Dr. Jody Carrington: Episode Link
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On this episode, we talk to Dr. Jodi Carrington about her latest book, ‘Feeling Scene, Reconnecting in a Disconnected World.’ The book explores the concept of feeling seen and its importance in human connection. Dr. Carrington explains that feeling seen means knowing that you matter in the world and being deeply understood by someone. She emphasizes the power of empathy and the impact it can have on individuals. The conversation also touches on the role of emotional regulation in relationships and the need for human connection, especially in a world that is becoming increasingly disconnected. The summary highlights the significance of acknowledging and valuing others, as well as the importance of bringing people together in organizations and communities.
TRANSCRIPT:
Welcome back to Hot Flashes and Cool Topics, everybody. We are really thrilled today to have a conversation with Dr. Jody Carrington. She is a fabulous psychologist,
and we were on her podcast as well. The Everyone Comes From Somewhere podcast, and we had so much fun and a great conversation. Today, we’re going to talk about her latest book, The Great. “Feeling Scene,
Reconnecting in a Disconnected World.” And we’re so excited. Welcome Dr. Judy to the show. Bridget, I’m so excited to be here. You wonder why? Because today is Feeling Scene’s birthday.
We launched it into the world. I’ll just show for demonstration purposes. We launched it into the world one year ago today. And it is. A national bestseller. We’re so jacked about all of it.
And I’m so excited that I get to talk to you. about it today. Oh, it’s such a great book. I mean, it really, it’s something that Colleen and I feel that really is going to resonate with our listeners because that is something that a lot of women in midlife really want the most is to feel seen.
Can you start by explaining what does it mean to feel seen? So many people say I want to feel seen and I want to feel heard, but what does it really mean to feel seen? seen? Yeah, it’s so interesting.
So I when we started this book, so I’m a psychologist, and I’ve spent a lot of time in my own practice, you know, talking to people about all kinds of problems. And then I started to speak,
I spent a lot of time with our National Police Force. And so I had a big history and trauma and organizational stress. And then I did my first job was on a lock psychiatric and patient unit for kids. So some of the worst babies you can imagine the hitters,
the kickers, the bitters. biters, I love those babies, because what we ask all the time is what is wrong with you, not what happened to you. And when you change the context of somebody’s story,
you suddenly then have access to empathy. And feeling seen for me is really about the desire for every single human, regardless of even age,
race, religion, socioeconomic status, gender identity. to know that they matter in this world. And the definition for me is really, it’s often done without words. It’s often done even without sound.
It is that capacity to know that deeply somebody, even if it takes a second or 40 years, gets you and how you show up in this world.
And it is like one of my favorite hockey coaches. said this, “You should see how fast I can get a kid to skate when I know the name of their dog.” And it is just simply this idea of being acknowledged that in this human race,
we will rise. We are neurobiologically large. And if I know I matter to you, I’ll skate through walls. I’ll punch through anything. I will do whatever it takes.
And it can take a second, you know, if you’ve ever been stranded down the side of the road. of the road and you needed somebody, if you’ve ever been in a state of just panic because your babies were not okay and somebody jumped in,
you don’t even have to have a history with this person. But oftentimes in couples therapy, that’s one of my favorite things to do is I only need to get two people to look at each other for there to be magic that happens because most of what’s written between us is without words.
And despite the fact that we’re neurobiologically wired if we’re connected. the hardest thing we will ever do is look into the eyes of the people we love. That is you know you talk so much about connections and the different different types of connections that people have with each other and you know you’re talking about you know different things like chaotic things that happen in trauma.
How do you how do you get to someone to really say you know when you say what happened to you? How hard is it to get them to discuss and just kind of let everything go with trauma?
Yeah. I mean, it’s so, it’s so interesting because here’s the fundamental heart of I think everything that we’ve always sort of wanted to get to in this human race. We like it best when people are calm. We like it best when people aren’t losing their frigging minds,
right? If anybody’s still married or if you’ve been around a couple of times listening to this podcast, pick your favorite, what you want, and the people. you love the most is for them to become. And I think about this even when I’m talking to organizations about your favorite leader,
who of all the places you’ve worked in and worked for, who are the people who inspired you the most, whether it’s a volunteer organization, or some conglomerate that you worked for in your history, your favorite leader tends to have that one skill of emotional regulation,
which is staying calm in times of distress. distress. How not to lose your broken mind? We love it best when our partners can do that. We love it best when our kids are calm. But when there is chaos, we want somebody to walk us through it.
And it comes back to this quote that I often say, and I think it’s in the book too, but I have it over my shoulder because it is probably the most profound statement in the English language I’ve ever heard. It’s by a dead guy named Ram Das,
and he said this, “We are all just here walking each other home.” That’s it. Full stop. End of story. We are all just here walking each other home.
And those of us in position to privilege, those of us who tend to be the healthiest, are lucky enough, blessed enough, curated enough to have a number of walkers in our times of distress.
Because what happens when you bring a baby home from the hospital? How do they let you know? what they need is they cry They lose their friggin lines. That’s the job of little people. That’s the job of your employees That’s the job of people,
you know as a teacher bridge That was the job of kids is to lose their minds the job of big people is to do the walk -in and Our our idea I think in feeling seen is when you have capacity to Do that you are one of the greatest gifts gifts.
This is this is the thing the world needs to do at full stop is for so many of us to understand our power because we were never meant to do any of this alone and we’ve never been this disconnected in history of the free world.
We’ve never been this lonely than we are in this moment. So much of what you just said is incredibly powerful and I hope that the listeners kind of sit in a moment and really think about what you just said because you know we we’ve been talking a lot about,
especially recently in the loneliness epidemic that is coming back Murphy talked about that your surgeon general came out with a report, you know, is four months ago, you know, we’re talking about a mental health crisis,
but he said, listen, the fuel to that is the loneliness epidemic. 60 % of all adolescents, teenagers in our communities, we think we have access to all of this connection right you can FaceTime anybody you could I mean we’re in two different countries in this moment.
What a beautiful gift this technological advances are. I wear an Apple watch, which I’m supposed to track my steps, but I’ll tell you what else happens is that everybody can get me any second.
My life -sucking kids who I just adore, I don’t get a break. My cortisol is never at rest, the way that even my parents were, because there is instant access to us.
I’ll tell you what else happens. time. There’s beauty in that. But our systems, particularly as women, we’re not designed for this much inundation of data, which means our body is in a state of fight or flight,
the vast majority of the time, which means I lose access to the best parts of myself. I lose access to not only feel seen, but to give that gift to other people most of my days, because I’m like this,
waiting, waiting, even even not consciously, for the phone call from the school, for my husband to check in, for my employee to say, “You know what, it’s not a fit for me anymore.” Or…
(indistinct) (laughs) And then at the end of the day, you know what we do? At the end of the day, we’re supposed to relax, but we all sink into crime podcasts, watching other people kill each other.
We’re like, “Oh, we’re just gonna sink and begin to learn how to… to launder money in the Ozarks and relax. And then we can’t sleep and we wonder why. – Guilty.
– We’re just laughing out loud because that was me. And it’s, you know, I was actually listening to your book and I was, you know, I was sitting there doing the whole like,
here, put your fist up. Now put your thumb in. Now put your hand down. And these are the connections. connections. Then you talked about lid flipping, flipping your lid. Can you describe what that is?
‘Cause I was like, oh my gosh, what a great description that you just made. – You know, and I really started talking a lot about that Bridget for teachers because what happens often in, so the neurophysiological explanation of emotional dysregulation is if you take your brain,
and I do this in the book, but I’ll tell you this real quick. So if you put your hand up in front of you. you, if you’re driving, keep one hand on the wheel, put your thumb in the inside of your hand and wrap your fingers around your thumb. So you sort of make a fist with your thumb tucked inside.
That is a hand model of your brain. And it is about the same size as the brain sitting in your skull currently. And your arm is represented spinal cord, your wrist is your brainstem.
If you flip your fingers up, the most primitive part of your brain is represented by your thumb. That is… like your limbic system. So in all mammals, including humans, this develops first.
We develop interceptively. So from the inside out. And this is where the three regulation strategies that we all want, we all get come for free. Right. So I said, this is the biggest gift you’ll give anybody is how to regulate emotion.
