Dr Emily - Acceptance, That's Radical

Pain is inevitable, but suffering does not have to be. 💌Join 5,000+ people getting our takeaways and favourite moments from this episode in our weekly newsletter - http://bit.ly/45NyQDy Dr Emily Musgrove, our resident psychologist and general provider of wisdom, is here to talk about radical acceptance. Drawing inspiration from our holy grail episode with Gina Chick, Dr Em deep dives radical acceptance; what is it, how do we cultivate it, and why is it important to us as human beings? According to Dr Em, radical acceptance is not about liking or accepting (insert profanity here) situations or circumstances, or denying an experience, but rather, accepting the pain inside of us to avoid the reaction of suffering. Instead of feeling better, it’s about finding a better way of feeling. For Hugh, the concept of radical acceptance really hits close to home, and he reflects on how it has changed his life insurmountably. Dr Emily, we love ya, and we missed ya. If you’d like to watch this full episode on YouTube, follow this link - 0:00 – Getting the Gina Chick zoomies 6:23 – The Radical Acceptance origin story 14:20 – Change how you relate 21:19 – On a global scale 27:25 – An Unwanted Guest 34:42 – The third option 40:38 – Grieving the loss of what you wanted 45:28 – Living proof ft. Hugh 53:18 – Anxious about my anxiety 1:03:26 – Main character moment 1:10:17 – Putting it in practice 🫖Other episodes of The Imperfects mentioned on this episode Gina Chick - Don’t Fight Life - https://bit.ly/4b9nAVG 📖 Things to read Unstuck, by Dr Emily Musgrove - https://bit.ly/4o8JFay The Happiness Trap, by Russ Harris - https://bit.ly/4kRn3Lq The Guest House, by Rumi - https://bit.ly/4kXhaMS 💻Things to check out Tara Brach - RAIN meditation - https://bit.ly/3MNou0M Alfred Adler - Three Sided Column - https://bit.ly/3P1gSbJ Jill Bolte Taylor - 90 second shelf life of emotions - https://bit.ly/4aV5rtL 🩷To host your own Vulnerabilitea House, purchase here - http://bit.ly/4lyuuWz 🩵To purchase our journal (or your novel) My Imperfect Life, click here - http://bit.ly/4lyuuW 🩵To join our subscriber community, A Little More Imperfects, follow this link - http://bit.ly/4mqunxu 🩷 AND you can subscribe to A Little More Imperfects through Apple Podcasts too, here - http://apple.co/theimperfects The Imperfects is not a licensed mental health service and is not a substitute for professional mental health advice, treatment or assessment. The advice given in this episode is general in nature, but if you’re struggling, please see a healthcare professional, or call lifeline on 13 11 14. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Pain in life is inevitable, but suffering does not have to be. And that's really what radical acceptance is about. Now, we can't control that this pain is here, but the mind is trying to. So it's trying to get rid of it. It doesn't want it. It doesn't like it. And that reaction to the first pain is actually what creates suffering. So we go from having pain to having pain and suffering. It's not about accepting horrific circumstances. It's not about accepting what's happening outside of us, but actually accepting what's happening inside of us.

• 0:40Speaker 01

  I have lived radical acceptance for the last, I would say, five years. I am so much more compassionate to everyone and I love so much more. I have so much more love for so many more things. And it's because of the journey of radical acceptance.

• 0:53Speaker 00

  Instead of feeling better, it's finding a better way of feeling.

• 0:57Speaker 02

  Quick, is anyone here a doctor? Yes, her name is Dr Emily and she's a psychologist. Please welcome to the Imperfect, our very own psychologist. Don't worry if you haven't made a booking. Don't need to make an appointment. You've just got a session with Dr M for free. That's good.

• 1:19Speaker 01

  It's really good.

• 1:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, how are you, M?

• 1:21Speaker 00

  Excellent. I'm so happy to be here.

• 1:24Speaker 02

  Are you?

• 1:24Speaker 00

  This is great.

• 1:25Speaker 01

  I'll tell you who else is happy that you're here.

• 1:26Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:26Speaker 01

  The Resilience Project. I walked in, I thought, why is there so many people here today?

• 1:30Speaker 00

  No.

• 1:31Speaker 01

  And then when you walked in, I saw a flurry of like looks. They're giving each other looks and excited looks and...

• 1:36Speaker 00

  That is so strange.

• 1:37Speaker 01

  Well, it happened. I just saw it happen.

• 1:39Speaker 00

  There you go. That's very nice.

• 1:41Speaker 01

  End of last year, we did the live show and you, we were so lucky. You joined us for the Melbourne show.

• 1:47Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 1:48Speaker 01

  Not the Royal Melbourne show, that's a different thing. You've been bringing the Royal Melbourne show together.

• 1:51Speaker 02

  No. But let's like, that's not a bad idea.

• 1:55Speaker 01

  We should do that.

• 1:56Speaker 00

  We should get some show bags. Show bags is a big thing.

• 1:58Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:59Speaker 00

  Oh, definitely. And they're very expensive. I'll bet.

• 2:02Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:03Speaker 01

  And there's such quality items in there as well.

• 2:05Speaker 02

  Yeah. I actually need a new whoopee cushion.

• 2:10Speaker 02

  I just, it got to a point, you know, I just wear it out.

• 2:12Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:13Speaker 01

  Amazingly on Friday, that was my, one of my birthday presents to your son Charlie.

• 2:17Speaker 03

  Yeah, hasn't it gone down as well as whoopee cushions have always gone down.

• 2:20Speaker 02

  Oh, they're.

• 2:21Speaker 01

  They're new and improved, they're new and improved.

• 2:23Speaker 03

  Yeah, they self inflate now.

• 2:24Speaker 02

  Oh, that's right. I've seen them.

• 2:25Speaker 01

  Like extra padding as well. It's great.

• 2:27Speaker 02

  Oh, brilliant.

• 2:28Speaker 01

  Em, you joined us for the live show in Melbourne and you did a topic that as you were talking on the live show, I remember just thinking this has to be an episode, this has to be an episode. And in fact, I think I guess the first thing I said to you as we came on stage was like, that was great, but we need another, we need an extra hour on that. So, um, here we are today.

• 2:47Speaker 02

  Here we are.

• 2:48Speaker 00

  Yes. Yeah. So the, the concept that I'd really like to explore today is called radical acceptance.

• 2:54Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 2:55Speaker 00

  And I thought actually it would be really great if we could do a deep dive onto what that is, um, how we cultivate it and why it's meaningful and important.

• 3:04Speaker 02

  Such a good idea.

• 3:04Speaker 01

  And it's something that no one ever thinks about until they're in it and have that challenge.

• 3:09Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 3:09Speaker 01

  And it's, oh, goes far as saying it's a life-saving, um, concept to understand.

• 3:15Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:15Speaker 00

  Yeah. Yeah. I really think it is. And it's, but it doesn't come easily. Like all things, there requires some effort and intention around how we can actually move in this direction.

• 3:26Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 3:27Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 3:27Speaker 02

  Absolutely.

• 3:28Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 3:28Speaker 02

  Okay. So often, as people know, but new listeners might not know that you often look back onto one of our old episodes and you find a clip or a moment from an episode that you want to expand upon it. Are you going to play a clip? You are? Okay, great.

• 3:41Speaker 00

  Um, when I was thinking about all the episodes that you've done, and gosh, there are, there are so many that I could have chosen, but the one that stood out to me as an example of how we, um, an example of acceptance would have been the work and, um, life of Gina Chick.

• 3:58Speaker 02

  Oh, hmm. Gina Chick, I mean, like any opportunity to replay moments from her episode, we will take.

• 4:05Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 4:05Speaker 02

  Gina Chick, who for those who don't know, was on Alone and was, you know, we did an incredible episode because of her, uh, in, down in Tasmania. It was this like amazing experience, but, uh, yeah, Gina's, um, not only a friend of the show, but I'd say a best friend of the show.

• 4:19Speaker 00

  Oh. Um, in the excerpt that I'm playing, she's talking about, um, emotion and it was in the context at that time around talking around grief, but it's applicable to any experience of emotion that we, that we have.

• 4:34Speaker 04

  By being able to accept that emotions are weather.

• 4:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:40Speaker 04

  They are not going to destroy us, they are not going to break us. We have nervous systems that are designed to be able to process and metabolize our emotions. But to do that, we have to move. We have to move, we have to not think our feelings. Emotions coming through do this. They move, our heads move, our necks move, we shake, we roll, we cry, you know, it's like this. It's dynamic and when we are in relationship with our bodies, and this was what I was asking about with the body thing. When we're in relationship with our bodies and with the process of emotion moving through a body, we learn the skill of being present for that emotion coming through and letting it, letting it have its way.

• 5:23Speaker 04

  And when we do that, we're not holding it back, that wave can move. And then on the other side, it's like, oh. What we'll find and what you will find, what people do find, what I find, is when I truly allow like an emotional storm to come through and feel it completely, on the other side is bliss. Because there's like, there's this, there's this, there's this cosmic furball that I've just hoicked up, it's like.

