Leverage Your Time Balance Your Life

Finding the Balance in Dark Times

• Dr. John Ingram Walker, MD • Season 6 • Episode 4

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We recorded this episode during the aftermath of the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minnesota. Current events in America are dark indeed. We grieve for the families who have been impacted by the violence and horror of recent ICE raids. We want to maintain compassion, empathy and love for our fellow humans, but we're exhausted, burned out and tired of being constantly sad and fearful. Today's Big Question is: How can you find the balance between staying informed and nurturing your mental and emotional health? 

This important conversation highlights several tips to maintain emotional balance by: 

1) limiting your exposure to negative noise

2) embracing your emotions

3) seeking out nature

4) intentionally cultivating positive qualities like love and kindness, which will ultimately bring more good into your life and the world.

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Want more resources? The Leverage Your Time Balance Your Life book is available on Amazon! Visit www.leverageyourtimebook.com to order the book, read the blog, and listen to the podcast.

Discover more about Dr. Walker HERE and Wende HERE


Wende:

Today's podcast is a little bit more serious than usual, but super important. It's about how to find the balance when times are dark. Right. They most certainly have been, but we have hope, and we are going to share that with you today.

John:

All right, here we go. Leverage your time, balance your life with Dr. Walker and my delightful daughter, Wendy Whitus.

Wende:

Hi, Dad. Good to be with you again.

John:

Hey, Wendy. You are going to write a blog.

Wende:

Yes.

John:

And you got stuck.

Wende:

Yes.

John:

So tell me, how why'd you get stuck?

Wende:

Uh yeah, that's a great question. I write a newsletter once a month. And this time I was prepared and had it in my head and everything to write about a kind of a technique that I taught recently at Davidson College in a workshop about, you know, reflecting and reorienting as I always do. But it was a little creative and lighthearted. And I just could not get the words on the page. I just kept staring at it and rewriting and staring and rewriting. And it just never it just felt frivolous. It felt frivolous.

John:

Okay, frivolous, yeah. And yeah, so you just stopped, huh?

Wende:

Yeah. And then I realized why I couldn't write this light-hearted uh blog, this newsletter with this, you know, simple life hack. Right. And it was because of the recent events in Minnesota.

John:

Oh, I bet that this messed everybody up. Wendy, everybody's feeling depressed, discouraged, down. Yes. And you more you see that, the more hopeless we feel.

Wende:

Yes. And what I want to do on this podcast is because even though this will come out pretty soon after the events of Minnesota, just in case people listen to things out of order all the time on podcasts, people may be listening to this months or years from now. I want to recap briefly what happened to put it into context. So, you know, January 2026, President Trump's been in office a year and for the past several months in different states and cities, um, mostly democratic cities, including Charlotte.

SPEAKER_01:

Right.

Wende:

Um, he's been sending his um border patrol and immigration agents, the ICE, what's known as the all democratic extreme? Um well, you know, yeah, the focus is on democratic cities, sending a real force of power into those cities to really create fear, to arrest people without giving them process.

John:

To break down doors, break down doors, and it's bust away car windows and pull them out, car wearing masks. These cowards, they're cowards. Yeah, they wear masks.

Wende:

They're wearing masks. And it has just been a extremely polarizing um event event. Yeah. And I can't even call it an event. So what happened, you know, it's and it's just been escalating, escalating, escalating. So they've been in Minnesota recently and in Minneapolis.

John:

Which is a real good state with a lot of decent, God-loving people, hardworking people, very.

Wende:

But, you know, so Minneapolis has really been a target of activity, and um the you know, the the atrocities have been getting worse with the ice agents just really being extremely bold and extremely um intrusive, oh yeah, and forceful and angry and pushing on the ground.

John:

Pushing people on the ground, tear gas and all of that.

Wende:

So, of course, that's escalated, and that's made protesters who are by the most part peaceful but also very angry. Oh, yes. Rightfully so. Um, they've had a lot of clashes, and two of those clashes, unfortunately, have ended in ICE agents and border patrol agents shooting and killing, murdering two of those protesters. One was named Renee Good, who was shot through the windshield of her car.

