Hot Flashes & Cool Topics Podcast

Episode Link: 

Show Transcript:

Welcome back to How Flash is on Cool Topics. Today we are talking to author Brigid Delaney and she has written a book called Reasons Not to Worry, How to be Stoic in Chaotic Times.
Welcome to the show, Brigid. Thanks, Colleen. Thanks, Bridgett. How are you? Doing great. Right. We’re very stoic right now. We’re going to Can we just talk to you? Really learning a lot from your book and really trying to put it into practice.
Yeah, well, it is, it is. And we’re, you know, we’re going to talk all about the principles, but it does, you know, the big thing is my reaction to situations and to really take a step back and think about things has been very useful.
So thank you for that, for sharing that with everyone in your group. – Let’s kind of get started at the beginning. And can you explain what stoicism is and how it started, oh,
so thousands and thousands of years ago? – Sure thing. So there was a lot of philosophy schools in Greece, in, was around 350 AD,
and they were all kind of competing. And a lot of the, had quite sort of strong ideas around you know food or community or money and you’ve kind of picked the school if you’re a man you kind of picked the school that you most resonated with and you would go to lectures and you would learn about it and you’d talk philosophy and it was very interwoven in how you live.
which we’ve kind of lost today and one of those philosophies was the philosophy of Stoicism and was founded by a guy called Zeno and they were called the Stoics because they met under the painted porch in Athens which was called the Stoa.
So that’s how they got their name and that school flourished in in Greece Greece and then travelled over to Rome and was very popular particularly with the Roman elite and it kind of faded out when Christianity emerged but yeah it did have a boom time and a lot of the Roman writing has been preserved Greek writing not so much so my book focuses on the writing from the Roman story Yeah and you know it’s when people
today think of being stoic they think they’re stoic they’re very reserved they don’t speak out a lot but that’s not necessarily what that meant initially.
Can you share what really being being a stoic really kind of means? Yeah I sure think when I was first doing the book I told my editor that I was interested in stoic.
stoicism and she said, “Oh, my father was very stoic. He didn’t cry when my mother died.” And it’s like, “Oh, no, that’s not what it meant.” I mean, it means that in the kind of more modern sense.
But the stoics, as I said, they got their name from the porch, the painted porch. They didn’t have a stiff upper lip, but they didn’t believe in suffering excessively.
so they didn’t think you should suffer if you could have avoided it and they had all sorts of tricks and tools for avoiding suffering unnecessary suffering and so they weren’t anti -emotion but they were about not having such an excess of emotion that you then have a crash you then come down or you then get caught up in an emotion emotion sometimes for years.
An example might be you have a dispute with a friend and that can occupy your brain space for so many years you’re fighting in your head you’ve got this grudge where you actually have a lot of control over your reactions which is what the Stoics believed.
You can’t control a lot. lot in life, but you can definitely control how you react. And so it was about kind of alerting people to their potential to control reactions,
and therefore, lessen suffering. And I can go into a bit about the main test, the main Stoics control test,
which might help your life. you know, see the kind of simplicity and elegance of stoicism and how it can be used today.
So they have this test called the control test, which is really the kind of cornerstone of stoicism. And they believe that you can only control kind of three things in life.
Your actual action. and reactions, your own character and how you treat other people and everything else is out of your control. So once you kind of realize that it’s quite liberating.
So I might go to work today and, you know, I work in politics, you know, anything can happen. So I might keep giving some work.
that needs to be done very quickly. It’s quite overwhelming. I can’t control the work, but I can control how well I do it, how I react to being given the job,
you know, my mood. So yeah, we can use it in so many different situations. Yes, and that is what I’m trying to practice.
practice. (laughing) – So you were saying there are three principles you can control your character, your reactions, and how you treat others, which, you know,
brings down into the kindness that you show others. But there is so much in the world that we don’t have control over, especially right now in a lot of people, even just coming out of the pandemic,
it just seems like a lot of people feel like the world and subsequently their lives are at risk. of control. What would the Stoics say is a way to kind of feel more in control of your life?
– So the Stoics, I definitely resonate with that. Like in the pandemic and coming out of it, there is a real feeling of a lack of control. And there’s been so much conflict in the world,
so much pain and just watching the new world. is a very, you know, kind of, you know, horrible experience. So how do we,
what can we control? Stoics would say we never had much control anyway. So things can, things can get worse in the world. We can go into pandemics and have lockdowns,
people we love can get sick and die. That has always been the case. Stoicism was developed in tough times. It was developed during times of plagues,
wars, high rates of infant mortality. One of the main Roman stoics was a guy called Epictetus who was a slave for a lot of his life so he didn’t have any any liberty.
So it’s, they would say, look, there’s never been control, you know, you can only control your mind and your character and your actions and reactions.
The world out there will do what it does, which is, is often not, not necessarily to our liking, but the space that we have of control is our,
is our we move through that world, how we treat other people, and how we react. And we can choose to see that as not much control,
