How to Become Resilient AF: Grief, Gratitude, and Growth, with Blair Kaplan Venables and Alana Kaplan

In this irreverent, informative, and inspiring episode, Blair and Alana Kaplan of The Global Resilience Project share their journey through profound loss and how it sparked a global movement to help others strengthen their "resilience muscle." After losing both parents within a year—their mother to unexpected cancer and their father shortly after—they created a framework for resilience that combines neuroscience, storytelling, and practical tools. The sisters discuss their annual "Grief Week" getaway, their "Dead Parents Society" merchandise, and Blair's transformative plant medicine journeys, while explaining how practices like daily gratitude and intentional storytelling can rewire our brains for greater emotional resilience.

At the core of their work is the concept that resilience is a muscle that can be strengthened through specific practices. They emphasize that building this muscle before tragedy strikes is crucial—just like going to the gym prepares you for physically demanding tasks.

Key Takeaways:

• Start a daily gratitude practice at the same time each day, listing three specific things you're grateful for from the past 24 hours
• Strengthen your resilience muscle before you need it by practicing coping strategies regularly, even when things are okay
• Share your story through journaling, conversations with trusted friends, or professional support rather than keeping difficult experiences bottled up
• Identify aspects of your life you can control and focus your energy there, especially during uncertain times
• Schedule specific "worry time" to give yourself permission to feel difficult emotions while preventing them from consuming your entire day
• Be intentional with media consumption by removing news apps or setting specific times to engage with potentially distressing content
• Create meaningful morning routines that center and ground you rather than immediately exposing yourself to external stressors

Learn more about Blair and Alana:

Global Resilience Project 

Blair's Website

LinkedIn

Facebook
IG (Blair)

IG (Global Resilience Community)

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Transcript

Jessica Fein: Welcome. I'm Jessica Fein, and this is the “I Don’t Know How You Do It” podcast, where we talk to people whose lives seem unimaginable from the outside and dive into how they're able to do things that look undoable. I'm so glad you're joining me on this journey, and I hope you enjoy the conversation. 

Welcome back to the show. First of all, I apologize for my voice, which probably sounds a bit wonky. I have the cold that everybody else seems to have this winter, but that does not take away from my excitement about this episode.

One of the things that I love so much about today's episode is that we are talking with sisters, and I feel like there's nothing better than guests who have known each other and loved each other all of their lives. In today's [00:01:00] episode, we have Blair Kaplan Venables and Alana Kaplan of the Global Resilience Project.

You may have heard of them before because they are also the co hosts of Resilient AF, a sponsor of this show. We talked about their journey through profound loss and how it sparked a global movement to help others strengthen their resilience muscle. We also talked about Blair and Alana's annual Grief Week Getaway, their irreverent dead parent society merchandise, and Blair's transformative plant medicine journeys.

They explained how simple practices like daily gratitude and intentional storytelling can rewire our brains for greater emotional resilience, so we are ready for whatever comes our way. USA Today listed Blair as one of the top ten conscious female leaders to watch. Her expertise has been featured in media outlets including Forbes, CBC Radio, Entrepreneur, Thrive Global.

Alana is a mental health professional fueled by advocacy and passionate about destigmatizing and normalizing mental health. Without further [00:02:00] ado, I bring you Blair and Alana.

Welcome Blair and Alana. It is so good to see you here. I think you guys are like in between a bunch of kind of exotic and exciting travels right now, right? 

Blair Kaplan Venables: Yeah, the next exotic destination at the time of recording this is Palm Springs.

Jessica Fein: Okay, that sounds good, but not as good as I think there's like an Academy Award thing happening.

Blair Kaplan Venables: Yeah, yeah. So we're in the middle of our book launch for our third anthology, Resilient AF: Stories of Resilience, volume two. It's a mouthful, but it deserves every syllable. And we just got back from New York and I was just speaking in Costa Rica. And so after Palm Springs, which is our grief week, We're gonna be at an Oscars gifting lounge in LA.

Jessica Fein: Oh my God. Okay. There's like a lot there. So first of all, have you ever done an Oscars gifting lounge before? Is this a new thing?

Alana Kaplan: This will be our second time at the Oscars gifting lounge. And in total, we've [00:03:00] done three so far. The other one was an Emmy's one back in September. 

Jessica Fein: What happens in a gifting lounge?

Alana Kaplan: You know, it's very fascinating. This is more of like Blair's world rather than my world. I'm a social worker. I work in palliative care. Very different. 

Blair Kaplan Venables: And I do marketing, like my background is marketing and PR. So I've been involved with trade shows and business events forever. 

Yeah. I'm interested to hear how you explain this, Alana.

I want to know how you explain a gifting lounge. 

Alana Kaplan: Essentially, it's when people in the media, whether it be people who write, film, actors, reality stars. Come to this gifting lounge where people from different brands tell them about their brand and give them a gift. It's like a fancy trade show. 

Jessica Fein: And, and the people who are coming up to your table are a lot fancier than the people who are at, like the Marriott down the street for the, you know, insurance trade show.

Blair Kaplan Venables: Right. And do you mind if I, if I hop in here, Alana? 

Alana Kaplan: Yeah, [00:04:00] go ahead. 

Blair Kaplan Venables: So what I've learned is that there's various gifting lounges that happen before anything. So like Super Bowl. Other award shows, we specifically work with Heather Mariana, and she does a gifting lounge called Enchant. And so she puts this on, and it's considered one of the top gifting lounges of Emmys week and Oscars week.

And the way it works is that she has to obviously vet everyone, not every brand can be there. And so it is quite exclusive, and it's kind of like a party, so like there's music and food and drinks. And for the celebrities and the media that are invited, it is invite only and they have to RSVP. People can't just show up.

And the average person can't just show up. And so, when the celebrity or media comes, they're given a volunteer escort, who takes them around to each of the brands individually, so we get quality time with each of those people of influence. And usually, 

Jessica Fein: can I just interrupt for one second there? I would like to be the volunteer escort.

How do I get to be the volunteer escort? 

Blair Kaplan Venables: Can you be in LA next [00:05:00] week? 

Jessica Fein: I mean, I might be. It depends who my celebrity that I'd be paired with. Do I get to choose? 

