Feelings Are Valid, Reacting To Them Is Not | Dr. Aliza Pressman

Self-regulation is the single most important skill for life. In today’s episode, developmental psychologist and parenting expert Dr. Aliza Pressman joins Ryan to talk about how to start reframing everyday frustrations, why she is worried for this generation of parents, and the difference between expressing emotion and acting on it. Dr. Aliza Pressman is a developmental psychologist, parenting expert, the author of the New York Times bestselling book THE 5 PRINCIPLES OF PARENTING: Your Essential Guide to Raising Good Humans https://www.thepaintedporch.com/products/the-5-principles-of-parenting-your-essential-guide-to-raising-good-humans-signed-by-dr-aliza-pressman?_pos=1&_sid=704f7d40a&_ss=r which you can grab signed copies of at The Painted Porch | https://www.thepaintedporch.com https://www.thepaintedporch.com/products/the-5-principles-of-parenting-your-essential-guide-to-raising-good-humans-signed-by-dr-aliza-pressman?_pos=1&_sid=704f7d40a&_ss=r Check out her award-winning podcast Raising Good Humans https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/raising-good-humans/id1473072044 and follow Dr. Aliza on Instagram and X @RaisingGoodHumansPodcast https://www.instagram.com/raisinggoodhumanspodcast/?hl=en 📖 Preorder the final book in Ryan Holiday's The Stoic Virtues Series: "Wisdom Takes Work":https://store.dailystoic.com/pages/wisdom-takes-work 🎙️ Follow The Daily Stoic Podcast on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/dailystoicpodcast/?hl=en: https://www.instagram.com/dailystoicpodcast 🎥 Watch top moments from The Daily Stoic Podcast https://www.youtube.com/@dailystoicpodcast on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@dailystoicpodcast: https://www.youtube.com/@dailystoicpodcast ✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail 🏛 Get Stoic inspired books, medallions, and prints to remember these lessons at the Daily Stoic Store: https://store.dailystoic.com/ 📱 Follow us: Instagram https://www.instagram.com/dailystoic/,Twitter https://twitter.com/dailystoic,YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@DailyStoic,TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@daily_stoic?lang=en, andFacebook https://www.facebook.com/dailystoic See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:06Ryan Holiday?

  Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast where each weekday we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stoics, a short passage of ancient wisdom designed to help you find strength and insight here in everyday life. And on Wednesdays, we talk to some of our fellow students of ancient philosophy, well-known and obscure, fascinating and powerful. With them, we discuss the strategies and habits that have helped them become who they are, and also to find peace and wisdom in their lives.

• 0:52Ryan Holiday?

  Hey, it's Ryan. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast. We are here in Greece. We were in a swimming pool, the Airbnb we were renting, and my older son was just needling and messing and effectively torturing his younger brother. And finally, my youngest snaps and just really pops him, and it gets in trouble. And my oldest goes, "You know, you don't control what happens. You only control how you respond to what happens." And I had to give it to him because, one, that was funny. He was trying to needle me to, "I'll take the win," and that he's at least heard it enough times that he can understand what

• 1:37Ryan Holiday?

  it is that I do. He's got the words down. Now, is this supposed to apply to you twisting and twisting and twisting until somebody snaps? No, it is not. But...

• 1:52Ryan Holiday?

  Sort of ties in to today's episode, which is how do we teach our kids? And how do we teach people that having the feelings are valid? How we act on them, not so much. Actually, on this very same trip, you know, there's nothing quite like traveling with family to stress you out, challenge you, put your stoicism to the test. My wife and I were, you know, a long drive and then driving through these windy streets. It was a whole thing. I won't get into it too much, but she was frustrated. I was frustrated and, and you know, then we were frustrated that the other person is frustrated. And my wife said something, which is always a good reminder. She says, you know, I can be frustrated. It's okay for me to be frustrated.

• 2:37Ryan Holiday?

  And by the way, the converse is true. It's okay for me to be frustrated also. We have our feelings, but then the problem is the snippiness. The problem is the unkind word. The problem is the disconnecting. The problem is, is what you do about it. Right? I'll give you a third story, which is we were driving up today. Now Olympus and my son, again, that's a little bit of a theme. He's testing things. He's sort of needling his brother to get his brother to react, to get my wife to react, to get me to react. And finally I did react. It was like, you could see it going and you know, I stopped the car. I was like, ah, you know, I got upset and I was right in that what he was doing wasn't okay.

• 3:22Ryan Holiday?

  And he knows better and we gave him a lot of different off ramps. But, but ultimately I don't control that. I control how I reacted. And then I control afterwards how I talk about it, which is not just to apologize, not just to acknowledge, you know, my role in it, but, but to talk about why that happened, which is to say, hey, look, I'm trying to drive up these windy roads to get somewhere that by the way, you wanted to go more than anywhere in the world. You wanted to do this. We're doing it for you. And I just got overstimulated and stressed and I snapped. And that wasn't a good way for me to behave and I'm sorry. Right? That's what it's about. It's not that this never happens to the Stoic.

• 4:06Ryan Holiday?

  It's that the Stoic catches themselves before they do it too many times. We all experience stresses. We all experience difficulties. What we do about them, though, that's where we have a little bit of a choice. And that's what I wanted to talk to today's guest about. Dr. Aliza Pressman is a developmental psychologist. She's the host of the Raising Good Humans podcast. She's the author of one of our favorite parenting books. We sell it in the Painted Porch, The Five Principles of Parenting. And in today's episode, we're going to talk about how do we acknowledge our emotional mistakes with our kids? Power of repair, positive stress, why Aliza is a little bit worried about parents in this generation.

• 4:51Ryan Holiday?

  She has a great metaphor in here. She talks about the difference between an orchid and a dandelion. I think you'll really like this. She came out to the studio here out in Bastrop to tour the Painted Porch, not the Painted Porch that I was just at a couple of days ago, the Stoic Hotel in Athens, but the Painted Porch on Main Street in Bastrop, Texas. And we had a lovely conversation. As I said, Dr. Pressman is a developmental psychologist with nearly two decades of experience working with families and people. And she's the author of a great book, The Five Principles of Parenting, which you should check out. And you can check out the Raising Good Humans podcast and follow her on Instagram and Twitter at Raising Good Humans Podcast.

• 5:34Ryan Holiday?

  You talk about this in the book, but I think it's really important, which is, I am more of the mind that being able to regulate yourself when you are dysregulated is like the whole game. Life, parenting, being a kid, like it's what you're trying to impart to your kids. It's like, how do you go from dysregulated to regulated? No one can do it for you. Nothing can do it for you. You have to be able to do that. And if you can do that, you can basically handle anything in life.

• 6:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I'm not going to argue with you. The research on self-regulation, which you call it so many different things because we have like so much history in this, but I used regulation because that's my field. It's everything. So yes, one of the five principles is regulation, but not just for our kids, it's for ourselves because we can't do it for them.

• 6:22Ryan Holiday?

  Obviously, you want them to be able to handle being dysregulated or being frustrated and getting to a place where they're okay with that or, you know, not.

• 6:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:31Ryan Holiday?

  They're able to handle it. But if you're not doing it, what model is that?

• 6:36Speaker 01

  Right. And we're not always doing it. So like, we're going to get it. We're gonna lose it. But if more often than not, we're not. We're co-regulating, lending our nervous system as theirs is developing. And I think the co-regulation research is so cool.

• 6:50Ryan Holiday?

  What is that?

• 6:51Speaker 01

  It's just essentially because a child's brain, when you think about infants, children, teenagers, like they're still developing brains.

• 7:00Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 7:00Speaker 01

  And so their prefrontal cortex, which is not fully developed, is kind of needing our adult nervous system to lend itself in not necessarily like calm, cool, collected all the time, but just whatever your adult nervous system is doing, it's going to lend itself to that less mature, developing nervous system.

• 7:21Ryan Holiday?

  Sure.

• 7:21Speaker 01

  They can't kind of access the frontal lobe as easily. And so if over time, repeatedly, you get this opportunity to co-regulate with your adult caregiver, you then learn to self-regulate. So kids who have the opportunity to co-regulate, well, first of all, opportunity or not, you are co-regulating. But if you have a parent.

• 7:43Ryan Holiday?

  Or co-disregulating.

• 7:44Speaker 01

  Right, exactly. Like, that nervous system is whatever, whatever you're borrowing, you're borrowing. And so I actually think it's so fun, easier said than done, but because my kids are older, it's easier to think about like, okay, what nervous system am I lending out right now?

• 7:59Ryan Holiday?