John:

Um, through the windshield, and she didn't do anything.

Wende:

Well, whether she did or not, they, you know, that can be debated. What's the worst thing? And then the second one was just last week here as we record this, and that was an ICU nurse from the veterans, you know, VA hospital who was, you know, protesting very angrily, protesting, and he was basically executed.

John:

When he had his phone up, he was filming, which we have the right to do. And he was filming, and he saw an old lady in distress. Ice agent had pushed this lady down. He went over to help her get up. Okay?

SPEAKER_01:

Yes.

John:

And he was clearly holding his phone up even when he tried to help her. The agents swarmed him. Swarmed him. I think there were six of them and pushed him to the ground. And then what happened?

Wende:

And then he was shot several times, killed in in the middle of the street with many, many witnesses.

John:

Now what's the deal? These cowards, six men can't hold another man down. No, they can't hold him, so they shoot him. I mean, why make come on? You held how would you not be held down, six men holding you down, and then they shoot you.

Wende:

Exactly. So it's very scary, it's very sad, it's and it's very polarizing. Um the worst thing is that, well, I mean, there's so many. So, all of this, just to give it context, we can debate what's going on all day long, and I don't want to do that here.

John:

What I do want to do is Well, there's no debate that this guy was shot in cold blood for absolutely no reason. If you want to help somebody, huh?

Wende:

Except that he was angry.

John:

Well, how angry? Well, I couldn't tell that he was angry. Well, he was trying to help his woman up.

Wende:

He was, but he was angrily in their face. He was doing, you know, he was protesting that, you know, all of those things. Here's the thing, Doug. All of those things should be, you should reserve the judgment until there's a thorough investigation. And that's the other atrocity that's happened, is that they are blocking a thorough and impartial investigation, and they have told, you know, called him a domestic terrorist without any evidence.

SPEAKER_01:

Domestic terror.

Wende:

So that that's you know, all of this to say we're living in really scary times where, you know, they're really trying to intimidate, make people stop protesting, make people stop videotaping. Um, all of this is very much done on purpose.

John:

And we're trying to get us, don't stop, keep marching, cars, keep doing things. And uh yeah, that's what they're trying to get us to do to stop. Yeah.

Wende:

So we're not gonna stop. We're not gonna stop. We have to that we have to stand up for what's right. You've got to.

John:

Um I'm gonna tell you something else. What gives me courage is this when Hitler was taking over, most of the German people were very passive, and they let that happen. We are not going to be passive in America. We are going to stand up, we're gonna march, we're gonna say things, we're gonna speak up, we're gonna be strong. They cannot intimidate us. And remember this bullies, bullies are intimidated by people who stand up to them. That's right. Okay, remember that. Okay, so uh we're not bullies, we're strong.

Wende:

Yeah, we have to do it in a safe as possible manner and meaning keeping your physical distance so that you're at least an arm's length away.

SPEAKER_01:

Right.

Wende:

Telling them that you are filming, you know, and Yeah, but now this these people swarmed this guy.

John:

He was away from them. You're right. You couldn't get, I mean, you know.

Wende:

Yeah, exactly. You you can see the story can be told in many ways.

John:

Well, Wendy, I mean he's very angry, but he's the right to be angry.

Wende:

They're probably yelled at 24 hours a day all day long because of what they're doing. Well, they should be.

John:

They're wearing masks and they're cowards.

Wende:

They are, but but if someone yells at you all day long, you're gonna overreact. And yeah, I'm not saying it's right in any way, it's terribly wrong, obviously, terribly, terribly, terribly wrong what they did. It's it's inexcusable, it's atrocious, it's evil, it's wrong. But what I'm saying is like two people who do want to go demonstrate, they are going to be on a short, short fuse because of the abuse that people are hurling at them verbally all day long wherever they go. Um they deserve. But I'm just trying to say we can we can protest and should protest, but we should also be aware that they're gonna have trigger fingers. And it's awful, it's terrible, but they they will.

