Unlonely with Dr. Jody Carrington - How the Hell Do We Stay Okay When Everything’s Not? - Gillian Deacon

Episode Date: June 11, 2026

We’re all just trying to hold it together in a world that feels like it’s burning down. Uncertainty. Fear. No end in sight. These are not just buzzwords, they are the ingredients of dysregulation. And they’re stealing the best parts of us.In this raw, real, and soul-shifting conversation, I sat down with the incredible @gilldeacon to talk about her book A Love Affair with the Unknown and the question we're all asking right now: How do we be okay when things are not okay?Here’s what we landed on:We don’t get stronger by avoiding fear—we grow by naming it and sitting in it.Healing starts when the nervous system feels safe again. Not before.Curiosity is the antidote to control. Certainty is a myth—but wonder is medicine.Slowing down is NOT weakness, it’s where the wisdom lives.Let this be your reminder: Hope is a choice. You are not broken. You’ve just lost access to the best parts of you. Let’s get it back.You matter more than you know. We’re in this together.Follow Gillian Here:@gilldeacon@aloveaffairwiththeunknown Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hey, welcome back. Welcome in for another episode of the Un Lonely Podcast. Listen, I got a little trick for you today. I'm in the business of finding very powerful women, insightful, stepping out of the box, willing to be brave, curious, all of those things. Today you're going to meet Jill Deakin. And she's a longtime radio and television home. host. She was on CBC Radio forever. She's got, anyway, she's a mom. She's a Canadian journalist, broadcaster, and author with a career spanning more than two decades. She was best known for hosting CBC radios here and now out of Toronto, one of the

network's flagship afternoon programs where she was known for her calm, curious, and deeply respectful interviewing style. I want you just to settle in to this interview. because I sometimes I find it difficult to interview people. Sometimes even if they have the most incredible stories, I'm left kind of like trying to navigate the conversation and figure out how to like get to the heart of people's stories. Jill, with her longtime broadcasting experience, made this so easy and enjoyable.

And I loved every second. I hope you do too. Buckle up. Okay, now you heard all about her and now you get to meet her. Jill Deacon, I am so goddamn excited to step in. We got a curse in the first sentence. Oh, buddy, listen. I feel I've accomplished something already.

Is that not the state of the world, though? I mean, if we don't start with our hair on fire, I mean, I feel like I got to match the energy of the universe right now and like, you got to name it to tame it. That's what they taught me over the years. You got to name it to tame it. And I got to talk. I want to drive right into a love affair with the unknown because I think uncertainty, fear, no end in sight.

Those three things are the key ingredients to disregulating humans. Yeah. And when I saw the title of your book, A Love Affair with the Unknown, it's like it was like, yes. You know, instead of running and figuring out sort of how do we hide and fix everything. How do we just sort of bravely step into it? So take me take it from the top. A CBC icon. A Canadian hero, a voice of reason in the darkness. I mean, all of the things. And my sick boys love you. So I want to know how this book came about and why now.

Well, it's funny. The book came about. It started honestly in November of 2022. I, I, when, by the way, I had been feeling weird, I'll just say, for several months. July of 2022, I started to have weird heart palpitations, had to see a cardiologist, a bunch of, I started to flag my energy. I was feeling this weird sinus, headache-y thing and muscle fatigue. And it was just kind of, I just thought I had some virus going on. And I was continuing about my life, just not as lively, but mostly still functioning. But I had an idea for a book about uncertainty.

And I met with my literary agent. and I bounced a few ideas off her. And the one about uncertainty, I said, you know what? I've had breast cancer twice and other cancer diagnosis as well. I've also been a live broadcaster most of my life. So I have, between those things, I have dealt with a lot of uncertainty and have my own sort of thoughts on how we deal with it. And I said, and you know, the world is riddled with uncertainty of all kinds,

not just my personal health stories. I mean, we're all battling questions and unknowns about climate and AI and geopolitics. And by the way, this is 2022. Okay. And she says, wow, that's really the one. That's the idea. Go with that. Start working on it.

