This Is Woman's Work with Nicole Kalil - Beyond Quick Fixes: Building Better Mental Health From the Inside Out with Dr. Celeste Birkhofer | 431

Starting point is 00:00:00 If you love the show, the best way to keep it going is simple. Share it, rate it, and support the sponsors who support us. I am Nicole Khalil and you're listening to the This Is Woman's Work podcast. We're together. We're redefining what it means, what it looks and feels like to be doing women's work in the world today. And part of that work is rejecting the idea that all of our very complicated human problems have obvious simple solutions. Because, friend, I am so tired of the quick,

Starting point is 00:00:37 fix. Do these three things in this exact order and you'll have all the energy and skin of your youth. Adopt this one habit and eliminate anxiety altogether. Think this thought, buy this thing, follow this routine, heal your trauma, find your purpose, regulate your nervous system, manifest your dreams, and of course, get up at the ass crack of dawn so you have time to meditate your way through all of it. We're inundated with versions of just do this and everything will be fine, except we all experience times where everything is decidedly not fine. And all of the things that are supposed to work don't really seem to. Listen, I am all for tools, tips, and tricks. Give me something useful to try, something that might support me, something that I can experiment with and

Starting point is 00:01:21 decide for myself whether it helps. But there's a big difference between offering someone a tool and selling them a quick fix, because grief is complicated, mental health is complicated, are complicated. We are complicated. And when we reduce deeply human experiences into three easy steps, we don't just oversimplify the problem. We make people feel like they're the problem when the easy solution doesn't work. I mean, if this young but somehow infinitely wise person on TikTok says it's simple and you're still struggling, well, then it must be you, right? Bullshit. Because there will never be one thing that fixes everything. Mental health struggles, tough times, hard choices, grief and heartbreak are part of the human experience and we are not meant to

Starting point is 00:02:08 quick fix our way out of them. But we do need ways to move and live through them. And while there are absolutely external resources that can help, maybe some of what we need most has to be developed within. Our guest, Dr. Celeste Berkofer, calls these our inner resources, the foundational capacities that help us regulate our emotions, build healthy relationships, cope with what life hands us and become more fully ourselves. Dr. Berkhofer is a clinical psychologist, adjunct clinical faculty member at Stanford Medical School, and her new book, Beyond Quick Fixes, is about developing ourselves from the inside out and building the inner resources that support better mental health and a more fulfilling life. Celeste, thank you so much for being here.

Starting point is 00:02:56 And since so many of the quick fixes that were offered have us looking outside of ourselves for answers. I wanted to start our conversation within. So what are these inner resources that you talk about? And why do we need them? Well, thank you for having me. I'm delighted to be here with you and your listeners. And that was a fabulous introduction. I couldn't agree with you more that the five inner resources that I summarize are based on 40 years of my clinical experience and a lot of research that's been done. and that I tried to summarize and make it easy for the average person to understand what are the most important things that we need to develop within ourselves in order to have a stronger foundation from which to live our life. I've kind of summarized them as a healthy sense of self,

Starting point is 00:03:43 which includes things like a healthy self-esteem and agency and your own moral compass, self-compass, things like that. And then secondly, it's effective coping strategies. So to take some time to figure out if the coping strategies you developed growing up are really serving you well or not, and if they aren't some ideas about what you might want to try to change. And then the other category, the other three things are all under psychological capacities, mental, emotional, and relational. So mental capacities are things like, do you have, have you developed, enough self-awareness so that you can have good insights that help you make good judgments and to think through problems. And then there's the emotional capacities. Are you able to use

Starting point is 00:04:33 your emotions to enrich your life and to inform you so that you don't have to be afraid of your emotions or overwhelmed by them? And you also don't have to fear them and shut them out because they seem like too much. And then relational capacities are very important because a lot of The research says that having good relationships is one of the most important predictors of having a good satisfying life. And so there are a number of things that you can develop in yourself. Personal growth in general is one of them so that you can be a good partner to other people, that you can be someone that people enjoy being with and relating with and being in relationship, having a relationship with.