• 5:53Speaker 04

  And there it is. And then on the other side, it's like, oh, there's space. Or another way I like to describe it is, is like if you've ever had a pet and in the morning your dog or your cat goes out and has its morning crap, right? And then it comes in and it does the zoomies.

• 6:07Speaker 01

  Yes, yeah.

• 6:10Speaker 04

  It's like, yeah, it's like I've had the best shit ever. My life is amazing, testify, you know? And so that's what it feels like when we process our emotions.

• 6:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:25Speaker 02

  She's so good.

• 6:26Speaker 01

  I forgot about that.

• 6:27Speaker 02

  She's amazing.

• 6:29Speaker 01

  Oh, man.

• 6:30Speaker 00

  So, I mean, there's, there's a lot of stuff in there, but um, you know, to me, it's a representation really of how we can work with our challenges in a really different way. One that doesn't feel so instinctual, but we actually have instinctual capacity to do it. So the term radical acceptance is a term that has, that is used in a number of different psychological approaches. People might be familiar with the skill of radical acceptance in what's called dialectical behaviour therapy or DBT.

• 7:05Speaker 01

  Hmm. What is that?

• 7:06Speaker 00

  Dialectical behaviour therapy.

• 7:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:09Speaker 00

  Um, it's, so dialectical behaviour therapy was developed by Marsha Linehan and it was in response to um, working with a particular group of people who had a diagnosis of borderline personality disorder, which is characterised by big emotional dysregulation um, and uh, challenges interpersonally and uh, really often an immense amount of distress.

• 7:33Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 7:33Speaker 00

  Um, and so she developed this particular therapeutic approach to, to really help people that were suffering a lot.

• 7:41Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 7:42Speaker 00

  And that's really what radical acceptance is about, is the notion that pain in life is inevitable, but suffering does not have to be.

• 7:53Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 7:54Speaker 00

  And so in, in that therapeutic approach, there's a whole, like they do modules, for example, and there's a big module on radical acceptance and how we can really deeply acknowledge the reality of our experience without fighting it.

• 8:13Speaker 02

  It's sort of, I imagine like for some, for, for a lot of people who have, who go through something really, really traumatic. It's almost like there's maybe an irony in how maybe when they hear what you're going to talk about, it's almost like there's a radical acceptance in accepting the radical acceptance theory.

• 8:31Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 8:32Speaker 02

  You know what I mean? Because it just seems so impossible, I imagine, for so many people.

• 8:36Speaker 00

  It absolutely does. And I guess the way in which I'd maybe like to describe how this happens is actually by using a Buddhist parable. And I think I've spoken to you about this before, but for me, it really exemplifies exactly what we're working with, because this is not just about trauma. This is about day to day challenges that we're encountering inside of ourselves and in our relationships with others.

• 9:02Speaker 01

  Is this the Spears one?

• 9:03Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 9:04Speaker 01

  Oh, good. Because I've tried to retell it a few times and I've butchered it every single time.

• 9:07Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 9:08Speaker 01

  It's an arrow, isn't it?

• 9:09Speaker 00

  Yeah. So this is the parable. So principled, right?

• 9:14Speaker 02

  This isn't the donut thing, is it?

• 9:17Speaker 00

  So this is the parable of the two arrows. So you imagine that a person walks into a forest and they're walking along and all of a sudden they get hit by an arrow.

• 9:28Speaker 02

  Damn it.

• 9:29Speaker 00

  Immediate pain, right? And then the mind goes, oh my God, what was that? Oh my gosh, I can't handle this. This is so excruciating. What am I going to do? This is terrible. This is going to interrupt my plans. How am I going to get there? I can't handle this pain. This is intolerable. I don't like this. I don't want this. How did this happen to me? Why is this happening to me? That is the second arrow.

• 9:53Speaker 02

  The reaction.

• 9:54Speaker 00

  The reaction to the first arrow, which is pain, we don't get to choose that. The second arrow is our reaction.

• 10:04Speaker 02

  Okay, so in that, that's a physical pain. So, I mean, I know this is a parable, obviously, and it's not to be taken entirely literally, but, but in that situation to, to, you're, are you saying that you sort of have the choice?

• 10:20Speaker 02

  You have the choice, you can decide whether or not you will react in like a really like painful way. Is that what you mean?

• 10:26Speaker 00

  Yes, a little bit like that. So if we just stay with it.

• 10:31Speaker 02

  That's about as close. Ryan, I'm a doctor.

• 10:35Speaker 01

  25% yes.

• 10:36Speaker 02

  You listen, how about you listen and I talk?

• 10:39Speaker 01

  It's like the closest you've ever been saying, uh, no. I agree, I agree. Yeah, yeah, a little bit.

• 10:46Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 10:47Speaker 00

  Yeah, you're definitely on the right track. You're definitely on the right track there.

• 10:49Speaker 02

  That's very generous.

• 10:51Speaker 00

  So if we just stay with the pain for a second and then I'll explain why and how it relates to anything else. So physical pain is the first experience. That's what we'd almost say is like a primary pain, right? And then the mind comes on board. Now, we can't control that this pain is here, but the mind is trying to, okay? So it's trying to get rid of it. It doesn't want it. It doesn't like it. And that reaction to the first pain is actually what creates suffering. So we go from having pain to having pain and suffering. And from a Buddhist point of view, you know, there are four noble truths, and I won't go through all of them. I'm not a

• 11:35Speaker 00

  Buddhist practitioner myself, but there is, as part of those noble truths, there is the acknowledgement that there is pain in life, that we experience suffering, and that one of our great tasks is to let go resisting craving attachment in order to live more freely. Okay, so what does that actually mean in terms of our day to day experience?

• 12:02Speaker 02

  I'll let you take this one.

• 12:04Speaker 00

  So it might mean, for example, let's just say, I feel anxious. Actually, I'm going to give you an example of what happened to me on the plane yesterday. I was on the plane and we hit quite significant turbulence. This always seems to happen actually flying to a significant turbulence. My first reaction is like, oh my God. And then it's like clenching in my body. And then my thought is, I hate this. Why do I do this? I hate this. This is a terrible experience. I don't want this. I just want to get away. And then I start imagining. My children and I'm dying and you know, we've gone down a whole rabbit hole of internal narration.

• 12:39Speaker 03

  Catastrophizing, yeah.

• 12:41Speaker 00

  Radical acceptance says, aha, okay, I'm noticing fear is here. Fear is here, let go, let it be, let it be here.

• 12:55Speaker 00

  And then we offer it a kindness and a compassion. Cause there is nothing I could have done in that situation, absolutely nothing. All I could do was either sit and contract against that painful, fearful feeling and literally grip tightly around it. Or I can choose to let go and let it be here.

• 13:19Speaker 03

  Mm hmm.

• 13:20Speaker 00

  And so that for me in that moment was a practice of like of a continual reminder, aha, let it be, here is fear. It's okay that it's here.

• 13:31Speaker 03

  Can I ask you if my, cause I know what I do in that situation and I'm curious to know if what I'm doing is a form of radical acceptance or a denial

• 13:39Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 13:40Speaker 03

  of what's going on. In heavy turbulence, I always go to statistically, planes don't go down in turbulence.

• 13:49Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 13:49Speaker 03

  Just it's almost never happens. So forget about the plane going down in this turbulence and think that the sensation of being, and this is a bit like being on a roller coaster.

• 14:01Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 14:01Speaker 03

  And I would pay good money to be on a really good roller coaster and enjoy that fear. So just sit here and pretend you're on a roller coaster and close your eyes and imagine that you've paid for it. And this is a fun ride.

• 14:14Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 14:14Speaker 03

  And I find that that works for me, that I can get through pretty intense turbulence. But I don't know if that's like a form of denial of what's really happening or if it's a form of acceptance.

• 14:25Speaker 00

  I don't think it's denial. I think it's actually, it's actually really skillful tuning into the fact that these sensations are very similar.

• 14:32Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 14:33Speaker 00

  But what's different is what the, the meaning that we ascribe to them. And that's actually where we're often really getting in trouble is the meaning that we're ascribing to the experience and the stories that come up about it. Now, when we think about radical acceptance, it involves.

• 14:50Speaker 00

  Waking up to what's here. It involves stepping out of that automatic pilot of internal narratives and seeing exactly life as it is right now, whether pain is here or whether it's not. That relates to our internal experience of uncomfortable emotions, distressing emotions, and it also involves how we experience other people. And the example I'd give with the other people is, let's just say you encounter a difficult person and you struggle against this person. Like in your head, you're like, why did they do that? What's wrong with them? Or like, it's so unfair that they're doing that. That is the resistance. That's the struggle.

• 15:33Speaker 01

  Mm hmm. That's a big one for lots of people.

• 15:36Speaker 00

  It's a huge one and it's, it's really hard to do.