Blair Kaplan Venables: Uh, I don't think you get to choose, but if you are interested in it, you could reach out to me. We've connected a couple people to Heather. 

Jessica Fein: So there's a celebrity with a volunteer escort and they're walking around and they're stopping and chitchatting. 

Blair Kaplan Venables: Yeah, so every brand does things differently. For us, the last two events, we've handed out books. This event, we are handing out our new book, which is Resilient AF Stories of Resilience Volume 2, and the shirt that I'm wearing, which is a crew neck that says Resilient AF.

And so the goal is, once they come, we start by just having a conversation, sharing who we are and what we're doing. We're not selling them anything. Generally, because we have such vulnerable conversations, it just You know, trauma is like the great human equalizer. We all go through it. And so we hold space, we have conversations, we ask if they want a book and we'll offer them the shirt.

What's been really cool is we've actually, the last two events, had [00:06:00] some people come through. At both events that remembered us and wanted to spend time with us, and it's really cool because we're really building these relationships where maybe in the future there's a collaboration or maybe it's just for new friends, and I don't go in with any expectations other than we want to help 888 million people by August 2030 to strengthen their resilience muscle and connecting with a person in line for a coffee at Starbucks or to Snoop Dogg's manager who's going to share it to his followers.

That's helping us on our mission. 

Jessica Fein: I love that your goal is, you know, so small, you just want to help 888 million people. Yeah. That's good. Keep it really doable and manageable. Okay. Resilient AF. First of all, I mean, it's just such a good name. Like, I'm wanting all the merch. How did you decide this is what we're going to be?

Because I mean, when you get into the world of trauma and grief, it can feel heavy. It can feel calm. It can feel tumultuous. It can feel many things. But AF, there's so much power in that. That's like owning it. How did you come up with that? [00:07:00] 

Blair Kaplan Venables: Well, okay, so in the beginning, going back to how this all started, we were just going to write a book, and it was called The Global Resilience Project.

It wasn't to be a global movement, like, which we ended up accidentally, like, creating. So the first book was The Global Resilience Project, and it was just to honor the legacy of our dad, and me, and Alana came into the project after I started it as our mental health director, and, spoiler alert, our dad died, our mom died, a lot of people died while doing this.

has always had this affinity for graphic tees. We're Canadian and we're from a place that, like, sometimes you had to go to other places to go to cool shops. And so whenever we would travel, Alana had to go to, like, an Urban Outfitters. And she loved her graphic tees. And anyways, one day Alana said, while we were growing the Global Resilience Project, let's start a merch line, which now we call a clothing line.

And so I was like, you're in charge, I can't do everything. And we actually started off with a shirt, not with a book or anything, but a shirt that said Resilient AF. And we loved it, and people loved it. And we did a call with some of the people in our [00:08:00] community, and some people gave us advice, like, you know, we want a shirt that maybe just says, Resilient, because we work with kids, we don't want AF, this and that.

And so it never came to me to, like, do a book series with it. And when we decided to do the second book, I was just calling it Book 2. I didn't know what it was gonna be called, but because it went from being the Global Resilience Project book to becoming a global movement with a clothing line, a podcast, a book series.

We became a social enterprise and more. I knew the book series had to have a different name. And I'm a little rough around the edges. Like that's me. I'm a diamond in the rough. I'm a little cussy, kind of like a pirate, loud. And for whatever reason, Resilient AF dropped in. And when it dropped in, it felt right.

I really believe in the higher power there, but just like. put it back in. And I said, Alana, what do you think of this? And she was into it. And so we did it. And I'd say 99 percent of the people love it. 1 percent of the people don't want to have that associated with them. And that's okay. And then there's a small percentage of people who have no idea what [00:09:00] AF stands for, and it's not up to me to define it.

But sometimes people who don't know what it means may not have cuss words in their vocabulary. So I leave it up to them to define what AF means. 

Jessica Fein: I just have to tell you that when my son, who is now 17, was having his bar mitzvah, which ended up being canceled because of COVID, and that's a whole other story.

But so four years ago, I decided, this was my third that I was planning, and I decided to do custom postage stamps for the envelopes. And I thought this is so great and I'm going to make them with his initials. So you buy whatever the cost of the stamps is, but then you, you know, pay more because they're the special stamps.

And so I put his initials and I ordered like hundreds and hundreds of stamps, like these big blue stamps with his initials, which are TF. And I had no idea. You said a lot of people don't know what AF is. I had no idea that TF had another meaning. And when I showed them to Theo and his buddies, they were cracking up and they were like, you cannot put this on an envelope.

So now I have like, [00:10:00] you know, a drawer full of TFC. I use it like the one time I sent a bill or whatever it is. 

Alana Kaplan: You can mail me a letter with the TF stamp. I would happily receive that. 

Jessica Fein: Okay, I will do that. I will start using it for people I think would appreciate it. Okay, you said when you were talking about your travels, you're also in the middle of grief week, which definitely sounds like camp and I don't know what it is, but tell us what is grief week?

Because I have grief year. I have grief decade. I have grief life. 

Alana Kaplan: We have grief life. Okay. Life is grief. Which is true, actually, like, to live is to also grieve. Grief Week started, Blair and I were just talking about this. So, our mom died February 23rd, 2021. And so, at that point, we decided, you know, let's be somewhere warm together on her death anniversary.

Blair Kaplan Venables: Yeah, just sidebar, we both live in very cold places. 

Alana Kaplan: Yeah. It gets to like minus 40 degrees where I am. It's Celsius. And [00:11:00] so we had this plan. Let's go to Palm Springs because that was the last family vacation we took and our mom loved Palm Springs. It was right before the pandemic started. And so that was our plan.

We'll go February 18th to 25th, 2022. Fast forward to February 2022, our dad starts to, I mean, he was declining for years, but like the final decline was happening and sure enough, we had to postpone our grief week because he ended up dying on the day we were supposed to leave. And so we postponed that to March and we're like, okay, well, they died five calendar days apart within a year of each other.

So now why don't we just do it over that week? in general. And so it's a way for both of us to be somewhere sad and warm together. It's like spring break for sad people. Let's try this again. And so with bated breath, we held that our breaths that no one in our lives would die February, 2023. [00:12:00] And so our first official grief week was February, 2023.