We all come wired for three with three fight, flight or freeze. And other people are coming up with new efforts like fun and whatever, but fight but fight flight or freeze is the only thing we really need to be worried about. Okay.
What separates humans from most other mammals is we have the prefrontal cortex that wraps around that thumb, that limbic system. And so if you close your fingers around your thumb now, there is your brain and your prefrontal cortex is represented by your fingers.
And that lives right above your balls, your eyeballs. Everything you’ve ever lived, learned in your life lives in that prefrontal cortex. So if you speak a language,
the pin number to your bank card, your first childhood phone number, the middle name to your mother -in -law, your children’s birthdays, anything you’ve ever learned in your life lives up there, including the languages that you speak,
including musical instruments, and things like how to be kind, how to use your words, how to have empathy. If nobody’s ever taught you how to do those things, they don’t live up there. If nobody’s never taught you how to apologize,
if nobody’s ever taught you how to apologize, never looked you in the eyes and said, “Baby boy, I am so sorry.” You do not have the capacity to give that away because you do not have that neural pathway to do that. And so what happens when you bring a baby home from the hospital is they don’t have a lot of stuff going on up there.
And so we want, like for those of you with children, if you’ve ever looked at your own personal child and we’re proud of them, that is who they are. They’re lived. Dan Siegel said, I want you to think about this prefrontal cortex like a lid.
When your lid is on, you have access to everything you’ve ever learned. So if you looked at your kids and they’re using their words or they’re passing, you know, at Christmas time, they’re being kind to each other and you’re like, oh my God, look at that baby.
Their lid is on. That is who you’ve raised. If you’ve ever went on a second date in your life, you decided to go on that second date with your prospective partner because their lid was on. And I often say this,
if you ever heard this she flipped her lid he’s lost his friggin mind that’s what we’re talking about because you lose access to your prefrontal cortex in times of distress now this is neurobiologically important I want you to flip your lid out of the way if you’re getting chased or eaten by a tiger or you’re at a scene of a motor vehicle accident and this police officer I don’t need you to know the pin number to
your bank card in that moment I need you to flip all that stuff out of the way and do what what you need to do to either keep yourself safe or help somebody else. So this idea of lid flipping becomes really critical because when you bring a baby home to the hospital,
how do they let you know what they need? They cry. They lose their freaking minds. And the job of big people is to welcome home. And we are neurobiologically wired to do that, regardless, this is a universal response to a crying infant.
Right now when China or Afghanistan or Kulquitlin, British Columbia. Columbia, if somebody comes upon a crying infant, their neurobiological response is to pick them up and co -regulate,
to engage in a rhythmic exchange in an upper two, walk them home. And our ability to regulate each other’s emotion is in our bones because as human beings,
we all start in exactly the same place. Regardless, race is a social concern. Our DNA as humans is 99 .98 % the same. And the first sound that everybody listening to this podcast in this moment felt first was the heartbeat of your mama.
And whether she’s alive or you have a relationship with her or not, your understanding of emotional regulation, that rhythmic exchange is in your bones.
And our job often in times of biggest distress, isn’t to tell somebody what to do it is to show them. And if you are blessed, privileged, lucky enough to have walkers in your times of distress,
you will learn that capacity to give it away. So if I’m surrounded by people who are relatively regulated, grandmas, access to aunties or cuckoos, or siblings that can say,
okay, okay, okay, shh, shh, shh, if I’m surrounded by multiple generations of abuse and neglect and trauma. where people are not regulated because nobody ever showed them how to do it, or you get upset and they say, “Shut up,
you’re an idiot,” or they’re drunk, high, absent, unable, they’re flat, you do not have the capacity to give it away, which means we see intergenerational trauma, we see people that, in marginalized experiences,
when nobody’s ever been kind enough to give it to you, dating back to colonization, the suggestion that white skin matters more than any other color. color means we are ending up in very privileged positions.
And so when we look at, for example, in my country, there was a cultural genocide experienced by Indigenous peoples. They remain the highest number of people in our prisons.
Our child care, mental child and family services, 72 % of kids in care in our country are Indigenous, just by the fact that they only make up 10 % of the population. Our ability to regulate emotion is a privilege,
a gift, and it is what is necessary to be the most successful in this planet. And our job to be able to walk people home as teachers, police officers, hockey coaches,
soccer moms, will become one of the most profound roles that us as human beings play in our communities for the next foreseeable future. You know,
when you’re saying that and it’s just you speak it so eloquently so thank you for sharing that. The first thing I thought of was what about older people who don’t cry but they need that person to walk them just as much they need that connection and for so many people who are getting older they’re alone.
What can we do for them? What can what can we do? I love that you say that so like men will live longer when they remain married Women tend to live just as long when they have solid connections So one of my favorite books is called The Village Effect.
Um, Susan Pinker is a psychologist Canadian psychologist She wrote it and she said listen the greatest predictors of longevity is actually not how much to eat or drink or how fat you are It is your capacity for so engagement.
So not even necessarily having a best friend, but the blue zone identified by an island up of Corsica. You know this research. – We had Dan Gutner on. He was great.
– Yeah, he was great, yeah. – I bet, and one of the, as he obviously shared with you, is one of the greatest predictors of longevity is really this idea of social reciprocity. And so, what we notice in many,
European countries, particularly off the coast of Italy, is the closeness that homes still remain in, that your ability or your requirement to go out and get your coffee of the day or your fresh bread or your whatever,
means you know the name of the post office worker. It means you’re saying hello to somebody or somebody saying, oh hi Ms. Karen, how are you today? That ability to stay connected with and connected.
matters way more than any other data set we have available to us. And so, knowing that data means gathering more often.
Now, listen, if you think about the score footage of the house that our grandfather or father was raised in, your grandfather, and the score footage of the house in which we raise our babies, what’s the difference? They were a lot smaller.
Yeah. Yeah, thousands of square feet. Yeah, estimated that our great grandparents looked at their children 72 % more of the time than we look at our babies. I mean, and I,
I text my children and I told you this, you know, earlier today, I have a set of twins who are almost 11 and are 13 year olds. And of course, we worked hard, their dad and I to,
we both have PhDs, we were both very committed to research and writing books and and doing all these things. And so we’re like, we want this, we need this bigger house and we want to take them on. Like this is the thing. I texted my son that it was separate time yesterday.
He was upstairs. I can’t move my body. The 12 stairs, I mean, he’s also 13, so I don’t exist.
because we’ve never had this much inundation of data. So we are a first generation of women playing by a set of rules that was established for a world that no longer exists. And Adam Grant talks a lot about that.
And it’s this idea, right, that we have never now been so, it’s never been this important to get direct connection with other people. It takes practice to have small talk.
It takes practice. practice to give somebody a compliment, to speak in an elevator. I mean, you know, I mean, Bridget, when I think about you on the set of, you know, acting a national and doing these things,
right? Like, even being able to sort of speak to somebody and like, sink into somebody, we’re like, oh, darn it, we don’t know how to say this because we don’t know how to say this because it’s like,
you know, I don’t know who you are. I don’t know what to say. say, like the exposure matters. – Yeah. – And the more insular we become, the more insular our children become,
the lonelier we become, because what we will never automate is relationship. And if I think about this generation of women now, you know, enticed to work from home. Of course, the pandemic made it necessary for sure,
but the most successful organizations moving forward in the remainder of our lifetime will be companies that understand. the importance of bringing their people back together. And it is the isolation will never ever serve us well.
Yeah, exactly. During during the, you know, during, like what you just said during the pandemic and what’s happening there. And then, you know, like Colleen, you were saying just for elderly people that disconnect,
just that whole disconnect and they. they you know if they go in the home and then your life is so busy And you can’t go visit your parents or your grandparents You know,
is there any? Salvation is there anything we could do for for sauce, you know What do you do what I’m trying to say is what do you do for the person that has grown up without?
Having that that ability in their frontal cortex just yeah cortex. That’s about it from love, you know? – Yeah, so we, for sure, like we all have it, women tend to be better regulators than men because we have a much greater emotional language.
So the ability to get our lids back on typically is, you know, the capacity to sort of say how we feel versus, you know, I’m just pissed off, I’m so mad at you versus like, I feel so frustrated or I feel like I’ve so disappointed our children that the shame is just gone.
sort of stopping me in my tracks, right? So when you have the capacity to use those words, it tends to get us back on track a little bit more. What tends to happen with our older generation, particularly men,
is they have less and less capacity, not the ability to fill emotion, but the capacity to express it, because we’ve come from a generation where we still very much perpetuate this idea. Boys, don’t cry, you’re tough.