Starting point is 00:05:16 and that's good communication skills, having mutual respect, having empathy for other people, knowing yourself well enough that you can advocate for yourself and say what you need and ask nicely for what you need and handle conflict and that's inevitable in relationships. So that kind of summarizes the five inner resources that are so important to, in the book that I write gives you a self-assessment for each of those areas so that you get a sense about, I'm pretty strong in this way on this inner resource. This one I could use a little work. And so you can take that information then and use whatever tools.

Starting point is 00:05:54 There's so many tools available from therapy to podcasts to reading to using friends to support yourself in your own growth so that you are just better equipped and empowered to be a positive agent in your own life. Because as you said earlier in your great introduction, life is hard. sometimes really hard. And having a mental health struggle is not uncommon. You know, the research also says that before we're 75, half of us are going to at least have had one period in our life where we were really struggling. And at any given time, a quarter of us, 25% of us, are currently struggling with something. So struggling with your mental health is

Starting point is 00:06:35 not a problem in and of itself. Ignoring the problem is and not strengthening yourself and developing yourself so that you're better able to cope with mental health struggles and even it acts as a protective factor so you're less likely to have real a lot of downtime. Okay. There are one million things I like about everything you just said, but what really jumped out to me is all of this is a lifelong journey, pursuit, opportunity. This isn't, I'm struggling, so I need to work on this. This is a preemptive, protective, preventative, while you're in it,

Starting point is 00:07:18 as you're moving through it, when you're on the other side of it, there is no start and stop to everything that you just explained. And whether you're dealing with something really hard or not, every one of these will serve you in your life. So I love that. I also love that all of these five things are internal.

Starting point is 00:07:38 They're within our power to do something with, and about. And then all the tools that are available to us, which can seem very overwhelming sometimes, but they fit within these five things. They support us with, but they're not the end-all be-all and they're not the quick fix that they're being sold to us. They're a tool or a resource to help us build these inner five things. And then the last thing, like I said, one million things, is the self-assessment I think is really helpful. And Celeste, you tell me if I'm wrong, But I would imagine at different stages, we might need support with one of these things more than the other. So, for example, I might look at this and go, I have a pretty healthy sense of self.

Starting point is 00:08:23 But if I'm experiencing trauma or, you know, loss or grief or something like that, that might be something that completely falls apart for me in that time. And I have to rebuild. And so it's not a one and done. Oh, I figured out which of these I'm strong on and which of these I need to work. work on. It's, again, this always evolving life journey. Okay, so I said a lot. What are your thoughts or reactions to any of that? I think you're so spot on. And it's important that we change our mindset that just taking care of ourselves and who we are and who we're becoming is an ongoing process. So that should relieve us of some of the stress of like, I've got to figure this out and

Starting point is 00:09:07 get it right now. It's like, it's not like that. The commitment, you want to make to yourself is to continue investing in your own well-being. You want to just, on a gentle, ongoing way, to balance out self-acceptance with nudges towards a little growth, you know, because we also, it's important that we aren't always pushing ourselves to be better than we already are. It's like love and appreciate all that you've become at this point, all you've endured, all you've dealt with. And then also, always have to be better. And then also, always have some openness to, wow, this is a little bit of a problem area for me. And just as you said, sometimes at certain times in life, when there are immense stressors, or you're going through a terrible

Starting point is 00:09:52 loss, other things, old things that we have tucked away inside get reactivated. And all of a sudden, wow, are my emotion regulation skills seem kind of out the window? You know, yeah, well, my sister was just diagnosed with cancer. And my boyfriend broke up with me two months ago. I'm a little out of sorts. Yeah. So I'm going to need to have a lot more self-compassion and get a lot more support for re-grounding myself and what, and, you know, who I can be and what I'm capable of. But so be patient, be forgiving, be flexible with yourself as you're going through this. But the key is just keep an eye on yourself, you know, and be caring about what you're noticing. And when you notice something that's a little worrisome, that you give it the attention it deserves.