And it's a time for us to relax, not have to think much. Just be sad in the sun and enjoy each other's company together. Oh, 

Jessica Fein: I love that. Yeah. You must have Grief Week merch, too, since you love your graphic tees. 

Alana Kaplan: We sure do. 

Jessica Fein: Okay, Blair, I was reading your social and I loved this post that I just saw and I was like, Ooh, I want to do that, which was you had a conversation with the younger you as though you had met for coffee.

And I just loved it so much. So tell us, first of all, how many years back is this imaginary you that you are having your coffee with? 

Blair Kaplan Venables: So first of all, I want to say, I've, this is a huge trend on social right now, and Alana recently did it. And I had it written in my notes section to do, but I've been so griefy that like, posting on social media was just a lot of effort.

So I woke up today feeling good enough for it, so you actually saw it today. So, in my message to my younger you, I'm still [00:13:00] drinking, and now I'm six years sober, so I'm pretty sure she's in her mid 20s. 

Jessica Fein: Okay, and I'm glad to know that it's actually a movement so I can do it and not feel like I'm totally ripping you off, I'm just jumping on the train.

What is the most important messages you need to give to your younger self? 

Blair Kaplan Venables: Have as much fun as you can have now because soon life's going to get really serious. You know, some of the stuff I say is, enjoy your latte now because soon you're gonna look at dairy and you'll shit your pants, like, cause, you know, your Ashkenazi self is gonna catch up to you.

And that you aren't a wine drinking soccer mom, you're a sober, childless, parentless bird watcher, which, like, was not in the cards. 

Jessica Fein: Do you think your younger self would just be like, oh no, like, what do you think she'd be saying? 

Blair Kaplan Venables: Well, she ordered a Caesar. She ordered a Bloody Mary, so like, for the Americans out there. So she avoided it. She's like, I'm just gonna have another drink. Whatever. 

Jessica Fein: Is a Caesar a drink? 

Blair Kaplan Venables: Yeah. 

Jessica Fein: Oh, I thought you meant a salad. I was like, Oh, okay. 

Blair Kaplan Venables: So another nuance. So it's a Bloody Mary, but instead of with tomato juice, it's Clamato juice. 

Jessica Fein: Okay. Learn something new. Alana, what did you tell your younger self?

Alana Kaplan: Everyone [00:14:00] died. Essentially. It was like, Oh, did mom get to retire? No. She died. How's dad? And then I said, Nope, died. Mine was just themed around death. In my head, I thought it was funny. At the time. Yeah. It was funny. Some people are making them really meaningful and I'm not that type of person usually when I post.

I always have like an edge of dark humor to me and I didn't post it on Instagram. I posted it on TikTok. I don't know what it is about TikTok but I feel like I can be more openly like dark humoresque. I think it's because a lot of the people in my community, I would say my whole friend group, we've all lost parents, and we're all in our mid 30s, and within the past 10 12 years, everyone's lost a parent, essentially.

Jessica Fein: Okay, so speaking of being irreverent, I kind of feel like you're so lucky because I lost both of my parents before most people I knew had lost even one. And that was really, really hard to have friends who just weren't understanding. And then, [00:15:00] of course, My listeners know I lost both of my two sisters, and again, without most people I know even having lost one sibling, and so when we talk about the isolation and the loneliness of going through this kind of grief, I feel like not only do you guys have each other, but Alanna, that's kind of crazy that your friends could relate.

Alana Kaplan: We joke about it every time something happens. Like, oh, like we need a wrap. We have, I think, two or three friends in our group who haven't lost a parent. And I'm like, we need to wrap them in bubble wrap right now. A year or so ago, someone tragically lost their sibling. And I was like, in my friend group, I'm like, Oh, no, not another one.

Let's wrap the other two up because we joke about it, but it's quite tragic. 

Jessica Fein: I'd feel like it's the kind of thing where you can joke with each other because you've been through it, but nobody who hasn't been through it. That is not okay for them to joke. You can only joke if you're a part of the club.

Alana Kaplan: Well, and if they haven't been through it, they're so uncomfortable talking about it that they wouldn't even consider bringing it [00:16:00] up. 

Jessica Fein: Right. 

Blair Kaplan Venables: Bringing it back to, like, our graphic tees, we have shirts that we have made with an embroidered patch that says Dead Parents Society, and our tagline is the club that no one wants to join.

And the people that buy it or, like, laugh at it have lost a parent, and anyone that sees it that has not lost a parent is just horrified. 

Jessica Fein: Yes, I like that, though, because, we have to get our laughs where we can.

Blair Kaplan Venables: And also, like, it's going to happen if you haven't been there yet. Someone you love is going to die, a parent is going to die, it's going to suck.

Jessica Fein: Right. You are going to be coming on over to this side, yes. When you started your first book, and before you knew this was a whole global movement, it was the global project. From the beginning, you knew this was global. And again, when we go back to like, you have grand visions, it was never going to be like, I'm going to start this little thing.

What did it mean for you that this was going to be a global project? 

Blair Kaplan Venables: So what's really funny is originally it was called the I Am Resilient project, the I Am Resilient book, [00:17:00] and I'm a woo woo Jew, I believe in manifesting, I believe in all sorts of things, spirituality, science, whatever, and my husband is not, he's very like practical.

And he almost died. And then like a lot of people died. He looked at me and he was like, I think you need to change the name of your project or you need to stop because you're bringing some stuff into our life. So I started to think about options and it was with my first team of editors and designers that it kind of came up as the global resilience project.

So that's just what we called the first book because like, I couldn't call it the, I am resilient project. And I didn't want it to be about I or me. I wanted to be a collective of global movement. 

Jessica Fein: And if I'm not mistaken, also travel and traveling to kind of exotic places is part of your whole thing. 

Blair Kaplan Venables: I love all travel, you know, not having kids and being self employed.

I do have the luxury of being able to do that and traveling has always been a huge passion of mine. I started my PR agency when I was 23 from my laptop. And that was before [00:18:00] remote work was a term, because I wanted to be able to go where I want, when I want, how I want. And if I can help open a children's center for at risk youth in Ghana, or travel to Winnipeg, my hometown where Alanna is, to speak, or go down the road an hour, or fly across the world, and share our message, and help people to strengthen their resilience muscle using neuroscience,

Jessica Fein: Okay, well, let's talk about strengthening their resilience muscle because this is really interesting to me.

