, applies here, when you plaster that smile on your face at your job, but not only are you not exactly like, show us, Jonathan? Show us what it looks like. There we go. But you're, you're faking. it's not even just like you're faking it.

You are faking a level of acceptance about your life situation that, you know, I think for many people, they feel like there's nothing they can do about it. I was thinking about being a grad student. This is like basically your entire time as a grad student is this. But I think about how many people I know who are not, forget about not doing a job that they want or that's their dream job, but are not satisfied in terms of what their core goals are in life and feel like there's no way out.

It makes me so sad. Jonathan, what do you think about these symptoms? I think back to what Susan was talking about with the person who may have been working as a receptionist or in like a lobby of a hotel and they're doing a job that may not be the job that they want to do for the rest of their life or the job that's the job that they want to do for the rest of their life, or the job that they dreamed of when they were a kid.

But by connecting it to something that they value, they were able to bring a value into their work. Now, do they love every part of their job? Maybe, maybe not. But by bringing that value in, they were able to infuse aspects of what they really care about into their work. And I think, you know, jobs have things that we don't always love.

There may be aspects that we really like and there may be aspects that are challenging, you know, even being on a sitcom, like maybe totally fun to have that amazing cast and characters and make people laugh, but like really long days and challenging schedule, whatever that might be. So I think that by connecting to values, connecting to a sense of purpose, connecting to stuff that like on the surface to a lot of people may sound either esoteric or abstract and they don't really understand how it's going to provide a real, like, tangible benefit.

What I was really moved by is that it can provide very tangible benefit by giving you more enthusiasm, more sense of well-being, more sense of connection to what you're doing in the moment through these other, I guess, pieces that you're aware of or that you're able to channel it and bring into the president. Yeah, I guess I also specifically thought, you know, that this happens a lot of, lot when you're an artist, but you can't find employment as an artist, meaning you don't know

how to support yourself or you don't know, you know, how to make it work. You know, like my dad was a documentary filmmaker, but, you know, like, he was a public school teacher and he loved being of service to the kids and like he did it for, you know, decades and decades and decades. But I also know that like there's a certain amount of fatigue when like what you really want to do in particular, you know, is being. artist or, you know, live that kind of life. And, you know, I started having a little magical thinking, as she calls it. You know, I started having a little magical thinking about like where I want to live in a society where these things don't happen because people can't get their

needs met. You know, like I think of like, you know, when you think of the hippies might have been right again, you know, about like people living in communities where everybody gets to like support each other in whatever they're doing and that your needs get met because the whole system, you know, is working towards everyone's needs being met, you know, in terms of basic needs and also like the true desires that you have. When I joined the innovation and design world, I was writing in L.A. and I had this opportunity to go back to Toronto and enter a totally different field. And I started doing some of that value analysis. I didn't realize I was doing it at the time, but I was like, what do I really care about? And it was like collaboration. And I was spending a lot

of time writing by myself in a little office trying to, you know, take meetings and network, producers and projects. But ultimately I came back and I was often sitting by myself writing, which I didn't really love. And then I was like, okay, so I love collaboration and I love making things and I like exposure to new information, which I felt like I wasn't getting that much of. And I started going down that list. And when I started to identify the things that were meaningful to me and that I wanted to continue to pursue. I was like, oh, this big change, change of city, change of industry, change of, like type of job. I was like, oh, I can take my skill set and enter in a new environment and it helped me get my head around the vastness of the

change to see it as a really cool opportunity. And it ended up, you know, being, I ended up making a lot of things that I never would have otherwise have made. And I was, So I think there is a real tangible benefit to helping people get their mind around stuff. Well, Susan David taught us a lot today and really, really enjoyed speaking with her. Thank you, Jonathan, for bringing her to our attention. And I am glad that I was able to be curious. She said curiosity is important. I'm glad I was able to be curious enough to try and wrap my head around some of these concepts.

And I also really love that as kind of cerebral as she, I mean, she's exceptionally intelligent. And everything she says is amazing. But also, I love how connected she is to her story. I mean, we were weeping over here, you know, just her up with her dad. And like, what did she say? We all die and it's okay to be scared. Like, oh, I mean, just she's so dialed in. Yeah, she's so dialed in.

And, you know, I often wonder, you know, with that experience she had growing up, especially in apartheid, you know, and obviously her family at some point, she made it to America. And, you know, but I think of, like, how many ways her life could have gone, you know, if that teacher hadn't said to her, I can tell you're not okay. Your dad just died. Like, if that teacher hadn't said that, like, how many directions and the fact that she revealed that she was binging and purging, like, never thought, you know, that that would be something

that she would, you know, kind of share in that context. But, you know, I automatically thought of, like, how many kids, how many young people, how many people in their 20s and 30s, you know, are lost and are not having, you know, having, you know, just like an authentic life. And who are those people, you know, that we can point to say, like, that person, you know, brought me up out of that, you know? She mentioned Mrs. F. But I'm so grateful that this is the path that her life took because she's sharing it so beautifully with us. It speaks to the power of not turning away when you know someone isn't okay. That's right.

When they're smiling and just pushing their way through. And you can tell. We should be her marketing people. I want a t-shirt that says like, thanks, Mrs. F. If our audience wants to be curious about what clips are going to be released for this episode or revisiting new content or seeing what Miami and Jonathan are up to, they can follow us on Instagram at Bialic Breakdown. From our breakdown to the one we hope you never have. We'll see you next time.

It's My and Bialyx Breakdown. She's going to break it down for you. She's got a neuroscience PhD or two. One fiction. And now she's going to break down. So.