  Yes. Yeah. Am I, am I helping or harming? Am I helping them calm down or am I getting in the feedback loop with them?

• 8:07Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I think we kind of think of emotions as.

• 8:13Speaker 01

  Good or bad, and I mean, that is certainly not where you're coming from. But in general, we think we want to protect our kids from the negative emotions, or negative in quotes, and, you know, bolster the positive emotions. And so our nervous system can appear kind of scared.

• 8:32Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 8:32Speaker 01

  When they're experiencing these hard feelings. So how can we regulate with them? We can't really co-regulate in this way where we're lending a nervous system that says, like, there's no emergency, it's just a feeling.

• 8:44Ryan Holiday?

  Well, I think people think that Stoicism is about having no emotions, or suppressing the emotions. But that's why I like this word, regulate. It's about regulating the emotions when you are dysregulated. So it is an indisputable, unavoidable fact that you will get dysregulated. You will experience pain, or failure, a frustrating person, something that's scary. That's the given. But what happens after is where you have the ability to influence. And again, you can't just magically make it go away, but you can decide, hey, here's what this means, here's what I think about it, here's the behaviors I'm going to accept for myself. That's, that's the thing that I think each parent, that's the journey each parent has to go on.

• 9:27Ryan Holiday?

  And that's the main thing you're trying to impart to your kid is like, how do you deal with frustrations in a frustrating world?

• 9:34Speaker 01

  Exactly. And we are going to get practice constantly. It's just from infancy.

• 9:40Ryan Holiday?

  Because they are, they are the source of so much frustration as a parent.

• 9:43Speaker 01

  You didn't even realize how much they can just do the one thing that's going to give you like, and it's like heavy weightlifting, but we get better and better at it. And so it doesn't feel as heavy over time. But it's huge. And regulation is so highly linked with all the positive outcomes. Everybody is, you know, talking about in research, like you want, whatever the outcome is, whether it's academic, or emotional, or relational, or whatever it is, self-regulation is such a predictor. You just can't have it without co-regulation.

• 10:16Ryan Holiday?

  So what does self-regulation look like? Like, walk, walk someone through that process.

• 10:21Speaker 01

  Well, self-regulation is just sort of a goal-oriented capacity to manage your emotions. And so it's purposeful. Yeah. And essentially, and you can, I really think you can just look at the body and figure out what's happening and get in touch with what happens in your body. Yeah. When you get dysregulated, because we all have a thing, like you could see it in my hands pretty quickly. So I might appear calm, but I'm clenching my hands. Yeah. Because that's, that's an indicator, if you know me well, that like something's about to pop. And so if you think about self-regulation, self-regulation is just having that awareness that this is emerging. Yeah.

• 11:01Speaker 01

  And figuring out how to turn off your internal alarm system to just say, there's no need for the police to come. Like, it's not a real emergency, it was a false alarm. Sure. So I always, this is going to sound ridiculous, given where you live, but I moved to LA from New York City. And I've been in New York City for so long, since high school. And it feels very safe because it's apartments and you're generally just surrounded by people. So I felt very safe. And then I moved into a house in like, nature. And I was like, this is so scary and vulnerable. And so I got like a super crazy alarm system. I had no alarm system in Manhattan. Yeah. New York. Sure.

• 11:42Speaker 01

  But an alarm system in this like beautiful canyon. And I walked in to experience the first time the alarm was set. And there was a slow beeping sound to give you like, whatever your 20 seconds are to put the passcode in. Yeah. And that, to me, is self-regulation. Right there is like, can I access that passcode? Yes. Press those buttons and the alarm goes off. And we need to just practice every day, setting that passcode. Yeah. So that we just can know the difference between real and imagined threat.

• 12:15Ryan Holiday?

  I think about it all the time. There was this episode of Seinfeld where George is talking in the third person for some reason. He goes, George is getting upset. And it's like, he's like, he can just feel that the clock is ticking, that it's about, and it's just, he doesn't have the self-awareness to do anything about it, but he has the self-awareness to know what process has begun.

• 12:36Speaker 01

  He's doing step one.

• 12:37Ryan Holiday?

  Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So self-regulation starts with self, some semblance of self-awareness.

• 12:44Speaker 01

  Yes, which is why I think reflection is such a big part of regulation. You just cannot keep paying attention to something and not

• 12:54Ryan Holiday?

  Right.

• 12:54Speaker 01

  get a little space to make a different choice.

• 12:57Ryan Holiday?

  But that's, that's really hard because people don't have the space for reflection. So because you're a parent, you're just running around all the time, you're sleep deprived. But also you have, you don't have any rituals or parts of your life that would be conducive to that. You don't journal, you don't go for walks, you don't have alone time.

• 13:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:14Ryan Holiday?

  You wake up too late, you know, like you just, you've set up your life to not be conducive to the reflection that you would need to notice the patterns, to make the improvements that ironically would give you more time and space for reflection.

• 13:30Speaker 01

  That is the conundrum. That's why I kind of think of micro meditations and micro self-regulation moments, because I think it's a fantastic dream that you're going to have opportunities to practice your mindfulness exercises all day and become the parent that you want to be. But the truth is, like you said, the reflection part of parenting is very hard.

• 13:52Ryan Holiday?

  Right.

• 13:52Speaker 01

  So it's, it's also, it takes such a quick second to shift. So this is why we do have time for that reflection. It's just not going to be as the traditional sense of like, I'm going to sit down, I'm going to pay. Why do I think that happened? What does my child need right now? Like, all of those things are just going a little bit faster.

• 14:15Ryan Holiday?

  You know, people tell, I went on this seven day meditation retreat.

• 14:18Speaker 01

  Right.

• 14:18Ryan Holiday?

  What are you talking about?

• 14:20Speaker 01

  That's, that's not happening for a long time. I actually, the first meditation retreat that I went on,

• 14:28Speaker 01

  I can't remember, it was, it was, um, Jack, was it Jack Kornfield? I think it was Jack Kornfield. And he said, oh, if you're parents of kids, you shouldn't be doing these. And I was like, what am I even doing here?

• 14:42Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 14:43Speaker 01

  Like, I had this fantasy that I had to do all of that in order to be this like regulation model for my kids so that they wouldn't have the same maybe tendency that I might naturally be inclined to have from my childhood of sort of kind of feeling the feels and not pausing.

• 15:03Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah. What if you just went for a 20 minute walk?

• 15:05Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 15:06Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 15:06Speaker 01

  Honestly, what if you went for 10 steps that were really intentional? And then 10 steps back to where you started? And that was like, okay, before I do whatever it is that I was going to do in reaction to my child, I just took 10 steps. A 20 minute walk would be incredible.

• 15:22Ryan Holiday?

  Yes. Yeah, I think about like, so every night I have to go out to the car because somebody left something, you know, oh, I left my water bottle in the car. I left my backpack in the car and I have to go get it to, you know, set up for the next day. And, um, I go, you know, they're, they're already in bed or they're, you know, the bed. There is this moment of quiet and I'm walking out to the garage, through the garage to get something from the car. And I'm like, it's quiet. I live in the country, the stars are out. I'm not looking up. I'm, you know what? I was like, I'll just take 10 seconds as I do this thing. And I'll just look at the stars for 10 seconds. And I'll be like, that, that's like, just like, so I think looking for these little moments of reflection, but also just kind of stillness you have to cultivate.

• 16:08Speaker 01

  I just love that because you could go from just being so pissed that you have to go out to the car again, to saying, this is just my nightly ritual. And I'm so looking forward to looking at the stars for a moment and having just that, a time to breathe.

• 16:21Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 16:22Speaker 01

  And that changes when you go back in the house and you have bedtime rituals and whatever you're doing, you're now going to lend a different nervous system to your kids.

• 16:30Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, right. It's always like. Oh, I forgot my backpack in the car. Also, I have homework.

• 16:35Speaker 01

  Right.

• 16:36Ryan Holiday?

  You know, and it's like, I think you forgot this until exactly this moment on purpose.

• 16:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:41Ryan Holiday?

  But if that means I get to go outside for five minutes, I'll take it.

• 16:45Speaker 01

  Totally. I just think catching any opportunity for a ritual like that is a great reframe.

• 16:52Ryan Holiday?

  Yes. Well, parenting to me is constant reframing because it's like, okay, you do the whole bedtime routine and you sneak out of the room and they're asleep, or so you think. And then you hear they burst out of the room or whatever. And like, one version of it is like, god damn it. Now I have to do this again. And the other version is I get to do it again. And there's going to be some moment where you would love to do it again. And you're going to be jealous of this person that is currently resentful that you're the thing that in the future you will be jealous of.