or we can see it as a large amount of control because we have mental autonomy. So, yeah, it’s all framing.
Yeah, I just like even how I think you say in the book just. just how some people trying to not control but trying to maintain that outlook within their families,
within their homes and that might spread to other people. And you know, I know you mentioned in there in times of war how people would deal with this as well.
When things like you just said, I right now personally feel like it’s chaos right now. Complete chaos. chaos, and trying to keep some semblance of sanity.
Maybe some things that are happening in this world right now are not directly affecting me personally. But when you see it happening to other people and other humans throughout the world,
it is very anxiety inducing and very scary. And I feel like the book was really timely to read right now, especially in a time like that.
And then see that your emotions are a product of how you think about the world. And that’s a, that’s a real, gosh, I guess I’m such a emotional person.
That’s a tough one for me to try to hold that. It’s the toughest ones, actually. And look, it’s also like in the book, I do disagree with aspects of stoicism and push back.
particularly as a woman. This was written by men. There’s a lot of connections between emotion and hormones, emotion and the unconscious,
emotion and how you were brought up, emotion and your neuropsychology. They didn’t know any of this when they were writing their philosophy.
They did get a lot of it right. It’s interesting how. humans, you know, we think we’re so different now as modern people, but fundamentally, character does stay the same over time.
They didn’t get, they didn’t get everything right. And with emotions, I think that’s, it’s, stoicism is an ideal to reach, but I definitely don’t beat myself up when I have a strong emotion.
reaction. But I’ll just explain a bit about why emotions are important to, I guess, control or observe in stoicism.
And that is because they sought to maintain this thing that they called adoraxia. I was just going to ask you about that. Yeah, yeah, adoraxia is fascinating. So it’s not the name of a,
you know, antidepressant. although I’m surprised that it hasn’t been marked as such. Anaraxia is just the kind of Greek word for relaxed,
equilibrium, chill. And the Stoics believed that if you maintained that state as a baseline state and really strive to kind of keep keep yourself on an even keel so not go too high not go too low when when bad things happened or unexpected things happened you wouldn’t rock out of that state and an overreact or suffer more than you should so it’s about keeping even so when you’re knocked off course you can get back on
it quite quickly And they believe that one thing we all have, or most of us have is a rational mind, and that if we protect our rationality,
we can make better decisions, we’re less likely to have disputes with people that go out of control. So there’s, I’ve written a lot in the last few years about the rise of the anger post pandemic,
but you know, it’s a big thing in America. tod tod tod tod tod tod � tod lihat tod tod ole tod tod ole посмотр 66 ole tod tod ole tod tod tod ole ole tod tod tod dad adora ole ole tod tod espero tod ole ole tod tod tod иск espero expect tod Ant holiday tod ole tod tod lar ovat ole 等 ovat – ole но ole tienen tod ole tod tod использ d tod tod 展 et tod ole tod tod piping tod .'” tod Somewhere ve ole ole 66 tod tod
– ole tod tod tod exercise tod ole 亮 Mira day tod Г tod ole espero tod tod tod tod ole tod family ole tod ole espero minority ole tod tod tod tienen ole tod ole faced ovat jos tod ole tod ole Espero alignment tod creatures ole expects ovat idad 例えば � ovat tod tod tod tod tod tod tod χ ole ole tod tod � ole Wol tod tod tod tod 75 tod ole tod 라고 – tod 66 tod sh jos ろ tod están ole Если tod tod tod tod 例えば tod � ole
tod asy Traffic tod rav ovat ole ole Hello tod tod ole tod ole tod tod tod tod your rationality, you make poor decisions and it’s much harder to kind of come down off the ledge. So how does that relate to I guess how does that relate to say the geopolitical situation happening in the Middle East where you might get angry at one group or another or you might get anxious?
The Stoics would say you don’t have control over that situation. You can’t control whether or not there is a ceasefire. You can go to vigils,
you can, if prayers are a thing, you can pray, you can donate, but ultimately those big things are out of your control. So there’s no point getting worked up,
getting angry, lashing out. because you’ll just disturb your own tranquility and the tranquility of people around you. And so you’ll actually create a warlike state or a tense,
stressful state for others. And that’s something you have control over. How does Adorexia relate to the preferred indifferent doctrine,
where we’re supposed to be indifferent? to things like wealth and health and reputation. Do they work together in stoicism? – Absolutely,
look, I’ll give you a real life example from last night or yesterday. So I’ve been working on a Netflix series at Wellmania with Celeste Barba,
and I just found out that it didn’t get picked up for season two. two. So, you know, really terrible news for me, bad news financially, terrible for the show.
I’m really upset about it. But I also, because I’ve been practicing stoicism, I was, you know, I got the news and it hurt,
but I didn’t, I didn’t kind of go into it. I didn’t spiral into a fog about, you know, I didn’t get to,
I was sad for a little bit and then I bounced back quite quickly. Because money is, it would have been quite a big payday for me. And money is a preferred indifferent, which means it’s preferable to have it.
But I should be indifferent to it because I can’t control where I’m going. Netflix green lights the show. That’s out of my hands.
So if I’m holding onto money really tightly, the prospect of getting this money, and I don’t get it, and then suddenly I’m devastated,
I’m angry, I’m fearful, I get anxiety about it. I’m then suffering twice. I’ve suffered once already. My show didn’t get renewed.
