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Transcript

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Pema: While I have been super grateful and very informed by our conversations about what we can do to manage our media feeds and how we interact, I am really happy that we’re moving into internal fortitude. In my yard, I have 1 million dandelions and I will do—I’ll have like stress reduction hours where I go and pull out the dandelions and hope to get the root.

Tania: Ooh.

Pema: That comes to mind because I think that the blossoms on the dandelion are the problem, but it’s the root that is actually spreading even faster than the blossoms.

Tania: Yeah. Yeah. Mm.

Pema: So much of the way that we interact out in the world, especially with news and social media, is external. It’s external output from an unconscious internal reaction.

It’s just react, react, react, and. I’m looking forward to some internal going to the source.

Tania: I love that.

Welcome to Ready To Be Strong. I’m Tania Israel.

Pema: And I’m Pema rocker. Together, we’re broadening our minds, opening our hearts.

Tania: And strengthening connections in a politically charged election season and beyond.

Pema: We want you to feel informed, empowered, and optimistic.

Tania: We want you to feel ready to be strong. In this episode, we’re talking about fostering emotional resilience. We’ve spent the past three episodes focusing on how to reduce polarizing input, doing things like recognizing that we’re not as far apart as we think we are, and limiting our news and social media consumption. Ideally, this has helped us to correct misperceptions and calm our reactivity.

But we still need to build some internal fortitude for the challenges we face in a divided world. So Pema, this topic makes me think about this thing that happened in my neighborhood.

Pema: Oh, how did you come across the challenges of a divided nation in your neighborhood?

Tania: There was somebody in my neighborhood who was flying a Trump flag, and this was in 2020 in the lead up to the election, and that’s sort of unusual in Santa Barbara, which tends to be a pretty blue bubble. That stood out. A little while later I noticed that somebody had spray-painted on the wall in front of their house,“F Trump,” but they wrote out the whole word. And I was just horrified by that. I was like, I am not a fan of Donald Trump, but wow. Vandalizing somebody’s house seemed like such a terrible thing to do. And then shortly after that, the thing I saw was a for sale sign at the house. And I thought, I, I hate the idea that somebody feels like they’ve been driven out of my neighborhood because somebody reacted to their flag that they were flying.

Pema: I am going to tell on myself here in reaction. I’m like, oh, the sane rational side did that? Oh my gosh. That’s horrifying.

Tania: Mm. Yeah. Yeah. So it seems like that’s something that you might expect the other side to do, but you wouldn’t expect your own people to do something like that.

Pema: I, I know that that’s not true, and also it’s wild to see myself automatically reacting and then to kind of have to remember that it’s all the same. It’s all kind of a human nature response that’s happening.

Tania: Oh yeah. And I think that’s so much what this topic of resilience is about. It’s about, you know, we might have an immediate reaction to something, but that doesn’t necessarily mean we wanna take that and run with it. What we might wanna do is pause there. Say, okay, let me notice this reaction that I’m having, and is there other information I wanna bring into this?

Do I wanna bring into this the idea that, oh, I know that based on evolution I’m more likely to feel like I am being protective, and the other side is aggressive? So, you know, somebody might be like, oh, I see this Trump sign, and that feels like a real threat. And so, so by writing this, you know, by vandalizing this person’s house, I feel like I’m actually protecting people, not being the aggressor.

Pema: So what occurs to me hearing this story is that your neighbors were threatened. They were absolutely feeling threatened by that action against their house, what I am not thinking immediately is that the person who vandalized their house was feeling threatened, and that’s one of the reasons that they did it.

Tania: I’m so glad you brought up that sense of threat because so much about resilience is about how we respond to threat. There’s a lot of ways people respond to that feeling of threat. And it might be in aggressive ways, it might be in avoidant ways and. I think we can unpack a little bit what are some of those different responses that we might have and how do we actually want to move forward with, taking those feelings and other things into account.

Pema: Well. I mean, as you say, that feeling of threat by seeing a flag flying in the neighborhood, I am immediately aware of that feeling in my body. On the other side, if I’m walking up the street to my house or pulling into the driveway, I might feel threatened by seeing that waving because we are on the same block and don’t feel safe with some of those, some of those things that I have heard.