John:

And so, you know, you know, as we talk about this, we're gonna be saying as we talk about this, I can you can see that this is really bothering me, and it's bothering you. And the point of that is when we're bombarded by negative, yes, it zaps our creative energy, it zaps our love.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes.

John:

Did you notice me talking hateful and angry and all that? Yeah. Well, that's not the way I am. No, I don't think I'm not sure.

SPEAKER_01:

And I'm not usually either, but it it does, it makes you angry, right?

John:

And it it when you it what you do is you spend so much of your energy in a negative way. Exactly. And when you spend your energy in a negative way, what does that do? It drains your energy from doing positive good things. And that's what you were talking about right there. You were so messed up with what was going on in the world that you couldn't sit down and do your regular routine work. Yeah, and so think about this, Wendy. If it bothers you, if it bothers me, think about all of how much productivity is being diminished. That's right. Okay.

Wende:

Productivity, creativity, um, good vibes, energy out there in the world that we need. So what I did with this, I completely scrapped the newsletter that I was going to write and instead just.

John:

No, we didn't wait a night too. You you got to go.

Wende:

I waited a night and I wrote from the heart, and I didn't use any, I didn't say this, but I didn't use any AI. I just wrote what I was feeling and some um encouragement for others to spend some time to get away from all this negative noise.

John:

So And Wendy then was so I read it and it was so good.

Wende:

Oh short, I can read it if you want.

John:

Okay, and you've been getting so much positive stuff.

Wende:

I did. So read it. I've gotten a lot of good positive responses. So here's what I wrote. Good. It's called Hold Space. Yesterday I tried in vain to craft a lighthearted newsletter featuring a creative reflection exercise I had taught in a workshop earlier this month. But however hard I tried, I just couldn't get the words to flow. Fast forward to this morning, I started my day as I always do with a 10-minute guided meditation. This morning's selection from my Peloton app happened to be called Holding Space. And this is all true. Yeah. As I listened to the guide, I realized why I couldn't write yesterday. It was an aha light bulb moment. You see, there is a ton of heavy, heartbreaking stuff going on in the United States and the world right now. I'm sure you do. Today's meditation spoke directly to that heaviness. The guide encouraged us to create and hold space in our hearts to acknowledge and process the sadness, the grief, the anger, and the despair that we all seem to be feeling right now. So as I listened, I did open my heart. I felt the feelings, I cried the tears, and I realized why I was literally blocked from spewing out some shallow life hack about clearing out your mental junk drawer and planting a garden of mental seeds you want to cultivate this year. Well, that's good stuff. That's good stuff. Yep, and maybe next month is what I wrote. And next month I will. But this month, I simply want to encourage you to nurture your mental and emotional well-being. How? First, block off some time today just to be with your thoughts. Whether it's 10 minutes, 30 minutes, or an hour, get away from the doing. That's step one. Create some mental and emotional space for your thoughts and feelings just to flow freely. To do this, intentionally step away from the newsfeeds, the social media comments, the arguments about who's right and who's wrong.

John:

We need, oh, and to interrupt you to say, yeah, I've been feeling so bad. I had turned my TV off, hadn't watched anything for three days, and haven't listened to anything for three days, and I feel great.

Wende:

You feel better, right? I know. And it's and we'll talk about that. Go ahead. I'm sorry to interrupt. Go ahead. No, no, no. I think that's a good point to circle back to after this because it's the balance. Um but give yourself a break from all the negative that's being relentlessly hurled at us.

SPEAKER_01:

Right.

Wende:

Then, if possible, get out in nature, bundle up against the winter chill, and take a walk. And then I said to my southern hemisphere readers, we're really jealous of you right now because it's very cold.

SPEAKER_01:

Right.

Wende:

Um, the next step is just to hold space for whatever arises. Recognize your emotions, give them permission to be there. Name them. Feel your feelings.

SPEAKER_01:

Right.

Wende:

When times are dark as they are now, we tend to fill up our time with activity, distractions, and entertainment to avoid the pain. But ironically, ironically, we must feel the pain in order to move past it.

John:

Good point.