The second suffering I can actually control. Like I can control how I feel about money. So when it comes, it’s great. But also you can see that it goes as well.
You know, it comes, it goes, and you have to be, be, you have to see it as not your own money. It is, you know,
a thing that comes in an hour. And so that is how Adoraxia has really helped me, you know, because there’s going to be ups and downs throughout life.
So you can’t get too, you can’t get too down when there’s a down. Also, you can’t get too often there’s an up like it works. It works both ways. And that that’s it.
tough one for me too, you know, I was in the ups because, you know, you almost feel like you get a high or something when something’s so exciting and, you know, just really up there.
But there is a letdown. It’s like people after the holidays, you know, that little letdown after that, you know, the struggle with stoicism,
which is, how do you enjoy the good good things, as well as like not suffer too much from the bad things? You do want to be able to celebrate,
and I think he can celebrate the good things, but not get too attached to them. Sounds very Buddhist. But like possessions as well, and I do like that you think these,
you know, you can’t take any of this stuff with you when you die. you can’t take any possessions with you and how I like that part that they look at it as something on loan to them while they’re here.
But your whole life is online to you like you’re on to the world. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, that’s, that’s an important thing to remember for so many reasons,
including enjoying life while we have it, enjoying our life. health while we have it, you know, when money does come, enjoying that, not getting too attached.
So the Stokes weren’t anti -money. They weren’t anti -fun. They were just such realists. Like they just really looked life in the face. There was no sugarcoating anything.
And, you know, also with health. Like they were very much… much of the view that we should look at everyone as a mortal being,
every friend, every child, ourselves, as people that, you know, are born to die to quote Lana Del Rey. So, you know,
and the whole point of having that death and temper in this front of mind was so that we could truly live fully. with the people that we’re with and with the life that we’ve got.
You also talk in the book about, in a section called How to Be Good, about living in agreement with nature. The Stoics talked about that we need to live in agreement with nature.
What does that mean? Yeah, so I was reflecting on that in relation to the topic. of your podcast, Hot Flashes,
which is like, you know, around menopause. And that is nature. You know, that is nature is the cycles the body goes through. Nature is the seasons that are outside us.
Nature is human nature. You know, there’s so many circles of nature. And we find aging like it’s some sort of you know,
option. There’s an option not to age. Well, sorry, you know. The option’s death, yeah. It’s not nature. Nature gives us a full spectrum of life experiences and stages from being a very dependent child to,
if we live long enough, probably being a very dependent. old person. And in between, there are all these experiences and changes. And the Stoics were very,
very big on accepting change. They said that a lot of unnecessary suffering came from resistance to change. And they said,
well, change is nature, you know? If you look outside, the environment, like I’m recording this in Australia, we’re in spring, it’s just popping at the moment,
the colours, the vibrancy, and then the leaves will, you know, the leaves will change, and then it will change again, and it will change again,
as our bodies will, as our brains will, as the people around us, will change. And that is all nature.
So yeah, it’s, um, you can either go with it or resist it. And, um, that was never a good thing according to the Systoics.
Yeah. Yeah, the, the, you know, they also talk about the death, death and how you deal with death. Because I know way back, they lost their lives. many children, and can you share a little bit about the visualization of death that they would experience?
Yeah, trigger warning. Yeah, yeah. You could say, um, look, it’s a really confronting thing, but at Epic Tale, it’s one of the, the Roman Stoics said that,
you know, every time you say, you tuck your child in and say, good night, you should visualize them dying in the night. Now that is a pretty harrowing passage to read,
but it’s important for a couple of reasons. One is to remind yourself that everything’s on loan, as I said, anything can be taken away by nature at any point in time.
The second thing is if your child does wake up and is alive, you’ve got gratitude for that life and you have gratitude every single day. The third thing is by reminding yourself constantly that you’re mortal.
You don’t waste a day, you know, you really enjoy every experience, even the barbons because you’re alive.
And so… And so, yeah, there’s so many lessons in how they approach death. And the real kind of the really main lesson is how to live,
you know, it’s Seneca, one of the great Roman Stoics said, we’re dying every day. So every day, we are actually in the process of death.
And that’s the thing to remind ourselves of. of, you know, as we might go about our day grumpy wanting to get it over with rushing through things.
It could be it could be our last day so try and try and enjoy it. In the second part of your book called life and its absurdities. You talk about the Stoics and their belief in moderation of really all things.
Can you talk a little bit about. that? Because I think that’s a big point for a lot of people in anything you do, whether it’s eating,
exercise, living your life, moderation sometimes is the suggestion for a lot of it. So can you talk about the relationship between moderation and the Stoics? Yeah, sure. I mean,
they, particularly the Romans, you know, they had a lot of excess and And Marcus Aurelius was the, you know, Roman emperor here. And Seneca was one of the wealthiest men in Europe.
So they had a lot of means in which to indulge themselves. And they, they didn’t always practice moderation, I think, you know, like all of us,