Uh, don’t talk about it. You’re good. And And the highest rate of suicide in your country and mine is middle -aged men. And our ability to show up as much as we can,
first of all, acknowledge that. You see, our generation, we don’t, particularly in North America, we don’t like to watch our parents grow. It’s heartbreaking. And if we have the capacity to transfer care to other people,
we take it. not because we don’t want to be with them. We don’t want to see them suffer. We don’t want to see them in pain. And when a child becomes the caregiver for their parents, it is the most unnerving situation for them and for us,
right? Switching those roles becomes really critical. And I think what matters more than anything is considering the connections that you can’t do. And,
you know, we’ve just set up, my dad is in the middle stages of dementia in his early 70s. And so we said, okay, we all live in different parts of this province. We very rarely can get home. My brother’s right there.
I don’t want to put everything on him. And so we’ve said Sundays, we do a Zoom call. And I know we can’t get there ’cause I have three kids and my brother has two kids and my sister has a child. And, you know,
like, we have all of the things which become the excuse. But guess what? We’ve got every Sunday morning at 8 o ‘clock. to 930, regardless of where we are, we’re going to do our very best to have everybody’s face on Zoom.
Now, it’s taken a very long time to learn how to do that. We’ve watched a lot of dads nostrils as he’s like, is this is this on? But the necessity to see our faces is critical.
So it’s different than an email. It’s different than a text and it’s different than a phone call. How do you engage in that? way becomes really critical. If you can navigate the visits become important we notice that you know elderly people do better when they’re engaged in programs and so even if it is the home that we you know typically sort of talk about is there social activities,
is there engagement with other people, is there that familiar face that becomes you know necessary to sort of inhibit some of those neuro patterns. Wanna at 34,
35, I think, and then our oldest 35, our twin’s at 38. And so this capacity to just need help in this season is not just gonna be nice because the grandparents get to be a part of it.
I’m like, I am a giant. I got three children too. I don’t know my name, milk shooting everywhere. I wanna throw a punch to my husband. Can you please? please? And just that ability to call in the siblings,
the parents, whereas one generation ago you lived in the same farm site is just a very different experience and our bodies haven’t adapted to that. And the access to social media also means now that we compare ourselves.
We’re the first generation of parents that has this much access to social media. And we’re worried about kids in social media when they grow up. with it We don’t have a script for this We don’t understand that we can compare ourselves to Barb and she’s drinking a collagen And she is getting a family pictures done with all the grandchildren while son of a gun.
What are we do? We are useless Scott we are Like I remember I’m a probably about a decade behind you,
but we’re in this, I remember like the party lines, when that’s how we would get in touch with each other on the farms, because you couldn’t answer the phone if it was ringing on Agnes’ phone, you had to make sure you didn’t pick it up.
Well, for sure, we did. I mean, but we didn’t listen because we were wired for the sense of we wanna know and be connected to people and we assume that the Facebook channel check -ins or even the Instagram likes are going to fill that void and it doesn’t.
Neurochemically, we don’t respond the same way to a text message as we do to a visit. And being able to navigate that and just that knowledge becomes so remarkably important in this season.
You also talk about doing the next best right kind thing. Can you explain that? – Okay,
so the bar is so low right now. Our ability, you know, I say this to my kids all the time, who’s your favorite teacher? And our twins both said, Mr. Sealy, who, he taught them three years ago. And so now they’re in middle school and I’m like,
we’re talking, we’re gonna go back to grade two for the favorite, yes. And I said, why? Because he had a turtle. turtle. There’s nothing about the literacy or the numeracy or the curriculum.
This fella had a turtle, okay? If I think about my favorite hockey coaches, because he gave us snacks. If I think about when you think about your favorite people, it’s because they had the capacity to connect.
Look you in the eye, have a conversation, light it up when they see you. And I think right now, [BLANK _AUDIO] bar is so low you give somebody and watch this I mean, I want you to do this today because it’s gonna be better for you than anybody else Give somebody a compliment and if you can’t if you’re not brave enough to do that to a stranger I want you to wave on your drive back and forth wherever you go today
in your town Your city wherever you are your community if you don’t drive and you’re walking I want you to wave somebody driving by I want you to get to stop late and go like this I mean, I want people to be like what is going on with Colleen?
She been drinking? Look at her. Wave and pass. Because what happens when we just engage in our communities is we pull each other’s prefrontal cortexes on.
That’s where we have access to the best parts of ourselves, remember? And when I can do that on purpose, if you are a target, we don’t have target up in here in Canada, which is what I love to say that word. And when you go to the target and you say,
to Natalie, working behind the counter, you just say, “Natalie, whatever’s true for Natalie.” I love that shirt. Your eyes are just beautiful. You are just so,
watch what happens. It is remarkable, right? They lean in. It is ridiculous. This is how a fair start in mine or hockey actually,
I always say this, ’cause you give somebody a compliment, but your kid has a nice shot. for he’s very good with the soccer they’re like oh my god I love you because the bar is so low right now and that’s what I love about being alive you guys in this moment is that it is so much room people say this is only kindness yeah yeah next best right kind thing we get overwhelmed but the audacity that this world has to
swing the data We have never ever been, we’ve never seen this rates of this high rates of child maltreatment. Domestic violence has never been this high. You are inundated by,
I cannot fathom that what is happening in Gaza or Israel or in places around this world right now that this is okay, that this is happening. And we get overwhelmed by that,
particularly those of us in positions of privilege. And so, you know what we just say? we shut it off, we can’t, it’s too much. I can’t think about poverty, I can’t think about marginalization, and it’s too much. It becomes debilitating.
And so my offer, you know, when we talk about this feeling scene is really, listen, put it all down, you don’t need to start a nonprofit for homeless teenage moms. If you don’t have the capacity to do that, I understand, that would be my desire too.
All I want you to think about today is next best right kind of thing. Wave at your neighbors. neighbors, give somebody a compliment, look at your babies when they wake up in the morning, and you will be responsible for changing the world.
That is all it’s going to take, I promise you. No government policy in our respective lifetimes is going to make a massive impact on anything that has to do with homelessness or marginalization or racism or war,
but you doing the next best right kind thing will move the needle. That’s all we need from you. Yeah, absolutely Yeah, it’s and you know when somebody when you see someone and they used to be commercials or things about when you see someone else doing a kind thing It’s a it’s kind of like a an effect that ripples contagious It’s contagious and someone else was like oh look how that made that person feel good I’m
gonna do this to someone else but pass it on you Well, and here’s here’s the truth bridge mid Misery loves miserable company. Misery does not love optimism.
And so somebody’s out there bitching or rolling their eyes or doing the things at whatever, and you’re like, you know what, actually, that wasn’t such a bad call. Or I kind of think we’ve got some things to hope for here.
People are usually like, oh, zip it, Mary Poppins. But that’s how you create a movement, right? If there’s enough of you in this place of optimism or wonder, it is so easy to get that. sucked into. It is so awful.
The kids these days are a problem. Nobody knows how to work. These Gen Z years. Listen, I’ve assessed and treated over a thousand kids up here in Canada, and I’ve never not one time met a bad kid. I have met a lot of emotionally dysregulated kids.
I’ve met a lot of babies that don’t think they matter, but I’ve never met a bad human. And I’ve sat with people in prison. I’ve sat with people who’ve had their kids apprehended. I have not one time. I’ve sat with people who’ve had their kids apprehended. with somebody I’ve sat with many underprivileged people who have not had the capacity to have somebody to tell them they’re amazing.
And when you are acknowledged, you rise. We’ll stop. Yeah. Yeah, when you acknowledge you rise, that’s so true. It doesn’t that’s something that’s ageless.