• 15:40Speaker 01

  Can I just take you back to the plane very quickly? Just here's what I do. I don't have a radical acceptance or just my weird ADHD brain, but it might help people. When that happens, severe turbulence happens. I get a bit worried for a bit and then I imagine, and I think how funny it would be if the plane wasn't here, there was no plane and there was just the vision of a hundred people going at 300 kilometres an hour in a sitting position, like jumping up and down. And I think, God, that would look so funny. And then that often helps.

• 16:08Speaker 02

  Just from a clinical point of view, Em, what do you think?

• 16:12Speaker 01

  I mean, it would look so funny.

• 16:13Speaker 00

  Well, I think, like, actually.

• 16:15Speaker 02

  You can't deny it, but it would look so funny.

• 16:17Speaker 01

  A hundred people in perfect rows.

• 16:20Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 16:20Speaker 01

  Just bolt upright, just shaking everywhere.

• 16:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 16:22Speaker 01

  Love that.

• 16:23Speaker 00

  So actually what that is again is a, is a changing the relationship to the experience. So we're changing our relationship to the pain by dropping the struggle with it. And so that can look like a number of things. It could look like reframing it with a funny lens. It could look like reframing it as going on a roller coaster, for example. So in essence, we're changing how we're relating to the internal experience.

• 16:50Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 16:51Speaker 00

  And there are a number of different ways in which we can do that. But I, I'm just wondering, first of all, if, if you can see how this relates to like day to day struggles. Like, how do you think that might show up for all of you?

• 17:03Speaker 02

  I mean, like the, in a, on a very small scale thing, the thing that, you know, I guess, traffic is the obvious one where it's just like, you know, you're running late for something and there's really bad traffic or running late for a flight and you're stuck in traffic. It's, it's so, it's so stressful and I get annoyed and I'm worried about missing the flight and then what that would mean and then all those sorts of worries. So it's like ultimately, I, I guess I could just go in that situation's like, well,

• 17:37Speaker 02

  I might be late. I might miss the flight. Is that, it's like, well.

• 17:41Speaker 00

  That's a great example. Yeah, absolutely.

• 17:45Speaker 00

  So what stands out to me and Dan is the, the moment of choice that we have when we have no control. That's going to sound paradoxical, but the choice that we have is how we relate to that experience when I don't have control over the external circumstances. So being in traffic is a really great example. Or if, even if you're running late to something, right? So provided that we're following the speed limits, which we need to, no amount of me rushing inside my body is going to get me there faster, but yet that's what we do. So you'll be sitting in the car, you're running late to an important event. You'll be sitting in the car and your hands are gripped around the steering wheel.

• 18:28Speaker 00

  There's tightness in the body, the body's contracting because it doesn't like this experience of being late. And it's going to get caught up in lots of stories about what it means that I'm late, I'm always late, the narrative around that. And so here we've got in this moment, a contraction in the body, a stress response that's showing up to try and help me get there faster. But to what end?

• 18:55Speaker 02

  I think that that really rings true for me and not necessarily with the traffic one. But like if if if Jam and I, my partner Jam, if like if we're going to a dinner or something together and and I'm ready on time and ready to go and and Jam is running late. I used to get really, not just with Jam, but with anyone, I used to get really frustrated because the more, you know, when I actually thought about it at some point in my life, I was like, well, I'm I'm actually not, I'm only annoyed because of how I'm worried it will reflect on me when I get there that like I'm gonna be, you know, it's gonna come across as disrespectful or whatever, you know, people will judge me. And now I'm, I think I've radically accepted the fact that people are late.

• 19:37Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 19:37Speaker 02

  And and it's, it just happens. And it's like, and the worst thing that could happen in that situation is that like we're late and the other people will be annoyed. But if the other people are annoyed, it's like, well, I can't control that.

• 19:51Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 19:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 19:52Speaker 00

  The other thing that I want to mention in in there is that acceptance doesn't mean resignation, accepting poor behaviour or denying our experience. So.

• 20:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's so important to say that, just sort of jump in, but just with all the stuff that's happening around the world.

• 20:08Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 20:09Speaker 02

  A lot of people are going, well, I can't accept that.

• 20:11Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 20:12Speaker 02

  So I think it's important to say.

• 20:13Speaker 00

  I think this is absolutely crucial is it's not about accepting, accepting horrific circumstances or accepting crises or horror and grief. It's not about accepting what's happening outside of us, but actually accepting what's happening inside of us. And so that looks like, let's just say you feel frustrated because your partner's running late, right?

• 20:42Speaker 00

  Tara Brach, who is a Buddhist teacher and psychologist, says something like this, like a wave in the ocean, it belongs. This feeling is here and it's okay that it is. So we can name that, we can go, aha, here is frustration. Nothing wrong that that's arising, absolutely nothing wrong. Uh, we don't even need to, you know, we don't even need to move into reframing. Can we come into this feeling acknowledging the reality of the situation is here is frustration because there's a violation of some kind of value for me, most likely. Yeah, okay. It belongs here, this feeling is already here, let me be with it.

• 21:25Speaker 00

  We don't even have to move into narration about it, we can just notice that it's here. And then we, it's like we loosen the grip on that experience and we get a bit more spaciousness.

• 21:38Speaker 00

  And then we choose how we can respond. Does that make sense?

• 21:42Speaker 02

  Yeah, it does, but how, how does that relate to, you know, like the big things in the world?

• 21:48Speaker 00

  Yes, yeah, so for example, it might be something like every, I think everybody is so deeply aware of how much trauma is existing in the world, how much suffering, horror, um, immense pain on a global scale.

• 22:05Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 22:05Speaker 00

  And we're seeing it, which is different to um centuries before us.

• 22:12Speaker 00

  Acceptance means coming in and recognizing, for example, where I feel this horror in the body and holding this with compassion and gentleness. So can I give you an example of what that might look like? So to me, and this is, this is me, and I want to recognize that people may not resonate with this, this way of working with um painful feelings. And so please do you in, in that context. And even when I say this, the words that I'm saying are resonant for me, but find your own words that, that makes sense. Because otherwise it will just feel like it will feel clunky or weird or not believable in some ways.

• 22:54Speaker 00

  So it might look like, um, like this morning, I saw something on Instagram that um brought me to tears with how horrific it was. And in that moment, I stopped and I put, like put my hand on my heart and I slowed it down. I said, Emily, here is horror.

• 23:16Speaker 00

  Horror is here. I don't have to like it and I don't have to want it, but it's here in my body.

• 23:23Speaker 00

  How can I be with this? And so it might just be like a gentle touch on the body to, as an act of nurturing, of showing up and holding this gently. I've stepped down from the thinking part and have come into the feeling part. And this is what Gina's really talking about is that we become enslaved by our internal narration and that storytelling mind. And we forget that there's a body here that actually can process emotion really well if we let it.

• 23:54Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 23:55Speaker 00

  So after that, that experience there, um, so here is horror.

• 24:02Speaker 00

  Here is pain, sadness. These feelings here tell me that I care deeply.

• 24:10Speaker 00

  I care really deeply about these particular things. And this feels really hard, so I haven't stepped into, um, and I haven't stepped into the, again, the thinking part. But what we can do then is a couple of things. We can go, okay, so this feeling tells me something important.

• 24:30Speaker 00

  What do I need next? So what's the next thing I might need in this moment? That will help me hold this in a really caring way? And then the broader question is, okay. If this, this is really important and I will ask this a lot in therapy. If this feeling had words, as opposed to the thinking, if this feeling had words, what is it saying? And what is it that it needs? So we're not saying, I'm not saying, what do you think about this?

• 25:05Speaker 00

  What does this feeling have to say?

• 25:09Speaker 00

  And so it might mean then that it's something like,

• 25:13Speaker 00

  okay, so I know that there's values in here around compassion and community and care. So how do I now show up to those values? How do I reconnect with what's deeply important to me and take action there?

• 25:31Speaker 00

  So we now go from having this painful experience, being open to it, giving it space to be here, giving it nurturing. And then we move into what can I do? How can I take action with my arms and my legs to help me stay on track with what I deeply value, what has been really highlighted in this experience?

• 25:55Speaker 00

  Now, I don't have control over what's happening out in the world, but what I do have control over is how I show up in my community, how I show up as a parent, as a daughter, as a friend. How is that making sense so far?

• 26:08Speaker 02

  It's very much. It's great. Would it, would it help in those to have sort of a sort of toolkit of things to know that you can do? Because when you're overwhelmed with the horror or the fear or the, whatever it might be, to know that like, okay, here are a few things I can turn, that I know are always helpful, that you can turn to, to have those things in your mind, sort of ready to go?

• 26:32Speaker 00

  Yeah, and I want to acknowledge that when there's crisis, acceptance is actually probably not your first port of call. So in like acute crises, we actually probably need to do more distress tolerance skills. So there will be an episode coming up where I will talk about what's called distress tolerance skills. And they're the things that we do in a crisis so that we don't make our suffering worse. Okay. So I want to acknowledge that there are times when practicing radical acceptance is not going to be your first port of call.