Drafts of things. You know, we'll start to see where we get to. So we have a couple of Zoom meetings, you know, every three or four weeks. And I'm progressively getting worse in terms of, I'm like writing and researching and thinking about all this, but I'm talking like, I've got two songs on. on the and scarves on the on these zoom calls and I've and eventually you know by the crest of 2023 January I've been to multiple doctors I've had 700 tests nobody can figure out what's the matter with me can I suddenly said to myself and my agent one day um my lens on uncertainty has shifted

because I am I got a front row seat here I don't know what's the matter with me and I don't know when or if I will ever feel like my old self again. And so she just, in her brilliant and encouraging wisdom, said, just keep writing. And it turned out, writing was pretty much the only activity. And even some days I couldn't manage that. But it was the only activity that I had energy for. I mean, I really just became a limp noodle and lay around for months and months,

except for all the specialist appointments I kept getting sent to. And everybody said, I'd tell them my story and they'd say, oh, you know, cardiology, rheumatology, respirology, internal medicine. I mean, like oncology, everybody. And they'd say, yeah, that stinks, but can't help you. And pass me on to the next one. And very kindly, but not a lot of, no answers. So I was just getting deeper and deeper into this fear.

and misery of stuckness around, can anybody help me here? Am I ever? What is this? Is there a roadmap? That lack of, yeah, no roadmap. So somewhere in, and again, I just kept writing, but I decided slowly, there was no penny drop moment,

but I realized, okay, I can either stew in my frustration and sadness and desire for this to be what it isn't. Or I can take a new tack and try to figure out how do we be okay with things not being okay? And what else might be possible? And anyhow, so that's the genesis of the book. And the inquiries that I did, I mean, it's not a book all about me. by goodness, nobody wants to read a book about long COVID suffering,

because that's what it turned out to be. But I did a lot of investigating into why our brains, why we feel so, we desire and feel more comfortable with, you know, familiarity, certainty, security. We think that's how things should be. Make a plan, stick to it, have it all go exactly where we want. see the future get there. Predictability, yes.

Right. And how many times do we have these conversations? Set your goals. You know, know where you're going. Oh, yes. How does that do? What does that do to the nervous system, right? And there's so much.

Yes. So much data to support that. Absolutely. So we can, we can do that or we can start to, yeah, shift into what else is, as I say, I sort of looked into research about why our bodies and our minds kind of seek that. when in fact we know it's futile. There's no, you don't, you don't know what's, we don't know what's going to happen in the rest of this conversation, Jody.

Never mind, you know, when we hang up the phone or whatever. Like, we don't know what's coming tomorrow. And we don't know, but we, and we don't like that. But it's, it's always been thus. And we somehow need to get better accustomed to being okay with that. So that was what I set out to do for myself in my predicament, which I'm now blessedly. very much out past. I mean, it's behind me now. But it, and I set out to do that for myself, but also for all the other people who experience uncertainty of any other kind, because there's

so many flavors. Well, and so interestingly, I mean, if you only knew back then, I mean, two years ago, if I were to say fast forward in 26, it's only going to get worse. Like, you think you need to be talking about this right now. And I say this, you know, so many times in, you know, many audiences that I get is like, listen, I'm, it's only going to get worse. And I say that in, with respect to sort of like, not to scare us as humans even more, but like when we get back to this idea of being simple, which we're, you know, I want to step into now in terms of, you know, what is the answer to much of this is that like when you understand this becomes the most superpower of being a successful human in this moment,

if you can sort of understand that the way we regulate through uncertainty is the answer, not to try to sort of whack a mole it and decrease the uncertainty and like, okay, let's, what can we control? What do we have? That does that versus like, okay, how, who and what do we need to sort of hang on to, to be able to navigate the, the seas that are uncertainty. And tell me, so take us on a bit of a journey then, you know, you sort of uncover this problem or this, ha, I can name it as uncertainty, which by the way, I mean, is the number one ask of

keynote speakers in my world right now. Can you please talk to our leadership team about how you lead in uncertain times? Fuck. Yeah. Yep. Yep, I can. Isn't that, isn't that, isn't that? It's the question. And that's why I say, you know, it's sort of a joke that back in 2022, we thought, boy, there's so much uncertainty in the world. And now it seems so charming, doesn't it? Oh, it's so cute. We thought COVID was going to be tricky. Hey, hey. And I, like, just on that vein, I mean, I want to know your take too, but it's only been recently, I would say, you know, following Epstein files and, you know, a lot of sort of geopolitical

disconnect and the divisiveness that seemingly is becoming even deeper. I, my body feels very similar to what I was feeling in the depths of COVID, which is the massive desire for community. Yes. The massive desire to bring people back to humanity. that we're way more like than we are different. And I felt that significant pull in those times of just such fear and such divisiveness and such like vaxers versus anti-vaxers.