You know, we talk about so many privileges of a feeling seen and feeling heard is something that every age every demographic, religion, you just want to feel seen,
heard, acknowledged, right or wrong. Well, and I, and I have to think about this, you know, as a straight white woman, I’ve spent some time, you know, on my podcast, you know, talking to people that aren’t like me and that,
you know, the space of gender identity, you know, people often say, how come there’s so many letters LGBTQA plus all the things. right? Because when you don’t feel like you fit in this world,
you want somebody to notice. So I’m going to keep getting until you’re like, oh, that’s what it’s like. And it’s so fantastic to just appreciate the fact that when you light up with somebody,
if you’ve, you know, if you’ve ever watched an airport reunion or a grandparents, you have your baby. run into them and their eyes go that’s the light up okay and it doesn’t matter how you do it I mean if you and I meet in person the light up will look like a leg wrap and a bosom snuggle I mean I’m always over the top my father one of my favorite humans on the planet his light up looks like this yeah he might
even say yeah proud of your kid like that shoot the lights out, Lane Carrington is in town. And that would be all it would take for me to just be like, and I am so jacked,
I impressed my dad. So it is not how you do it, it is if you do it that matters. In our disconnected state, we often forget just how critically important that middle place of acknowledgement is.
I see you, I’m proud of you, look at you, good job dad. I think about that with my partner. all the time, you know? How very little I say to him as a dad,
that was so great that you took Livia last night, you know what she told me about? She told me about the fact that, you know, you got to speak about hockey all day with her, and she loved it. To watch him respond to that,
’cause most of the time I’m just like, “Oh, Mike, would you stop chewing? “Do you mean to breathe like that?” Last night, he’s got a little bit of a cough. cold. Well, sweet mother.
I thought about every opportunity I had in 2009 and why did I choose him? That’s what was happening in my brain last night. And so, who blows their nose like I’m a who?
Anyway, it’s fine. He’s a nice guy. So, what I think is so interesting, I know, listen, he’s a good human. But think about how many times we don’t even just take that opportunity,
right? To be able to see. say, here’s what a lot about you, or I noticed when you did that with kids today, like, do you know how much they love you? Do you know how amazing you are? Do you know,
you know, and even just like simple things about, oftentimes, I think, with our partners, you know, I watch Aaron, he’s he’s coaching hockey, and there’s, of course, all the politics and in sport that happened universally.
And I just want to navigate that. And he’s really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, the heck out of me, you know, ’cause he’s this farmer from like rural Alberta. And I’m like, “Look, wow.” That was like, ’cause usually I think I have to come in and I’m like,
“Ah, ah, ah, let me write that email.” Oh, oh, oh, oh, I’m just gonna help with that, you know? And I just, so don’t underestimate or your power. You know, feelings team,
the working time for so long was if you only knew. Because I think it’s human. we underestimate just how much we impact other people. You know, I started Kids These Days my first book with the story of my favorite teacher.
She taught me something in grade 10. Her name was Mrs. Holly Narkstrom. And I don’t remember what. So I go on to get a PhD from this little K to 12 school. And she was my favorite teacher. I remember mostly because where she was standing and what she was wearing,
the day she had to tell us, the van captain of our hockey team had been killed. And as a 16 year old. kid I remember thinking I want to be her because she handled that with so much grace and wisdom and I felt so safe in this tragedy that I thought that’s what I want to do for the rest of my life.
I want to be like Mrs. Nordstrom and my dad said you want to be a teacher and I was like no I don’t really like it. I’m a big fan of big people. I mean I have three of my own now so I’m going to come around but I’m not a fan of other people.
people’s children. And what happened in that moment is, I never told her for 23 years that she was the impetus of me getting a PhD, that I think about her all the time,
that I, you know, and she was like, I remember where she was sitting when I gave a talk and she was in the audience and I said, “Holly, I don’t know if you know.” And I mean, tears and all the things. And I said,
“Do you remember that day?” She said, “I do not remember that.” moment of having to tell you as a class. Obviously, I will never forget losing a student.” But I said, “I don’t know.” Like obviously,
if you only knew the impact that you had on me and obviously countless others, you had thousands of students in your life and it was because of you. And I think how often we don’t tell people that,
how often when you do tell people that, what happens to them, what happens to their commitment to profession. where they feel very unacknowledged, I think about police officers, first responders all the time,
very, very unacknowledged in their profession, ’cause often they’re serving in times of other people’s biggest distress. And very rarely do people have the capacity to go back and say, “Thank you, I see you.
I appreciate that at four o ‘clock in the morning you came to my house to break up a fight or tell me that my baby was not okay,” or whatever that was. We’re, you know, we don’t ever fail. fill it up and you can continue to serve if you are not acknowledged and you know even in the teaching profession I think about that all the time Bridget because it’s like I wrote kids these days and teachers these days for
educators they spend more waking hours with the next generation than the primary caregivers do and if they’re not okay our babies don’t stand a chance and there’s a massive difference in your country and mine between what we pay our educators there’s There’s also a massive difference between school shootings and mental health issues.
And I think that is the connection is how we treat our educators. – It is, and it’s even worse. My last year was 2012. And I think about these teachers that had to teach during lockdown and the people that are just coming after them.
And I know we try not to get political, but I’ll do it for them. but it does, but all the book banning and all the other stuff and all the things that are coming after the teachers about and the educators.
I just, I just, we all can name a favorite teacher, you know, we all can name whether it’s, you know, a college or university or, you know, like I, I mean, again, grade 10, I can tell you the name of my grade one teacher and we never ever like,
so if that’s true, if we really like the profession of education, just even a little bit more, we filled them up, we paid them enough that they didn’t have to be exhausted when they hang onto emotional dysregulation,
’cause that’s their job, actually. Kids are supposed to be assholer -ish in the classroom. And the job of teachers is that they’re supposed to be well enough to walk them through it. Look at my eyes, Jax, I know, baby. I know mom and dad are going through a divorce.
I know that it’s hard for you to show up here when you don’t have anything in your head. your lunch. I mean, obviously we don’t say those things out loud, but when I, the context is the prerequisite for empathy. And, you know, I’ve spent some time recently in various states,
Utah in particular, Michigan, speaking to educators, speaking to districts and school divisions about like, do you know how amazing you are?
Do you know how holy this work is? So, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s,
it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s by you just showing up. It’s not about how much access we have to Chromebooks. It’s about how much you matter in the world of kids who probably need it more than you could ever imagine.
And even just that reminder regulates the system. It drops the shoulders. And we have this sense of like, all right, let’s go. Come on. He’s going to hit and kick and be like, bring it. I’ll do it. That’s what you want from me.
I got it. And how do we then navigate the people? we love the most at home so that we can fill out in this, you know, this antidote to burnout is certainly empathy. Yeah, it is. And, you know, when you’re saying that,
I just, you know, I’m a storyteller, but one little girl in particular, she wasn’t even in my class. I taught mostly kindergarten, first grade, and second. And she was a fifth grader, but she was a,
you know, foster student. I had her siblings, and she was just, I heard, I had morning… duty in the cafeteria you know like monitoring the cafeteria and she something was happening I heard commotion and people are pointing to her and I said just you know come here come here and she thought she was you know hands like this and she thought she was gonna be in trouble and I just you know I probably get in trouble
for hugging her now but I just gave her a big hug I looked at her and I said you just go to the bathroom You just go wash your face off. You go do whatever. You just need to go take a breath.
And she hugged me the biggest hug back because I didn’t, I was like, this girl does not need me doing this to her. – Right, he gave her support instead of judgment.
– This letter, no. – And I promise you, she thinks about you 10 times as much. I mean, if you can recall that after a 20 year teaching career, that little big girl in that 30 second interaction, interaction,
I promise you she thinks about you 10 times as much. And I think just talking about that becomes so important when we get into these places of burnout in our organizations and in our work. Like, let’s not forget our impact because we are still serving people.
Even if we’re selling widgets or getting a curriculum out into the world or conducting our law practice, there are people that we’re navigating within them.
them and if they feel seen, they will skate through walls for you. You know, some of the mediation work I do in the court system is just, it’s some of the most profound work I’ve ever done in my life because you have people that just cannot stay regulated long enough to know that they both care about one tiny human or six tiny humans or whatever it is and facilitating that process,
letting them be heard and feel seen means you get out. to the best parts of them. And I’ve never met a mom or dad that doesn’t love their baby. Some of them don’t have the skill to show it or navigate it,
but I’ve never met one that doesn’t. And I think that’s just a gift, you know, that if you have that skill of emotional regulation, a man use it. It’s a privilege. Well, we can’t thank you enough,
Jody, for coming on the show. Make sure everybody checks out feeling seen reconnecting in a disconnected world because you you just share so much insight and we can only do so much in the time we had,
but I think it was a very powerful conversation and we appreciate you joining us. And yes, I just, I want to tell you she addresses, you know, so much in this book that just different situations,
relationships, situations with your children, with your family, situations with people who have to work in trouble. situations. So you really, really need to read this book.