• 27:04Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 27:04Speaker 00

  Because we're too dysregulated and too overwhelmed, or there's some sort of immediate threat to the nervous system or to the body. But if we're, you know, kind of one level down from that, and like my example this morning.

• 27:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 27:17Speaker 00

  Um, then. Yes, here are these, I guess like a, we could call it like a toolkit of acceptance practices.

• 27:26Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 27:27Speaker 00

  You know, I'm just wanting to separate what is, what I will talk about in a subsequent episode around things like grounding. So grounding is really important, but acceptance is quite different. And so you'll notice in Gina's example is that we're actually wanting to go towards the feeling rather than away from it. And in order to do that, we do have to have some sort of sense of being stabilised.

• 27:50Speaker 02

  I know I've spoken about this before, a long time, probably a long time ago, but I remember once, uh, it's like my old, well, Maria, Maria Roberto, who was my psychologist. She, when I was talking to her about Jam's anxiety, just anxiety in general, but it was particularly Jam's anxiety. She sort of talked to me about potentially giving it a name, like giving the anxiety a name. And the, and that really helped.

• 28:15Speaker 02

  But what we would often do, Jam and I was like, when the anxiety arrived and she was feeling overwhelmed with this anxiety feeling. Her anxiety's name is Annie. We, we often thought about it in term, we talked about it when she was in it. We'd talk about it in terms of like, okay, Annie has dropped over, she's dropped in to the house unexpectedly. We didn't know she was coming, but she's dropped in, it's like, oh God, Annie's here. Um, but let's be hospitable, let's be polite and let's like, let's offer her a drink and, and she'll be, we don't know how long she'll stay. We can't ask her to just leave. Um, but we know that she will leave eventually.

• 28:57Speaker 02

  She doesn't live here, this is not her house, but she will leave eventually. And that like visualization, I think, not to speak for Jam, but I think at least really helped me.

• 29:07Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 29:08Speaker 02

  Um, in terms of like not being too overwhelmed and knowing that this is just an, an sort of an unwanted guest that we still have to be polite to.

• 29:16Speaker 00

  You're absolutely spot on. And in fact, there's a Rumi poem called The Guest House, which is exactly this sentiment. And that is this idea that, um, we are going to have unwanted guests.

• 29:30Speaker 00

  And it's this almost like this analogy that if you imagine that there's an unwanted guest knocking on your door, I may have given this example before, but I think it's kind of worth reiterating. But this unwanted guest is like your anxiety, your depression, your grief, your sorrow, some unpleasant feeling. It's knocking on the door and you do not want to let it in. You hate that it's here. I'm hiding away from it. I'm going to go into the other room so I can't hear this person knocking on the door. But the knocking is relentless. And now it means that I can't leave the house. So I can't leave the house and go out and live my life. Because if I open the door, it's going to be there and I'm going to be too overwhelmed by it. The knocking is getting louder now. So I can't hear anything. I can't have a conversation with people. And it's starting

• 30:13Speaker 00

  to feel that this fight against this feeling, this unwanted guest is getting actually life draining and depleting. Okay. The idea with radical acceptance and with exactly what you're talking about with Jam is that we invite the unwanted guest in. We don't have to like it. This is really important when it comes to acceptance. We don't have to like it and we don't have to want it or approve of it. But we allow it in because it's already here. And think about, for example, how much energy goes into not wanting our experience. And what could you do with that energy instead?

• 30:55Speaker 00

  How is that?

• 30:56Speaker 03

  Yeah, really good.

• 30:56Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 30:57Speaker 03

  Yeah. One of the things that I think is interesting in some, in a lot of the examples that we've gone through thus far, that they're sort of things out of your immediate control. So the turbulence, seeing horrors from across the other side of the world, they're not things that you can change at least immediately in that, in that moment. But you mentioned before that many people find themselves in situations with

• 31:29Speaker 03

  With people who are in some cases just unpleasant and in other cases are quite dangerous. Um, I'm thinking of range from like having a really shitty boss and having to go to work every day and work for this person that sucks to being in a relationship that is genuinely dangerous because of the um violent tendencies or controlling tendencies of the partner. I'm wondering how the idea of acceptance and radical acceptance interacts in those situations where you do have varying degrees of control to change the situation that you're in.

• 32:06Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 32:06Speaker 03

  Varying degrees. Sometimes it's extremely hard, but yeah.

• 32:11Speaker 00

  It's really complicated. Um, and I do want to acknowledge upfront that if you're in any way unsafe, like in the context of domestic violence, for example, then that's a whole different ballgame. Um, and we're talking about what is within your capacity to change and what choices you have to do that really safely. Um, that's for a start. But

• 32:39Speaker 00

  there's two, there's two kind of parts to this. It's accepting and being open to what happens to me when you do this. So when you're treated poorly by a boss and you notice you feel anger, you notice you feel resentment, raging. It's what we do with that feeling that we do have a choice around. So how can I be open to this feeling? What's it telling me? Also then what action do I take now that I've tuned into the feeling? So if we know that all emotion is information, the more awake we are to the emotion, the more information we have, the more choice we can take. In fact, there's an author, Russ Harris,

• 33:23Speaker 00

  and he is very well known in the ACT acceptance and commitment therapy community. He's written the happiness trap. And he has a really great three scenarios that can help you with kind of decision making in difficult situations, particularly around things like staying in a relationship, leaving a job, um, ending a, ending a friendship, for example. And he offers three options. Option number one is that we stay.

• 33:53Speaker 00

  In the relationship, in the workplace, in the friendship, and nothing changes. That's our choice. We can keep on doing exactly what we're doing. And that might look like continuing to struggle with resentment, internal things like someone fair, how they treat me, I can't believe they keep doing this, I want them to change, they're not changing. That's option number one, keep doing that. Option number two is we go. We enact our power to choose and we leave. That's the second choice. The third choice is we stay. We stay, but we relate to our experience in a different way. We change and relate to our experience totally differently to the first option. Okay.

• 34:39Speaker 00

  So if I ask clients, usually, what option do you want to choose? A hundred percent of the time, people say, definitely not option one. I can't stay doing this same thing over and over again for an infinite period of time. Okay, so then we've got our two options. Okay, so we've got we can leave or we can stay, but we do something differently. Because this place here is intolerable, life draining, and taking me away from a sense of vitality and purpose. Okay. So when it comes to the boss example, is that what we can do with radical acceptance is obviously accept that I'm feeling frustrated, accept that it's here. And if I have made efforts to express my concerns to the boss,

• 35:24Speaker 00

  I've taken all the action that I can physically take and they're still not changing. Now I have to accept that this boss is exactly who they are right now. So it's accepting that this person is not changing and this is how they are. How does that fit?

• 35:44Speaker 02

  Fits really well. Also laid over what you just said before about energy.

• 35:47Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 35:48Speaker 02

  Cause I feel like navigating a situation like that or any interpersonal situation is extremely complicated and hard and requires a lot of brain energy.

• 35:57Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 35:58Speaker 02

  And if I'm spending all my time fighting the second arrow.

• 36:01Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 36:02Speaker 02

  I don't have the brain power energy to actually navigate this really difficult situation.

• 36:06Speaker 00

  Exactly. And then you think about what's the cost of that?

• 36:09Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 36:10Speaker 00

  So in a boss example, if like, I, I walk into work and already I can feel my brow getting furrowed. And I'm like, just annoyed at their very presence.

• 36:19Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 36:19Speaker 00

  I'm annoyed that they're there. I'm waiting for an email to come in from them. So even in that, I'm already like contracted in the body.

• 36:26Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 36:26Speaker 00

  I'm already tightened. I'm kind of wound up already. And so how much energy is going into that, fighting against their presence? Or what they may or may not do. Okay.

• 36:37Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 36:38Speaker 00

  So acceptance would look like, I was gonna say acknowledging they're a shitty person, but that's not, that's not really very helpful.

• 36:46Speaker 02

  That's great.

• 36:47Speaker 00

  Acknowledging, yeah, like this is who, this is who they are. Here's the Mr. Shitty Person Boss. Okay.

• 36:54Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 36:54Speaker 00

  How do I show up to this? How do I choose? Now I can choose to leave, of course. But the amount of energy that's going into not liking them is actually taking me away from my job, maybe from something that I love. It's probably having an impact at home when I come home.

• 37:12Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 37:13Speaker 00

  Um, so we get to choose how we relate to this unpleasant experience.

• 37:18Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 37:19Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 37:19Speaker 00

  We can tighten and contract, not want it and resist it, or we can let it be.

• 37:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, cause it's, cause often I think the, the way that people, and I speak for myself, like the, often the way that I would deal with that, I'd like, accept it, but then like complain about it.

• 37:38Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 37:39Speaker 02

  But it's like, but then I'm carrying around this sort of negative energy.

• 37:42Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 37:43Speaker 02

  Where it's, and I know I talk, I've spoken about this so many times, to the extent where I feel like we should make them and sell them. Um, but there's the three sided column.

• 37:51Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 37:51Speaker 02

  You know, I've spoken, it's like.