And I just sort of like if you just took the height of that and now placed it over what I feel like doing a morning, you know, update or a scroll or a sitting, you know, with my coffee in front of CNN, which is, you know, a dumb choice. But still, I mean, yeah, dumb, dumb, dumb choices. Trying to stay informed. And it's like I feel that level, if not a hundred times heavier, than just sort of the unfairness and how it just pushes people to the ends of spectrums.

Yeah. And what we lose access to is humanity first, right? When we get this uncertainty takes away access to the best parts of us. That's what scares me the most of uncertainty is that we don't lose our ability to be great. We lose access to it. And I see so many great humans right now. having no access to kindness, to compassion, to empathy. And so take me through a little bit of this process, of, you know, sort of identifying this

as the thing. And then the evolution as you write this book, what do you learn? What do you see? What do you notice? I mean, lots. So I'll have to pick and choose what comes to mind. But it's interesting that you say that the people not having access to empathy and kindness right now, which is, I think part of maybe the first, if that feels, you know, if you're listening

and that feels like you, I think the first place to start maybe is compassion for ourselves. One of the things I talk about in the book is there's a whole chapter about fear and recognizing what is fear, what does it feel like? What is it doing to us? Identify it. look it squarely in the eye and say, okay, what is this really? Oh, I feel I might lose my job. Okay, but what's that about? And oh, but then I wouldn't have security. Okay, but what's that about? Like really understanding, being self-aware and taking some time to recognize this palpitation in my heart,

this clenching in my gut. Is that real or is that my body reacting to something that I'm thinking about? and if I think about something else, does that go away? Do I feel better? I mean, there's all that mindfulness to it, right? Being present to what's actually happening and not getting caught up in the, you know, anticipatory grief or suffering. We're, you know, bleeding before we're cut, as they say, about anticipatory anxiety. So we can catastrophize when we look at the news. And then we can imagine, oh, that terrible thing that's happening, you know, wherever could affect me this way. or what, you know, the root of all fears is the belief or the worry that we won't be able to handle whatever it is and whatever consequence it might mean.

So my fear when I was so unwell was, you know, am I going to die? Am I going to not be able to handle being this way? Well, then I'd catch myself saying, okay, but you already are this way. and you're kind of handling it because you're still here. So that kind of catching ourselves, are we worrying about something that hasn't happened yet? And if it's happening now, I think we're kind of already dealing with it because here we are. So anyway, examining fear is a really big part of that. And then having some compassion for ourselves and saying, of course we're scared right now.

Of course these are terrifying times. And of course, you know, I don't feel like doing A, B or C. and sort of giving ourselves a bit of grace to be to be pummeled by the world at the moment. And I think that's essential for that self-reflection and then some self-compassion allows us to be, yeah, okay. And then once I've given myself that grace, I can find it in myself for others more easily. That's what I find. I think you're brilliant. You come back to the best of you.

And I think, you know, this is interesting to me because having that ability to self-reflect is not something we're born with. No, it's not. Takes work. Oh, my God. And it takes example. It takes somebody to walk you through it sometimes. And you know what else it takes or to interrupt, but you know what else it takes?

And this is kind of one of the things that I started to shift for me when I was in this forced and very unwelcome slowdown, I tried to turn that on its head and say, okay, well, what else is happening in this slowdown? Huh. I am able to pause and examine and take more, you know, make more effort to that self-awareness and pause and reflect and think, well, wait, why do I only think that I'm a valuable, worthy person if I can run up and down the stairs and and go do 700 things in a given day. I mean, that's how I've had been before, but is there another way that, like, what else am I?

You know, you have to peel away some layers. And so, in other words, nobody has to get terribly unwell in order to have the time to, that was forced upon me. But we can choose to slow down and take a little time and do that work to be a bit more self-aware and to think about those things. So sometimes the thing that you think you don't want

can be an opportunity to think differently and reflect. And the reflecting time and the slowing down is always valuable. Certainly for the nervous system, as you mentioned earlier. And it's dumb. Like, okay, so here's the problem with that. And I want your insight on this so much because I think the hardest thing that we're going to face in this next generation is exactly what you described to slow down guess what lives in the slowdown big emotion fear doubt shame guilt remorse so if i can avoid that

in any cost if i can take a weed gummy if i can go for a run if i can get on my phone and start scrolling. Scroll the shit out of anything. You know, when you wake up at three o'clock in the morning, instead of just sort of reflecting on why you might be waking up, I am deep into block blast, you know? I am trying to figure out what happened to somebody's mother who got abducted. I am, I am like, date line. I am, like, I feel like I am so good. I should have been like a, I don't know, it's like an FBI agent because I am doing deep dives on people's history. Instead of thinking about why did I yell at somebody at the hockey rink today? Why do I want to throw a punch my husband?