• 17:24Speaker 01

  That's so true. I can be that for you right now because I'm just like counting the days for my oldest to graduate and I'm like, oh my God.

• 17:33Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 17:33Speaker 01

  There, I can think of every time I was just, which I'm, I'm so aware of how exhausting the day to day is. But right now, every time she's like, you know, up for a little bit more before bed or chatting in a way where normally I would have been like, oh my God, I'm going to fall asleep. Because I think there comes a point with our kids, they get older and all of a sudden their, their best.

• 17:56Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 17:57Speaker 01

  Time to connect and chat. Actually, that happens throughout is like that before bedtime.

• 18:02Ryan Holiday?

  We have this like exhausting ritual that you do over and over again, and they're always fighting it. And there's always a whatever. And then one day they're like, shut the door on your way out. And you're like, whoa, what?

• 18:11Speaker 01

  I know.

• 18:13Ryan Holiday?

  So there's some moment where it's going to suddenly disappear and that will catch you off guard. And meanwhile, you are rushing through that because you assume it's gonna, you've got more time. Like, we always assume we have more time. We're going to do it 1,000 more times. It's going to go on longer or it'll go on forever. And that's just objectively not true.

• 18:33Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, and also, it's like.

• 18:37Speaker 01

  It does feel like it's really healthy for them to have like a bedtime and get their sleep, which it is so important. But it is, there is a shift where you're like, it's not the slog anymore. It's like, oh, I get to, you want to talk to me before bed? It's so exciting.

• 18:57Ryan Holiday?

  Well, it's like, the best case scenario is that it ends, right? Like, the best case scenario is like, they're healthy and grow up and grow out of it.

• 19:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:07Ryan Holiday?

  There's also a bunch of worst case scenarios where it ends. And again, meanwhile, you're rushing through it. And I always try to, whenever I'm feeling that rush through feeling, which I feel all the time, I go, what am I rushing towards? Like, I'm rushing towards checking my email or whatever. Like, it's, it's never an important, like, obviously, as a parent, you just, you just deserve some alone time. You just want it to be over. You want to be off duty. But like, what I'm gonna do while I'm off duty is the dumbest stuff.

• 19:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:33Ryan Holiday?

  That's not important at all. It's never anything that, you know, I'm not like, maybe one in a thousand times, you're like, if I can get him to bed, babysitter can come right when they fall asleep. And then we're gonna leave, like, you actually are rushing to do something. But most of the time, you're like rushing in to watch something on a big screen while you hold a small screen. And, you know, you're, you're not rushing to anything important at all. And what you're rushing away from is this.

• 20:01Speaker 01

  And also, I like, have so much compassion for that feeling of like, I just need this day to end because otherwise I will be just a terrible parent. Like, there's a, there's a point at which I'm gonna be so dysregulated. I'm so tapped out.

• 20:15Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 20:16Speaker 01

  And I just like, want to hold on to those moments because they just go by so fast. It's just not when you're in it.

• 20:33Ryan Holiday?

  One of the things I think about this idea of when we think about emotional regulation, I think, again, people think it's not getting dysregulated, but it's what you do after you are dysregulated. That's the whole point. If you weren't dysregulated, the regulation would be meaningless.

• 20:48Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 20:48Ryan Holiday?

  You'd just be a superhero or something and you're immune to the things that hold down regular people. I think this distinction between having the emotion and the behavior you take when you have, that's what it's about. It's like, you can be angry, but can you not express the anger in a harmful way? Yeah, that's, that's the whole.

• 21:09Speaker 01

  That's the gig.

• 21:10Ryan Holiday?

  Yes.

• 21:11Speaker 01

  And I love watching. I remember once my younger daughter was probably like four, she was so mad at her older sister, she went, ah, like that. Like she was gonna bite her, but she would not bite her. And we must have been in a group because my best friend said to me, because I was like, look at you, you're so mad. And you just said, ah, that was cool. And my best friend was like, oh, I didn't know that was what you were supposed to do in that moment. I would have been so mad. And I said, no, I'm so, I think that was really cool. Like, sure, she was so mad, she's gonna have to get better at that. Like, at four, you can get away with like snarling like that, but at six, you might get kicked out of the classroom.

• 21:53Speaker 01

  But it was so cool to me to catch those moments of self-regulation of like, I'm just a person having this feeling, this is how I'm expressing it. And it's one notch more regulated than maybe I would have been last week.

• 22:06Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 22:06Speaker 01

  And so maybe if she got, you know, she worked her way down to certainly not doing that.

• 22:12Ryan Holiday?

  Hey, I don't like it when you do that.

• 22:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:14Ryan Holiday?

  You could also get there.

• 22:15Speaker 01

  You can get there and you will get there, but we have to catch these smaller steps because the goal isn't to just like not have the feelings. It's what are you doing with those feelings? And also, just as a side note, because I think this, I'm guessing this happens with you too, but people assume that then you must be just like really calm and. And absent of a lot of that, a lot of the challenges,

• 22:36Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 22:36Speaker 01

  the emotional challenges that come your way. But I actually think it's really important to acknowledge that we're all going to go through all the feels.

• 22:45Ryan Holiday?

  Yes.

• 22:46Speaker 01

  And hopefully get a little better at regulating them over time. But our kids need us to sometimes not be so chill and calm, or they would think that there was something really scary and wrong with them when they're having those bursts. So it's good not to say that we should be like losing our minds, but more like when we make mistakes, emotional mistakes in front of our kids and acknowledge them and kind of repair, we're giving them the opportunity to not have that expectation that they're just going to one day wake up and just be perfect at this.

• 23:19Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, because in the repair or the apology or the recovery, you're, you're showing that you understood what you did, the emotions you had. You're putting a name and a, you know, a face to it. And then you're showing, oh yeah, okay, I also get like, how else are they supposed to learn what anxiety or depression or frustration is? I, I think about how often my kids are experiencing feelings, but they don't know that they're having those feelings. Like, like during the pandemic, how would, how would they know? Like, I'm experiencing a bunch of feelings for the first time in my life.

• 23:57Speaker 01

  Right.

• 23:58Ryan Holiday?

  And I've studied history. I'm watching the news. I'm talking to other people who've been through things. I am vaguely aware of what I'm feeling. But for them, this is totally new. They don't know that they're experiencing existential terror. You know, like, that's a new, that's not a thing that's been explained. So if like, everyone gets a weird feeling at the airport. It's a weird, disconcerting, unusual place. And a lot of things are happening.

• 24:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:23Ryan Holiday?

  If you're, if mom or dad isn't able to go, I'm anxious because I don't want to miss the flight.

• 24:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:29Ryan Holiday?

  Or like, this recycled air makes me feel X, Y, Z. I feel claustrophobic. Like all the, if you're not going, I am feeling this way because of this, or I acted this way because of this. That's not. Acceptable, but it's why it's a it's an explanation, not an excuse. How are they supposed to understand what they're feeling and hopefully get better at it? Have a head start at dealing with it earlier than you did.

• 24:56Speaker 01

  For sure. It's just like, that's your naming your affective state.

• 24:59Ryan Holiday?

  Yes.

• 25:00Speaker 01

  Like, how many people grew up with parents who kind of had a rough day at work, came in the house? And because they had a rough day at work, they were like a little snarky or a little snippy and didn't explain themselves.

• 25:11Ryan Holiday?

  Life was weird and stressful.

• 25:13Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 25:13Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 25:13Speaker 01

  And how much easier is it to say like, you know what? I had a really intense day at work and so I'm going to be potentially a little snippy tonight.

• 25:22Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 25:22Speaker 01

  So here's what I do when that happens. I go take a hot shower. I go, you know, whatever the thing is, I'm going to go walk around the living room for 10 cycles. Like, whatever it is, you're now giving this nice gift, which is I'm not going to necessarily be less snippy. And I'm not necessarily going to be able to just name that affective state and move along. But at least you're not going to wonder.

• 25:47Ryan Holiday?

  Yes.

• 25:47Speaker 01

  What's going on? And that does give them a head start, a flu, like a fluency.

• 25:51Ryan Holiday?

  Yes, you're showing, hey, everyone has feelings, emotions, triggers, whatever. And the whole game is figuring out what those are before you do something you regret. Or when in the sway of those feelings, you do something you regret, you express like it that what you're doing is showing. Like self-awareness isn't this state you achieve like enlightenment. It is a day to day thing. I'm feel, I think this is what's happening. I think this is why. And it's this sort of constant act of self-inquiry and explanation. That's what it is. And you're showing them what that looks like.