It’s very easy to read. And it’s just your great, great information. So make sure you check it out. Thanks, Jodi. We appreciate your time. Thank you.
and we were on her podcast as well. The Everyone Comes From Somewhere podcast, and we had so much fun and a great conversation. Today, we’re going to talk about her latest book, The Great. “Feeling Scene,
Reconnecting in a Disconnected World.” And we’re so excited. Welcome Dr. Judy to the show. Bridget, I’m so excited to be here. You wonder why? Because today is Feeling Scene’s birthday.
We launched it into the world. I’ll just show for demonstration purposes. We launched it into the world one year ago today. And it is. A national bestseller. We’re so jacked about all of it.
And I’m so excited that I get to talk to you. about it today. Oh, it’s such a great book. I mean, it really, it’s something that Colleen and I feel that really is going to resonate with our listeners because that is something that a lot of women in midlife really want the most is to feel seen.
Can you start by explaining what does it mean to feel seen? So many people say I want to feel seen and I want to feel heard, but what does it really mean to feel seen? seen? Yeah, it’s so interesting.
So I when we started this book, so I’m a psychologist, and I’ve spent a lot of time in my own practice, you know, talking to people about all kinds of problems. And then I started to speak,
I spent a lot of time with our National Police Force. And so I had a big history and trauma and organizational stress. And then I did my first job was on a lock psychiatric and patient unit for kids. So some of the worst babies you can imagine the hitters,
the kickers, the bitters. biters, I love those babies, because what we ask all the time is what is wrong with you, not what happened to you. And when you change the context of somebody’s story,
you suddenly then have access to empathy. And feeling seen for me is really about the desire for every single human, regardless of even age,
race, religion, socioeconomic status, gender identity. to know that they matter in this world. And the definition for me is really, it’s often done without words. It’s often done even without sound.
It is that capacity to know that deeply somebody, even if it takes a second or 40 years, gets you and how you show up in this world.
And it is like one of my favorite hockey coaches. said this, “You should see how fast I can get a kid to skate when I know the name of their dog.” And it is just simply this idea of being acknowledged that in this human race,
we will rise. We are neurobiologically large. And if I know I matter to you, I’ll skate through walls. I’ll punch through anything. I will do whatever it takes.
And it can take a second, you know, if you’ve ever been stranded down the side of the road. of the road and you needed somebody, if you’ve ever been in a state of just panic because your babies were not okay and somebody jumped in,
you don’t even have to have a history with this person. But oftentimes in couples therapy, that’s one of my favorite things to do is I only need to get two people to look at each other for there to be magic that happens because most of what’s written between us is without words.
And despite the fact that we’re neurobiologically wired if we’re connected. the hardest thing we will ever do is look into the eyes of the people we love. That is you know you talk so much about connections and the different different types of connections that people have with each other and you know you’re talking about you know different things like chaotic things that happen in trauma.
How do you how do you get to someone to really say you know when you say what happened to you? How hard is it to get them to discuss and just kind of let everything go with trauma?
Yeah. I mean, it’s so, it’s so interesting because here’s the fundamental heart of I think everything that we’ve always sort of wanted to get to in this human race. We like it best when people are calm. We like it best when people aren’t losing their frigging minds,
right? If anybody’s still married or if you’ve been around a couple of times listening to this podcast, pick your favorite, what you want, and the people. you love the most is for them to become. And I think about this even when I’m talking to organizations about your favorite leader,
who of all the places you’ve worked in and worked for, who are the people who inspired you the most, whether it’s a volunteer organization, or some conglomerate that you worked for in your history, your favorite leader tends to have that one skill of emotional regulation,
which is staying calm in times of distress. distress. How not to lose your broken mind? We love it best when our partners can do that. We love it best when our kids are calm. But when there is chaos, we want somebody to walk us through it.
And it comes back to this quote that I often say, and I think it’s in the book too, but I have it over my shoulder because it is probably the most profound statement in the English language I’ve ever heard. It’s by a dead guy named Ram Das,
and he said this, “We are all just here walking each other home.” That’s it. Full stop. End of story. We are all just here walking each other home.
And those of us in position to privilege, those of us who tend to be the healthiest, are lucky enough, blessed enough, curated enough to have a number of walkers in our times of distress.
Because what happens when you bring a baby home from the hospital? How do they let you know? what they need is they cry They lose their friggin lines. That’s the job of little people. That’s the job of your employees That’s the job of people,
you know as a teacher bridge That was the job of kids is to lose their minds the job of big people is to do the walk -in and Our our idea I think in feeling seen is when you have capacity to Do that you are one of the greatest gifts gifts.
This is this is the thing the world needs to do at full stop is for so many of us to understand our power because we were never meant to do any of this alone and we’ve never been this disconnected in history of the free world.
We’ve never been this lonely than we are in this moment. So much of what you just said is incredibly powerful and I hope that the listeners kind of sit in a moment and really think about what you just said because you know we we’ve been talking a lot about,
especially recently in the loneliness epidemic that is coming back Murphy talked about that your surgeon general came out with a report, you know, is four months ago, you know, we’re talking about a mental health crisis,
but he said, listen, the fuel to that is the loneliness epidemic. 60 % of all adolescents, teenagers in our communities, we think we have access to all of this connection right you can FaceTime anybody you could I mean we’re in two different countries in this moment.
What a beautiful gift this technological advances are. I wear an Apple watch, which I’m supposed to track my steps, but I’ll tell you what else happens is that everybody can get me any second.
My life -sucking kids who I just adore, I don’t get a break. My cortisol is never at rest, the way that even my parents were, because there is instant access to us.
I’ll tell you what else happens. time. There’s beauty in that. But our systems, particularly as women, we’re not designed for this much inundation of data, which means our body is in a state of fight or flight,
the vast majority of the time, which means I lose access to the best parts of myself. I lose access to not only feel seen, but to give that gift to other people most of my days, because I’m like this,
waiting, waiting, even even not consciously, for the phone call from the school, for my husband to check in, for my employee to say, “You know what, it’s not a fit for me anymore.” Or…
(indistinct) (laughs) And then at the end of the day, you know what we do? At the end of the day, we’re supposed to relax, but we all sink into crime podcasts, watching other people kill each other.
We’re like, “Oh, we’re just gonna sink and begin to learn how to… to launder money in the Ozarks and relax. And then we can’t sleep and we wonder why. – Guilty.
– We’re just laughing out loud because that was me. And it’s, you know, I was actually listening to your book and I was, you know, I was sitting there doing the whole like,
here, put your fist up. Now put your thumb in. Now put your hand down. And these are the connections. connections. Then you talked about lid flipping, flipping your lid. Can you describe what that is?
‘Cause I was like, oh my gosh, what a great description that you just made. – You know, and I really started talking a lot about that Bridget for teachers because what happens often in, so the neurophysiological explanation of emotional dysregulation is if you take your brain,
and I do this in the book, but I’ll tell you this real quick. So if you put your hand up in front of you. you, if you’re driving, keep one hand on the wheel, put your thumb in the inside of your hand and wrap your fingers around your thumb. So you sort of make a fist with your thumb tucked inside.
That is a hand model of your brain. And it is about the same size as the brain sitting in your skull currently. And your arm is represented spinal cord, your wrist is your brainstem.
If you flip your fingers up, the most primitive part of your brain is represented by your thumb. That is… like your limbic system. So in all mammals, including humans, this develops first.
We develop interceptively. So from the inside out. And this is where the three regulation strategies that we all want, we all get come for free. Right. So I said, this is the biggest gift you’ll give anybody is how to regulate emotion.
We all come wired for three with three fight, flight or freeze. And other people are coming up with new efforts like fun and whatever, but fight but fight flight or freeze is the only thing we really need to be worried about. Okay.
What separates humans from most other mammals is we have the prefrontal cortex that wraps around that thumb, that limbic system. And so if you close your fingers around your thumb now, there is your brain and your prefrontal cortex is represented by your fingers.