it’s, we’re human, we indulge. But too much excess can damage rational thinking so think about if you’ve had too many drinks what sort of decisions you make or when you’re hung over you know how how you know your process how you are with your emotions like you’re all over the shop think about addiction and what that does to rational rational thinking you know so all of of the moderation wasn’t because they had a
problem with alcohol or anything you know it was more like well what does it lead to it does it leads to impairing your rational judgment which is a gift that separates humans from animals so yeah so it was insurmountable.
service of being rational. And, you know, but they also, Seneca had this funny thing where he’s like, you know,
either say no to drinks, become a water drinker, or just have one. But then he said, every now and again, get really loose,
get really off your chops, because one washes or excess wine washes away troubles. So think about if you’ve been dumped or lost your job or you’re in a funk, sometimes one big night out with your friends can actually be the thing that turns the situation around or just get to,
moves you out of a negative headspace. So they were quite, um, they were so canny on human nature and how we interact with substances.
And yeah, so I love that advice. – It’s like a reset, you know? Just if something that you just said and just let me do this and I will reset.
And it oftentimes works, you know, it often does. We had interviewed about a year ago, Karen Duffy. and she had been on MTV in the United States.
She was a VJ. VJ in the 90s. And she underwent a really rough medical emergency or just situation,
a sarcoidosis. And she wrote a book called “Wise Up,” and she really referred to the Stoics quite a bit in that book as well. And so, that’s it for this week’s “Wise Up,” and we’ll see you next time on “Wise Up.” you know, it’s so interesting after reading her book and your book and thinking about her situation that she faced,
just scary pain, hurting her vision, I mean, her physical mobility and she was such a pleasant person to talk to.
It really was amazing to think, you know, somebody, somebody like her that has gone through really tough stuff, you know, just she had a surrogate have a child for her because she wasn’t able to have a child,
give birth to a child. But her outlook on life is really amazing, just such a pleasant, friendly person. And it is,
it just sounds really wonderful what this, what stoicism stoicism can bring to someone and I just felt like that was such a good example. So could you,
yeah, could you share how you kind of went into this, the story of how you came into this with your friend and came about with this book? Yeah, sure.
I mean, I don’t have anything kind of, it’s, my story is not particularly dramatic. And I think in a way, stoicism is really helpful. helpful to learn before, you know,
like before you go in to a, before you hit a crunchy point in life, of course, we never know when that’s going to happen. It’s really good to learn a philosophy or to have some sort of set of principles that can get you through grief,
that can get you through pain. And I’m just, just before I answer your question, I’m going to give you an example. Have you heard of James Stockdale?
He was a was a US presidential candidate, I think back in the 80s. Oh, I don’t remember. Yeah, Stockdale. Stockdale. He was in the Army.
He was in the, I think it was the Korean War. I’ll quickly. could it be the Vietnam War, it was the Vietnam War. And before he, he was a fighter pilot, he went to university after the Korean War and learnt philosophy and he,
particularly Epic Teddus, the former slave that I was telling you about. And he was fascinated with Epic Teddus, thought he was really interesting, but it was all a bit abstract. And then he went off to fight in Vietnam.
for America, and his plane was shot down over enemy territory. He was captured. All his men were captured as well,
and they were put in a very brutal prisoner of war camp. And as he was shot down and floating down to earth, he said, “Now I’m all thought. Now I’m leaving the world of technology and entering the world of epictetus.” Epictetus.
So he realized that he would have to lean very hard on his stoicism for what was coming next for him, which was many years of imprisonment in this camp.
And he ran his group of men in the camp according to the principles of stoicism. I think they all survived. And he won many medals afterwards.
He was 20 years old. He was beaten up. He had, you know, a lot of in, didn’t know from one day to the next whether he would live.
And he managed to survive that experience using Stoicism because he couldn’t control his environment, but he could control how he thought about his environment. So he’s written this book called Courage Up Fire,” which is tiny.
It’s a lecture that’s been turned into a book. And I encourage, it’s on the internet, it’s free. I encourage you all to have a look at it to see how stoicism can be used in an extreme situation.
So I haven’t faced that, but I was learning stoicism. I was in Sydney, Australia, having a really hard time. of great,
great life living by the beach. And then the virus happened. And I realized all this thing I’ve been studying about control and about character,
it’s really going to come in handy now. And it did. And I was studying it with a friend, Andrew, and he, he was a bit more advanced than me,
who’s actually probably more naturally stoic. And in lockdown, we took a lot of long walks around the beaches and we discussed stoicism and how it would apply to our lives.
So everything from being unsuccessful, I was unsuccessful in getting a pay rise at one point, very angry about that. So we talked about, well, can I control my boss giving me more money?
Probably not. To things like government orders that forbade people from leaving their homes for more than one hour a day exercise,
to not being allowed back into the workplace, to fear about the virus. So we would walk and talk and apply the stoicism almost like it was a medicine and found it would be good.
was so useful and it worked pretty much in every circumstance that we threw at it and that’s how the book came out was you know writing about these walks,