• 26:30Speaker 01

  And then what if you now know, I need to put on this song?

• 26:34Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 26:35Speaker 01

  And that's going to shift. I, one of my colleagues who's so wonderful does research on emotion regulation and talks about the music, Ethan Cross. He talks about like the power of just music and shifting your emotions. And it's just so true when you think about all those little times where you needed something quick to regulate. You have your kids around. You don't have the luxury of kind of sitting in it.

• 27:00Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 27:01Speaker 01

  And so you know, like, oh, this is a song that kind of takes me out of it for right now. You might need to revisit it later because that's the other thing is our, we're charged with regulating at times when we just need to regulate.

• 27:15Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 27:15Speaker 01

  And we probably are going to go back to being really, you know, potentially dysregulated or steaming about something, but we have to parent or we have to sit down to dinner. We have to function.

• 27:26Ryan Holiday?

  Sure.

• 27:26Speaker 01

  And so we have to have ways that we can shift our emotions so that they don't, you know, take over.

• 27:35Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah. If self-regulation is the game, understanding you're probably going to fail at it quite often. And then that's where the idea of repair comes in. And it's kind of crazy how new that feels as a parent and concept. Like I, I don't know if my parents' generation got that that was a thing.

• 27:58Speaker 01

  The repair thing?

• 27:59Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 28:00Speaker 01

  It's so funny because I do think it's very popular right now to talk about repair. But the research on repair has been decades. And for some reason, it's just like the memo didn't come out.

• 28:12Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 28:12Speaker 01

  Until later. But the research is Ed Tronik. He looked at babies and caregivers and saw that for the, for about 33% of the time, they were attuned and connected. And the rest of the time was rupture and repair.

• 28:25Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 28:26Speaker 01

  And then it went on to be research amongst parents and older kids and couples and, and, and, and. But the idea is repair is more like reconnect. It doesn't necessarily mean an apology. Sometimes it just means like you move closer on the couch and all of a sudden you're, you're back holding hands and you kind of like silently repaired. You reconnected. And sometimes it's like a sit down apology. Other times it's laughter. But the, the key feature is that you're not supposed to be like, Completely attuned and chill and awesome with each other. It's the

• 29:01Ryan Holiday?

  But also, you're not infallible and it's not their fault. You know, like

• 29:04Speaker 01

  Certainly not.

• 29:06Ryan Holiday?

  The reason, maybe the memo did get out, but, but the reason it wasn't received is it means, it means coming down from your perch.

• 29:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, to say like, I blew it.

• 29:16Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, yeah. And it changes the dynamic of the relationship where it's like, I'm the parent. I do what I want and you make of that what you will.

• 29:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:24Ryan Holiday?

  That's obviously, it's not an easier place to parent from, but it's less, um, cause it doesn't work. But it's a more comfortable place to parent from because

• 29:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:34Ryan Holiday?

  You don't have to look in the mirror very often.

• 29:36Speaker 01

  Of course. And, but, but then, once you sort of commit to repairing, you realize like, oh, this is being a person, like, we're just reconnecting again.

• 29:47Ryan Holiday?

  And, and I'm acknowledging like, oh, I, I'm not pleased with what I just did there.

• 29:52Speaker 01

  Here's how I'm coming back from it. And the other downside to not getting the memo on that is then you have kids who grew up thinking as an adult, like, is it, is there something wrong with me because this was not an issue for my parent? Like, this was not a thing.

• 30:09Ryan Holiday?

  They're the guilt or the

• 30:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:10Ryan Holiday?

  And it's like, yeah, they didn't have any guilt because they, guilt implies, uh, that you could do things incorrectly.

• 30:16Speaker 01

  Right.

• 30:17Ryan Holiday?

  Like guilt implies that you could mess up. And if you don't believe that, it's, it does insulate you from ever feeling insecure.

• 30:25Speaker 01

  Yes. You're not going to be reflective about it. But that moral rudder of like, I don't like how this felt.

• 30:30Ryan Holiday?

  Yes.

• 30:30Speaker 01

  I need to reconnect and repair that relationship.

• 30:34Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 30:34Speaker 01

  When it happens so many times, and it will, because we cannot get this right all the time. I just think it's such a gift to our kids.

• 30:42Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, like I can, I, my parents probably apologized to me like three times in their whole lives. Do you know what I mean? It's just not, it was, it's not part, it wasn't part of it.

• 30:50Speaker 01

  Where did you grow up?

• 30:51Ryan Holiday?

  Sacramento.

• 30:52Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 30:53Ryan Holiday?

  I'm sure there were conversations that we had that were, they never had with their parents, but they were not in a place where they would be like, hey, I screwed up. This probably made you feel, like, that's just not, that wasn't

• 31:03Speaker 01

  That wasn't the thing.

• 31:04Ryan Holiday?

  Yes. And now, now it is. I do think it, but, and the reason I, I think you know it's good is like, If they did it now, I would still be like, it would mean so much, right?

• 31:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:15Ryan Holiday?

  And so it's like 30 plus years later.

• 31:18Speaker 01

  It's that powerful.

• 31:18Ryan Holiday?

  It would still, so like, you know, you can't apologize for something that happened three days ago to your kid? Like, you think, you think it's too late, it won't make a difference? Like, think about things that you would love to hear your parents address.

• 31:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:31Ryan Holiday?

  And how basically, there's no statute of limitations on that.

• 31:36Speaker 01

  No way. I mean, I think it's so cool that we have this beautiful, hopefully, opportunity to constantly be able to revisit and come back. Not to like obsessively say like, remember that thing? And our kids are like, what?

• 31:53Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 31:54Speaker 01

  Like, that's a you problem.

• 31:55Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 31:55Speaker 01

  I moved on long ago. But just the idea that we have this unit of humans where we are so invested that we're like, you know what? I blew it. I'm really sorry about that. Or I'm now laugh, we're now laughing and reconnecting. And we get these opportunities over and over again, so that it's just, you get into adulthood without the emergency of disconnect. Like, every time you're in a new relationship, you're not like, oh, God, I guess it's over now. You know, that's like really something you need to learn over and over in your young life. Otherwise, you have to re-figure it out later.

• 32:33Ryan Holiday?

  Yes.

• 32:33Speaker 01

  We're just trying to like, help our kids along so that they're not getting into adulthood and they're relearning all of this.

• 32:41Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, I mean, I think the sort of cliche boomer one is like, hey, this happened as a kid. No, it didn't. You know, like the, the sort of immediate, like, even though, again, there might not be a statute of limitations, but except it, like, you don't have to, it's not like, you know, your lawyer is like, never apologize because it admits, you know, then there's liability.

• 33:00Speaker 01

  Right, wrongdoing.

• 33:00Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 33:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:01Ryan Holiday?

  It's like, you can, it, why would they make this up 30 years later? You know what I mean? They're, they, they didn't hallucinate this thing probably. And so the, but if you, but if you have practiced the day to day of sort of, well, if that's your experience.

• 33:16Speaker 01

  That's your experience.

• 33:17Ryan Holiday?

  It's your experience. I can't argue your way out. I can't argue you out of your point of view.

• 33:23Speaker 01

  It's funny because one of my daughters. Is she's not a great narrator when she's like in the thick of it. And so I have had to work so hard not to say like, that's legitimately not at all what happened.

• 33:37Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, there's documentary.

• 33:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, totally. I'm like, I really want to rewind the camera on that. Because it's still what her experience was. Whatever her description was, that's what her body felt. That's what she was picturing happened. That is what happened for her. And so helping her maybe figure out over time what it is that happens in her body.

• 34:05Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 34:06Speaker 01

  During those moments that sort of over time helps her maybe practice like, okay, what's a different interpretation here? Might it be that I am mind reading for other people?

• 34:20Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 34:21Speaker 01

  And so if you said nothing and I've decided what you're thinking, my experience is going to be quite different than if I say, wait a second, did Ryan actually say anything in this moment? Or was I just deciding what he was thinking? I went into a whole loop. And so I do think there's a way to help our kids have respect for the experience that they had. And also an openness to, I wonder what part of that experience you had?

• 34:51Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 34:51Speaker 01

  Or like what, you know, what, what might I do as a pattern? That takes me into like a whole different story that might not serve me as I'm trying to like, move through the world and regulate.

• 35:03Ryan Holiday?

  Well, my eight year old does this thing where if we're like, hey, we might go see these people today. Like, we might meet up with your friends. And, and then it doesn't happen because they cancel.

• 35:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:13Ryan Holiday?

  He's like, well, you lied.

• 35:14Speaker 01

  Right.

• 35:14Ryan Holiday?