Tania: Mm-Hmm, sure. Well, and it ties into a lot of things we’ve been talking about, like tribal politics. When our brains developed in the context of living in small groups, of evolving humans, we had these tribes that we were in that we really needed to protect ourselves and each other, not only from the elements in the Saber-toothed tigers, but also from the other tribe who was, you know, the other tribes were in competition for scarce resources, and we would see them as being aggressive and it was kind of a life and death situation then, like they literally might kill us. And we’re using those old brains and overlaying them onto the current situation. And I know some people will say, well, yeah, they actually might kill us. Like they, like there is violence that exists and, and all of that and, and I’m not gonna deny that, you know, like there’s no question that actual violence does happen.

And what I know also is that it’s a very tiny part of what happens. It’s a very few people on either side who are going to be violent toward people on the other side.

Pema: So it’s a physiological function. It’s a social phenomenon. And it’s our feelings, but our feelings might not be the only guidance we wanna rely on right now.

Tania: Yeah, I think that’s a, that’s a great way of thinking about it because our bodies react in this fight, flight, or freeze response. You know, when, when you’re feeling any kind of threat. Your face gets flushed, your muscles tense up, your breathing gets shallow. Your body is getting ready to react to a physical threat and like, literally, are you gonna fight that bear? Are you gonna run away from it? Are you gonna lie down and play possum? 

And that feeling of threat that we have is not only when we’re experiencing physical threat. I hear a lot of people talk these days about feeling unsafe, and when I’m like, oh my gosh, you’re unsafe. Like, how do we get you to safety?

They’re like, oh, no, I, I’m not in actual danger. I’m just feeling unsafe and I’m like, oh. So I’ve been thinking about that lately as like, are you feeling unsafe or are you feeling unsettled? You know what? What’s that sense of threat? And when you evaluate what’s actually going on, what’s your level of safety?

Pema: That’s making me think of how you talk about outrage. Like, so if I’m feeling. I’m feeling safe, but I’m feeling unsettled here in my own circumstance, but I’m also feeling unsettled about, well, what other people might be going through in a more violent part, you know, of, of the neighborhood or the country, you know?

And so I might check myself here in this moment, in this neighborhood, but I’m also feeling the stoke a little bit for like, well, hold on a minute. I’m still unsettled for somebody else’s lack of safety.

Tania: Mm sure. So. You know, there’s this phrase that, uh, that’s used on the more on the left, I would say, if you’re not outraged, you’re not paying attention, and that really says, you know, your anger. It’s not just about what might happen to you. It’s not just about whether or not you feel like there’s a danger to yourself.

But that we really need to be paying attention to the harm that, uh, is done and can be done to other people who are, who are vulnerable. So this might be a combination of a couple different things. Like one of them is just what you’re talking about, that righteous, uh, anger that can sometimes sort of flip over into kind of a self-righteous anger.

And, and the thing about that. That anger, and I’m, I’m gonna talk about it as outrage because you know, it fits in so nicely to that, to that phrase, if you’re not outraged, you’re not paying attention. Like, if you’re paying attention at all, you’re gonna be really upset about this. And when we use that as a litmus test for whether or not you’re paying attention, then, you know, I asked a, a class of undergraduates, I said, you know, how many of you have heard this phrase and how do you feel about this phrase?

And most of them were like, yeah, I’ve heard it, and I get it. But I’m exhausted from being outraged all the time because that level of sustained outrage, it’s, it’s not good for us. It’s not good for our health, and it’s not even good for our movement, our support for a cause. Um, it, it does drive other people away when we are always expressing ourself at that sustained level.

And in fact, I hear people venting to each other a lot. Apparently I’m just no fun to vent to anymore, people tell me. Um, because I, I won’t sort of engage in this, amping it up to another level, but when I looked at the research, actually, when we are feeling that level of moral outrage, what’s most helpful in venting anger is not talking to somebody who’s gonna then say, oh yeah, and here’s what else, you know, and take it up another level. What’s helpful is to have somebody who can, you know, make some space for it, but then help us to turn down the dial on it a little bit.

Pema: Wow. Does that ever feel counterintuitive.

Tania: Indeed.

Pema: a conversation with feelings that feels totally opposite?