writing about my own life, working out where stoicism kind of needed and where it was a bit too masculine or a little bit too rigid.
So yeah, the book is my own journey in stoicism, but also like how you can apply it practically to everything in your own life. And then when the big things do happen,
you have something to fall back on because there’s a real lack of, I guess, people growing up in a religious tradition,
practicing. practising religion, having that set of guardrails or principles to get them through all sorts of situations.
So yeah, and the book’s been really popular with young people who really want some sort of guidance, particularly ancient guidance that has been tried and tested.
Well, along those lines, I think you do talk in the book about social media and how, how to be on social media and how,
if you are someone, number one, I love that you say you don’t have to have an opinion on everything. Not everything has to be built on your opinion. And second, if there is something that may hurt your feelings or a negative response,
instead of going right to a judgment on the value of it to to kind of research, okay, is this person even educated on what I’m talking about? Should I feel sorry that they’re not? Like, can you talk about how to kind of flip the switch so that someone doesn’t take to heart when they’re getting negative comments on social media?
Yeah, sure. So I had a really widely read column in The Guardian that attracted a lot of attention Much of it was negative,
you know people saying that it was it was a very light -hearted column, but people would say oh Stupid this stupid woman. She’s You know,
she’s ridiculous and she’s so annoying and I so first thing I tried not to see those things because I I didn’t want it to ruin my adoraxia my my my equilibrium.
So I but I also decided that if I made that decision not to see those negative things I also had to screen out the positive things because you don’t want to give yourself a false picture that that everyone’s just going around saying great things about you.
So I made the decision very deliberately to not engage with either anyone. good or bad feedback unless it was in a professional sense from an editor and it was,
you know, related to my actual work. So I adjusted my settings on social media so I didn’t say a lot of stuff. Um,
and when I, when I did say stuff, sometimes people would screenshot terrible things that people had written about me and send them to me and I’d be like, why are you doing this? But,
you know, when I did see negative things, which I, you know, occasionally did, I just, I just thought, well, you don’t know me.
You’ve never met me. Um, if you knew me very intimately and you had an opinion on my character, it would hit a lot deeper. deeper than some,
you know, Ray 47 at, you know, so I just,
it didn’t actually disturb me that much and I think people can lose vast amounts of time in these intractable social media wars where they get angry,
they get angry, they get angry, they get angry, they get angry, they get angry. They waste a lot of time that they go back and forth. It’s never resolved. No one ever wins and You’re just getting more and more angry.
So you know people are wising up to things like the algorithm rewarding negative emotion rewarding anger and The Stokes would say You have the option of all out.
You know, they would have been on Twitter or X or whatever it’s called. They’re very social beings, or they were very social beings. So they would have definitely had some engagement in the commons.
However, that aspect of social media, of pylons, shaming people, people, even virtue signaling you know all that stuff they just would have rolled their eyes and so that’s ridiculous.
So yeah that’s how I kind of deal with social media. And you know I know as we get older and especially you know I noticed since I’ve gone through menopause that’s one gift.
Things actually roll off of me better than they did when I was younger but and I do feel so much for younger people though, where they grew up with this. But I think this is a great example to show them,
you know, stoicism is a great example that could be helpful for them. I think so as well. I mean, with younger people and social media, it’s come into their lives and it’s come in without any sense of being being taught how to use it properly.
And so I very much feel for people who are coming of age in a place where they are, you know,
attacked for how they look. Of course, as you get older, you look back at photos of yourself when you’re younger and think, “I was beautiful.” You know, but this amplifies this thing.
of not being beautiful enough not being not having enough followers um yeah it’s terrible but you know the solution is not necessarily to ban these things but to talk about okay well what are the settings that you’ve got you know who’s who’s able to comment on on stuff do you need people to comment maybe you just have to turn the comments off put a nice photo of yourself enjoying life But also I think being aware,
there’s still, say you can’t control what other people think and how they react, but I think we do need to be aware of posting images that create a situation of envy or that might provoke in other people a feeling of lack.
So I think there’s got to be a bit of, you know, responsible posting. – Yes, it’s just so interesting how you have related stoicism to modern day because it really can apply.
And, you know, when people say you can’t change a situation, you can only change how you react to it, it really does apply. to almost every aspect of your life. So thank you so much for coming on the show,
Bridget, we appreciate it. – Thanks, Bridget. I’ve loved this chat and it’s, you know, stoicism is a bit like religion. You’ve got to, you’ve got to keep going back to the books.
You’ve got to keep going back to the practice. So conversations like this actually make me more stoic. So I’ll go into mine. day a bit more chilled.
So, thank you so much. Well, and I mean as well. So will we. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. And again, the book is reasons not to worry how to be stoic in chaotic times.
Thank you.