Why? And there's not, none of that is self-reflection. None of that is like, you know what, Joad? You know, you didn't drink any water today. You didn't work out in the last week. All you've been saying is how much you're failing your children. You can't wait to get back on the road. So slow this down for me a little bit because I, this is the age-old answer.

This is what gets me every time is that if we go back to Eastern Philadelphia, philosophical practices, long before as Westerners even became on this planet. Same to. Yeah. This conversation around meditation, around stillness, around quiet, around spirituality, around coming back to the body, which is, I mean, this is where the root of it all. I hear you saying that like this is almost, I think about it as the discipline of connection, which is going to be the greatest gift you will ever give.

anybody in your life, but it has to start with you. How do we even start when we have so many opportunities for exit ramps? So many sexier opportunities, right? The least sexiest thing, and I had to do this this morning, okay? This is a little tip. Not tip. This is a little fucking insight. I get it how important it is. And I literally, I was curling my hair this morning. And I was thinking, I need to take three minutes and sit here and breathe. And I was like, Nope, no I don't. Look it. I got to get a hair another curl in. Somebody's going to be coming in here right away because I didn't get their lunch ready and somebody's going to, you know, like, and I was like, like it was a full time job to be like, stop. Sit three minutes. No, too much, two.

Then two minutes is all, I'm having this in and I know how fundamental that is for my nervous system. I know it's not being more true. Right. So the key is I, I want like how do we get. this conversation around the benefit it's going to be to humanity. If individually we can give ourselves that gift, next best, right kind thing. When I look at trying to change the world and save the world, I get overwhelmed. Yes. And then I just shut down. And so the answer, you know, so take me through that little piece of like why that's so critically important. What happens to your nervous system? What, you know, what goes on? And I know you've written about it so beautifully. Well, yeah, the, I mean, the nervous system is, there's two branches to the nervous system.

This is, again, something that I never knew about until I was forced to have to learn this. And I'm so glad I did. So everybody has these two sets, these two branches of our nervous system. The parasympathetic mode and the sympathetic mode. And the sympathetic mode of our nervous or branch of our nervous system is, the nickname is fight or flight, right? and you, I'm sure you know this, Jody, but I love it. I love it. I just find it so helpful to think about this.

Yeah. So fight or flight is, it's, we've, we need that part of our nervous system so that when, you know, if you think of how we've evolved, like when the wildebeest comes and attacks our settlement, we need to be able to, it's those quick twitch muscles. It's the rush of adrenaline, cortisol, stress hormones that are actually really beneficial and helpful because we need to get the hell away from the wildebeest attacking and grab our children. and away we go. That's how we've survived. Exactly. And you don't even have to think about it.

That's how amazing the human body is. It just does that for us. Exactly. So we mustn't sort of we give service and thanks to the sympathetic nervous system because it's important sometimes. The problem is when we were cave people running from wildebeests we had the occasional spurt

of all these stress hormones when they came and attacked our settlements. But today our bodies aren't that different. We haven't evolved. Our brains and bodies are roughly similar to how they were, you know, all those centuries ago. But the input of stress on us has got those stress hormones, you know, the pings on our devices and the beeps of the traffic and the flaring up of the news and the devices and the blah, blah, everything and everyone. I'm wearing two devices at a moment. It's like a cortisol shooter on our wrist when we got an Apple watch. Right. Little, bz, bz, bz, bz.

Anyway, you can turn those notifications off. That's my number one recommendation. Yeah. But anyway, so, okay, so that's the sympathetic nervous system and maybe a sense as to why it's gone a little overboard and haywire right now. The parasympathetic nervous system is our, the nickname is sort of rest and digest and heal. Healing happens in that mode. And that's the mode that we need to let ourselves get into more often.