Starting point is 00:10:43 Yeah, I love that you use the word gentle. I often say that to myself on repeat in my own head, gentle, gentle, gentle. And it's my reminder to give myself the same level of grace and compassion that I would give to my daughter or my best friend or my spouse because we are often so hard on ourselves. And I love that you pointed out what often feels like a paradox, which is we can have a healthy sense of self and we can feel good about who we are and still be growth oriented. Yes. In fact, they typically go hand in hand.

Starting point is 00:11:19 I find people who aren't very growth oriented are pretending they have a healthy sense of self. So I want to talk about something you said that jumped out at me when you were talking about effective coping strategies. You said something to the effect of acknowledging the coping strategies we might have been given, right, or grew up with might not be serving us today. And I mean, the reality is we grow up with all sorts of potential harmful coping strategies. How do we recognize what is serving us and what isn't serving us or what is our own coping strategy versus what somebody else told us we should or shouldn't do? The gist of my question is how do we find, discover, uncover what our best coping strategies are?

Starting point is 00:12:06 Well, yeah, there's a chapter in the book that taught about coping strategies that also kind of takes you through some exercises and gives examples of common coping strategies that we often grab hold of when we need them the most. And we're growing up and we're not actually all that skillful yet. But we learn to do things that help in the moment kind of just get us through. And they're more like survival mechanisms. They're not necessarily the most mature and healthy ways. of coping. And one, that's an age thing. We're just not that good at it yet. But two, our own parents who are imperfect human beings, you know, that might have been a strength or it might not have theirs to be a role model for how to help us be accepting of difficulties and to try to hold a good attitude about what we're going through, to believe in yourself and your capacity to deal with hard things. One of my favorite mottoes for myself and people are, I can deal with hard things. We may not like it or enjoy it or find it very enjoyable, but we can't. So to really kind of believe that you just keep putting one foot in front of the other and you will get somewhere.

Starting point is 00:13:16 And keep an eye on the kind of your thinking. So do you have a lot of negative thinking that gets activated? And that might have been maybe you became a worrier. And that was one of your coping strategies was to obsessively worry about something that was going on. And it made you feel like you were doing something. but then you realize it's actually not helping me to improve this situation. The book can give you some ideas about some common not helpful coping strategies fall into categories, if I can broadly categorize them, either over-control or avoidance.

Starting point is 00:13:52 So sometimes we want to move in and micromanage everything and try to control life when you can't, when there's things that aren't controllable. Other times when we get kind of overwhelmed, we develop strategies. like procrastination or avoidance or drinking too much or, and that's more of an avoidant type of a strategy to get through something painful. But it's not really addressing the problem and it's not where we want to be. We really want to find our way back to having the right kind of attitude of taking constructive action to try to improve the moment when we're going through something difficult. We want to have self-compassion when we're going through something difficult because even if

Starting point is 00:14:36 you helped create the problem you're facing, it doesn't help you to be critical and berate yourself and beat yourself up about it. What helps is to be honest to evaluate the situation that you're in and then to think about what can I do to improve this moment, to improve the situation, to take steps towards resolving the issue that I'm struggling with. How can I get support and help for myself? How can I hold the right attitudes that and be really on the lookout for all kinds of negative self-talk and negative thinking that we things we say to ourselves how can I keep myself out of these categories of over control or avoidance and kind of stay in my lane with I can deal with this and this is how we build resilience you know that we the facing and going through something difficult learning

Starting point is 00:15:26 important things along the way and finding a way to regroup and giving yourself lots of support while you're going through it. Having a teenager who's becoming more independent is both a blessing and a curse. I want her to have freedom and privacy, but I also want to know she's okay without turning into a full-time stalker. And that's what I like about Hey Polo. It's a family safety app built around consent. Everyone controls what they share with whom and for how long, whether that's an location, general area, or even private mode, because trust still matters, even when we worry. Hey, Polo can let you know when somebody gets where they're going, alert you if they are speeding, and has an emergency SOS, lets them quickly alert trusted contacts and share their exact location