Can’t Get Enough? Find Us Here!

Website I [http://hotflashescooltopics.com/]

Mail I [[email protected]]

Instagram I [https://www.instagram.com/hotflashesandcooltopics/]

Facebook : [www.facebook.com/hotflashescooltopics]

Twitter I [https://twitter.com/CoolFlashes]

YouTube I [https://www.youtube.com/@HotFlashesCoolTopics]

Pinterest I [https://www.pinterest.com/hcooltopics/]

Want to Leave a Review for Hot Flashes and Cool Topics? Here’s How:

For Apple Podcasts on an iPhone or iOS device:

• Open the Apple Podcast App on your device.
• Click on the “search” icon
• Type into the search bar “Hot Flashes and Cool Topics” and click on the show
• Towards the bottom, look for “Ratings and Reviews”
• Click on “Write a Review” and leave us your thoughts and comments!

For Apple Podcasts on a computer:

• On the Apple Podcasts website, go to the search bar and type “Hot Flashes and Cool Topics”
• After clicking on the show, find the “Listen on Apple Podcasts” button and click on it
• The “Hot Flashes and Cool Topics” podcast should open on the Apple Podcasts application
• Keep scrolling on the page until you see “Ratings and Reviews”
• Click on “See All”
• If you want to give us a five-star rating, hover over the empty stars!
• If you want to leave your thoughts and comments, click on “Write a Review”!