And we have to work at it now. We have to make a, you know, you go to a yoga class and they talk about putting your hands in this position on the floor, lying face upwards and breathing so that you can signal to your brain to shift into the parasympathetic nervous system. Anyway, the, the, de, de, de, what was I going to say? Oh, the cool, one cool thing that I learned is that if on the way, rushing to escape the wildebeest, you get scratched, you know, a claw gets you on the arm and you and you're bleeding. As you're running to safety to some high, far away place where the

wildebeest beast can't get you anymore, that bleeding will stop and it won't stop until you are in a safe place because your body can't afford to expend energy on. you know, blood clotting and healing when it's in fight or flight mode, it needs to get you to safety and it can't start the healing until that safety has been established and you have shifted back into the parasympathetic nervous system. So that was a big underpinning of how I got better from this 20-month, you know, experience with long COVID symptom after symptom after misery after discomfort. I mean, it was brutal. And some people say, oh, well, long COVID, just a life sentence. It's not. I got so completely

better and I'm 1,000% back to living a full and vibrant life. So just that sidebar is important to say. But that's a big part of it is the stress of worrying that I was sick all the time and tracking my symptoms and all that. Like, that was actually, you know, contributing to more of those stress hormones and and keeping me in that sympathetic fight or flight mode, when am I ever going to get better? And so learning, which I did through a neuroplasticity workshop, but learning how we can center ourselves and calm our bodies, shifts us into that calmer state that not just makes us feel better. It literally allows us to heal. So, I mean, that's a long explanation for people to. But thinking about it,

it sometimes can maybe be your motivation to commit to that two minutes, you know, when the house is on fire outside your door, shut the door and just say, sorry, house on fire. I get this time. Because it's the thing that I think is so important is a general attitude or thing to remember when we look at all the variables. and unknowns and knowables in our world right now and that anxiety over whether it's health or climate

or geopolitics or whatever else, long list. The thing that can help us shift really quickly out of that anxious feeling, those anxious feelings and into maybe a calmer state, is to remember that what else is true and what are we paying attention to? Mm-hmm. So if you don't have to,

have time to sort of sit and do deep breaths in the morning because you're too busy curling your hair. Okay, that's one sort of maybe daytime structural issue that I don't know how you can fix that with your, you know, in your timetables. But the, but any time in the day, deciding to consciously notice something, you know, listen, look at how lovely those, look at that nice person who offered somebody at their, seat on the bus. Look at the joy in those school children's faces as they giggle their way to the bus stop. And listen to the sound of the church bells ringing in over the din of the traffic. Like choosing to find things that are a source of awe. And awe doesn't have to be at the top of

Mount Everest. It can be anywhere. Choosing to find moments of joy. and beauty, because they're literally around us all the time. And sometimes if we get so hung up on, I'm supposed to do this and that and this, and then I'm going to achieve that, and tomorrow everything's going to be fine, which, as I think we've established by this point, is folly and sort of a fool's errand to try to ever get everything totally under control, when we're doing that and working towards something else that's not here yet, we can sometimes miss. it's right here. And it's, it can sound a little trite to say, oh, Rome is burning, but look at the

pretty flowers blooming. And, and yet it's true. Yeah. It's true. It's powerful. It has an impact on our nervous systems, on our minds, and on our sense of hope and faith in our reserves to keep going. Yeah. And I think slowing that down just a little bit, I mean, that was such a beautiful explanation of the sympathetic, parasympathetic sort of experience. And I think what's critical is that nobody will have access to looking at the flowers or giving compliments away if you truly do believe there's a wildebeest. And I think part of the answer to this is really examining what all of this rhetoric that is so easily accessible. Like, as you said, I mean, we have, I'm so grateful to be alive in this season because we have seen such change in one

lifetime in just one generation and advances in things like, I mean, I hope we can cure pancreatic cancer by the time I die. I, you know, our ability to do this in two very different places is easy. I, you know, we can face time. The children can face time with my dad when he was, you know, not well in a, in a care facility. Like all of these things are such beautiful advances. What has not advanced to the same degree as the human operating system. And so all of the information would suggest to this very archaic system that there is indeed a wildebeest there. Yeah. And so our ability to just be like, no, no, no, we're cool.

It's cool. It's cool. Just be nice. It's like, fuck you. The indication would be that that is not true. Because just when we take a breather, you know, we're scrolling and seeing asinine, seemingly unfair experiences globally happening. and under our, you know, two seconds away from where we are. And I think it's like examining what it takes to really get your sympathetic nervous system into a place where it can start to believe.

Because as you know, you know, Bessel van der Kohl talks about this so beautifully in the world of trauma. The body keeps the score. The body keeps the score. Yeah. So I can cognitively try to convince myself that everything's cool. But I then get 57,000 email notes. notifications in a day. I get buzzes on my watches from everything. I mean, everybody has, I have to always take my watch off when I'm doing a podcast because it like, everybody has access to me.