And we've talked a lot on this show about whether resilience is something we are born with or whether it's something we acquire due to circumstance. And I know that you believe a third thing, which is that it's not just a trait, but that it's a skill that can actually be cultivated. And shared, and it's a muscle we can strengthen.

How? How do we do that? 

Blair Kaplan Venables: Right. So, I believe a resilience muscle is in all of us. We are born resilient. To be human is to be resilient. I [00:19:00] also feel like it's an instinctual response to something. Like, you have to keep moving forward. So, if you look at a, you know, medical imaging, you're not gonna see the resilience muscle, like, on a scan or an x ray, but it's this invisible fiber that runs through, you know, everything to top of our head to the tips of our toes.

And like any muscle, there are things that you can do to make it stronger. So when you need to use it, you have more strength to move through that challenge, maybe more gracefully with more energy, faster, however that looks for you. And there are lots of things you can do to strengthen your resilience muscle, essentially using neuroscience.

So science of the brain to rewire your brain so you have more resilience. So there are a lot of things I like to talk about a few specific things. It's not a definitive list. 

Jessica Fein: Let's hear what are they are. I'm curious and I love how you say you should strengthen it ahead of time. So you're ready when you need it.

Blair Kaplan Venables: Right. It's like going to the gym and like doing bicep curls and one day a friend saying can you help me move this couch? And like you lift it up. I'm ready for this. Yeah [00:20:00] I'll talk about like two of my favorite ones and then Alana if you want to throw any other ones and you can. So the my favorite one my absolute favorite one I've been doing this since 2016 before I knew my life was gonna explode and implode and all the things in between.

I saw this video on this video this man named Sean Achor said if you practice gratitude Every single day at the exact same time, and you list three things you're grateful for from the past 24 hours, and you do this for at least 21 days, the neural pathways in your brain start to rewire so that you see the world in a more positive way.

And I was like, that seems kind of hokey pokey, but like, free? And I like free, it's my favorite four letter F word. So I opened my phone alarm, I chose 9pm, and I set an alarm, I called it the gratitude alarm. And so it's been going off every single day since. And we practice gratitude, like we as in whoever I'm with.

Like Alana and I do it together. My husband and I do it if we're together, we text each other. I really believe no one has an excuse to [00:21:00] not do it. So my husband almost died, he had a heart attack and quadruple bypass surgery. He was in the hospital for three weeks. Every night, me, him, his mom, his dad, and his roommate Gord, we did gratitude.

The day our mom went to sleep her final time, our mom's ending was very tragic. She learned she had cancer. She was told she'd be fine. She was in pain, went into the hospital. They said, Sharon, you're covered in tumors. You have two weeks left to live. And she died three days later. 

So the day she went to sleep her final time, me, Alana, and mom were sitting around her room, and Alana did her gratitude, and I did my gratitude, and then our mom went, I'm grateful for you, you, and you.

And Alana's like, who's the third you? And she goes, me. Those were some of her last words. So if our mom could do it on her deathbed, you can find the time in the day to do it. The more detailed the better, right? So it could be, I'm grateful for my cup of tea, or I'm grateful that I have this vanilla rooibos mint tea that I discovered, and that I can make it whenever I want [00:22:00] to calm my nerves.

Jessica Fein: I love that and I heard that too some years ago and have tried to do it with my kids because I feel like it's something that they could really benefit from, but they do struggle with the specificity. So it's always like, I'm grateful for dinner and for my family and friends. 

Blair Kaplan Venables: Sometimes my alarm goes off and if I'm kind of cranky, like lately I've been kind of a biatch, like it's grief week.

I have a lot of stress going on with launching books and billboards and like Oscars stuff. Sometimes the alarm goes off and I don't sleep. Say something right away and from across the house, he'll yell something like, I'm grateful for hockey, cats and boobies. That's not specific, but it's specific. And that's pretty specific, but like, you know what I mean?

Like, it's not like I'm grateful for the Canucks winning their game last night. You know, I think the act of practicing it is beautiful and the more detail you have, the better, but that's okay if it's not in extreme detail. 

Alana Kaplan: It's just about the practice of it. I think getting into that habit is something I was going to bring up earlier, similar as like when talking about building that resilience muscle ahead of time and in therapy when I used to work with children and youth, and I [00:23:00] would teach them coping strategies, I would encourage them, you know, These are skills you should be practicing even when things are okay, because that helps your brain remember what to do when things are not okay and you actually need it.

Jessica Fein: Yes, that's so important. So what's the second example ? 

Blair Kaplan Venables: So, yeah, so that one, I invite everyone to set your alarm, it could be any time of day. I like 9pm, because bedtime is 9pm. So ending my day on a positive note. The other one that I always talk about is storytelling, which is basically the foundation for what we've built.

And there's this phenomenon called neurocoupling, where when someone tells a story, and you listen to it, your brains start to synchronize. And what this does is it creates empathy, and empathy is required for emotional resilience. 

Jessica Fein: Okay, so your brains start to synchronize, but what does that mean? So suppose you're telling this story about Sharon, and it's this sad, tragic story.

So what does it mean if I'm listening [00:24:00] to that story, what does it mean that my brain is syncing with yours? 

Blair Kaplan Venables: That's a great question. So just a background, I'm not a scientist. Everything I do is research based. And Alnna, if you have something to add in, please do. But what that means is that I'm telling you this story, this sad story, and as your brain synchronizes, you're able to start feeling not just sympathy, like, oh, I feel bad for you, but I can feel that sadness, I can feel that pain, and it makes it relatable.

And you may have not gone through what I've went through, but immediately it puts you on that same level with me, where I want to hold your hand and sit on that floor and be sad with you, then, oh, I feel sad. I feel pity for you. 

Jessica Fein: Sympathy versus empathy. And I have to tell you, when you told that, like, two second story a few minutes ago, I did feel I was there because you put us in the space and you had her words and you even had her, you know, people are listening to this, but, you know, the finger motion of pointing you and you and you.

And so, it is different than kind of just reporting on something when you're telling it in a story format. 