Wende:

Thank you. The events of this month in the United States have been truly horrific. Many of my readers are from other parts of the world, and I often hear from you, we can't believe what's going on in America. Thank you for your concern. I'm equally as concerned about far worse atrocities happening in other parts of the globe. We cannot let these dark times get us down and cause us to lose hope. On the contrary, let's feel our feelings and then invite in the hope, the good, the love, the joy, the peace, the kindness. It still exists. Seek it out, find it, celebrate it, and be it.

John:

Amen.

Wende:

Yes. So that is my challenge to everybody out there.

John:

Now, what you said was important. So let's underline a few things. Okay. Number one, you said turn off all that garbage. Yes. Okay. And then number two, I think it was number three on the list, you said be aware of your emotions. And a lot of times what we have we try to suppress it. Now, when I was yelling and shouting earlier, you know, I was aware of my emotions. So, in a way, it's good to get that out. I'm it's better for me to shout and yell in a microphone than it is to shout and yell at my neighbor for some other little issue that was generated by all the things in Minneapolis, for example. Exactly. Right. Uh, you can, you know, when we get frustrated, a lot of negativity can come out and to the wrong people. Right. But I think what you were saying is let those emotions come out in your own little closet. Yeah. Exactly. And think about how sad you are, how mad you are, how anxious you are.

Wende:

Yes.

John:

Um anxious.

Wende:

Anxiety, that's a big one.

John:

Frustrated you are, how hopeless you feel. Be aware of those things, and just being aware of them helps you manage them. Yes. Right?

Wende:

That's so good. Psychiatrists. No, that's really, really important.

John:

Yeah, and well, that's exactly what you're saying. I'm just reiterating what you wrote.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

John:

And then another thing you said is what, get out, walk, get out in nature, and tell us what you what you use, what you always say about nature, why that's so important.

Wende:

Well, nature is just, I mean, it's been shown to be good for your soul, really. Um, God created nature. We are it's our natural, it's our natural habitat if you think about it. For you know, before modern society, we lived outdoors and made do with shelter, you know, temporary shelters. We are meant to be outdoors. Nature is beautiful. We are able to see the beauty, it distracts us from uh takes us out of our head and puts us into our present moment.

John:

And Wendy, um, even in Charlotte, you know, they're they have parks, nice parks. Yes, and all the cities have parks. Yes, they do, and it's important to find those parks. Uh don't get out and walk on some busy street. Yeah, that's not as it's not gonna help.

Wende:

That's not as beautiful. I mean, you have to do what you have to do, but yes, I most cities do take very good pride in their park systems, and they're there for that purpose so that people can find pockets of nature no matter where they live.

John:

Let me tell you so a study was done, Wendy, and they evaluated two groups. One group exercised in an environment in the gym. Okay. Or they walked down a busy street or something. Okay, the other people exercised in the woods and in nature. Then they they did a happiness test. You know, these behavioral psychologists do all that. And guess who was the happiest?

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, of course, the nature people. That's right. Yeah.

John:

When do they have to spend a million dollars on that study? We could tell them that.

Wende:

Yeah, that's great. So here, this this podcast today is just about finding the balance, right? Because you do, I I believe we have to be informed of the things that are going on. If we're not informed, then we can't protest because we don't we're ignorant. Like in the true sense of the word, ignorant. Um, they say ignorance is bliss because you know, some of the stuff going on is really bad, and we don't want to, you know, obsess over it. So how do you were doing something good?

John:

I'm gonna interrupt you, right here. You're doing something good because I was so dogmatic, you know, on the deal. And you were trying to get me to have balance, right? So you're trying to get me to think creatively. And that's another thing. If I can get my anger out, my frustration out, then guess what? I can think more creatively, and I can have a better balance on the way I think about things, right? True, true.

Wende:

Yeah, so so getting out those emotions is really important, and finding some space for some balance is important. That's great. Yeah, so I think that how do you find the balance between like being informed enough but not obsessing over is difficult, isn't it?