Right? And everybody has access to you. And so notifications have to be off. This has to be away. Because we're not that good. We're not that good to sort of filter out. Because even if I know what an honor it is to sit with the Jill Deacon, if I see there is a notification that says for my son from school, hey mom can you call the school right you lose me and and that that's not fair and also i mean if something is really bad we're going to figure it like it's going to be okay you know or we're eventually there's probably nothing like like but the instant access takes us away from this humanness to be present and i i love this i mean which is for me the fuel for the healing part of our nervous system the ability to truly slow down and see

each other again and sort of being conscious of the fact that we didn't we're living in a world that we didn't design consciously to know that how much this was going to take away from us. You know what? One of the things I've started doing really with real intention, because as you are pointing out, it's easy for us to talk about, oh, we should take two minutes instead of, you know, whatever, we should slow down. We should do all these things. forget the should how does it feel you know how's that 100 mile an hour pace working for you

like we notice that we don't feel good when we scroll and do all these miserable things so checking in with recognizing ah i think i feel better when i turn off my notifications or whatever but it is it is a choice it all of these things are choices every day we wake up and we get to make choices about how we want to be and what we want to do and so one of the the things I've been really intentionally doing in the last few months, it's not an official resolution for 2026, but it's just kind of a... It's not put that much pressure on it. No, it's just a kind of new way of being that I'm loving, is choosing to...

We can have uncertainties and unknowns thrust upon us, as you said, this world we did not make much of it, and some, all of these things happening feel like they're just thrust upon us. My health challenges have been thrust upon me. Those we have to deal with and figure out our way through. We can also choose discomfort. We can choose to step outside our comfort zone. And that could be as simple as taking a different route home on your commute. It could be as simple as going to a different restaurant than you've ever been to before, different neighborhood in town, ordering a different item off the same menu that you go to all the time. Cooking with new ingredients, striking up a conversation with a stranger on transit.

These things that are new and different to us, and they don't have to be huge. It could be joining a club or a community. I mean, anyhow, they force us into the present moment because we have to pay more attention because we don't, we're not on autopilot. We don't know this root home. We don't know how to cook with this same mix of spices. We're trying, oof, how does this work? Oh, what does that smell like?

I mean, it forces us right into the moment. And the more, and sometimes it'll taste terrible. And sometimes you won't like the thing you ordered as much as you did the previous one. But we are literally evolved as humans to explore and to try new things. And we've, our devices have taken away a lot of points of. friction and contact. We don't, you know, talk to the person next to us at the grocery store. Do you think these bananas are ripe enough? Smell this candelope. Is this good? We just click a button and order our groceries on the thing. And the weather apps and all these things that have, yes, they're more convenient,

but they've taken away, they've weakened some of our human muscles that are out of practice. And so forcing ourselves into a different situation that's new. And, you know, again, it makes us feel more present. And once we've done it, we've actually, without, you know, feeling like we're heroes or anything, we've actually built a little resilience because we've handled something we didn't know before that we could handle. And if we didn't like it, okay, we learned that. And if we did, woo-hoo, we found a new way to, place to eat or whatever, a new route home, a new, delightful shop that we didn't know was on that other route home. I mean, there's so much

possibility that opens up, but it makes us a little more capable of handling whatever the hard thing that comes along next time, just a little bit. And it's, and it works, and it can be pretty fun. And that's the selling feature, right? I think that, you know, we are living, oh, my goodness. I mean, and I'm sure this has happened in previous generations. I'm sure this is a conversation that everybody keeps having. It just feels like it is so much more pressing in this moment because the data would suggest, you know, we've never seen levels of emotional illness as high. We've never seen, I mean, despite the fact that we've never had this much access to resources and research, we're killing ourselves and dying

faster from emotional illness than we are from physical illness. Okay. And I think that your book comes at a time where it's like, yes, this, this is great. I mean, look at the inner web look at all of these possibilities. Look at how easily and fast we can advance a watch and a phone and all these kind of things. And they looked so shiny and good. We didn't know that the cost was going to be this great. Wow. And now we need an answer to that cost, right?

I mean, I use this example quite often. We thought smoking was good one time. I mean, we put that shit on planes. You were fanciest and most sexy if you had the longest smoke with a fucking holder thing. And then we were like, well, we used to not put. seat belts on our children in the backseat of cars. I mean, we were like, oh shit. Yeah.

Like, and I feel like we're really at that reckoning right now of like, okay, I understand that convenience is going to be easy for most of us. I understand that numbing out, staying at home, not doing all those things. That, that's going to be easy. And full permish. Okay. Full permission. Yeah.