Starting point is 00:16:13 if they need help. And one subscription covers your whole family. So yes, our teenagers, but also aging parents, partners, siblings, whoever you want to stay connected to with unlimited members and groups. So protect your loved ones without spying on them. Go to heypolo.com slash work or use code work, that's W-O-R-K, and get 40% off your first year. Again, heypolo.com slash work or code work for 40% off your first year. The four of the five inner resources are very obviously inner. The relational one absolutely has an inner component, but it then by design involves other people. And I think we have been taught by social media and society and marketing

Starting point is 00:17:04 that products or tools or things, I think we tend to go that route a little bit easier than we go to people or community. Why is it so important? Why are other people, the only thing that is in here that is even moderately external over all the other available resources to us today. Well, you're bringing up a great point. And you're right that the relational capacities I'm talking about are a little bit more about how can you develop yourself

Starting point is 00:17:35 into the kind of person who relates well with others. But I want to highlight that what you're saying is true. We need other people and we need real people. Like because of social media, we have the opportunity to have what they're calling parasocial relationships, you know, where we kind of feel like we're relating with other people, but it's in this distant form. And so people matter in our lives. I think what's hard for us, though, to turn to other people when we need them for love or to help us through hard times is that people are imperfect.

Starting point is 00:18:10 And it's so rather than turn to a tool or some thing that's offered online to help yourself, or AI even, you know, for advice, real people are fallible, and it's a little scary to make yourself vulnerable and to rely on other people. And so one of the things we need to get better at is being able to tolerate when others disappoint us. Because rather than cut people out because it feels a little too scary or to dilute ourselves into this idea that I should turn to people because people are important and they're going to always be there and not let me down. Well, let me tell you something. Sometimes people will let you down again because we're just, we're human. And we need to get stronger at one of the emotional skills that you need is the ability to tolerate discomfort,

Starting point is 00:19:04 you know, rather than run from it or try to fix it too quickly again with coping strategies that cause harm. So we have to be able to turn to others and hope for the best and maybe ask them for be specific about the kind of help we're needing from them. Could you just please hear me out and offer some empathy? I don't want any advice just yet, but, you know, and so there are things that we can learn as far as asking for what we need from others that increases the likelihood that they can respond in a way that feels helpful. But I think it's just scary to make yourself vulnerable with others. And it hurts. It hurts when people let you down. And so sometimes we withdraw from relationships to avoid that pain, but that's not a great solution because then we're going to feel

Starting point is 00:19:52 more lonely and isolated. So we have to develop the capacity to deal with disappointments and, more importantly, rupture repairs. To have one of the ways that you build a sense of security, a secure attachment and a sense of trust with other people. It's not a not from having perfect interactions or a parent doesn't have to be perfect with their kid. What you need, though, is someone who's willing and able to repair things with you when they go wrong so that you're not so frightened of that. I'll be completely transparent. This is probably and will probably and has always probably been my biggest opportunity is tolerating when people disappoint

Starting point is 00:20:34 because I spent so much of my life, you know, being the and I just put the perfection. right? I've got all the answers. I've got everything under control, that type of thing. And so I have a plethora of, I've, I asked you for help, but you didn't give it or you didn't show up or whatever. And so see, I'm right. If I want it done right, I got to do it myself. Or I'm in this alone or I'm also introverted. So there's a whole host of the things. So I struggle with this one. So one of the things that I try to think about is who is the best person to go to for what I need, right? So if I need a good listener, I'm going to call my friend Nikki, maybe not my husband, because Jay is more of a problem solver and wants to help fix, whereas my friend Nikki, like, we'll just sit with you and hold you while you cry. And so, like, one of the

Starting point is 00:21:27 tools I've started working on is, what do I, I need right now? And who might be the best person to offer that and then trying to be a little bit better about that? But are there any other tools or ideas or like what do we do when we're already hurting and we reach out we do the scary thing and then we feel hurt again right well I think what we can do is again again become better and better at communicating what we're needing in the moment so that if my husband for instance also is problem solver and he's not as good at empathy and if I start to tell him about something I'm struggling with and he responds in the way that's most comfortable for him, I can just say, I mean, the term I think to keep in mind is, I'm not finding that helpful. It's like to let the