Blair Kaplan Venables: Exactly. And so there's other things with [00:25:00] storytelling, so building emotional resilience is important. Because when life gets hard, it takes you down. And if you have some of these tools, you're able to get through it.

And so we encourage two things. One, share your story. Might not be in a book or on a public platform or a podcast like yours, but you're not meant to keep it in. I like to say don't hold in your emotions. Don't hold in your feelings. Don't hold in your pee. It's not good for you. So maybe you get a journal and you start writing, like what's floating around in your head, get it out of you.

Maybe you actually admit like, you know what, I actually am going through grief and this is what it feels like. Maybe you say it out loud to someone that you trust. and that you love in your family or friend group. Maybe you realize I should get support through a counselor or a therapist or do medicine journey, however that looks for you.

You're not meant to go through life alone, and as soon as you start to admit the stories that are happening or the situations that are happening for you and not shoving them down pretending you're okay, that's when the real healing happens. And part [00:26:00] two to that is once you start sharing your story, maybe you're sharing it with a friend over coffee, or maybe you submit it to a public platform like our books.

When other people hear your story, not only are their brains syncing with yours, and vice versa, but your story might actually be the key to helping them move through their challenge, or helping them heal. And the way our stories are laid out in our book, is that we have people share their challenge, their story, and then advice for someone going through something similar.

It is so isolating and lonely to go through challenges, and I've been through a lot, and let me tell you, our mom dying, like Alana has friends who've lost parents, I don't have very many. It was the height of the pandemic, before the vaccine, we had to quarantine, people wouldn't even hug us. We couldn't do the normal, like, Alana's Bar Mitzvah DJ was actually the live Zoom streamer, or for the live streamer for the funeral.

We couldn't do a big celebration for our mom, which thousands of people probably would have attended. Instead, it was like a 10 person graveside minus 50 Jewish funeral. It was just [00:27:00] so lonely and depressing. 

Alana Kaplan: We had to be so strategic because we were like, how do we get more people here? So we chose six different pallbearers that we wanted to be there, but then it was so strict that they had to go back to their cars and stream it like everyone else.

Jessica Fein: I'm sorry. I'm still stuck on the bar mitzvah. DJ was the person who was orchestrating. 

Blair Kaplan Venables: It was the pandemic pivot. Our mother pandemic pivot. Yeah. 

Jessica Fein: Oh my God. Okay. So in your book, I love that you have the advice. And now that you've done, you know, a couple of volumes and you've had so many stories, are there themes that have bubbled up in terms of the advice?

Blair Kaplan Venables: So, again, my background's marketing, not data analyst, but I've, now I've been collecting all this data because I have people share on our old podcasts, our current podcast and our books, challenge, story, advice. And so there is a common theme and this isn't definitive, but I'm starting to analyze this because I'm working on a prescriptive memoir and I want to bring data to the forefront [00:28:00] because there is themes.

Some of the themes that are like the top is a lot of people, they finally make the decision themselves that they don't want to feel like that anymore. They take accountability for the way they feel and they make a change. That's one of the top things that we're seeing when people navigate their challenges.

Another one is reaching out for support, not going through it alone, whether it's to community or to mental health experts. And another one, the second actually most popular theme that I've noticed, and like, this might change when there's actually a report from someone who knows how to analyze the data, not just chat GPT, is the power of positivity and practicing gratitude.

Jessica Fein: That is really interesting. You know, I've spoken with so many, many people who are in challenging circumstances and who hear all the time. I don't know how you do it. That's the theme, obviously, of the show. And I love trying to take collectively and see what kinds of things to be here. How do people do it?

And for sure, I mean, that is something that almost everybody [00:29:00] mentions. I have not had Power Positivity slash Gratitude be one of the top five if I look collectively. So that's interesting because it is something that I buy into. 

Blair Kaplan Venables: But it's not right away. Like, our mom died. I wasn't all of a sudden positive.

Like, I was pretty sure that I was probably gonna die of an exploding heart because our dad was dying. I just lost my father in law. My husband almost died. We miscarried. I wasn't, like, all of a sudden positive. But eventually, you have to make a change to the way you think in order to make a change.

Because if you don't put the effort in, you're not going to get better. And, like, eventually, And I don't know if Alana, maybe you can speak to this, but I know that I got to a place where I was like, I can't live in this headspace anymore. I hit a rock bottom where I was like, I can't feel like this anymore, what do I need to do?

And it wasn't an overnight switch, like my grief counselor said I was doing everything I could. traditional therapy stopped working, and I actually explored working with plant medicine. And that's really where my big shift changed in my mental health, and really shifting how I show up in my healing. But [00:30:00] it took time.

It took, like, my first intentional plant medicine journey was after my mom died, and it was six or seven months after my mom died. 

Jessica Fein: Can you tell us a bit about that? We've talked a little bit with some of our guests, and I know people are just so fascinated. 

Blair Kaplan Venables: There was lots of purging and crying and epiphanies.

Like, the first one was so messy. I felt very ungrounded and unrooted. I felt like I was like in a hurricane and it was a tree that was uplifted and like being tossed around. And I just was so stuck in my grief and my pain that I couldn't get through it. And I would like to say I took the private jet experience, not the commercial jet.

I spent extra money and time. So it was me and two guides for four days, three nights. And we worked with different medicine and breath work, and it was very intentional. And my intention going in was like, I can't feel like this anymore, like I need to start healing and I couldn't figure out how to do it.

And again, this whole time I'm sober from alcohol, so I wasn't numbing or escaping, but I wasn't moving the needle. And throughout the experience with different medicine, Things would pop into my [00:31:00] brain and me and the guides would talk about it. And so, first of all, my best friend's dad was a lot like my father.

Like, in the sense of, like, my dad wasn't around, and I spent a lot of time with my best friend Erin, and her dad, Hart, was a prominent male role model in my life. And he had died a while ago, and I never processed his death, and he showed up for me, to tell me how proud he was of me. He showed up, and this is the first time that anything like that had ever happened to me.

And there was lots of purging. There was lots of, like, crying and going through the motions. And what I really realized was that I had to be more intentional with my time. And how I started my day was important. And I came up with different rituals and routines for me on things to add to my life. Remove from my life, and things that would move the needle.