No, no desire to sort of suggest otherwise. However, when we think about what we want in this very short and limited day, days on this planet, how do you want to show up for the people around you and who you, you know, for you, for you first, you matter more. I don't give a shit about anybody else in your life right now. If you're not okay, the people you love don't stand a chance. So self-care is no longer just a nicety. It's actually a strategy. Yeah. To be able to get the best out of your days. Okay. And so when we sort of shift that narrative, which I think is really, you know, when I take a look at, you know, a love affair with the unknown is so timely in this, in this sort of

of permission to be like, okay, I get that so many things could be done easier. The cost is teaching us that it is destroying the very basis of humanity. And so we can point fingers at everybody else and what needs to happen. What typically is our best gift right now to the people we love the most, including ourselves, is to come back home. Yes. To give ourselves that gift. Yeah? Absolutely. And yeah, and that can take different forms for different people. And there's some days when it's not happening at all. I mean, yeah, this is not about judgment and getting, you know, having an abrupt transformation altogether.

But being curious. I mean, curiosity is just the biggest gift we can give ourselves and being curious about what might my life be like if I turned the notifications off on my phone all day. or what might my life be like if I, yeah, tried walking this way instead of that way, or if I took five minutes to swing on the swings in the playground, you know, in my neighborhood and see what that felt like. Just being curious can feel like a luxury right now. But curiosity is a guaranteed way.

It's also the way, I think, to offset that desire for certainty. because there's a Japanese term called mooshin, which is sort of no mind or or people familiar with the with the term beginner's mind. You know, when you're starting something new, people say, well, just approach it with a beginner's mind. And a beginner's mind, when you think of it compared with an expert, someone who thinks they have all the answers. Yeah, you're curious. You're hungry. A beginner's mind is going to be open to way more possibilities than an expert because the expert says, no, it's supposed to. to be A, B, and C. I already know this. Well, if you already know, then you're not looking.

And so it's sort of ironic that we think, oh, I need to get all the answers and make this life make some sense and button it down and clear the path so that I can see where I'm going and just have everything be tickety boo. And my book is sort of a reminder that it's never, ever being like that in history ever. That's not the case. We are wired. We are wired. to want that comfort and familiarity. And yet that's the beautiful rub of life, is that we want answers and really there are only questions. And we just have to keep coming back to that,

being forgiving of ourselves for, but just, yeah, being open to what else might be possible because apparently I don't have the secret path to getting it all right, in quotes. So what else might be possible if I'm just going with what is and just having that open mind? And I think even, you know, as you were describing that, you know, I found myself just dropping my shoulders. Just sort of forgiving, you know, giving into that space of like, yeah, nobody else knows what the

fuck's going on either. Nobody. We are the first generation of parents to have access to social media. We're the first generation of leaders. We're the first generation of, you know, so much has changed in the system. And so we keep thinking that somebody else must know and they don't. And I like sort of your suggestions. And take me through sort of like the end of, you know, as you wrap up this incredible book, you know, being curious, just noticing, just sort of stepping back into the present moment.

Those are some of the things you talk about. Anything else, anything else you want us to know. One thing that I think is really helpful that I come back to time and again in the book is, well, actually two things. One is a line that I just bears repeating because I love it. It's from a psychology, an old psychologist, William James, man's greatest weapon, humans, greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another. I just love that line. I think we should just remind ourselves of that whenever we can't. But the other thing that I discovered in my research for this book is something called the Stockdale Paradox.

And this is really helpful when we're feeling hopeless and full of despair and overwhelm at the uncertainty of the world. So James Stockdale was an admiral in the U.S. Navy, and he was a prisoner of war in Vietnam for seven and a half. half years. He was in a internment camp. And he talks about his ability to, he survived it and not only survived it, but feels it was defining for him, life defining. And he says that he wouldn't change a thing. This harrowing ordeal, grueling, torturous time for seven and a half years. He actually feels now, looking back, that it gave him so much sort of strength to come through it. But at the time, he talks about how people who were wildly optimistic, oh, everything's going to be fine. I think by Christmas we're going to be rescued and they sort of had these sort of, they tended

towards optimism. Okay. And he said, those folks often didn't survive. They would, they died sometimes because of their dashed dreams and hopes that, ah, damn it, it didn't, we didn't get rescued by Christmas. Those kinds of, and we're still here. It's Christmas and we're still here. And that despair became too much. The people who were very cynical and negative and pessimistic also didn't survive because their despair overwhelmed them.