Starting point is 00:22:17 person know, is like to redirect the conversation you're having with the person you're needing something from and invite them to give you what you do need. So rather than me say, oh my God, there you go again. I've told you so many times. Don't try to fix the problem. I just want you to know what I'm having such a hard day, you know, like that's responding out of frustration and I'm being a little critical. That's not going to warm him up to kind of give me what I'm really asking for. So instead, I try to be a better communicator and say, I'm not finding that helpful. I think I just really need you to empathize with what a hard day I've had. Let's deal with ideas for helping me later. And then he's like, oh, okay, yeah, thanks for the reminder. And then he can be more like

Starting point is 00:23:07 friend Nikki, you know, who's like really can be there for me in the way that I need. So a lot of, one of the biggest things with communication with people is that when they're saying and doing something that irritates us or annoys us, human reaction is to say something critical, you know, is to maybe lash out or like, oh, never mind. I knew I shouldn't have talked to you about this or, you know, to just respond with frustration, instead of saying, okay, this isn't going well, this isn't helping me. Let me tell them what I need. Let me coach them. Let me teach you how I want to be treated. And so you're giving the other person a chance to do better. I mean, most people want to meet our needs if they can, but they sometimes need a lot of coaching, you know, or we're in a different kind of

Starting point is 00:23:55 mood. And so it helps if you can be aware, something's not going well, put a pause in it. One of my favorite expressions is that that's not helpful or I'm not finding that helpful. And that gets my husband and I out of a lot of tense moments. You know, we're going in the car and he's criticizing the way I'm trying to get to the airport and we're running late and he's stressing me out and just like, okay, Wendell, that's not helpful. Right. I love that. So my next question is, can these inner resources actually be developed? Are some people just more naturally equipped? You know, I think sometimes we think we're born with these things or born without or we grew up with better parents who taught us or we didn't, right?

Starting point is 00:24:37 So ultimately what I'm asking is can these be developed no matter what your starting point is? Yes. This is under like the growth mindset kind of a concept. I am not a believer that you're born with these talents and capabilities or you're not. Everybody can make some progress. Now, depending upon how hard of a childhood you had or how much trauma you experienced in your life, which can affect our brain structure and can make us more prone to anxiety and reactivity and some things like that, you know, that your prefrontal cortex didn't get the right kind of head started

Starting point is 00:25:15 it needed growing up if you had a lot of trauma and adverse childhood experiences. However, that doesn't mean you're doomed. You can take yourself from where you are now and take small steps towards in strengthening yourself in all of these capacities. So I'd say stay hopeful, but also, if you were to like read the assessment in the book and decide, oh, God, yeah, this really highlighted some areas I could use some trouble. Don't try to all do it, do it all right away or in a hurry. It's like, I'm just going to pick one small area. Like, okay, I'm going to really work on my self-talk, you know, right now because I have got the most negative, critical voice in my head. And so for this month, this is going to be the focus of how I work on strengthening and having a healthier sense of

Starting point is 00:26:03 self and improving myself, my self-esteem and appreciating myself more and giving myself the grace, as you said earlier, to treat myself as I would, someone I really cared about and loved and respected. You title your book Beyond Quick Fixes, and that really jumped out at me because Quick Fixes and one-size-fits-all solutions are pet peeves of mine. And so my question is, how do we tell the difference? How do we know what's a helpful tool and what is a Quick Fix? Fantastic question. Yeah, I'm not, I don't want people to think that I'm all down on Quick Fixes. Sometimes we need a moment to just improve our mood or to bring in some pleasure into our life because we've had a difficult day. And the trick is we can't over-rely on quick fixes for everything because then we don't develop ourselves and we don't really,

Starting point is 00:26:56 we're not going to create the most fulfilling life for ourselves and be the most effective in coping with difficulties. A good quick fix works in the moment, but it doesn't cause harm. So of quick fix that you want to be wary of is something that can devolve into an addictive bad habit. You know, drinking too much, you know, alcohol or shopping so much, which is a kind of a good quick fix, makes you feel better. And then all of a sudden you've got all kinds of credit card debt. Okay, that quick fix is got, we're going to have to take some, you know, really look at that one. because that now is causing harm. And the problem is that all of these kind of quick fixes,

Starting point is 00:27:42 what they have in common is they work in the moment. So we have to care enough about ourselves that we're thinking longer term. Is this way I have of meeting my need or taking care of myself, keeping me from having my best life, keeping me from being the person I want to be, and is it causing harm?