And I also came into this realization that I wanted to wear more sparkles and animal print. So I just started, like, honestly only buying things that were, like, sequins and animal print. And Alana can probably attest to that, that normally I'm wearing one or the other. But I can tell you that [00:32:00] healing is not an overnight.

Like, I'm gonna be healing the rest of my life. But what the biggest change was, it's not about the medicine journey. It's about the implementation and the integration after. And I had another private healing for four days, six months after, literally right before dad died. And I walked in and they're like, Blair, your energy is so different.

You're a completely different person because I wanted to heal so badly and not feel like I did that I worked at it. I read books. I watched things. I listened to things. I cut out things. I made a big difference in how I showed up in the world because it was these micro changes that led to a macro shift in my healing.

And I had such a beautiful healing experience the second time, and my intention for that was to put the pieces of my broken heart back together. And I pictured the Japanese technique of Kintsugi, you know, where you pour the liquid gold in between the broken porcelain pieces. And I actually had, with one of the medicine journeys, a Care Bear.

Stare of like happiness and butterflies and rainbows overlooking this huge jungle. And I felt this feeling of, [00:33:00] I, I think nirvana, like I didn't even know, a, a fraction of this feeling could exist, let alone the whole feeling. And when I came out of that experience, my guides were like this. Medicine shows you what's possible.

And so now I even know when I'm trying to feel happy. I didn't even know what I was trying to go towards. I was just wanting to be happy, but I didn't know what it felt like. 'cause I can't remember ever feeling happy, like real happiness. And this medicine showed me what I could feel like, and I know if I can achieve a fraction of that in this lifetime, I've accomplished it.

Jessica Fein: Have you since been able to get to even a fraction of it, and if so, how?

Blair Kaplan Venables: I have, I have. It's been moments in time, like, I was in Uganda tracking gorillas, and I was hiking up a waterfall in a waterfall, and like, the sun was shining through the leaves, and it was on me, and I just all of a sudden felt like a ping of that feeling.

I was like, oh my gosh, it was the first time I was able to feel it naturally. And like also, when you're trying to feel at that deep level, it's not just happiness, you feel everything, the good and the bad. And I cry so easily now. And I, you know, if I'm super happy or [00:34:00] something's really beautiful, I'll cry.

Sometimes I'll feel my mom's energy and like, then a rainbow appears, I'll cry. I'm very open to all of the feelings. And now I know it's a compass in life. Like, is it going to get me closer to building this nirvana where like, I can have that feeling on demand or not. For me, my biggest thing is regulating and having a flexible nervous system and being happy.

That's all I want. Like, to me, happiness and a flexible, calm nervous system is true wealth. 

Alana Kaplan: Blair and I are very different in a lot of ways, and our healing journeys, while they've taken us to the same place, were very different approaches, like even just the way they converged and what happened, like mine initially was like, Hey, I'm going to move back to Winnipeg, where I feel like it's a home base and, and which is like, a very Alanna thing to do and not a very Blair thing at that time to do.

And then Blair did these big experiential medicine journeys and I did like my own little microdose journey, which, cause I had this like stuck [00:35:00] cry. I hadn't cried in months. 

Blair Kaplan Venables: Oh yeah. She just couldn't cry. Like I just couldn't cry. Like constipated, like your feelings were constipated. 

Alana Kaplan: They were, I would put on the things that always would make me cry.

Like the finale of Boy Meets World. There's one specific scene that always makes me cry where Mr. Feeney tells the class that he loves them after they tell him, they're like, tell us you love us. He's like, no, I like all my students equally. And then they leave. And he says it anyways, thinking about it right now makes me want to cry. 

Jessica Fein: What about music? Because I'm not a crier, but there are songs that I can put on. 

Alana Kaplan: Yeah, it wasn't working. “Butterfly kisses.” I watched a lot of “Grey's Anatomy,” that Pearl Jam song, “The Last Kiss.” Those are like automatic tears. No, couldn't do it. Had to go through this whole microdose journey.

And then it was wild. I had come to this realization, okay, I need to leave from work because I'm not allowing myself to feel what I need to feel because I'm like so focused on my clients and whatnot. And so I ended up taking this mini leave. And the first day of my [00:36:00] leave, I had like the biggest cry about something ridiculous.

Jessica Fein: Did you have the big cry and you were like, okay, that didn't take too long. I'm ready to go back to work because it was only one day and you had that catharsis? 

Alana Kaplan: Oh, no, no, I was like, I'm going to enjoy this time off and just like do nothing. But essentially what it was, was like a family member's family member that's so not my family member.

I don't even know what happened. Like I wasn't invited to Hanukkah or something that like, why would I be? I'm not in their family. I'm starting to cry. 

Blair Kaplan Venables: It was just funny that this specific person made her cry and I was like, that's all it took. 

Jessica Fein: That's all it took. The missing Hanukkah invite. 

Alana Kaplan: The missing Hanukkah invite. I have a great relationship with this person now, but at that time… 

Jessica Fein: Does the person know what power he or she had over you? That they were the one that broke the dam, so to speak? 

Alana Kaplan: No. No, they don't need to know.

Jessica Fein: They might, if they listen to this episode. 

Alana Kaplan: They might, yeah. 

Jessica Fein: Let me ask you this question. So what I'm hearing is, you know, there are a lot of things we can be doing to get ourselves ready.

So when the shit hits the fan, we've got the muscle. Right now I [00:37:00] feel like it, and you guys are in Canada, so it might be a little bit different, but here in the States, at least, I feel like we are in this absolute, well, half of us, I should say, are in a collective grieving process. A time where things feel so scary and unsettled, again, half of us approximately, right?

But I'm guessing more than half of the people who are listening to us right now. And so when people are like, what is going to happen is so out of my control, like I'm watching the news and I'm seeing what's happening and I feel helpless and I feel bereft and I'm not feeling very resilient right now.

What do you think people could do to be strengthening their muscle? 

Blair Kaplan Venables: You know, I love this question. I think Alana and I are both going to have some different answers. So I just want to say that like, one of the biggest things that I realized when like all the people died was that it was all out of my control and I had to remember what is in my control.

It's sometimes those little things that you take back, like [00:38:00] my mornings, I took back my mornings. I have a three hour morning routine and you know, I wake up to a sunrise alarm, not a. phone alarm and I move my body and I have a candle lit bath and I journal and I took back control. Wait, excuse me. 