• 37:55Speaker 02

  I love it. I think about it all the time. Do you guys remember that? The three sided column?

• 37:58Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 37:58Speaker 02

  Yeah. It's like three sided column. Just quickly for those who don't know it. I think it's like Alfred Adler maybe created it. And it's like one side of the column says, poor me.

• 38:09Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 38:09Speaker 02

  The other, another one says that bad person.

• 38:12Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 38:12Speaker 02

  And there's a third one, but we spend most of our time looking at the

• 38:17Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 38:17Speaker 02

  intersection of poor me and that bad person.

• 38:20Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 38:21Speaker 02

  And Alfred Adler says, we need to spin the column around until we can just see the third side, which says, what can I do from this point on?

• 38:29Speaker 00

  Bang on. Yep.

• 38:30Speaker 02

  And I think about that so much. Because, I mean, I, it, it, it's just, it's so, you just fall into that bad person, poor me all the time. Well, I do all the time.

• 38:43Speaker 00

  Yes. Yeah.

• 38:43Speaker 02

  But it's like, but you do have a choice.

• 38:45Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 38:46Speaker 02

  In a lot of situations.

• 38:47Speaker 00

  Absolutely. I love that. And it's so, I mean, so consistent with what we're talking about. Um, the other thing that you mentioned in passing was, um, the complaining piece.

• 38:56Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 38:56Speaker 00

  And it's so interesting. It's a really interesting research around the function of complaining. Um, and that in some circumstances, it can be helpful to vent. However, often it keeps us in the feeling state of, of resentment, bitterness, uh, unfairness, inequity, all that stuff. So it's like, it keeps the feeling alive. And I'm actually still sitting in this struggle within. So with clients, for example, I might talk about, um, you know, if they're having struggles at work and they find that they're getting support from their coworkers. And that on their lunch breaks, they're all just bitching about the boss, for example. But like bring a curiosity, like how, I just feels good.

• 39:37Speaker 00

  Like there's a dopamine experience of, um, of feeling good when we're venting.

• 39:42Speaker 02

  Collecting allies.

• 39:43Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 39:43Speaker 02

  Basically.

• 39:44Speaker 00

  Yeah. But how helpful is this? And what happens to me when I return to my desk? What, where's the feeling going? What's it doing?

• 39:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 39:52Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 39:52Speaker 03

  It can also blow it out of, everything out of. It can, it can really add fuel to the fire of poor me.

• 39:57Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 39:58Speaker 03

  And injustice.

• 39:58Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 39:59Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 39:59Speaker 00

  And so what I sometimes suggest with clients, particularly, this is particularly in the work context, but it might be something like, you know, get your colleagues on board with this and just say, can we either do something like, we're only going to talk about the, the unpleasant part for five minutes? And then let's talk about something else. So you have a bit of a rule around it. Or we actually name the story and it might be something like, um, Oh Sarah, I've just got so hooked into that story today. I've got so hooked into that story about the boss, like it's really pushing me around. So you notice how we've related there to the experience differently. I haven't moved into venting or bitching. I've actually just named my struggle with the experience is here.

• 40:41Speaker 00

  So instead I'm getting support about the fact that the struggle is here, rather than moving into the complaining about the person.

• 40:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's, that's a, it's, it's a good uh distinction. Because I guess the answer isn't to not talk about it. Because you need to be able to talk things through, yeah.

• 41:00Speaker 00

  Absolutely.

• 41:01Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 41:02Speaker 00

  So I guess we've spoken a lot about this kind of internal sense of radical acceptance. But what I also want to offer too is how we can apply this to um to relationships that we've really struggled with. And, and you've kind of given an example before of, of working with the boss. But I also really want to mention around like romantic relationships, or it might be even relationships with parents. Where, you know, we may have had a history of, of really asking for our needs to be met. And a pattern of behaviour that continues. And maybe, like maybe for example, your partner or your parent continues to let you down. And you continue to be disappointed and saddened.

• 41:47Speaker 00

  And that you wish that they would be different. And you spend a lot of energy wishing that this was different to what it is. And then it feels really, really painful in this place here of wanting desperately for the situation to be better than it is. Okay.

• 42:04Speaker 00

  If we have asked for what we need, if we have made our best efforts to communicate to that person about the impact of their behaviour, and can we do things differently? If those efforts have been made, we then have a choice about, am I willing to accept them as they are? Not to approve or to like their behaviour? But can I accept basically the truth of the matter? And that is that this person is this person and they're not going to change. How do I then choose to show up to this? And I must say that I've, you know, I work quite a bit with estranged relationships

• 42:44Speaker 00

  and this choice that people make at some point, that I don't want to be in this dance anymore. And so I'm going to choose to leave and that that for them is an acceptance that this person is not going to change. And that this relationship in this way is not serving me anymore.

• 43:01Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 43:02Speaker 00

  So when we're faced with the reality that these, this relationship is hurting me, we do get this choice. Like I can really truly recognize this is who they are.

• 43:16Speaker 00

  Now the choice lies with me. I can move away and I can end this relationship. Or if I'm going to stay, I need to have really with myself, really clear expectations of them. So now I grieve the loss. And this is the tricky part. I grieve the loss of what I'd wanted. So I've grieved the loss of the relationship, the kind of relationship that I've wanted and know that they can't give it to me in that way. And this is an immense challenge, but when we accept the reality of what it is, of what this relationship is, usually it will open us up to grief.

• 43:54Speaker 00

  Because I actually now truly understand that this person cannot give me this particular thing or this whole thing.

• 44:03Speaker 02

  Hmm. I mean, I don't know if this is what you're talking about, but it, it, it reminds me of like so many stories I've heard over the last however many years of friendships breaking down or becoming estranged or, you know, within families because of political differences or, you know, um, different alignment on world issues, whatever they might be at the, at the moment. And, and that would be a really, really hard thing. It's like a, a, this very passionate.

• 44:35Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 44:36Speaker 02

  Feelings or beliefs about certain things and the person who you thought you knew them, then voices or has a belief which is basically the opposite. Like, that's a really hard

• 44:47Speaker 00

  It's really hard.

• 44:47Speaker 02

  thing to radically accept.

• 44:49Speaker 00

  It is really hard. Um, in that instance, you know, I think for me in therapy, it's always this challenge of how much does this relationship mean to you? How important is it? And again, in some circumstances, it might be this challenge of, um, really, again, kind of this notion of psychological flexibility, that I can see that this is one part that really hurts me. Um, and I'm really sad that they feel that way about that. But that's also only one part of them.

• 45:19Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 45:20Speaker 00

  That's a real, real challenge. How do I see the whole person that's here, not just these beliefs?

• 45:26Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 45:27Speaker 00

  Um, and that, I mean, that's a, it's a lot of therapy work right there in kind of working with that. But if there are relationships that actually are important to you, then there's the challenge. Because there's this part here that I don't like about you or that you keep disappointing me with. And I keep hoping, like I keep hoping, but the hopefulness that they will change actually causes us more, more struggle and suffering.

• 45:50Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 45:52Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 45:53Speaker 01

  I, I have lived radical acceptance for the last, I would say, five years. And if I was to draw like a timeline of my life and look at the highs and lows of my life,

• 46:06Speaker 01

  the, one of the biggest highs of my life is, is achieving that radical acceptance.

• 46:11Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 46:12Speaker 01

  One of the lows was the start of the journey, but just the, the person that I am now or the way that I experience the world is so much richer than it ever was before.

• 46:21Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 46:22Speaker 01

  And I'll, just a quick story to sort of exemplify that. And I know we haven't talked about yet what happens when you get to radical acceptance, but, um, for me, it was, um, around the time one of our kids was diagnosed on the spectrum. It wasn't the diagnosis that I was having to accept. That was fine. There was no problems. It was the level of distress that they were in.

• 46:41Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 46:41Speaker 01

  And the impact, the, just the, how hard the world was on them.

• 46:45Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 46:46Speaker 01

  And seeing their level of distress and unhappiness. And it was pretty extreme at times. And so having to accept that was very, very difficult. I didn't know that's sort of what I had to do. I didn't quite understand acceptance, but, um, And it has taken like probably five years. I remember a conversation very soon after we understood what was going on. And it was with your best friend, Hamish. And I was telling him over the phone about the diagnosis. And he called a couple of days later and it was right in the middle of our child's like highest level of distress they've ever been in. In fact, it was the, it was the morning after he'd just won a gold logie. And it was like seven thirty in the morning after and he called just to see how it was going.

• 47:31Speaker 01

  And he said, what's your biggest fear with it all? And I started talking about our child, he said, no, no, like for you, like, what are you worried about for you? What's the biggest thing? And I said, oh, I just, I don't think I can be myself anymore. I'm not myself, I'm not funny anymore. I don't, I'm, I'm not funny anymore. I'm not fun to be around, I don't feel happy anymore. Um, and he spoke for a bit, but one of the things that he said that to me summarizes the whole journey of radical acceptance was, he said, this is not going to put your flame out. This won't distinguish your flame. He said, it'll be a lot of hard work, but I have no doubt this will make your flame burn brighter.