Starting point is 00:28:03 Is it, am I starting to feel like I am. getting a little bit addicted to X, Y, or Z, you know? And it's not a good feeling and it's causing some difficulties in my relationships or it's causing some financial stress or the fun I have with gambling on sporting things, which has become quite popular now. It's like, okay, now I can't live off what I make anymore because I keep taking so many darn chances on betting on game X, Y, or Z. You know, okay, now this is a quick fix that is causing more harm than good. A handful of the examples you gave make perfect sense, and I can totally see them as quick fixes. And I think there is even some that on the surface seem good. Like when we talk about gambling or drinking,

Starting point is 00:28:52 I think most of us are like, okay, I understand how it's a quick fix, but I also know that ultimately and that's not the healthiest choice, right? But there are some things that actually kind of look like the healthier choice. And I do think sometimes can cause harm because maybe they treat a symptom or they feel like they're helping and not harmful. So I'll give the example that I think is commonplace nowadays is like supplements or manifesting or I don't know. There's just a lot of things. They're not bad. I think sometimes helps us treat a surface issue and never allows us to go to the deeper one. So like the supplement thing, at one point, I was taking 19 supplements three times a day. And I had to look at myself and be like, this is stupid.

Starting point is 00:29:41 Yeah. I mean, it sounded good. Right. I did it for the quote unquote, right reasons. Right. But it wasn't actually fixing the root cause. And it was treating symptoms of like, oh, I feel tired and I feel old. And, you know, like, and I'm like, oh, this is something different. I don't know if I'm making any sense. But I'm just curious, you're saying, thoughts about this inundation that seems to be out there of what sounds good. Yeah. It's, it's very tempting. I mean, this is what's hard about being a human today. It's like, there's a lot of good things about it, but we have like problems of abundance and overwhelmed. There's so many things thrown our way that, oh, just take all these supplements and you will have good energy and your

Starting point is 00:30:23 skin will glow and you will be able to work out harder and you will, there's a lot of places that we can grab hold of something first that even seems pretty healthy and then it becomes, you know, maybe a waste of our resources or it's not really giving us the kind of overall good health that we want and it can start to take on a little bit

Starting point is 00:30:44 of a compulsive feel. And I think that, the only way we can spot that is if we have one of the most important inner resources is self-awareness is to have something within you, that starts to go, hey, is this, do you think this is really good? Do you think this is really necessary? I wonder if we're getting a little, we're getting over in too much into this in a way that we've been, yeah,

Starting point is 00:31:11 maybe this isn't so necessary. And also, we have to, there's so many different things we can do to improve our lives or feel better or things like that, that that can become overwhelming in and of itself. And I almost feel like we're all needing to find a way to live with more in simplicity and intention. How can I live a good, satisfying, rewarding life without getting too overwhelmed by all the possibilities, all the options, all the, you know, we all want to have decent physical health. We all want to have good foundation of strong mental health as much as we're able. We want to have some fulfillment and fun. But where do we draw the line and set some limits so we can have some balance and not just feel so overwhelmed by all that's possible? In your book, you talk about

Starting point is 00:32:05 our wise self. And my question is, how do we recognize our wise selves and how do we learn to trust it. I mean, there's a lot of noise in our heads and in our minds and in our hearts and in our experiences. How do we distinguish? How do we learn to trust? Yeah. Well, wise self ideally is this part of us that we strengthen over time that we listen to more often. And wise self is best described as the best of all of your best qualities are kind of piled into this one aspect of yourself that is wise and it is a part of you that's very caring and can be comforting and understanding of your emotions and the pain that you might be in. But it's also very wise as in practical and it holds the big picture in mind. And so it's like the most loving, caring,