Tania: Yeah, well, I think it feels very not affirming to not do that. You know, so, so when I’m like, oh, you know, well, I sometimes think about it this way. That just seems like I am not, uh, validating somebody else’s feelings.

Pema: Because that’s, I mean, there’s feelings on all the sides. That’s what we’re talking about here. And so, you know, one thing that comes to mind as you’re talking about this, sure, sustained outrage might be: Uh, I don’t know, might not land where it, where folks want it to land when they’re angry and outraged. But I’m also feeling like, well, there’s an absence of acknowledgement, so you might not be outraged, but, um, can you acknowledge that this thing is painful?

Like, you might not think the same thing as I do, but can you acknowledge that it’s maybe harmful for some people? And that’s why, uh, people are so upset or so afraid. Um, I’m noticing this desire for acknowledgement, even if the needle’s not going to move all the way from outrage to, yeah, you’re on my side now.

Tania: Yeah, absolutely. I, I think that people need to have their feelings validated. They’re looking for that. It’s one of the reasons why I think if you’re looking for validation and you need to vent, you should go to somebody who feels the same way about the thing as you do. ‘Cause people want, you know, not only for someone to mirror back to them, like what they said, they want someone to mirror back their feelings.

Um, so I think that that is an important piece. Maybe the thing that we can do, whether we’re, you know, talking with somebody else about our feelings or even just internally is to acknowledge those feelings and, and recognize that feelings are an important part of the information that we’re taking in.

You know, we, we wanna be able to pay attention to our feelings and trust our feelings, but it’s not the only piece of information that maybe we need to be attending to.

Pema: Something I found interesting in your writing about this is that venting, that word venting that you use, like if I were to go hit a punching bag to get my get, get all the steam out, then that doesn’t actually help on in a sustained way. Like if I keep doing that, I’m gonna stay angry.

Tania: I know I did not expect to find that. So when I was writing Facing the Fracture, I was like, I’m gonna look at all of the research. I’m gonna go really deeply into the research and you know, sometimes I just found things that weren’t what I expected. I kind of thought that venting was gonna be helpful for anger management, but it turns out that it’s not. It, you know, it keeps us in that state.

And so, you know, I think, again, we need to be able to express our feelings. It’s not a matter of squelching them or ignoring them, and maybe it’s a matter of acknowledging them, finding some form of expression, and then a way of shifting out of things that are not healthy for us, uh, to maintain.

Pema: Yeah, so let me just slow that down for a second. I’m gonna be in the steam of it. I’m gonna be in my anger, and then I’m going to pause. Then I’m going to shift my thoughts to, I don’t know, a few steps to one direction or another and consider, and then maybe I’ll talk to somebody from this point. Maybe I will reengage, but that pause, that reconsideration is important here, not just, you know, slamming the pillows on the bed and yelling.

Tania: Yeah. Yeah, that, that pause I think is really crucial. One of the things that I found so valuable was reading about trauma informed approaches. Um, George Banonno’s work was really influential on me because I I heard him talk on a podcast and he was like, I’m the most cited research in, in trauma approaches, but, uh, people aren’t doing what I, what I say to do.

So I was like, Ooh, what do you say to do? So I went and I read his books and I was like, oh, okay. What he says is that we need to be flexible. Like, yes, sometimes we want to, you know, not deal with whatever that challenge is, whether that’s by avoiding it or pushing it away, or or venting or something. But sometimes we wanna find a way to stay in a challenging situation to face something that that feels triggering for us.

And so we need to be able to do that also. And we also need to be able to distinguish between when you know a particular approach is gonna be the best thing for us to use, or whether another approach might be better. And so really having a broader toolkit is what he’s recommending, and that’s, I think, the most valuable approach to resilience. It’s not that you should always stay with the challenges. It’s not that you should always avoid the challenges. It’s not that you should always vent to somebody, it’s that you should have the capability to do a variety of things and then also be able to evaluate, uh, how those different things are working for you.

Pema: Okay, so I’m gonna talk about being married for a second, and I’m gonna talk about the feeling of, Hey, wait a minute. Why should I do all that work? Why can’t you do some of that? Why can’t you do some of that personal attending? Um, it comes up when I think about political, uh, discussions too. Um, when I think about the other side and whose responsibility is what and all these feelings and this. Fascinating thing happened in my marriage one time where I have noticed in long relationships, there’s usually at least a couple conflicts that get returned to over and over again. Like the record just keeps coming back to that skip and um it was hard. We didn’t know, like it just kept happening. This particular conflict.