• 48:06Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 48:07Speaker 01

  When you're through this. And I, I thought that's a beautiful thing to say, but I can't see, I couldn't see that. And that is exactly what has happened. I'm not saying I'm amazing now, that's what I'm saying, but I feel so much richer and so much more, like I'm so grateful I've experienced

• 48:28Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 48:29Speaker 01

  this thing that like, it's been so hard, but I've come through it. And, um, our child is incredible for me personally with acceptance. Like I've totally accepted that's the way their, their brain is and why their world works for them. And I, I feel it, like I feel inside the brain, a flame burns brighter. I am so much more compassionate to everyone. I'm so much more, I feel so much more in a good way. I relate to so many more people and I love so much more. I have so much more love for so many more things. And it's because of the journey of radical acceptance.

• 49:06Speaker 00

  Oh, that feels, um, that makes me feel tearful, I must say, um. It's this idea in here then, when you open up to feeling, like when you open up to the grief, it also means that you learn to feel more, which means that you learn to feel the richness and the joyfulness and the vitality alongside the pain. But when we resist, like when we get stuck in that, like, I don't want this for my life. I don't like this feeling. It's unfair. When we get stuck in that and we're trying to push it away, we're actually abandoning our ability to feel the richness and beauty of life, whether there's pain

• 49:48Speaker 00

  here or whether there isn't. And so the fact, Hugh, that you can acknowledge, you know, I'm sure there's immense grief at times, but that this can exist alongside of this awe and beauty and joyfulness that's here.

• 50:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:01Speaker 00

  It's like the idea, there's a saying that instead of feeling better, it's finding a better way of feeling.

• 50:08Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 50:09Speaker 00

  Um, and it kind of really exemplifies all this work here is finding a better way of feeling.

• 50:14Speaker 01

  Hmm. I feel like I can, on that, I feel like I can, we had a new staff member start recently, and I met her for the first time, this is the Resonance Project, and I, within 20 seconds, I was just looking, like, you know, eyes like, oh, there's a story here. There's, and I don't think I would have, I just could say, it's like, there's something's happened here. And sure enough, there was, which I found out a few days later. But I just feel like I can see into, this sounds very woo woo, and I don't mean it quite literally, but obviously, but if I can see into people's souls a bit more easily, like I have, I can just see pain and heartache and a bit also triumph. And I fucking can see people's feelings much easier now. And I don't know, I don't know why that is. But I certainly feel so

• 50:59Speaker 01

  much more in tune with. Not that I don't think I was about this, but I really can just look at someone and see that there's a story here, no matter how good or not good of a person I am, I feel like I can see the story because of the journey I've been through with acceptance.

• 51:14Speaker 00

  It's, it's actually about waking up.

• 51:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, yes.

• 51:17Speaker 00

  It's, it's literally about waking up to life, which means that you tune in to people more. And gosh, don't get me wrong, this is a really hard thing to do. And it's not something like, I'm going to tell you four, four steps and you're going to be sailing. Um, it's tremendously hard. Um, and it's a question that we, we have to come back to again and again, like once we've got the skill, it's, it's not. You know, we have to keep coming back to practise it again and again. Um, there's no silver bullet to that. Um, but when pain is here, it brings with it this question of like, how do I want to live? And almost like, what do I want this pain to stand for?

• 51:58Speaker 00

  Um, and so yes, here is pain and there is probably deep suffering in that. But I actually can live alongside this. And this is, you know, when Gina in her episode talks about grieving the loss of her child is that, you know, that by allowing herself to fully feel the, the loss, she also then fully feels the love.

• 52:19Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 52:20Speaker 00

  Um, and that, that, that this grief is in service now of, um, creating a, a better world, really. And so if we're not, if we're not willing to feel, if we're not willing to have the feelings or the experience here, we actually deny and completely abandon our capacity to feel the full spectrum of emotion. Um, and I think this is the key point in here is that when we don't accept our experience, we stay in a, um, a more narrowed, um, life depleting place. And at some point in time, that knocking on the door will get so loud that you, you have to do something differently.

• 53:02Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 53:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's so cool. I think it, it's, it would be so hard in the, when you're in the thick of it, to imagine. But even just like from what you said, Hugh, and from everything you're saying, Em, it's, it's almost like, I don't know, like it, it's sort of hard to imagine in the moment, but.

• 53:23Speaker 02

  Realising the potential, the potential, not good, but that something will come from this that you couldn't possibly imagine right now.

• 53:33Speaker 00

  Yeah. And if we're willing to.

• 53:35Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 53:36Speaker 00

  We can turn towards it.

• 53:37Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 53:37Speaker 00

  And, and allow ourselves to tune into the wisdom of it.

• 53:42Speaker 00

  There's a couple of practices, I think, that can be really helpful that I might go through. But I do want to mention something about the actual physiological experience of emotion. There's an amazing neuroscientist, Jill Bolte Taylor, and she has, it is a great name. And she has what's termed the 90 second rule. And this is that physiologically and chemically, emotion has a shelf life of 90 seconds. 90 seconds.

• 54:12Speaker 02

  So, so she said again, the, the.

• 54:14Speaker 00

  So physiologically.

• 54:15Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 54:16Speaker 00

  If we're mapping what's happening in the brain and the body and chemically, so neurotransmitters, hormones, stress response, et cetera.

• 54:25Speaker 00

  Emotion has a shelf life of 90 seconds. Which means that it reaches a peak and subsides. However, what happens is that when we don't know how to practise acceptance or how to tune in, how to wake up to this emotion being here, we move into story. We move into not liking it and to not wanting it. And we move into the narrative around this emotion being present.

• 54:52Speaker 02

  So that 90 seconds could stretch to 10 years.

• 54:55Speaker 00

  A hundred percent. It, it means struggling all day with this feeling of loneliness that's here.

• 55:00Speaker 02

  Cause you're refuelling the emotion.

• 55:01Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. You're keeping it alive. And this is why the metaphor of a wave in the ocean is so useful when it comes to emotion. So we can see that emotion is going to rise and it's going to feel uncomfortable and it's going to reach a peak and then we're going to move through it. Right. And we go from being, and Tara Brach again gives this great example. We go from being the wave to being the ocean.

• 55:27Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 55:29Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 55:29Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 55:29Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 55:31Speaker 01

  Can I give an example from this morning that might work?

• 55:33Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 55:34Speaker 01

  And I think it probably links also to what I just said about like, what acceptance has given me, but um this morning when I parked my car, someone had done a really bad park, so I had to park in a bad place because that park to fit in, I had to park encroaching on the person in front of me, but there was no one there. And when I came back to get in my car, the car behind me had gone, but someone had had done a really tight park in front of me and I got out of the car. And the guy said to me, um, thanks for leaving me so much room. Well, it was like, he was angry.

• 56:03Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 56:04Speaker 01

  And I reckon five years ago, I would have like wanted to win that argument and just, and explain why, but then also make him feel shit for like, for speaking up. Um, and I said, and honestly, within one second, I was so, I just went, yeah, I've made life hard for you there. And just sort of smiled and said, sorry. And then I forgot about until that moment then. Like it's just like, but I feel like five years ago, that would have frustrated me and it would have pissed me off.

• 56:28Speaker 00

  And you would have been carrying it up here.

• 56:30Speaker 01

  Hmm. Yeah, but I just was like, yeah, I'm sorry. I made life hard for you. That's not a good part.

• 56:34Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 56:34Speaker 01

  And then I smiled and he was fine. Like he was just walked off.

• 56:37Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 56:38Speaker 01

  Probably.

• 56:38Speaker 00

  Great example.

• 56:38Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 56:39Speaker 00

  Great example.

• 56:39Speaker 03

  It's, yeah, it's a, it's such a, um, it's such a huge shift that, cause it's like, you desperately wanna punish that. You wanna punish them and like tell them that they're wrong and they did the wrong thing. But what's the point?

• 56:52Speaker 01

  Well, energy is like energy. They're just like, um, this man's, I don't know what's happened to him this morning. He's grumpy. He didn't know that someone made me park in a bad spot. I was like, who cares? Just whatever.

• 57:03Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. And it's kind of, it's actually kind of analogous to the let them theory is in some ways, you know, really kind of just actually letting them hold that feeling. Um, you know, in, in that way, and I can notice what, what I feel about it. I can let this feeling be here. I can be okay with it being here. And now I've got my energy to move on with my day.

• 57:25Speaker 03

  What you were saying more before about feel the feelings and having a broader spectrum of emotions? And the idea of acceptance, opening up this world of more emotion. Um, I think I've been on a journey of this for a very long time and I don't know if this is just getting older or maybe it's the work as well. But, and I'd, I'd love to hear your take on this. I think maybe it's just me, but I think there's a idea that you can only.

• 57:55Speaker 03

  Experience one emotion at a time.