And that lives right above your balls, your eyeballs. Everything you’ve ever lived, learned in your life lives in that prefrontal cortex. So if you speak a language,
the pin number to your bank card, your first childhood phone number, the middle name to your mother -in -law, your children’s birthdays, anything you’ve ever learned in your life lives up there, including the languages that you speak,
including musical instruments, and things like how to be kind, how to use your words, how to have empathy. If nobody’s ever taught you how to do those things, they don’t live up there. If nobody’s never taught you how to apologize,
if nobody’s ever taught you how to apologize, never looked you in the eyes and said, “Baby boy, I am so sorry.” You do not have the capacity to give that away because you do not have that neural pathway to do that. And so what happens when you bring a baby home from the hospital is they don’t have a lot of stuff going on up there.
And so we want, like for those of you with children, if you’ve ever looked at your own personal child and we’re proud of them, that is who they are. They’re lived. Dan Siegel said, I want you to think about this prefrontal cortex like a lid.
When your lid is on, you have access to everything you’ve ever learned. So if you looked at your kids and they’re using their words or they’re passing, you know, at Christmas time, they’re being kind to each other and you’re like, oh my God, look at that baby.
Their lid is on. That is who you’ve raised. If you’ve ever went on a second date in your life, you decided to go on that second date with your prospective partner because their lid was on. And I often say this,
if you ever heard this she flipped her lid he’s lost his friggin mind that’s what we’re talking about because you lose access to your prefrontal cortex in times of distress now this is neurobiologically important I want you to flip your lid out of the way if you’re getting chased or eaten by a tiger or you’re at a scene of a motor vehicle accident and this police officer I don’t need you to know the pin number to
your bank card in that moment I need you to flip all that stuff out of the way and do what what you need to do to either keep yourself safe or help somebody else. So this idea of lid flipping becomes really critical because when you bring a baby home to the hospital,
how do they let you know what they need? They cry. They lose their freaking minds. And the job of big people is to welcome home. And we are neurobiologically wired to do that, regardless, this is a universal response to a crying infant.
Right now when China or Afghanistan or Kulquitlin, British Columbia. Columbia, if somebody comes upon a crying infant, their neurobiological response is to pick them up and co -regulate,
to engage in a rhythmic exchange in an upper two, walk them home. And our ability to regulate each other’s emotion is in our bones because as human beings,
we all start in exactly the same place. Regardless, race is a social concern. Our DNA as humans is 99 .98 % the same. And the first sound that everybody listening to this podcast in this moment felt first was the heartbeat of your mama.
And whether she’s alive or you have a relationship with her or not, your understanding of emotional regulation, that rhythmic exchange is in your bones.
And our job often in times of biggest distress, isn’t to tell somebody what to do it is to show them. And if you are blessed, privileged, lucky enough to have walkers in your times of distress,
you will learn that capacity to give it away. So if I’m surrounded by people who are relatively regulated, grandmas, access to aunties or cuckoos, or siblings that can say,
okay, okay, okay, shh, shh, shh, if I’m surrounded by multiple generations of abuse and neglect and trauma. where people are not regulated because nobody ever showed them how to do it, or you get upset and they say, “Shut up,
you’re an idiot,” or they’re drunk, high, absent, unable, they’re flat, you do not have the capacity to give it away, which means we see intergenerational trauma, we see people that, in marginalized experiences,
when nobody’s ever been kind enough to give it to you, dating back to colonization, the suggestion that white skin matters more than any other color. color means we are ending up in very privileged positions.
And so when we look at, for example, in my country, there was a cultural genocide experienced by Indigenous peoples. They remain the highest number of people in our prisons.
Our child care, mental child and family services, 72 % of kids in care in our country are Indigenous, just by the fact that they only make up 10 % of the population. Our ability to regulate emotion is a privilege,
a gift, and it is what is necessary to be the most successful in this planet. And our job to be able to walk people home as teachers, police officers, hockey coaches,
soccer moms, will become one of the most profound roles that us as human beings play in our communities for the next foreseeable future. You know,
when you’re saying that and it’s just you speak it so eloquently so thank you for sharing that. The first thing I thought of was what about older people who don’t cry but they need that person to walk them just as much they need that connection and for so many people who are getting older they’re alone.
What can we do for them? What can what can we do? I love that you say that so like men will live longer when they remain married Women tend to live just as long when they have solid connections So one of my favorite books is called The Village Effect.
Um, Susan Pinker is a psychologist Canadian psychologist She wrote it and she said listen the greatest predictors of longevity is actually not how much to eat or drink or how fat you are It is your capacity for so engagement.
So not even necessarily having a best friend, but the blue zone identified by an island up of Corsica. You know this research. – We had Dan Gutner on. He was great.
– Yeah, he was great, yeah. – I bet, and one of the, as he obviously shared with you, is one of the greatest predictors of longevity is really this idea of social reciprocity. And so, what we notice in many,
European countries, particularly off the coast of Italy, is the closeness that homes still remain in, that your ability or your requirement to go out and get your coffee of the day or your fresh bread or your whatever,
means you know the name of the post office worker. It means you’re saying hello to somebody or somebody saying, oh hi Ms. Karen, how are you today? That ability to stay connected with and connected.
matters way more than any other data set we have available to us. And so, knowing that data means gathering more often.
Now, listen, if you think about the score footage of the house that our grandfather or father was raised in, your grandfather, and the score footage of the house in which we raise our babies, what’s the difference? They were a lot smaller.
Yeah. Yeah, thousands of square feet. Yeah, estimated that our great grandparents looked at their children 72 % more of the time than we look at our babies. I mean, and I,
I text my children and I told you this, you know, earlier today, I have a set of twins who are almost 11 and are 13 year olds. And of course, we worked hard, their dad and I to,
we both have PhDs, we were both very committed to research and writing books and and doing all these things. And so we’re like, we want this, we need this bigger house and we want to take them on. Like this is the thing. I texted my son that it was separate time yesterday.
He was upstairs. I can’t move my body. The 12 stairs, I mean, he’s also 13, so I don’t exist.
because we’ve never had this much inundation of data. So we are a first generation of women playing by a set of rules that was established for a world that no longer exists. And Adam Grant talks a lot about that.
And it’s this idea, right, that we have never now been so, it’s never been this important to get direct connection with other people. It takes practice to have small talk.
It takes practice. practice to give somebody a compliment, to speak in an elevator. I mean, you know, I mean, Bridget, when I think about you on the set of, you know, acting a national and doing these things,
right? Like, even being able to sort of speak to somebody and like, sink into somebody, we’re like, oh, darn it, we don’t know how to say this because we don’t know how to say this because it’s like,
you know, I don’t know who you are. I don’t know what to say. say, like the exposure matters. – Yeah. – And the more insular we become, the more insular our children become,
the lonelier we become, because what we will never automate is relationship. And if I think about this generation of women now, you know, enticed to work from home. Of course, the pandemic made it necessary for sure,
but the most successful organizations moving forward in the remainder of our lifetime will be companies that understand. the importance of bringing their people back together. And it is the isolation will never ever serve us well.
Yeah, exactly. During during the, you know, during, like what you just said during the pandemic and what’s happening there. And then, you know, like Colleen, you were saying just for elderly people that disconnect,
just that whole disconnect and they. they you know if they go in the home and then your life is so busy And you can’t go visit your parents or your grandparents You know,
is there any? Salvation is there anything we could do for for sauce, you know What do you do what I’m trying to say is what do you do for the person that has grown up without?
Having that that ability in their frontal cortex just yeah cortex. That’s about it from love, you know? – Yeah, so we, for sure, like we all have it, women tend to be better regulators than men because we have a much greater emotional language.
So the ability to get our lids back on typically is, you know, the capacity to sort of say how we feel versus, you know, I’m just pissed off, I’m so mad at you versus like, I feel so frustrated or I feel like I’ve so disappointed our children that the shame is just gone.
sort of stopping me in my tracks, right? So when you have the capacity to use those words, it tends to get us back on track a little bit more. What tends to happen with our older generation, particularly men,
is they have less and less capacity, not the ability to fill emotion, but the capacity to express it, because we’ve come from a generation where we still very much perpetuate this idea. Boys, don’t cry, you’re tough.