  You said we were going to. And it's like, okay. Or we go, hey, we're gonna drive over to go to this thing. And then it's closed. And he's like, well, you lied. You know, it's like.

• 35:25Speaker 01

  That's actually a great example.

• 35:26Ryan Holiday?

  I don't control the hours of this business. I don't control your friend's mom. But what you're feeling is frustration. Anger and disappointment and it would be a more just sensible world if it was as simple as I said it and now it didn't happen. So I'm the problem.

• 35:47Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 35:47Ryan Holiday?

  And like that, that's it. So if we can like, I think your initial act is like, are you calling me a liar? What are you talking like? But it's like, no, no, you are, you are hurt. You just don't, you just don't yet understand what sort of is a reasonable emotion and unreasonable emotion. And if I can guide you towards the more reasonable one, which is this sucks.

• 36:08Speaker 01

  You're disappointed.

• 36:09Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, this, you're disappointed. Why, why would they not, if they're going to be closed, why wouldn't they, you know, why didn't they adjust? Or we were at Disneyland and like on the website, it said you could be at this height, but then we got there and it's higher. And it's like, I didn't play an elaborate prank on you to get you excited about something. Now it's inconvenient for me too, you know? And so it's like, hey, let me direct your anger slightly over here.

• 36:32Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 36:32Ryan Holiday?

  Because you're pointing it at me as if I did it. And, and so we're just dialing it in slightly.

• 36:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, just because it makes it easier to become an older kid who isn't like, here's how I've been wronged by this.

• 36:47Ryan Holiday?

  Yes.

• 36:47Speaker 01

  Event.

• 36:48Ryan Holiday?

  Yes.

• 36:48Speaker 01

  But it also respects like, it feels like that was quite purposeful.

• 36:53Ryan Holiday?

  Yes.

• 36:54Speaker 01

  You took all my joy and hope.

• 36:56Ryan Holiday?

  There's still a consequence for you, which is you don't get to do the thing that you wanted to do and that you had hopes for. And that is reasonable to feel.

• 37:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:04Ryan Holiday?

  Having a 40 minute meltdown about it where you're screaming at us as if we did it to you, even though we had the idea to do this thing for you in the first place. That's unreasonable. And the, the difference between those two is like, again, the essential distinction.

• 37:20Speaker 01

  And it's so predictive, just because when you think about like, it's not the challenges necessarily that make or break us. It's like, how do we interpret them? And so our realistic appraisal of a scenario is incredibly predictive of resilience. So we're playing around with this, it's like, yes, I need to validate the feeling that you're having. And also let me help guide without denying your experience.

• 37:48Ryan Holiday?

  Yes.

• 37:49Speaker 01

  Because when you talk about like, okay, 30 years later, if I said this is what happened and I'm just looking for you to acknowledge it. I think we could panic as if like we can't help with the evaluation of what's going on.

• 38:02Ryan Holiday?

  Yes.

• 38:02Speaker 01

  And it's really hard, but there's such a balance because it's still like helping them have more realistic appraisals of like the world around them.

• 38:11Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 38:11Speaker 01

  And also trying to understand and get to the bottom of like, why are you a liar exactly? What does lying mean in this case?

• 38:19Ryan Holiday?

  Yes.

• 38:19Speaker 01

  Like, I'm really disappointed that you weren't able to predict how the whole world was gonna be in order to protect me from missing out on this experience.

• 38:28Ryan Holiday?

  Well, and how bewildering it would be for a kid. So you were excited to go do a thing. And then suddenly you can't do that thing. And then because you couldn't handle the disconnect between those two, now you're in trouble, right? Like now you're getting sent to your room or it just in the way that I think, or like when talking about gentle parenting or whatever, how different it is from a like, you know, you're not allowed to talk that way. Go to your room. So now they went from excited to disappointed, overwhelmed by the disappointment to now, now like, how unjust and screwed up does that world feel? And then how, and this is the part you have a choice as a parent, like I don't choose for him to blame, instinctively blame me for the thing.

• 39:11Ryan Holiday?

  But if because he blamed me and there wasn't the safety to sort of work through that, now I'm this sort of tyrannical, forceful, angry parent. Now I did insert myself as a negative participant in this sort of larger situation.

• 39:26Speaker 01

  And then there like, it allows for some truth that there is someone to blame here. That it's you that you could take, you know, because then you did end up being like, well, you're ungrateful. Go to your room.

• 39:36Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 39:37Speaker 01

  And so that loop continues. But then I just think repair is so beautiful because if you've really embodied that, then you're like, I don't like how that felt.

• 39:46Ryan Holiday?

  No, this wasn't fun. And by the way, uh, what I was trying to talk to you about while you're freaking out is when we're gonna come back.

• 39:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:54Ryan Holiday?

  You know what I mean? I'm not like indifferent to the disappointment here.

• 39:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:59Ryan Holiday?

  I drove all the way out here, you know, like.

• 40:01Speaker 01

  Like, I wish I could tantrum right now.

• 40:03Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, yeah, exactly.

• 40:04Speaker 01

  My oldest daughter, who's 18, we had, we don't, we're not yelly. Like, that's just not our jam. And we had like a brawl where we were yelling, not brawl, like physical.

• 40:19Speaker 01

  But we were yelling at each other, which it just hadn't happened in this way. It was like so bizarre and she was kind of like making little, a little bit of a snide remark at like how I was so clearly not regulated, which like holding me against me, which bothered me even more. I stormed out, I go to my room and then I'm like devastated because I think I just had like the fight with my kid that she's never gonna forget and it's gonna change our whole relationship. And I'm going down this path and my husband's like, what would you tell someone telling you this? And I was just like, ugh, I forget what I would tell anybody. Like, I'm full of it. It's all nonsense.

• 41:01Speaker 01

  And I, he was just like, no, but I think you talk so much about like how important the closeness of the relationship is and that you can make repairs and reconnect. And I was just like, ugh, it's gobbledygook, like it's ruined, forget it. And then my daughter came in my room and she was like, I mean, again, 18, but she was just like, I'm thinking you're probably ripe for repair right now. And she, and I was just like, I am, I'm so sorry about that. And like, it took two seconds and then she was back to talking about something that was in her life that she's focused on. And I was like, huh, it isn't fake news. Yeah. Like, it's real.

• 41:43Speaker 01

  The relationship could withstand, I'm not like, yay, let's go have a, you know, a fighting match. But the relationship could withstand that moment that I thought like, oh God, this is it. And we repaired and there was a shorthand, it was so quick. It wasn't what I thought, which was when I was unable to be reasonable in my own head. And when I was unable to regulate, I was like, I guess this is it. I guess I've just ruined my entire 18 years of this relationship with this human. And it's, you know, and so I just think those are the moments that we can really. Reflect and just think, oh yeah, this is worth investing in in this way.

• 42:22Ryan Holiday?

  But it's also beautiful that the shorthand evinces a certain familiarity with the stuff that you think about and talk about and tried to parent about. Like, at some level, it's working there, right?

• 42:34Speaker 01

  Right, yeah.

• 42:35Ryan Holiday?

  You have this sense as a parent that it's all going in one ear and out the other.

• 42:39Speaker 01

  Right, but it's not.

• 42:40Ryan Holiday?

  And then there's these moments where you're like, oh, wait, you got that from me.

• 42:55Ryan Holiday?

  My in-laws were just watching the kids one night this weekend. And, you know, like you, I'm always getting stuff for the kids. And then I was like, whatever, you know, like, they're, they're sort of always very cynical or not ungrateful, but they're, you know.

• 43:07Speaker 01

  Just what they know.

• 43:08Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, they're just like, this is your job to get me stuff, you know, they're not like, thank you so much. They're just, you know, they have an insatiable desire for stuff. So anyways, my in-laws were like, as soon as you left, they walked through the house and showed us everything. They were just like, they were going on and on about this stuff that they'd like shrugged their shoulders when I gave it to them. And you're like, oh, okay. So like, it's just, you don't want to let me, you, you think that, and probably right, that the more you play hard to get, the more you get. But as soon as I'm not here, you're like, look at this autographed baseball card, you know?

• 43:44Speaker 01

  That's so validating, too, because you're just like, oh, right. This, this stuff, we don't get, it's a long game.

• 43:51Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 43:51Speaker 01

  Like, and those little moments are so cool. They're just so nourishing to think like, I'm not, this is, this is worth investing in. This time and this thought is, is getting in there. It's just hard to, you just don't get the like, thank you.

• 44:07Ryan Holiday?