• 57:58Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 57:58Speaker 03

  And I feel like accepting more has allowed me to be able to carry more emotion and simultaneously about people and situations and things. And that's a really nice realisation to know that I have multiple emotional responses to a situation.

• 58:15Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 58:16Speaker 03

  And can therefore kind of choose to lean into

• 58:20Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 58:21Speaker 03

  Certain ones more than others.

• 58:22Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 58:23Speaker 03

  Um, and that feels like a, it doesn't feel like denial, it feels like acceptance of it all. But I'm, I'm making the choice to lean more heavily into the laughter of this, the humour of this situation.

• 58:35Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 58:35Speaker 03

  Or the um, joy, even though like if there's a person in my life that frustrates me, that's true, but they also bring a lot of joy in other areas and I don't have to write them off.

• 58:47Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 58:47Speaker 03

  Because of that.

• 58:48Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 58:48Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 58:49Speaker 00

  I love that. I think that that feels to me so um, highlighting of the work that you've been doing. Really, this um, in, in therapy, we often talk about the notion of what's called both and rather than either or. So our instinct is I'm, I'm either mad or I'm happy.

• 59:08Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 59:08Speaker 00

  Um, I'm either right and they're wrong. But actually what we're wanting to work towards is really kind of what's called psychological flexibility. And that's the capacity to hold multiple experiences.

• 59:19Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 59:19Speaker 00

  And that things can be, we've said this many times before, but two things can be true at once. I can feel gratitude and I can feel loss.

• 59:27Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 59:28Speaker 00

  Um, so it's this both and I am both joyful for them and sad for me. They don't have to, they're not mutually exclusive. And the more that we recognise that we can have both of these here, the more space we get. Um, and the more capacity we have to notice the good as well as the difficult.

• 59:47Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 59:47Speaker 00

  Um, so it's this um, both and it's really, really beautiful kind of way of living.

• 59:53Speaker 03

  Yeah, it is so great. It's sort of like goes against this sort of instinct that so many of us have where there has to be like a winner and a loser.

• 59:59Speaker 00

  Yes, yeah.

• 1:00:00Speaker 03

  And you do anything.

• 1:00:01Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:00:01Speaker 03

  You need to do to be the winner.

• 1:00:03Speaker 00

  Yeah, like for example, in depression or when people are suffering with, you know, depressive symptoms, it might sound something like um,

• 1:00:12Speaker 00

  I should be so grateful. I've got all of these things. Um, I've got a great life, but I feel so awful. What is wrong with me? In that instance, we go, both are true. I am grateful for all of these things and I feel a lot of sadness.

• 1:00:29Speaker 03

  Hmm. Hmm.

• 1:00:30Speaker 00

  Both are true because what happens in, in the first scenario is that we now move into basically judgment about feeling sadness. So I'm depressed about being depressed. Or I'm anxious about being anxious.

• 1:00:44Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:00:45Speaker 00

  And this is this example coming back to the beginning of the two arrows.

• 1:00:48Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 1:00:49Speaker 00

  Sadness is here. What we do have a choice about is how we speak to ourselves about having the sadness.

• 1:00:55Speaker 03

  Hmm. I had this exact experience on Monday this week.

• 1:00:58Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 1:00:59Speaker 03

  And um, we had a, I came in and I, I felt, it was really weird. I felt great. Arrived at work and then suddenly something just changed in my brain. And everything just felt, I couldn't, it's like I couldn't think properly. I couldn't engage with the discussions. Uh, and then Bridge sort of said, away from people, she's like, you okay?

• 1:01:20Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 1:01:21Speaker 03

  And I said, I'm fine. But then texts a minute later saying, actually, I don't think I am. We had a really quick chat and I, I feel like I, in the past, I would have started to worry what's going on.

• 1:01:33Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 1:01:34Speaker 03

  How bad is this gonna get? How, what does this mean? Am I getting, going down a path? But then we had a brief chat and partly it was the conversation with Bridge, but partly it was stuff inside me. Sort of going, it's okay to feel a bit crap one day.

• 1:01:50Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 1:01:50Speaker 03

  And not be able to engage. I think I'm a bit tired. Just lower my expectations of myself for the day and get a good night's sleep. And then on Tuesday, I woke up feeling great again. Because I think I just accepted that I just don't feel great today and that's okay.

• 1:02:07Speaker 00

  Yes. Yeah, I think that's so incredible and really well caught there. Because what we actually know from the research is that one of the biggest predictors of depressive episodes, a previous, this is gonna sound silly, previous depressive episodes and the function or the reason why is because we are so fearful of becoming depressed again. And in fact, there's a incredible program called mindfulness based cognitive therapy, which is for prevention of depression relapse. And it's specifically about this, the fact that whenever an unpleasant emotion arises, we get upset, judgmental, mad, fearful that it's here.

• 1:02:51Speaker 00

  And this kind of acceptance piece is really around like, it's okay that it's here. It's here already. Let me be with this. It can come and go and at the same time, I can still go out and do the things that I wanna do, like connection with Bridge.

• 1:03:07Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. Well, I think it was that conversation that, uh, thank you, Bridge, who's sitting in the room behind Kurt and Heather, but I think that conversation, the, the chance to have a really quick conversation, but not catastrophize at all. Just acknowledge that this is here.

• 1:03:24Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:03:25Speaker 03

  Helped me do it internally as well. And then just think, all right, well, I'm gonna, I don't, it doesn't mean I have to stop. I've got work to do. I gotta go pick up the kids. Life has to go on, but I can go about it in a way of holding that I'm not at my best today.

• 1:03:39Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:03:40Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:03:40Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's so, so well done.

• 1:03:42Speaker 03

  Yeah, it was, yeah, it was a pretty, I'm not sure I've actually done that ever before.

• 1:03:47Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:03:47Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:03:48Speaker 00

  Well done.

• 1:03:49Speaker 01

  I, I think on the topic of like things that you can do to help acceptance, I didn't at any point myself think here are the things I have to do. Time helps. Time definitely helps. It's a huge part of it, but I felt like I was continually collecting evidence of the fact that I could still feel happy and I could, and things are gonna be okay. And you might go a week with no evidence or you might go a month with no evidence and then you might have a couple of things happen. You go, oh, this, like, that's a nice feeling. And I wasn't at the time going, oh, more evidence, more evidence. But that's kind of what happens. You just give it, you, you, the more you try and live your life, you get evidence that things will be okay. And that gives you a belief.

• 1:04:29Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:04:29Speaker 01

  But the other thing that happened, and lots of people may not want to hear this, but for me, the, the, the thing that helped the most was exercise by far.

• 1:04:37Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:04:37Speaker 01

  Because every single time I exercised, and it won't work for everyone, but for me, the way my brain is, it just gives me so many positive thoughts. I had so much evidence that things are going to be okay while I was exercising. And specifically running or, or gym, I just felt really, I felt such bursts of joy.

• 1:04:56Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 1:04:56Speaker 01

  That just reminded me that it's still, the flame is not out.

• 1:04:59Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:04:59Speaker 01

  Like there is still a flame there.

• 1:05:02Speaker 01

  And so movement, I mean, everyone talks about this a lot, but the movement, exercise, whatever it is, training, just that is

• 1:05:08Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 1:05:08Speaker 01

  a huge part. I would say the most important part of my acceptance journey.

• 1:05:13Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's amazing. And, and there will be many reasons as to why exercise was so fundamental for you. Um, for, you know, in a lot of instances, the exercise is not just about what's happening chemically, physiologically, but also about what it means in terms of agency, that I have capacity, I have choice over how I move my arms and legs.

• 1:05:37Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 1:05:37Speaker 00

  And that even with this pain here, I know that my body can get me to run. And like, wow, here it is. Here is me being alive. Here is almost like even opening to gratitude of what my body can do, for example. And that even if I just focus on just this one thing in this moment, we can open to the fact that, wow, I do have, I have autonomy and capacity for agency. And I think that can feel very buffering when we have no choice and control in other circumstances.

• 1:06:09Speaker 01

  Hmm. And you mentioned the weather at, at the start.

• 1:06:12Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 1:06:13Speaker 01

  The, something about when you're training in the sun, you feel this so much positive emotion. But nothing was more symbolic for me than when I was training in the rain and cold and wet weather and blustery wind and it was awful.

• 1:06:27Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 1:06:28Speaker 01

  It was like, this is what my life feels like, but I'm doing, I'm pushing through this. And the feeling afterwards was getting the car afterwards, unbelievable. It was like, it was so symbolic.

• 1:06:38Speaker 00

  What do you think the belief was that was showing up there?

• 1:06:41Speaker 01

  I was just like, the rain and the wind sort of represented the storm that my life felt like it was at that point. And me running through it was just a very, it was so symbolic of me going, well, yeah, it's like, I'm still going. I'm still moving and I'm growing and I'm getting better.

• 1:06:58Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's incredible.

• 1:06:59Speaker 01

  And I'm not accepting, like the, the lying in bed, not that I ever get to do that at home, but staying at home and not doing anything. Sort of symbolized me lying down, letting it roll over me like a freight train. Like, but instead I was making a choice to, to move against it. Yeah.