Jessica Fein: You do that every morning?

Blair Kaplan Venables: Yeah. 

Jessica Fein: What's a sunrise alarm? 

Blair Kaplan Venables: It's like this light. So if my alarm is set for six, I'm up between five and six. I also have a cat that likes to wake me, but I'm up between five and six. And so if the alarm is set for six by like, I think five 45, it just starts to progressively get brighter and it's meant to mimic a natural sunrise.

So I'm woken up by the light and not a jolting noise. I love that. Instead of starting my day with anxiety, which is like being jolted out of my life. So that's like really high level, but I think one of the biggest things to anyone I work with or talk to is make a list of what is in your control right now and take back control of those things because there's so much that is not in our control.

And one of the biggest things when my mom died was because I don't escape with alcohol or substance. I was escaping with reality TV, and I realized that, uh, Real [00:39:00] Housewives is like my favorite show, but at that time there was so much drama on those shows, and it's an energy exchange that I was like, I need to cut that out.

I need to surround myself with like, positive, and like, you know, sex in the city, and friends, and I remember telling Alana I had to Stop watching those shows. And she was so devastated. I was like, I can't. I need to take a break from reality TV because the drama. So what is in your control? What can you add in or remove right now?

And I, when all this was happening, it was still the pandemic. I actually had to stop watching the news. I had to stop watching the news and I know if it's super important, it's going to get back to me. Someone's going to tell me what I need to know. Same with what happened with October 7th and being a public figure in a Jewish person.

I was a big target for a lot of anti Semitism and death threats. I got to the point after the death threats where I kind of had to cut out some of the stuff I was posting and also watching and consuming. So, I want to say to your listeners, what right now is in your control? What can you do and what can you cut out to help you manage your mental health?

Because there's a lot that's not in your control. 

Jessica Fein: Yeah, I feel sometimes, I mean the news thing is a big one [00:40:00] for me, and I find that I, for sure, for sure let it seep in and spend way too much time, and I know that if I wasn't watching or reading, I don't, watching the news and being tuned in, I'd feel like I was burying my head in the sand, but at the same time I know that I could also have it be during designated times and not, for example, when I wake up at 1:30 a. m. and start scrolling, which is more often than not, and, you know, just letting it kind of infiltrate all the time instead of having it at a designated time. So, so I guess, to your point, that's something I could control. 

Blair Kaplan Venables: Jessica, what if you didn't even have your phone in your room? What if your phone is not in your room, and you have your sunrise alarm clock, and you have your designated time?

And also, let's go a step further. Because I live with anxiety and depression, and I run a business. I can't even help it. If I have my phone in my hand, I'm checking my email. Two days ago, I deleted my email app from my phone. It's been amazing. It's very liberating. I choose when I check my email. I have to be at my computer or my laptop.

Jessica Fein: Do you have social media on your phone or did [00:41:00] you delete that too? 

Blair Kaplan Venables: So I have social media on my phone, but I have a lot more control with that. I think it's more my email because I'm like, if I miss this email, maybe I don't get paid. Like for me with social media, I've built in that control. And when I'm feeling in a place of escaping and, you know, doom scrolling, those are specifically times where I make sure that if I'm sitting on the couch or in bed, my phone isn't in the same room as me.

Jessica Fein: Hey, I'm willing to try it. I am willing to try. I will report back.

Blair Kaplan Venables: Alana, do you have anything you want to add in about the state of the world?

Alana Kaplan: Well, the state of the world is a lot, and I know you're like, oh, you're up in Canada, you probably don't feel it. We do feel it because there's a lot of tariff stuff happening right now that we don't really, again, don't have so much control over.

Jessica Fein: Right. And it's also like, you know, besties, all of a sudden one of them just totally turns on the other. It feels like a betrayal.

Alana Kaplan: I agree with everything Blair said. If I were to take it a step further, I do think it's important that people allow themselves to feel what they need to feel. Of course, [00:42:00] like, power of positivity and whatnot is great.

At the same time, If you're not letting yourself feel and express what you're doing, it's kind of toxic inside. And so I think it's Dan Siegel who says this, that you need to feel it to heal it. It's one of my favorite sayings. So that, but also similar with like the time that you have, like, okay, like I'm going to scroll from this time to this time when you have these like existential worries that come up or this existential like grief that is coming up, because everything is a lot right now, also setting a time for that. So, okay, I'm going to let myself from 7 feel all the grief that I want to feel for the day. And if You get to that time, and there's not a half an hour worth of grieving you want to do.

Okay, that's fine, but it gives yourself permission to feel what you need to feel. And then it also says, okay, let's do it at this time. So it's like 6am, you're [00:43:00] woken up in a jolt, and you're like, oh my gosh, like what's going to happen? What's the executive order going to be signed? Whatever it is. And it's like, okay.

Yeah, I am allowed to worry about it at 7 p. m. or whatever time it is. And so it gives you permission to feel and it also gives you permission to carry on with your day. 

Jessica Fein: And this is like such a kind of smaller example of that, but I was giving a big talk years ago. I was nervous about it. And I remember a friend of mine, I was so nervous and it was like months away.

And she was like, look, you're going to be so nervous about this. You know, you're going to be nervous about it, but why are you starting to be nervous about it now? Why don't we say you're allowed to be as nervous as you want, but you're not starting until you know, whatever date. And it was so great because every time that I would get nervous, I'd be like, okay, we're putting that off.

I wasn't saying there's no reason to be nervous, but I was just deciding what the appropriate timeframe was for those nerves. 

Alana Kaplan: Yeah, it's like, again, going back to working with the kids I used to work with, we would call it like worry time because lots of the kids I worked with would have worries that were so big and so all consuming.

But then if [00:44:00] they contained it, kids are also developmentally fleeting, so they can have a big worry in the moment and then be completely fine by 7 p. m. or whatever time it is. I just say 7 p. m. because it's like you don't want to Have your existential grief time right before bed or right when you wake up.

You want to be able to regulate before bed. But that was something that I would find success in with a lot of the people I worked with because they wouldn't need to use all the time or they would, but they felt okay because they had this time that gave them that permission. 

Jessica Fein: Okay, so switching gears, I know that you guys are working on a project now that has to do with tattoos.