  Yes. Yeah, you don't. I mean, the Stoics talk about this idea that they call it the third thing. And so the third thing is, you do something good, someone benefits from it. That's one and two. The third thing is the thanks, or the acknowledgement, or the, the appreciation. And I think, it's not that parenting is thankless, but like, It's not their job to be grateful. Like, it's your job to do the things and their job to get the things. And that, anything after that is extra.

• 44:37Speaker 01

  Extra, totally. And I imagine, I mean, I just said to my mom, something like, I don't know how you, I don't know how you were able to let me travel after high school by myself and like, go off and how you must have been so nervous and just like chewing your nails. And it was like before phones and things where you could-

• 45:02Ryan Holiday?

  They're not supposed to appreciate how hard it is for you. That's not their responsibility.

• 45:06Speaker 01

  Like, I'm 51 and I just called my mother and said, like, thank you so much for letting me go do that insane thing that you let me do.

• 45:13Ryan Holiday?

  It must have been very stressful for you.

• 45:16Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 45:16Ryan Holiday?

  But you were blissfully ignorant of that.

• 45:18Speaker 01

  I had no idea. Like, I was fully focused on exploring and growing and be, you know, flying. And she probably was at home, like, teary eyed and worried, sick. But she didn't impose that on me.

• 45:31Ryan Holiday?

  Yes.

• 45:31Speaker 01

  So I thanked her now.

• 45:33Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah. And I think imposing is a good word there, though, because it's an imposition.

• 45:37Speaker 01

  Totally.

• 45:37Ryan Holiday?

  It's an inappropriate, boundary violating imposition.

• 45:41Speaker 01

  It is a boundary violating imposition.

• 45:43Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 45:43Speaker 01

  And I, and I, I gave her that third thing. I was grateful, but at 51, not at 18.

• 45:49Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 45:50Speaker 01

  And, but it is that because like, we are not responsible.

• 45:53Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 45:53Speaker 01

  It's a funny thing because the idea of like, you don't, you can't control how other people feel and you're not responsible for other people's feelings, I think is a little

• 46:01Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 46:01Speaker 01

  funky because if anybody's walked into a room where people are laughing or yelling or anything, you know that your whole nervous system shifts. So like, there is an impact from others. But the idea that our children would ever feel like we don't know how to manage those feelings.

• 46:21Ryan Holiday?

  Yes.

• 46:22Speaker 01

  Is scary.

• 46:23Ryan Holiday?

  Well, I think, look, I think it goes without saying that the Kennedys are a fucked up family. But have you ever heard that story? John F. Kennedy says that he learned about the Depression in college. Like, like

• 46:33Speaker 01

  No.

• 46:33Ryan Holiday?

  He was so

• 46:34Speaker 01

  Oh, because he was so blissfully

• 46:35Ryan Holiday?

  Yes. And, and so you're first, you first hear that and you go, okay, that's obviously terrible parenting. That's rich and privileged or whatever. And then you kind of do the math. And I mean, he was like in his very early teens when the depression starts. Why should the kid know about the depression?

• 46:51Speaker 01

  Right. How's he gonna learn about anything but worry?

• 46:54Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, like the, the job of the parents is to shield the kids from the insanity and cynicism and awfulness of the world. And I was reading more about it. It, he says, one thing I did notice, though, is that we had a lot more people working for us. And so you go, okay, again, oh, so what your parents were doing during the depression, because they were not struggling, was hiring more people that they didn't need. So again, the Kennedys are screwed up and his father was basically an abusive monster. But in this one instance,

• 47:27Speaker 01

  He was onto something.

• 47:28Ryan Holiday?

  He's doing it exactly right, which is like, hey, I don't need to dump the weight of this horror show on my, you know, preteen. And I am going to model for them and maybe they'll pick it up or they'll just pick up the vibe of it, which is that, you know, the duty of privilege and responsibility is to, to be of service. And, and later they are going to uncover what happened.

• 47:48Speaker 01

  And they did.

• 47:49Ryan Holiday?

  And they did.

• 47:49Speaker 01

  And, and duty was a big part of

• 47:52Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 47:52Speaker 01

  The calling.

• 47:52Ryan Holiday?

  That is the one good part of the earlier generation of Kennedys.

• 47:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, right.

• 47:57Ryan Holiday?

  But, but yeah, the idea that there is this kind of like trauma bonding that I think some parents do with their kids. It's inappropriate. Like they are young and innocent and pure. They should be able to have that as long as possible. Your job is, is not to rob them of that cynicism. And I think this also goes to the other stuff where it's like, hey, they're going to engender and evoke certain feelings in you because they are reckless and dumb and naive. But those are your feelings. They're not feelings you get to give back to them.

• 48:30Speaker 01

  Right.

• 48:30Ryan Holiday?

  About how much they worry you or stress you out or make you tired. Like, that's your problem.

• 48:34Speaker 01

  That's, that's for us. I think it gets mixed up because then parents think, I'm not allowed to have feelings around my kids. But it's more like, One, those feelings should be yours that you know how to manage.

• 48:47Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 48:47Speaker 01

  So I am sad because this thing happened, not because of you.

• 48:50Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 48:51Speaker 01

  But something made me sad. I wasn't able to hold back my tears or whatever. But it was an appropriate reaction.

• 48:58Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 48:59Speaker 01

  Grandma died. Of course I'm sad.

• 49:00Ryan Holiday?

  Sure.

• 49:01Speaker 01

  And also, I know how to take care of myself.

• 49:03Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 49:03Speaker 01

  So like, you're not charged with that. So I think what we do is, we pretend to protect, but then we're not good at pretending. So I would rather someone say, either, I'm really, I've got my self-regulation down. So I don't need to introduce all this stuff to my kids. Or be reflective enough to say, I'm, I'm teary eyed. It's a pandemic. I seem stressed. I've got to say something.

• 49:27Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 49:27Speaker 01

  But I have to promise that I, and show that I know how to manage me and I can take care of you at the same time.

• 49:34Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 49:35Speaker 01

  And that seems to be the thing that trips people up, I think.

• 49:39Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah. Or it's like, hey, look, if you're overwhelmed, you're not in a good place. Give them a screen and go in the fucking other room.

• 49:44Speaker 01

  Right, right, right. You know what I mean? You're so afraid of screens that you're like, I'm gonna just sob next to my kid. And they're not gonna be able to just get this, just let them be distracted. Who cares?

• 49:53Ryan Holiday?

  Yes, exactly.

• 49:54Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, that's the other thing is like, we've made stuff so precious.

• 49:57Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 49:57Speaker 01

  That we like tie ourselves up in knots to be so good at like, the things that we're feeling we're supposed to do. Which totally undermines our own regulation.

• 50:09Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah. If the key to being a good parent is to be emotionally well-regulated. What are the things that help you regulate your emotions and then not feeling guilty for doing them? And making sure you're prioritizing them. So like.

• 50:21Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 50:22Ryan Holiday?

  For me, if exercise is a big part of that, I don't feel guilty. I don't feel guilty when I am working because, I mean, I feel guilty if I'm working to excess. But like, someone has to pay for all this stuff.

• 50:32Speaker 01

  Right.

• 50:33Ryan Holiday?

  So like, that's my, that's what I have to do. And exercise is a part of that. And date nights can be part of it. Whatever it is that you need to be a regulated, functioning, responsible adult. You have to do.

• 50:46Speaker 01

  And tell them you're doing.

• 50:48Ryan Holiday?

  And why?

• 50:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:49Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 50:49Speaker 01

  Like, I, how great if you're like, I'm not gonna be with you right now because I need to go for a run.

• 50:54Ryan Holiday?

  Yes.

• 50:54Speaker 01

  And that's really important for my health.

• 50:57Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 50:57Speaker 01

  And my mental health. And then you're out the door, even if your child doesn't like it, or they're sad, or they want you. Because you know, that's just a better system.

• 51:06Ryan Holiday?

  Yes.

• 51:07Speaker 01

  And then hopefully they will embody that later.

• 51:09Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, you're saying, hey, I'm taking care of myself so I can take care of you.

• 51:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:13Ryan Holiday?

  And that's not an insignificant lesson also to teach them.

• 51:18Speaker 01

  Ah, it's such a significant lesson because there is like the, there is this old idea and I don't know if it's old yet.

• 51:26Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 51:26Speaker 01

  But it should be, which is like the martyr

• 51:29Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 51:29Speaker 01

  of parenting, like the martyrdom of it all is like, that's the good parent. And it's totally, what a bonkers message that is.

• 51:36Ryan Holiday?

  Yes.

• 51:37Speaker 01

  You can love and cherish and take care of and protect and all the things without saying, I, you know, like, I've sacrificed everything for you. Like, what a terrible message that is.