Starting point is 00:33:04 wises person outside yourself that you could imagine or turn to. And I do suggest to my patience, that that's part of how they develop wise self internally is to think about who are the wisest people that have ever been in your life, who were really kind and caring and empathic, but they also were honest with you. They helped you see things you needed to see. They nudged you in the right direction. They cared about your overall long-term well-being and that you were making wise decisions for your life. And then just imagine them and what they would say if you turn to them and eventually what you want, we want to internalize that ourselves so that we have that available 24-7. We don't have to wait until we can call our wisest friend and that we have that voice to listen to inside.

Starting point is 00:33:50 And it takes some experimenting because sometimes we think, all right, wise self, what would you do? Help me out here. I'm really in a jam. And I think, again, if we're honest with ourselves, we can tell when it's giving good advice or not, when it's directing us. basically with some wisdom and some compassion. It combines these two main qualities if I had to distill it down. Okay. And then for the approximately 25%, as you mentioned earlier, of people who are going through something really hard right now, where life is genuinely painful and there is no fix right now, what would you offer? for them to help move and live through this particularly painful time.

Starting point is 00:34:43 Well, being a clinical psychologist, I'm biased a little in thinking to reach out to get some professional help, to try to find a good place, a wise, trained person to help you sort out kind of some of the root of your problem, how to get some just immediate help with getting through the worst of it. There are other resources like the young people, especially are liking crisis text line. That's where you text 741, 741, and then you get a counselor that will text with you about something immediately that's really disturbing you or troubling you. But I think finding somebody, if you have a mental health issue that has gotten bad enough that's really causing you pain and suffering, is to find a way to get some professional health. And then you can supplement that again with other things like listening to podcasts that inspire you and give you good ideas and reading books like the book that I wrote that can help you.

Starting point is 00:35:49 Some people turn to spiritual mentors, you know, if spirituality has really been an important source in their life to get some guidance from too. The key is like don't gut it out alone. like really let yourself be helped by and you know and get some guidance through this really difficult time and there are many many different resources and it's it's kind of helpful to have an idea of like coaching is very popular right now it's like well if you're in a lot of have a mental health kind of crisis going on coaching might not be quite the right thing right now maybe it'll be good for later yeah i was going to say turning to somebody you trust but it is also equipped. I do coaching and the amount of times in my history or I've said, I am not equipped to

Starting point is 00:36:34 handle that. Like I'm not a trained psychologist. I don't. And I think, you know, people love us, but may not be equipped. And so I couldn't agree more. And I'd like to echo that statement of finding somebody who you trust and who is equipped, a professional or, you know, somebody who does this work for a living, I think is so, so, so important. But I love. the nod to other resources. So I just want to remind you, the listener, the book is called Beyond Quick Fixes. It's available on Amazon or wherever it is that you buy books. Let's keep our local bookstores in business. And Celeste's website is Celesteberghoffer.com. We're going to put those links in all the other ways to find it and follow Celeste in show notes. Celeste, thank you for your incredibly important work and for being

Starting point is 00:37:21 here today. Thank you for having me. It's my pleasure. All right, friend, I'm going to close us out by reminding you that there is no three-step formula for being human. No hack that makes grief disappear, no morning routine that guarantees fulfillment, and no quick fix that will somehow make life stop being hard. And anyone telling you otherwise should be ashamed because what we can do, what is within our control, is to build the inner resources that help us meet ourselves and whatever life hands us with more capacity, more compassion, and more trust. So sure, try the things that interest you. Keep the tools that help.

Starting point is 00:38:01 Toss the ones that don't and definitely stop assuming there's something wrong with you because something complicated doesn't have a quick, simple solution. The work isn't to fix ourselves. It's to know ourselves, strengthen ourselves, and learn how to move through life as fully ourselves. This is woman's work.

This Is Woman's Work with Nicole Kalil - Beyond Quick Fixes: Building Better Mental Health From the Inside Out with Dr. Celeste Birkhofer | 431

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