• 1:07:20Speaker 00

  In that example, we actually have two, possibly two ways, three ways in which it could go. It could be, for example, the rain is here and the mind goes, this is so bad. Like this is such an example of how shit my life is. Like I can't handle this rain. This is awful. My feet are going.

• 1:07:35Speaker 01

  That'd be right.

• 1:07:36Speaker 00

  Yeah, exactly. Like here we go again. Like, don't even get this.

• 1:07:40Speaker 01

  No, I was thinking, God, this would be an amazing montage. Imagine someone's filming this. Classic main character ending.

• 1:07:48Speaker 00

  But I think that exemplifies this choice that we have about here is the rain. I don't have a choice about it being here. It's already here. Let me be open to it and let me move with it.

• 1:08:01Speaker 01

  In fact, I actually remember, I feel like the moment I felt like I'd accepted the way.

• 1:08:08Speaker 01

  My life had changed and the way our family's life had changed and the way the world was for us was actually whilst running in the rain. And I remember I was crying a lot and I've, because I'm so used to crying with this stuff from sadness, I just for a second, I thought that's what for a while, I thought that's what it was. And I actually realised I was feeling, I was like, no, I'm actually feeling so happy right now. This is actually joy. And I, and I, and I, that was when I, that was the first moment of like, oh, I think ironically, my flame is burning bright in amongst all this rain.

• 1:08:39Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:08:39Speaker 01

  Um, I remember I actually tried to take, tried to take a photo with like a self timer thing, but I don't know how to use it. So it was this weird blurry shot of me walking off in the distance, but you can tell it's raining.

• 1:08:48Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:08:49Speaker 01

  And I do look at it from time to time, just as this like, that, that was, that, that felt like the moment.

• 1:08:53Speaker 02

  You literally were filming your montage.

• 1:08:55Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:08:56Speaker 02

  Doing the montage.

• 1:08:57Speaker 03

  You created the montage.

• 1:08:58Speaker 01

  I tried to, it was a still shot of me walking off in the distance, but.

• 1:09:01Speaker 03

  Quite poetic.

• 1:09:01Speaker 00

  Oh, that's great. Yeah, that is really great.

• 1:09:04Speaker 01

  But yeah.

• 1:09:05Speaker 00

  Wow. Yep.

• 1:09:06Speaker 02

  Just on that, on that, um, that kind of narrative that I, I feel like I've, I've met a lot of people who, who carry that around with them all the time. They're kind of, I really feel for them because it really is living their life on the, on the poor me or that bad person sides. Anything bad happens, the smallest thing is like, oh, that'd be right. And, and they've probably, then I don't know what they've gone through. They might've gone through something really, really horrible, but it's just, it's such a, um, oh, for one, it's like such a, um, heavy energy to be carrying around for all the time. But then unfortunately, and they don't, this is not intended by them at all, but unfortunately it just poisons the interactions they have with other people.

• 1:09:48Speaker 00

  Yeah. That's actually probably a whole, like, there's a whole episode in that, to be honest. Um, really kind of around, uh, the stories we tell ourselves and the identities that we cling to. And an identity, um, or sense of self that I'm a victim is actually not uncommon. And it will have both a benefits to holding this belief about myself and huge costs. So maybe we can talk about that another time. I think it's really, um.

• 1:10:14Speaker 02

  So what would the, what would the top, what would that topic be? Just like identi- identity?

• 1:10:17Speaker 00

  Yeah, sense of self.

• 1:10:18Speaker 02

  Sense of self.

• 1:10:19Speaker 00

  And the, the stories we tell ourselves. And we actually become imprisoned often by those stories.

• 1:10:24Speaker 02

  Jeez, that would be amazing.

• 1:10:25Speaker 00

  Um, because for every piece of evidence that there is about poor me, there will also be an untold story of not poor me.

• 1:10:33Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:10:34Speaker 00

  Um. But we don't tune into that part. Hmm. Um. That's probably a bit of insight. Yeah. Um. But I wonder, there's a just, there's actually an acronym which was like a beautiful follow on from the rain example. And that is actually, it's called RAIN. Uh. And it's by, once again, Tara Brach. And this is the, like, her kind of framework for cultivating radical acceptance. She does say at the top that there are two elements to radical acceptance at its heart. And that is, the first is waking up.

• 1:11:08Speaker 00

  Being aware of what is, what is happening here in this moment. And the second one is, can I be with it? Can I hold this gently? So waking up, letting me be with this. Okay. So her acronym RAIN, the R. And she's got some beautiful meditations that you can do for this. So you can just Google Tara Brach, um, RAIN meditations. And she, and it will walk you through it. It's great. The first is R, which is recognise. So this is where we name. We step off of that treadmill, automatic pilot of getting caught in our heads. And we pause, we slow down and we name, aha, here is anxiety.

• 1:11:47Speaker 00

  She actually gives this beautiful example, and this is not going to resonate with everybody, but it really deeply resonated with me. Um. And it was something like, um, this is probably coming from a Buddhist, a Buddhist perspective. But, um, we might say something like, fear, palms together, bow. And it's like an honouring that this is here. Here, bow. Hmm. I'm honouring that it's here because it already is. Okay. So that's the first part. We name it. We recognise. R is recognise. The A is allow. And so this is a phrase that you can use, and I would often use like a physical touch with the body. So we're coming into the body and it might be like, let me be with this. Let it be here. There's an invitation here also to let go of holding in the body.

• 1:12:32Speaker 00

  So often with unpleasant emotions, we will have usually a, um, clenching sometimes, um, or a different kind of feeling. So we can let go of the bracing in the body. But that might dropping the shoulders, unhinging the jaw, relaxing the tongue, um, unclenching the stomach. That might be something that we can do there. So that's allow. The I is investigate. The investigate can be first of all, what's the story I'm telling myself here? What is this about? What is this actually about?

• 1:13:00Speaker 02

  Like what's behind the feeling?

• 1:13:01Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. What's happening here? Maybe you could even ask, like, hmm, how familiar is this story to me?

• 1:13:07Speaker 02

  So could that be like, I got real, you know, you recognize that you're like angry about the person who cut you off in traffic?

• 1:13:16Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 1:13:17Speaker 02

  You allow it to be, and then the investigator, is that like, is it about the person who cut me off, or is it about something else? Is that what you mean?

• 1:13:23Speaker 00

  Yeah, well, it could be about something else. Um, an example that would come to mind might be, let's just say you're passed over for a promotion, right? And the first, the, the, the emotion that's here, I'm going to recognize is disappointment. Um, and then it might be, can I allow this to be here? Um, and then the I might be, okay, what's, what's behind this feeling here? What's the story here? And it might be, uh, this is my story of not enoughness. Okay, so we've named it. It's not, this is familiar to me. And then, and this is more crucial than the naming of the story. We come into the body. So we step down once again from the head and we come into the body. Where am I feeling this in the body?

• 1:14:06Speaker 00

  And so this is really helping us with this 90 second rule. Okay. Where do I feel this emotion in the body? And for me, it would always be placing a hand on that part. And we offer it like a gentleness or a nurturing. So just placing a hand here. Where do I feel this in the body? Let it be here. Then the N is nurture. And obviously this is around nurturing the fact that this is hard, that here is suffering and this is really hard. What can I do next? What is my next one thing that would help me here? Okay. So that's RAIN. It's a very useful little acronym. Um, and there is an invitation, obviously, to practice it.

• 1:14:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, great.

• 1:14:50Speaker 01

  Um, just, yeah, brilliant. I thank you for the, the, the time and thought you put into that. I don't think I've said this before at the end of the episode, but please share this with someone, please share this episode with someone who you think might appreciate it or, or not know that it, but potentially might be helpful. Cause I just feel like that I would have loved to have heard this five years ago. Um, and I think so many people, like most people are trying to struggle to accept something in their life.

• 1:15:18Speaker 02

  Just don't share it passive aggressively.

• 1:15:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, do it a lovely way, but yeah, please share and like and subscribe while we're on the topic of self. Yeah, why not? Something else I've never said before.

• 1:15:31Speaker 02

  Check out the merch at theimperfects.com.

• 1:15:33Speaker 01

  So much preparation and thoughts going into that, but you articulated it so incredibly well. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me.

• 1:15:42Speaker 02

  Thanks.

• 1:15:43Speaker 01

  See you soon.

• 1:15:44Speaker 03

  If you enjoyed this episode and want a little more, you might enjoy our subscriber only apps available on Patreon and Apple Podcasts. If you want a little more but don't want to pay any more, then you can join our newsletter at theimperfects.com.au. And while you're there, you'll be able to see the names and faces of all the incredible people who help make this show. A show made on the lands of the Wurundjeri Wurundjeri people, and we pay our respects to elders past and present. The Imperfects is not a licensed mental health service and is not a substitute for professional mental health advice, treatment or assessment. The advice given in this episode is general in nature, but if you're struggling, please see a healthcare professional or call Lifeline on 13114.