And we sought help with a counselor, and it was very short. We sought a counselor for a handful of weeks, but what she gave us was a, a second worth one second’s worth of change in my behavior. And she said, Emma, instead of reacting or having a word, like instead of having a word to respond to just. Take a breath and, um, hold that thought.

And she said, and then like, even while you’re holding that thought, just make that thought go away. This one thought that you keep having make it go away. And I was like, oh my God, I have to do one more thing in the personal attending. And I, I thought, but it’s worth it to me to try it. So I swallowed my pride and I paused that thought and made it just go away and it cut our conflict in the times that we would have it in half. It just, I could not believe how, um, just that one pause and that one dismiss that thought, that’s not the one to use right now. How helpful that was. And so I bring that up because. have a similar thought, like, okay, I’m gonna be responsible here and I’m gonna learn these tools and other side’s not learning these tools.

And I, I hear my teenage self right now as I’m saying all of that. But this experience in my former marriage is really helping me to wanna know, tell me all the tools. They’re amazing. They work.

Tania: Oh my gosh. I love that story. It’s, it’s so perfect because, you know, the way we react to conflict is often the way we react to, you know, any kind of conflict. What, whatever you’re doing in your marriage, maybe what you’re doing at work, maybe what you’re doing with your neighbors, that, that often we have these patterns that we fall into and learning a new pattern can be so valuable. And it sounds like that that helped so much just to not lean into every single thing that immediately came up for you.

Pema: I’m, I’m laughing ’cause I’m thinking, well, of course I’m gonna lean into every little thing that came up. Of course.

Tania: Yeah. But the pause, you know, the pause, uh, to — it doesn’t even sound like you were evaluating every single thing. It sounds like in some ways you were evaporating things.

Pema: I mean, in the solution, uh, the evaporating was happening.

Tania: Mm-Hmm

Pema: So you’ve got some tools for us today, and also you use this word adaptive. Will you talk about that word?

Tania: Sure. You know, you say, well, why should I have to do all this stuff? Why should I be the one to do it if the other side isn’t doing it? Or if everybody’s not doing it? And one of the reasons is because if we keep leaning into patterns that aren’t getting us where we wanna go emotionally or interpersonally, that that actually doesn’t help us either.

So. It’s, it’s not just that we’re doing these things for the benefit of other people. We’re doing these things for the benefit of ourselves. You know, we talked about that, the outrage, that’s not good for our health. Uh, you know, some other kinds of approaches that people might lean into. There’s—there’s a sort of victim mentality that we can have, and legitimately, people are victims.

There’s lots of people who are victims, but people who see themselves as the victim in every situation often have a very hard time, um, developing empathy for other people. And it, it’s not an adaptive strategy then for, for getting your own needs met or for. Empowering yourself to actually take, take any action or do anything. So, so there’s a number of things. It’s not only the hostility. There can be, you know, feeling like a victim in all situations. There can be an avoidance, which, you know, again, any of these things we might wanna do to some extent, but we don’t want to always do them, um, constantly. 

And so that’s where thinking, all right, well what do we do instead? What is more adaptive? What’s going to help us on a physical and emotional health level? And also, perhaps help us to achieve goals with other people or out there in the world. So that’s, that’s the way I think about adaptive. And, you know, I talked a little bit about the flexible coping idea. So that has to do with, you know, there are a number of different coping strategies that we might put into that toolbox. Like one of them is just managing emotions. When we are feeling that fight, flight or freeze, what do we do with that? You know, do we just then run away? You know, punch somebody or lie down? No. We can actually soothe ourselves, um, so that we can sort of shift out of that feeling of threat, and we can just do that even by deep breathing. Something as simple as taking a slow, deep breath in and then releasing it. I often say, you know, just, it’s like you’re blowing bubbles. You know that sort of slow, easy breath out that you have. Then noticing the physical connection that you have to, like, your feet on the ground, your back against a chair, that physical grounding can be kind of helpful. So one of the things is just how do we shift out of that fight, flight or freeze when we’re feeling threatened, but we know that we’re not unsafe.