Uh, don’t talk about it. You’re good. And And the highest rate of suicide in your country and mine is middle -aged men. And our ability to show up as much as we can,
first of all, acknowledge that. You see, our generation, we don’t, particularly in North America, we don’t like to watch our parents grow. It’s heartbreaking. And if we have the capacity to transfer care to other people,
we take it. not because we don’t want to be with them. We don’t want to see them suffer. We don’t want to see them in pain. And when a child becomes the caregiver for their parents, it is the most unnerving situation for them and for us,
right? Switching those roles becomes really critical. And I think what matters more than anything is considering the connections that you can’t do. And,
you know, we’ve just set up, my dad is in the middle stages of dementia in his early 70s. And so we said, okay, we all live in different parts of this province. We very rarely can get home. My brother’s right there.
I don’t want to put everything on him. And so we’ve said Sundays, we do a Zoom call. And I know we can’t get there ’cause I have three kids and my brother has two kids and my sister has a child. And, you know,
like, we have all of the things which become the excuse. But guess what? We’ve got every Sunday morning at 8 o ‘clock. to 930, regardless of where we are, we’re going to do our very best to have everybody’s face on Zoom.
Now, it’s taken a very long time to learn how to do that. We’ve watched a lot of dads nostrils as he’s like, is this is this on? But the necessity to see our faces is critical.
So it’s different than an email. It’s different than a text and it’s different than a phone call. How do you engage in that? way becomes really critical. If you can navigate the visits become important we notice that you know elderly people do better when they’re engaged in programs and so even if it is the home that we you know typically sort of talk about is there social activities,
is there engagement with other people, is there that familiar face that becomes you know necessary to sort of inhibit some of those neuro patterns. Wanna at 34,
35, I think, and then our oldest 35, our twin’s at 38. And so this capacity to just need help in this season is not just gonna be nice because the grandparents get to be a part of it.
I’m like, I am a giant. I got three children too. I don’t know my name, milk shooting everywhere. I wanna throw a punch to my husband. Can you please? please? And just that ability to call in the siblings,
the parents, whereas one generation ago you lived in the same farm site is just a very different experience and our bodies haven’t adapted to that. And the access to social media also means now that we compare ourselves.
We’re the first generation of parents that has this much access to social media. And we’re worried about kids in social media when they grow up. with it We don’t have a script for this We don’t understand that we can compare ourselves to Barb and she’s drinking a collagen And she is getting a family pictures done with all the grandchildren while son of a gun.
What are we do? We are useless Scott we are Like I remember I’m a probably about a decade behind you,
but we’re in this, I remember like the party lines, when that’s how we would get in touch with each other on the farms, because you couldn’t answer the phone if it was ringing on Agnes’ phone, you had to make sure you didn’t pick it up.
Well, for sure, we did. I mean, but we didn’t listen because we were wired for the sense of we wanna know and be connected to people and we assume that the Facebook channel check -ins or even the Instagram likes are going to fill that void and it doesn’t.
Neurochemically, we don’t respond the same way to a text message as we do to a visit. And being able to navigate that and just that knowledge becomes so remarkably important in this season.
You also talk about doing the next best right kind thing. Can you explain that? – Okay,
so the bar is so low right now. Our ability, you know, I say this to my kids all the time, who’s your favorite teacher? And our twins both said, Mr. Sealy, who, he taught them three years ago. And so now they’re in middle school and I’m like,
we’re talking, we’re gonna go back to grade two for the favorite, yes. And I said, why? Because he had a turtle. turtle. There’s nothing about the literacy or the numeracy or the curriculum.
This fella had a turtle, okay? If I think about my favorite hockey coaches, because he gave us snacks. If I think about when you think about your favorite people, it’s because they had the capacity to connect.
Look you in the eye, have a conversation, light it up when they see you. And I think right now, [BLANK _AUDIO] bar is so low you give somebody and watch this I mean, I want you to do this today because it’s gonna be better for you than anybody else Give somebody a compliment and if you can’t if you’re not brave enough to do that to a stranger I want you to wave on your drive back and forth wherever you go today
in your town Your city wherever you are your community if you don’t drive and you’re walking I want you to wave somebody driving by I want you to get to stop late and go like this I mean, I want people to be like what is going on with Colleen?
She been drinking? Look at her. Wave and pass. Because what happens when we just engage in our communities is we pull each other’s prefrontal cortexes on.
That’s where we have access to the best parts of ourselves, remember? And when I can do that on purpose, if you are a target, we don’t have target up in here in Canada, which is what I love to say that word. And when you go to the target and you say,
to Natalie, working behind the counter, you just say, “Natalie, whatever’s true for Natalie.” I love that shirt. Your eyes are just beautiful. You are just so,
watch what happens. It is remarkable, right? They lean in. It is ridiculous. This is how a fair start in mine or hockey actually,
I always say this, ’cause you give somebody a compliment, but your kid has a nice shot. for he’s very good with the soccer they’re like oh my god I love you because the bar is so low right now and that’s what I love about being alive you guys in this moment is that it is so much room people say this is only kindness yeah yeah next best right kind thing we get overwhelmed but the audacity that this world has to
swing the data We have never ever been, we’ve never seen this rates of this high rates of child maltreatment. Domestic violence has never been this high. You are inundated by,
I cannot fathom that what is happening in Gaza or Israel or in places around this world right now that this is okay, that this is happening. And we get overwhelmed by that,
particularly those of us in positions of privilege. And so, you know what we just say? we shut it off, we can’t, it’s too much. I can’t think about poverty, I can’t think about marginalization, and it’s too much. It becomes debilitating.
And so my offer, you know, when we talk about this feeling scene is really, listen, put it all down, you don’t need to start a nonprofit for homeless teenage moms. If you don’t have the capacity to do that, I understand, that would be my desire too.
All I want you to think about today is next best right kind of thing. Wave at your neighbors. neighbors, give somebody a compliment, look at your babies when they wake up in the morning, and you will be responsible for changing the world.
That is all it’s going to take, I promise you. No government policy in our respective lifetimes is going to make a massive impact on anything that has to do with homelessness or marginalization or racism or war,
but you doing the next best right kind thing will move the needle. That’s all we need from you. Yeah, absolutely Yeah, it’s and you know when somebody when you see someone and they used to be commercials or things about when you see someone else doing a kind thing It’s a it’s kind of like a an effect that ripples contagious It’s contagious and someone else was like oh look how that made that person feel good I’m
gonna do this to someone else but pass it on you Well, and here’s here’s the truth bridge mid Misery loves miserable company. Misery does not love optimism.
And so somebody’s out there bitching or rolling their eyes or doing the things at whatever, and you’re like, you know what, actually, that wasn’t such a bad call. Or I kind of think we’ve got some things to hope for here.
People are usually like, oh, zip it, Mary Poppins. But that’s how you create a movement, right? If there’s enough of you in this place of optimism or wonder, it is so easy to get that. sucked into. It is so awful.
The kids these days are a problem. Nobody knows how to work. These Gen Z years. Listen, I’ve assessed and treated over a thousand kids up here in Canada, and I’ve never not one time met a bad kid. I have met a lot of emotionally dysregulated kids.
I’ve met a lot of babies that don’t think they matter, but I’ve never met a bad human. And I’ve sat with people in prison. I’ve sat with people who’ve had their kids apprehended. I have not one time. I’ve sat with people who’ve had their kids apprehended. with somebody I’ve sat with many underprivileged people who have not had the capacity to have somebody to tell them they’re amazing.
And when you are acknowledged, you rise. We’ll stop. Yeah. Yeah, when you acknowledge you rise, that’s so true. It doesn’t that’s something that’s ageless.
You know, we talk about so many privileges of a feeling seen and feeling heard is something that every age every demographic, religion, you just want to feel seen,
heard, acknowledged, right or wrong. Well, and I, and I have to think about this, you know, as a straight white woman, I’ve spent some time, you know, on my podcast, you know, talking to people that aren’t like me and that,
you know, the space of gender identity, you know, people often say, how come there’s so many letters LGBTQA plus all the things. right? Because when you don’t feel like you fit in this world,
you want somebody to notice. So I’m going to keep getting until you’re like, oh, that’s what it’s like. And it’s so fantastic to just appreciate the fact that when you light up with somebody,
if you’ve, you know, if you’ve ever watched an airport reunion or a grandparents, you have your baby. run into them and their eyes go that’s the light up okay and it doesn’t matter how you do it I mean if you and I meet in person the light up will look like a leg wrap and a bosom snuggle I mean I’m always over the top my father one of my favorite humans on the planet his light up looks like this yeah he might
even say yeah proud of your kid like that shoot the lights out, Lane Carrington is in town. And that would be all it would take for me to just be like, and I am so jacked,
I impressed my dad. So it is not how you do it, it is if you do it that matters. In our disconnected state, we often forget just how critically important that middle place of acknowledgement is.