He talks about being very clear-eyed and unflinching about facing what is actually, like how harsh and harrowing this reality is. And he also talks about being absolutely resolute and determined and clear about the fact that we will get through it. And that's the paradox. That's why it's called the Stockdale paradox because those two things are kind of hard to hold at the same time. We're not sugar-coding this. It's going to be it is hard. It is brutal.

But we will survive. Absolutely. And what's the downside to that? If you don't, you're dead. So like, I feel like, you know, it's a pretty good way to operate, no? Yes. You're not going to know. It's just that reminder that, well, you know, hope is a choice. And it's that sometimes it's an active verb. You know, it's like we have to be, we have the, we have the capacity to be kinder to ourselves and to be kinder to one another and to believe that we are going to get through this. Amen. And I, and I, what I really love the most about the Stockdale paradox is it's not sugar-coating shit. And I think we really get into this. toxic positivity. Like, it's good.

Everybody's good. It's fine. It's got, we're going to be fine. Everything. But I love the, the conversation here where you have to address it first. This fucking sucks. This is not fair. This is unhumane.

This is ridiculous. Like, we are naming it first. Yeah. And I think the biggest concern we have, you know, when somebody buries a child or somebody, you know, gets cancer or ends up, you know, in a very, whatever, whatever, that doesn't feel fair or whatever, that we're just like, it's okay. It's okay. We're okay.

That's not what we're talking about. No. And I think like that's, you know, the pushback I often get around here is like, how do you, how could you ever say it's going to be okay or, you know, everything happens for a reason? And I think that that's what I love about your book is that that's not the end game. That's not sort of how you take us on this journey. Yeah. It really is.

It's in fact the opposite. I mean, my, the way that I was able to be okay with not, with all my suffering through long COVID was to very much face it and feel it and sit in it and recognize it and identify it and just let it be it. You know, I wasn't, oh, guess what? I'm actually fine. I wasn't fine. And you have to be kind of okay with that in order to sort of break into a different state somehow.

Yeah, I agree. I agree. And I love, I love so much about that. Jell, this book is a gift. And I am so grateful that our community get to spend a little bit of time with you. I know that you will just be a beautiful. We can, you know, as we continue to navigate this uncertainty that, you know, I don't think is going to slow down for many of us.

And that's okay. That's okay. Because now we're going to have a bit of a plan on how to navigate it. And once we know some bit of a script and some direction and mostly that we're in it together, that we have a community to do it alongside with. 100%. And good for you for creating this community and making people feel connected in their, in all of our struggles to kind of muddle through because that's all we're all doing.

So we need. Amen. I'm at, oh my goodness, what a gift. And so, listen, I mean, you're going to have all the connections to this sweet human. And in the meantime, I want you to take care of yourself, take care of each other. You know, we were never meant to do any of this alone. So I'm so glad you're here. I can't wait to meet you right back here next time.

You know, the more we do this, people ask, why do you have to do the acknowledgement and every episode? I got to tell you, I've never been more grateful for being able to, raise my babies on a land where so much sacrifice was made. And I think what's really critical in this process is that the ask is just that we don't forget. So the importance of saying these words at the beginning of every episode will always be of utmost importance to me and this team. So everything that we created here today for you happened on Treaty 7 land, which is now known as the center part of the province of Alberta.

It is home of the Blackfoot Confederacy, which is made up of the same. Sikika, the Kainai, the Pekanee, the Tatina First Nation, the Stony Dakota First Nation, and the Métis Nation Region 3. Our job, our job as humans, is to simply acknowledge each other. That's how we do better, be better, and stay connected to the good. The Unlonely Podcast is produced by three incredible humans, Brian Seaver, Taylor McGilvery, and Jeremy Saunders, all. of Snack Lab Productions. Our executive producer, my favorite human on this planet, is Marty Pillar.

Soundtracks were created by Donovan Morgan, Unloney Branded Artwork, created by Elliot Cuss. Our big PR shooters are Desvino and Barry Cohen. Our digital marketing manager is the amazing Shana Haddon. Our 007 secret agent from the Talent Bureau is Jeff Lowness. and emotional support is provided by Asher Grant, Evan Grant, and Olivia Grant. Go live! I am a registered clinical psychologist in Alberta, Canada. The content created and produced in this show is not intended as specific therapeutic advice.

The intention of this podcast is to provide information, resources, education, and the one thing I think we all need the most, a safe place to land in this lonely world. We're all so glad you're here. Thank you.