Pema: Yeah, I, I think what turns on for me like a light is, I think I was stuck on that word adaptive because I didn’t understand it in this context. But you know, in those situations with my former spouse, I wasn’t backing up and seeing, oh, here’s a bigger problem, or here’s a bigger kind of issue here that is impeding our motion moving forward.

It’s impeding our growth. There’s a pain here. And if I can acknowledge that there’s a pain here and then acknowledge that it’s real and it is what it is, I can keep running into that and getting the same painful results. Or I can adapt my strategy and try something new that I don’t know why that was eluding me, but I’m considering now those adaptations to behavior when it comes to this work. I mean, I feel like, I feel like yes, Pema, that’s what we’ve been talking about for four or five episodes now, but it just occurs me that that’s what I’m doing, that’s a, there’s something at issue here. I’m pausing to acknowledge that it’s not gonna change unless I change some things myself.

Tania: Yeah. Yeah. I sort of think about adaptation in terms of individual evolution, you know, like I say, okay, we’re using these old brains. Yeah. I mean, we’re not exactly using our old brains. Like we’re not, you know, we don’t have a club that we’re carrying around, that we’re knocking somebody over their head and dragging them back to our cave.

You know, that’s not exactly what we’re doing. But on some emotional level it might be sometimes. And so how do we want to personally evolve beyond that? How, you know, like, like I don’t wanna be there. I don’t wanna be in a place where I am unaware of all of the, you know, complex factors that I could take into account that will help me to behave in ways that will accomplish my individual, emotional, relational and advocacy goals. You know, and, and so that’s the thing. If we wanna be effective in the world, and if we want to be healthier physically and mentally, then it does take some degree of adaptation beyond simply having the feeling and responding to it immediately and leaning into that path.

Pema: I’m remembering about activism and advocacy, that there’s a spectrum and that there is outrage that pushes out the boundaries of the status quo. And then a few steps in from outrage, there are maybe less vocal. Activists who are working hard on policy change, and then maybe a few steps more backward from there.

There are people in the neighborhood who are willing to say what they think, but not willing to march for it. Like there’s this spectrum of advocacy and there’s a place on the spectrum for all of it. But it sounds like with everyone in outrage, no one is kind of aligned with. Where they fit in, how they can best change things for the good that they see for themselves and their communities and for the country.

Tania: Sure. Well, outrage absolutely has a place in advocacy. Outrage is really good for rallying the troops. Um, so communicating with people who are already on your side and getting them fired up about an issue. And it can be helpful for framing an issue, uh, for a broader public in some ways, but it’s not particularly good, uh, for.

Communicating with people who aren’t already on your side. And so on an external level, like it’s not, you know, if that’s the only, if you’re just so one note about it, then, then you’re not gonna be a very effective advocate. But also just on an emotional level, if, if it’s the only thing that you know how to do, if it’s the only way you respond to everything, then it’s also just not gonna be healthy for you.

And that’s why I talk about the problem being sustained outrage or the victim mentality or, you know, constant avoidance. It’s not a problem that you create boundaries at times. It’s not a problem that you feel upset about things at times. It’s not a problem that you, you know, recognize your victimization at times.

It’s a problem if you only have one way of doing things for all situations and, and you can’t break out of that.

Pema: Yeah, that makes me think of every story that ever lived where the character starts one way and they get themselves into a pickle, and there has to be some change or growth by the end of the story. Tania, there’s one other strategy that you talk about in Facing the Fracture and that is rising to a challenge. I think it fits Ready To Be Strong, our name of our podcast.

Tania: I, I love that you made that connection, uh, with the ready to be strong because there’s also a way that we think about it that makes a difference. So there’s a lot of interesting research on our mindset and, and how we think about what we’re doing, and so. If I’m experiencing something in my body before I go give a talk, I can be like, oh my gosh, I’ve got stage fright.