I see you, I’m proud of you, look at you, good job dad. I think about that with my partner. all the time, you know? How very little I say to him as a dad,
that was so great that you took Livia last night, you know what she told me about? She told me about the fact that, you know, you got to speak about hockey all day with her, and she loved it. To watch him respond to that,
’cause most of the time I’m just like, “Oh, Mike, would you stop chewing? “Do you mean to breathe like that?” Last night, he’s got a little bit of a cough. cold. Well, sweet mother.
I thought about every opportunity I had in 2009 and why did I choose him? That’s what was happening in my brain last night. And so, who blows their nose like I’m a who?
Anyway, it’s fine. He’s a nice guy. So, what I think is so interesting, I know, listen, he’s a good human. But think about how many times we don’t even just take that opportunity,
right? To be able to see. say, here’s what a lot about you, or I noticed when you did that with kids today, like, do you know how much they love you? Do you know how amazing you are? Do you know,
you know, and even just like simple things about, oftentimes, I think, with our partners, you know, I watch Aaron, he’s he’s coaching hockey, and there’s, of course, all the politics and in sport that happened universally.
And I just want to navigate that. And he’s really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, the heck out of me, you know, ’cause he’s this farmer from like rural Alberta. And I’m like, “Look, wow.” That was like, ’cause usually I think I have to come in and I’m like,
“Ah, ah, ah, let me write that email.” Oh, oh, oh, oh, I’m just gonna help with that, you know? And I just, so don’t underestimate or your power. You know, feelings team,
the working time for so long was if you only knew. Because I think it’s human. we underestimate just how much we impact other people. You know, I started Kids These Days my first book with the story of my favorite teacher.
She taught me something in grade 10. Her name was Mrs. Holly Narkstrom. And I don’t remember what. So I go on to get a PhD from this little K to 12 school. And she was my favorite teacher. I remember mostly because where she was standing and what she was wearing,
the day she had to tell us, the van captain of our hockey team had been killed. And as a 16 year old. kid I remember thinking I want to be her because she handled that with so much grace and wisdom and I felt so safe in this tragedy that I thought that’s what I want to do for the rest of my life.
I want to be like Mrs. Nordstrom and my dad said you want to be a teacher and I was like no I don’t really like it. I’m a big fan of big people. I mean I have three of my own now so I’m going to come around but I’m not a fan of other people.
people’s children. And what happened in that moment is, I never told her for 23 years that she was the impetus of me getting a PhD, that I think about her all the time,
that I, you know, and she was like, I remember where she was sitting when I gave a talk and she was in the audience and I said, “Holly, I don’t know if you know.” And I mean, tears and all the things. And I said,
“Do you remember that day?” She said, “I do not remember that.” moment of having to tell you as a class. Obviously, I will never forget losing a student.” But I said, “I don’t know.” Like obviously,
if you only knew the impact that you had on me and obviously countless others, you had thousands of students in your life and it was because of you. And I think how often we don’t tell people that,
how often when you do tell people that, what happens to them, what happens to their commitment to profession. where they feel very unacknowledged, I think about police officers, first responders all the time,
very, very unacknowledged in their profession, ’cause often they’re serving in times of other people’s biggest distress. And very rarely do people have the capacity to go back and say, “Thank you, I see you.
I appreciate that at four o ‘clock in the morning you came to my house to break up a fight or tell me that my baby was not okay,” or whatever that was. We’re, you know, we don’t ever fail. fill it up and you can continue to serve if you are not acknowledged and you know even in the teaching profession I think about that all the time Bridget because it’s like I wrote kids these days and teachers these days for
educators they spend more waking hours with the next generation than the primary caregivers do and if they’re not okay our babies don’t stand a chance and there’s a massive difference in your country and mine between what we pay our educators there’s There’s also a massive difference between school shootings and mental health issues.
And I think that is the connection is how we treat our educators. – It is, and it’s even worse. My last year was 2012. And I think about these teachers that had to teach during lockdown and the people that are just coming after them.
And I know we try not to get political, but I’ll do it for them. but it does, but all the book banning and all the other stuff and all the things that are coming after the teachers about and the educators.
I just, I just, we all can name a favorite teacher, you know, we all can name whether it’s, you know, a college or university or, you know, like I, I mean, again, grade 10, I can tell you the name of my grade one teacher and we never ever like,
so if that’s true, if we really like the profession of education, just even a little bit more, we filled them up, we paid them enough that they didn’t have to be exhausted when they hang onto emotional dysregulation,
’cause that’s their job, actually. Kids are supposed to be assholer -ish in the classroom. And the job of teachers is that they’re supposed to be well enough to walk them through it. Look at my eyes, Jax, I know, baby. I know mom and dad are going through a divorce.
I know that it’s hard for you to show up here when you don’t have anything in your head. your lunch. I mean, obviously we don’t say those things out loud, but when I, the context is the prerequisite for empathy. And, you know, I’ve spent some time recently in various states,
Utah in particular, Michigan, speaking to educators, speaking to districts and school divisions about like, do you know how amazing you are?
Do you know how holy this work is? So, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s,
it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s by you just showing up. It’s not about how much access we have to Chromebooks. It’s about how much you matter in the world of kids who probably need it more than you could ever imagine.
And even just that reminder regulates the system. It drops the shoulders. And we have this sense of like, all right, let’s go. Come on. He’s going to hit and kick and be like, bring it. I’ll do it. That’s what you want from me.
I got it. And how do we then navigate the people? we love the most at home so that we can fill out in this, you know, this antidote to burnout is certainly empathy. Yeah, it is. And, you know, when you’re saying that,
I just, you know, I’m a storyteller, but one little girl in particular, she wasn’t even in my class. I taught mostly kindergarten, first grade, and second. And she was a fifth grader, but she was a,
you know, foster student. I had her siblings, and she was just, I heard, I had morning… duty in the cafeteria you know like monitoring the cafeteria and she something was happening I heard commotion and people are pointing to her and I said just you know come here come here and she thought she was you know hands like this and she thought she was gonna be in trouble and I just you know I probably get in trouble
for hugging her now but I just gave her a big hug I looked at her and I said you just go to the bathroom You just go wash your face off. You go do whatever. You just need to go take a breath.
And she hugged me the biggest hug back because I didn’t, I was like, this girl does not need me doing this to her. – Right, he gave her support instead of judgment.
– This letter, no. – And I promise you, she thinks about you 10 times as much. I mean, if you can recall that after a 20 year teaching career, that little big girl in that 30 second interaction, interaction,
I promise you she thinks about you 10 times as much. And I think just talking about that becomes so important when we get into these places of burnout in our organizations and in our work. Like, let’s not forget our impact because we are still serving people.
Even if we’re selling widgets or getting a curriculum out into the world or conducting our law practice, there are people that we’re navigating within them.
them and if they feel seen, they will skate through walls for you. You know, some of the mediation work I do in the court system is just, it’s some of the most profound work I’ve ever done in my life because you have people that just cannot stay regulated long enough to know that they both care about one tiny human or six tiny humans or whatever it is and facilitating that process,
letting them be heard and feel seen means you get out. to the best parts of them. And I’ve never met a mom or dad that doesn’t love their baby. Some of them don’t have the skill to show it or navigate it,
but I’ve never met one that doesn’t. And I think that’s just a gift, you know, that if you have that skill of emotional regulation, a man use it. It’s a privilege. Well, we can’t thank you enough,
Jody, for coming on the show. Make sure everybody checks out feeling seen reconnecting in a disconnected world because you you just share so much insight and we can only do so much in the time we had,
but I think it was a very powerful conversation and we appreciate you joining us. And yes, I just, I want to tell you she addresses, you know, so much in this book that just different situations,
relationships, situations with your children, with your family, situations with people who have to work in trouble. situations. So you really, really need to read this book.
It’s very easy to read. And it’s just your great, great information. So make sure you check it out. Thanks, Jodi. We appreciate your time. Thank you.
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