• 51:50Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah. If your daughter, flashing forward to your daughter, your son saying that that's what they were doing for their kids or for their spouse, you'd be like, this is crazy.

• 52:00Speaker 01

  Yeah. Where'd you get that idea?

• 52:02Ryan Holiday?

  Like, where do you think? I watched you do it.

• 52:04Speaker 01

  Yeah. So I, I love the, that we are now getting more comfortable putting the oxygen mask on first. In fact, when the pandemic started, I said to one of my friends who was really, really struggling, her younger kids were at home. And she was like, I cannot, like, this is killing me and I don't know what to do. And I said, you have to, and I know she hates this cliche, but I was like, you do have to figure out like, what is your oxygen mask? Because it has to go on first. And she was like, if I hear that one more time, it's so annoying. Who has time to put their oxygen mask on?

• 52:36Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 52:37Speaker 01

  And then as time went by, she was like, I have to find the oxygen mask. Like, I get it now because I am absolutely useless if I don't figure that out.

• 52:47Ryan Holiday?

  So I thought it was funny, I was reading your bio, you have a degree in risk and resilience? How is that? Like, what do you, what do you study to get a degree in that? That's fascinating.

• 52:56Speaker 01

  It's risk resilience and prevention.

• 52:59Ryan Holiday?

  Okay.

• 52:59Speaker 01

  And really, In the end, you're studying what are called now toxic stressors and how to move the categorization of toxic stress to tolerable stress to bolster resilience, which is ideally what we're doing if you have exposure to the terrible stuff. And then you're helping figure out how humans can mitigate the risk of like what stressors do to us to not like to have fragility versus like growing that muscle.

• 53:36Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 53:37Speaker 01

  And what I think is really cool about resilience research, first of all, is that we are so wired for resilience.

• 53:43Ryan Holiday?

  Sure.

• 53:43Speaker 01

  And

• 53:44Ryan Holiday?

  We're like cockroaches.

• 53:45Speaker 01

  We really are. And we get in the way of resilience building more often than we need to in the service of thinking that we are doing the opposite. So I think the research on resilience is super cool, but it's just essentially looking at all the different ways that risk can happen and why does some kids come out better equipped than others? And looking into much of that, to me, I think it's the most heartening research, which is that whenever we hear the stories of like someone rising up despite adversity, like you peer under the hood and there's someone that they felt a deep connection with. It may not have been a parent.

• 54:28Ryan Holiday?

  Sure.

• 54:28Speaker 01

  It may have been a coach. It may have been a teacher, whatever.

• 54:30Ryan Holiday?

  There was someone who saw that they were capable of getting through it and rising above it.

• 54:36Speaker 01

  Yes. It's never just, the onus was never on the one person to be resilient. And I think the biggest thing I got out of this risk resilience research degree was just, oh, we are not charged with being resilient. That is a false idea. It's like there are skills that are associated with resilience that we can build in our kids and in ourselves, but like the onus is not on the human to be resilient. That's like one, it's like this constellation of features that together make it easier to bounce back.

• 55:11Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah. Yeah, I think about like, we just assume kids are super fragile. But then when you talk to like older people that lived through the depression or World War II, or whatever, they're not like, it was the worst thing. They're like, it's just a part of their life. It gets integrated into your life. And then we act like comparatively, a pandemic is nothing. But also just these much, I'm just saying versus-

• 55:35Speaker 01

  Relative to, yes.

• 55:37Ryan Holiday?

  Yes. Oh, it was very, it was scary. Okay. But for 40 years, people lived under the threat of nuclear annihilation on a daily basis. Like-

• 55:44Speaker 01

  So true.

• 55:45Ryan Holiday?

  There's always an analog that makes you realize, okay, humans have thrived-

• 55:49Speaker 01

  We get through it.

• 55:49Ryan Holiday?

  -under similar circumstances.

• 55:51Speaker 01

  When the pandemic started, this is a controversial thing to say, but I had a moment of thinking, this is not true for everyone. There is, there are vulnerable populations for whom this was too much. And setting that aside and setting aside that people's lives were lost, I was thinking, for the people for whom there is that person in their life who's functioning and loving and able to be there for them. And, you know, there isn't food insecurity. Those kids just got themselves the biggest gift of resilience building that they were not getting.

• 56:26Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 56:27Speaker 01

  And it has not stopped. It's been fairly relentless.

• 56:30Ryan Holiday?

  Yes.

• 56:30Speaker 01

  And everyone is so worried about this generation of kids. And I actually worried about this generation of parents who are parenting the kids, because I think the adults are having a lot of-

• 56:40Ryan Holiday?

  Yes.

• 56:41Speaker 01

  A hard time. In the presence of having a loving adult who's kind of got their act together, I'm very much hoping that this is a generation of kids that are real, you know, robust, because they know they can get through things.

• 56:57Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah. And, and they know they can get through things because they have evidence of what they've gone, gotten through.

• 57:03Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 57:03Ryan Holiday?

  And that's, I think, what you're sensing when you talk to someone who lived through a historical event. They were like, yeah, it wasn't fun. They're not like, oh, it was amazing.

• 57:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm not wishing it upon anyone.

• 57:14Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah. But they're, but they're like, it, it was what it was. And this is how it changed and it shaped and it taught me.

• 57:21Speaker 01

  And I think we don't have, we're not going to prescribe like hard experiences for our kids, because it's counterintuitive and it's unpleasant. And nobody wishes the big stuff on anyone. But the like, forgetting your backpack.

• 57:37Speaker 01

  Or not getting invited to the party, like, we need to exercise those muscles. Like, we should be so lucky if those are the hard things that our kids have to go through. And it's really important that they get that opportunity because there's, I said, I mentioned toxic stress and tolerable stress, but there's positive stress, which people sometimes think of as like,

• 57:57Ryan Holiday?

  Post-traumatic growth also.

• 57:58Speaker 01

  Yes, and there is. So, we just need to think like, oh, in the absence of positive stressors, just like the normal wear and tear, the moving, having a new baby, you know, not getting invited to the birthday party, whatever it is. In the absence of positive stressors, there is no resilience. Like, there is fragility. So, we, that is a non-negotiable. And the toxic, we could do without. But the idea that the relationship, just with that one person, can move the categorization from toxic to tolerable,

• 58:29Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 58:29Speaker 01

  to me is like, oh, my God, that's so relieving.

• 58:35Ryan Holiday?

  Well, I get that question a lot. People go, if I want to raise resilient kids, should I expose them to adversity and difficulty? Should I come up with obstacles that they have to sort of wrestle with? And I, I've always found that to be a little silly because I feel like,

• 58:47Speaker 01

  The world will provide it.

• 58:48Ryan Holiday?

  Life will take care of that. Yeah. But we don't get to choose the type or the degree to which we experience adversity. So, someone's going to be born in a poverty, someone's going to be born missing a limb. I went to public school, but up through middle school to a very sort of normal, lower-middle-class high school, and then I moved to the fancy high school on the other side of town. And it was disorienting and weird and certainly a privileged form of stress, but it was unusual. It was, and so, so like, the kinds of adversity people are going to deal with are going to change. I don't think you need to seek out,

• 59:21Speaker 01

  No, it'll happen.

• 59:22Ryan Holiday?

  Sending them to military boot camp or whatever. But the idea is when you are experiencing the stress, naming and explaining and helping them through the stress, that's the job. Not making it go away,

• 59:35Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 59:35Ryan Holiday?

  but going, hey, this is, and I do, as minor as that was, I wish my parents had been like, hey, you're here, now you're here. This is going to feel weird.

• 59:43Speaker 01

  That's so hard.

• 59:43Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah. And not like, we're going to throw you a pity party, but like, you're going to have feelings about this because it's different than before. That's how you help them, just, just taking the adversity that you get and treating it seriously.

• 59:57Speaker 01

  Yes, not fixing every, not fixing the feeling, not fixing the change. You had to make that change, but just knowing like, this is disorienting. That is something that we know is hard and that you can get through and we're right here for it. Is a very resilience building message, like hugely resilience building. What's not resilience building is you can't handle this. So we're going to go, you know, like, we're going to make this changer. We're going to give you extra ice cream every day or we're going to take away every hard.

• 1:00:29Ryan Holiday?

  We're going to punish you for not handle, for not dealing with it well, to being overwhelmed by it.

• 1:00:34Speaker 01

  Yes. Those are all like the, the ways that we can help bolster resilience. And then there are skills around it, like gratitude is hugely associated with resilience and motivation. And.

• 1:00:46Ryan Holiday?

  You work on your perspective.