I’m really nervous. I could also look in that and go, oh my gosh, like all this energy’s going through me. I’m really excited about this and. Whether we think about it as being anxiety or excitement makes a difference in terms of how we go about approaching that and how we do in that activity. So, so yeah, when we’re experiencing something and we’re like, oh my gosh, this is, I’m feeling something when I am seeing these lawn signs or billboards, um, for this candidate. We might go, oh, okay, I’m approaching something that’s, that’s different from what I’m used to. This is, this feels out of my element. And we can think, oh my gosh, I feel scared. We could also think, wow, I am noticing here that I, this is a novel situation that’s, that’s an important thing for me to experience, is something that’s a little bit out of my comfort zone.

And so it’s good that I’m seeing that because the existence of that billboard is not actually a threat to me. Like unless it’s gonna fall over on my car.

Pema: So that billboard is making you have feelings and reactions and calling into mind your beliefs maybe, but you’re saying maybe that’s good for me to feel or think those things and to exercise these methods of emotional resilience.

Tania: Like maybe it’s good for us to be outside of our comfort zone sometimes. I mean, I think that that it, that’s a concept that, that we might. Recognize like, oh yeah, it’s good to be outside of your comfort zone sometimes. And you know, we all have to then see where it is that we’re outside our com, like too far outside our comfort zone.

But if we are always staying within our comfort zone, that’s actually not good for our own growth.

Pema: I can’t imagine it’s good for relating either because how then do you talk to folks who are living outside your comfort zone? I can just see that comfort zone in many, many sizes of perimeters.

Tania: It’s exactly what we talk about here on the podcast. You know, people have choices that they can make and they can choose, uh, to go down a path of strength. And that’s something that’s going to not only help us individually, but that’s gonna help us in our relationships and in our communities and in our country.

Pema: I think what’s interesting is that what’s still hopping here in my internal landscape is my internal rebel. Like I don’t wanna, and yet I’m hearing all of this. I have practiced all of it. I have that story from my marriage that I shared, and I know how well it worked. And so then I am thinking like, yep, this is one of those things for me to take a breath and uh, try and see how it feels on the other side.

Tania: You know, when I wrote Facing the Fracture toward the end of the writing process, I was like, why is anybody gonna wanna do all these things that I’m telling them to do? Like, it’s a lot, it’s a, you know, so it’s asking a lot. And I thought that’s actually the point at which I decided to weave more story into this ’cause I thought people need to recognize that by facing these challenges. We are the heroes of these stories, and I talk about Moana and uncovering our true nature, and really we could say, well, isn’t our true nature just these, you know, reactive, uh, feelings that we’re having? But what if our true nature is something deeper than that?

You know, that’s, that’s the first response. It doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s the fullest and truest that we are.

Pema: Yeah, that feels really good. That feels really good. I had a gathering, uh, for my book, Ash and Spirit just yesterday, day before yesterday. And one of the conversations that we talked about was like, is there a skill in grief? This sounds like it’s off topic, and I promise you it’s not. To me, there is, um, a grief in not being able to connect with people on the other side.

There’s a grief in the neighbor moving out of the neighborhood because they got vandalized. There’s a grief that they got vandalized in the first place and each person had a different experience of their grief that all of the rest of us learned from in that moment. Like, oh, you took this action when you were feeling so sad and oh, you had that feeling and it made me think of puzzle pieces.

We each have a tab. We might not have the whole, but when we put them together, there’s so much more insight and information, and especially connectivity like when it’s together versus. me dealing with my angers and issues on my own.

Tania: I love that. Because it really does point out the way that our emotions and our skills and our losses are really intertwined. And you know, people tell me that they are losing so much in this divided world. People, I mean, we’re losing sleep, but we’re also losing our connections to other people. And we’re losing our faith in other Americans, and we are sometimes at risk of losing our democracy.

So it’s so important. I think that, that we recognize the different ways that we can bring skills forth to, um, help to address those losses that we’re having.

Pema: It sounds like it’s worth rising to the challenge.

Tania: I’m Tania Israel, professor, psychologist, and author of Facing the Fracture.

Pema: I’m Pema Rocker, creative coach and author of Ash and Spirit

Tania: Ready to Be Strong was created by me, Tania Israel,

Pema: me, Pema Rocker.

Tania: And produced by Haley Gray. Our theme music is by Jeff Mercel at Premium Beat.

Pema: Bring this conversation into your circles. Rate and review the show wherever you’re listening. And most importantly, share this episode with a friend.