Can you tell us a little bit about that? 

Blair Kaplan Venables: Heck yeah. Okay. We have a book that we are working on that will be out December 2025 and we're accepting submissions and it is called Resilient AF Skin Deep Stories. And what this is, it's a showcase of your tattoo. And the story of resilience going with that tattoo.

And I have been tattooing my body since grade 10, [00:45:00] which is very young. And Alana had no desire to get a tattoo, but upon our mom dying, we both got our mother's signature on our arms. And there's a whole story with that, but this was never part of the plan. I actually just kind of do things and if people are into it, I make it a thing because that's how my business plan works, is like I just make things.

But I found a photo and when I feel really sad, I look through this box of photos and I found this photo of me in grade five winning an award. It's an award for being a mensch, which is Yiddish for a good person. And I remember that day walking into the gymnasium and seeing our mom there and wondering, why is she here?

Like, I don't win awards. And she never took time off to like do hot lunches or, you know, be a room mom or whatever because she was a single parent and she Worked really hard to give Alana and I a good life. And so I thought it was just so weird she was there. I win this award for being a mensch. Anyways, there's a photo of it.

It's the 90s. I'm like wearing overalls. It's very 90s. Like, I'm not smiling. But I was probably in real time. So I find this photo and I FaceTimed Alana to show her the photo. And I flipped it over and on the [00:46:00] back our mom wrote a message 30 years ago that I didn't know she wrote saying, Proud of you. And so, I cried, and I was like, immediately like, I'm gonna tattoo that.

So I tattooed it on my leg, because I was getting ready to do a hundred kilometer hike along the west coast trail of Vancouver Island, cause, you know, I'm a masochist, and it was a bucket list thing to do. And I'm not very sporty, but I love hiking. And, anyways, once I got it, and I posted the picture, and the tattoo, the picture of the picture, and the message on the back, people started sharing their stories.

Of their tattoo and the story behind it. And I started thinking about it. And then I did another post about it a little bit later. And same thing happened. And I thought, you know what? I'll put it out there. And if people want to share their stories and be in this book, we'll do it. And we'll do one. And if people want to keep being a part of it, we'll keep doing this.

Jessica Fein: So how many submissions have you had? 

Blair Kaplan Venables: Well, we've just opened submissions and the goal is to have minimum 30, maximum 50 stories. And I'd say right now with people who've officially signed up or expressed interest, we're probably close to 15. 

Jessica Fein: So if anybody's [00:47:00] listening to this, and I can think of one person in particular who I'm like going to be calling as soon as we're done and telling her she has to submit.

How do people submit to this? 

Blair Kaplan Venables: So you can go to our website, theglobalresilienceproject.com, and there is an option to submit there. We're also accepting applications for volume 3, so you don't have to have a tattoo to be featured in that book. That's just any story of resilience. Um, so if you're interested in being a part of our project in, uh, the format of storytelling, And being on our podcast, you can go to our website and all that information is there.

Alana and I are both open books. We have global resilience community on Instagram. We share a lot there. I'm Blair from Blairland on Instagram. I share a lot there. We're open to helping people navigate this human experience. And we want you to know that you don't have to be alone and go through the shitty stuff in life alone because you have people like us in our community to be there with you.

Alana Kaplan: Yeah, and if you're looking for other resources or mental health professionals, you can reach out to me and I could help [00:48:00] you find, depending on where you're at, Psychology Today is a really good resource for that. 

Blair Kaplan Venables: Oh, and P.S,, buy our merch. 

Jessica Fein: And P. S. buy the merch. Okay, I need the resilient AF shirt for sure.

Blair, Alana, you guys are awesome. I've loved talking to you. And of course, you know, you can listen to the resilient AF podcast, which you hear advertised on my show each week to get even more Blair and Alana. And who doesn't want a little bit more Blair and Alana? So thanks guys. 

Alana Kaplan: Thanks for having us.

Jessica Fein: Here are my takeaways from the conversation with Blair and Alanna. Number one, practicing gratitude every single day rewires your brain to see the world more positively. Number two, we should strengthen our resilience muscle before we need it. Just like physical training prepares us for physical challenges, building resilience practices during calm periods can prepare us for difficult times.

Number three, share your story. Write in a journal, talk to a trusted friend or seek professional help. Sharing your story leads to empathy. Number four, [00:49:00] identify what's in your control. Make a list of aspects of your life you can control and focus your energy there. Think about what you can add and what you can take away from your day.

Number five, schedule worry time. Designate specific times to prevent these feelings from consuming your entire day. Number six, Create meaningful morning routines. Take back control of how you start your day with practices that center and ground you rather than immediately exposing yourself to external stressors.

And number seven, you've heard it before and I'm sure you will hear it again. Find your community. Connect with others who understand your specific challenges. Shared experiences reduce isolation and provide valuable emotional support. 

Thank you so much for being here and for listening to the show. I have some really interesting guests coming up, and I hope you will follow the show, read and review it.

That's the best way for you to have the show appear directly in your feed, and also to help the show grow. And remember, if you have not read my memoir yet, Breath Taking: A Memoir of Family, Dreams, and Broken Genes, [00:50:00] You can get it wherever you love to get your books in whatever format you prefer. Have a great day.

Talk to you next time. 

music: I've got the whole at my fingertips. I feel like I feel infinite. I know we're the kind to think along some other lines, but will be fine.

Come along now. The sky is endless now. We are limitless. We are limitless now. Come along now. The sky is endless now. We are limitless. We are limitless now. The sky is calling, calling out to me. Some new beginnings with endless possibilities. [00:51:00] Are you with me? Can you hear me? When I sing out

Come along now The sky is endless now We are limitless We are limitless now Come along now The sky is endless now We are limitless We are limitless We are limitless now, are you with me now? Can you hear me now? When I'm singing out, when I'm singing out I've got the whole world at my fingertips I feel like flying, I feel infinite I know that we're the kind to think along some other lines But [00:52:00] we're only Uh, Come along now, the sky is endless now, We are limitless, we are limitless now, Come along now, the sky is endless now, We are limitless, we are limitless now, Come along now, the skies and the sea We are limitless.

We are limitless now. Come along now. The sky is endless now. We are limitless. We are limitless [00:53:00] now.