• 1:00:47Speaker 01

  Perspective taking huge.

• 1:00:49Ryan Holiday?

  Think about it this way or that way or yes.

• 1:00:51Speaker 01

  Like those are, we can build those skills. And then there's DNA and you know, some people are more prone to having a harder response than other people. And it has nothing to do with parenting. Like in that case, I, I really love the orchid and dandelion metaphor that Dr. Thomas Boise came up with, which is just, actually, I think it's probably somebody else came up with that metaphor. And he just used it in his research, but just the idea that some people are born more like a dandelion.

• 1:01:19Ryan Holiday?

  Sure.

• 1:01:20Speaker 01

  And I think when I first started doing the research and graduate school, I was like, trying to figure out, like why my parent, my grandparents were Holocaust survivors. And I was like, why does some people, like, how are they still getting up every day? Like, how did they have kids? How did, you know, how do these things happen? But so I think part of it is that if you have yourself a dandelion, who's going to kind of grow through the cracks of the sidewalk, with just like the fundamentals, like the, the equivalent of sunlight, water and soil of like just love, a little bit of boundaries and, and some food and shelter. They're probably going to be okay no matter what you do, whether you make repairs

• 1:02:00Speaker 01

  or not, whatever you do. But like for those orchids, they need a lot more support around resilience building. They just, they just do.

• 1:02:09Ryan Holiday?

  They have a sensitivity or a disposition. And, and I think going, hey, this is probably, it's not just, hey, this, these are your disadvantages because you're this way.

• 1:02:18Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:02:18Ryan Holiday?

  But you're probably attuned to and capable of things that this sort of scrap or dandelion over here is never going to touch.

• 1:02:25Speaker 01

  Like, you're probably going to be so much more empathetic, which is going to make it really hard to be in, in a world that has a lot of stuff going on that's watching people suffer. And also, how cool that you're going to be so highly attuned and so empathetic. But I think for those kinds of orchids who feel the environment a little bit more powerfully, if we can help them fine tune that and make it their superpower, and also just recognize, like, it's just going to be harder for you.

• 1:02:53Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:53Speaker 01

  Like, this game is going to be harder for you. That is, you're, that, you know, that we know is true. And also, like, you're going to be this blossoming gorgeous flower.

• 1:03:02Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:02Speaker 01

  Like, I think that's kind of cool and heartening. But I just don't want, you know, I, I do think sometimes people, when they have a kid who's fairly, you know, good at bouncing back, they're just kind of like, well, that's because we did this.

• 1:03:17Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, they give themselves a lot of credit for it. Yes. And you just, you got lucky.

• 1:03:21Speaker 01

  You, sometimes it's just you got really lucky. And sometimes, you know, however you frame it, I think for people who have multiple kids or siblings, whatever, you kind of are like, oh, yeah, I do see that for some people, like, it's just easier to be.

• 1:03:36Ryan Holiday?

  Yes.

• 1:03:37Speaker 01

  And for other people, even though it's more challenging, it might be like more exciting, it might be more beautiful, it might be deeper, but you do need to recognize it and harness that in a way that is more regulated. They have, they have to work harder at regulation.

• 1:03:52Ryan Holiday?

  There is a problem, I think resilient people or what they call sort of high agency people. Often I find there is a startling lack of empathy in those people because they're like, I got

• 1:04:05Speaker 01

  I could do it.

• 1:04:06Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, of course. It's easy. Pull yourself up and, and just realizing that actually we're all sort of dealt different hands.

• 1:04:14Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:04:15Ryan Holiday?

  And that maybe that person is actually doing much better than you. They just started from a much harder place than you.

• 1:04:22Speaker 01

  For sure.

• 1:04:22Ryan Holiday?

  And, and so I think as a parent, sort of remembering first off, that you were once small and shitty at all these things, but that, you know, your disposition might have made certain things easier for you that are actually quite hard for them. And, and then understanding also as a parent, you got dealt whatever kids you got dealt.

• 1:04:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, you're growing those kids.

• 1:04:46Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, it's not normal. Whatever you're dealing with, there is no normal. And, um, yeah, to, to not, I, I think to not be judgmental of other families or other people dealing with things because you have no fucking clue.

• 1:04:59Speaker 01

  Have no idea. And I like, what a skill to be able to say to your kids, even if you did go through that experience, to be able to say, I can't, I don't know what your lived experience is. I'm curious about it.

• 1:05:13Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:13Speaker 01

  Versus like, well, I went through that too, and here's how I've managed it. And, you know, like I, that does pull at a thread for me when people are like, well, problem with kids today is, or like, this is what we did and it worked. And I'm like, you're N of one is just not like, we have to do better than that. We have to do better and as a society than like, just being like, well, this is my experience. And so everybody else is just wrong.

• 1:05:38Ryan Holiday?

  Well, so as we wrap up, you, you talk about raising good humans, which I think is important because people talk about raising kids, but you're not raising kids. You're trying to raise an adult.

• 1:05:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:05:48Ryan Holiday?

  Right? Like you're trying to make, but the job is not to have

• 1:05:52Speaker 01

  Forever kids.

• 1:05:52Ryan Holiday?

  A 40 year old kid. Yeah. Like your job is to raise an adult. And so I think the distinction, it, it seems like a semantic one, but it is important. Like you're raising humans, not kids.

• 1:06:04Speaker 01

  I think so. And also it gives space for us to raise ourselves a little bit more if we need a little more.

• 1:06:09Ryan Holiday?

  That we're on the same journey as them.

• 1:06:11Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:06:11Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:11Speaker 01

  Cause we are kind of rebirthed as parent, you know, we start as parents, the same day our kids are born. So. It's like, you know, we're new at this and we're growing and we're evolving. And I don't even know what good human is like, there's not one official definition. I just think we all know what it is for ourselves. Like, we just know in our bones and it's going to be something different for you than it is for me. But if we have that intention, we can sort of have, I don't know, like a north star for what are we doing all this for?

• 1:06:43Ryan Holiday?

  Yes. Yeah, you're trying to raise a functional adult. That's success. You're not trying to raise a professional athlete. You're not trying to raise a future billionaire. You're not trying to raise a famous person. You are trying to raise a functional adult who can regulate their emotions, deal with adversity, bounce back from failure and then be decent and kind and positively contribute to the world in some way.

• 1:07:08Speaker 01

  I mean, I think we probably have a very similar definition then of it. But I just want everybody to kind of figure out what theirs is. And I think it's probably all along those lines.

• 1:07:20Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah. You know, the tiger mom thing, it's like your job is not to raise a talented cellist. You know, like that's part of being a functional decent human being, maybe. But like, you seem to think that your job is to create an impressive resume.

• 1:07:36Speaker 01

  I mean, part of that is also like, there is, I'm not sure what it is, but there's something to like, you're not planting a seed and raising whatever flower you've decided it will be. It's going to be what, like that flower is coming out how they're coming out.

• 1:07:55Ryan Holiday?

  Right, right.

• 1:07:55Speaker 01

  And like, are you going to provide the environment for that particular human to thrive? And if you're fixated on curating who this person is beyond the basics of like functioning, self-regulated, compassionate person, it's going to fail unless like those sometimes like it just works well.

• 1:08:19Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, sometimes you, your vision, your vision might have accidentally aligned with whatever they sort of biologically and physiologically are. But it is guaranteed that you will give them a complex about it.

• 1:08:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I'm all for sort of having. Expectations and hopes and dreams for your kids. But if it is not matching who they are and/or they confuse your love, like, they need to know they are loved, period.

• 1:08:50Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:51Speaker 01

  And then if they have accomplishments, great. If they don't, like, what's, you know, what does that mean? None of it should be in any way related to the love.

• 1:09:03Ryan Holiday?

  Totally.

• 1:09:03Speaker 01

  And that, the tiger thing that I think you're talking about, like, sometimes mixed in is like, I achieved this, you must love me more.

• 1:09:11Ryan Holiday?

  Yes.

• 1:09:12Speaker 01

  Which would be so not resilience building.

• 1:09:15Ryan Holiday?

  Totally.

• 1:09:16Speaker 01

  Right? Because then, if you fall, you assume that you are not loved.

• 1:09:21Ryan Holiday?

  Yes.

• 1:09:22Speaker 01

  So actually, it really ties back into resilience research because that is like a pathway to fragility.

• 1:09:30Ryan Holiday?

  You want to check out some books?

• 1:09:31Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:09:34Ryan Holiday?

  Thanks so much for listening. If you could rate this podcast and leave a review on iTunes, that would mean so much to us and it would really help the show. We appreciate it and I'll see you next episode.