John:

Um for a long time I didn't pay attention to anything. Um, and in fact, you told me about the storming of the Capitol. I hadn't even heard about that. I remember we were driving to Wilmington, and you this had happened a week or so before, and you told me about that. And I said, What? Yeah, and so see, I was too ignorant then, right? Yeah, yeah. So you sometimes have to have a kind of medial deal. Maybe, maybe you can watch the news or something, or for 15 minutes, 30 minutes, or so now a lot it's funny if you watch these talking heads on Fox, CNN, whoever, if you watch the whole, say you watch the whole day, they're gonna repeat the same thing for those 24 hours. Right. They're gonna repeat 15 minutes of news continuously for 24 hours. Right. I know so you can you can catch up with the news anytime for 15 minutes.

Wende:

That's right. And my favorite way to catch up is just on NPR, they have the top of the hour, about four minutes of basically headlines, you know. Okay. And that is enough for me to know what's going on. It's not commentary, it's not argument, it's like fact-based. This happened, you know. Good. Blah blah blah. And so that's on NPR. So every hour. Every hour. Every hour at on the hour. So you'll get both.

John:

And how do you find NPR? You go to the NPR, yeah.

Wende:

You can do it. On the radio. So on the radio, on uh on streaming. Well, not on TV because NPR is radio. So on the radio in your car or on your laptop, you can find it. Um you can just npr.org. Okay. And you can listen live.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

Wende:

So they'll have it. But yeah, it says live from NPR, and then it'll give about four minutes of headlines. And if you listen to your local NPR station, then it follow it's followed by maybe two minutes of local news. So I mean that's enough. I want to read. That's all you need.

John:

I want to read something. Everybody knows I'm writing this novel because I brag on it every time we do a podcast, right? But man, it is a good novel. I enjoy it so much, and I'm so humble about it. But uh I'll say, Vicki, listen to this, you know, and I'll read it. Some of it's her, you know, it should mo. But I like it and I'll laugh at it. You know, it's funny. When you're being creative and you're writing, okay, I'm riding along, all of a sudden I start laughing out loud at something that I wrote. And where did that come from? It came from my unconscious. Then I'm riding along and I start crying at the sad part. So I guess that's good with me. It might not entertain, nobody else might like it, but I'm getting something out of it. That's it. Right? I'm crying, I'm laughing, so I'm escaping from up. But here's something I wrote that's apropos to what we've been talking about.

SPEAKER_01:

All right.

John:

No darkness can defeat the sun. No sorrow can defeat love, no hardship can defeat courage, and hope lies within. Be headed toward hope.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, that's so good. Wow, that's beautiful. That's beautiful.

John:

But that's true. The reason I read that is because that's for the people out there, and for me, Wendy, and for you to remind ourselves that love, no hate, no despair, no depression can defeat love.

Wende:

Love wins. And where do we get love?

John:

Well, we get love from each other. I love this podcast because not only do you and I learn from each other, but we have a loving relationship together when we're doing this podcast. Yes, we do. So we increase our love. Increase the love. Yeah. And so I don't know. I don't know how to tell people to increase their love. How do you do that, Wendy?

Wende:

Uh what I would suggest is, and I do this pretty much every morning, is I come up with a quality that I want to embody that day. And so after I do my meditation that I already talked about in the newsletter, I journal, and one of the things that I journal is just a word or a phrase. So this month it's been revolving around kindness. So I'll just write, you know, kindness matters or kindness always wins, or be kind to everyone. So that's kind of my theme for the month. So that's a way to increase your love is to put it in the context of your mind daily. So with all this negative that's coming up, you know, if you're thinking, you will here's here's a good quote.

John:

Yeah.

Wende:

Whatever you seek out, you will find more of. Oh, where'd you get that? I heard it from somebody else. But if you are seeking out.

John:

Hey, look, let me let me say something. When you're giving a speech, okay, and you can say, as Wendy Wine has said the first time, right? Yeah. No. And then as somebody said, at the next speech you say, as somebody said, the third speech you can say, as I always said.

Wende:

As I always said.

John:

So repeat that. That was good. Repeat it again.

Wende:

Whatever you seek out, you are likely to find. You will find more of it. Right. So if you are seeking out with your doom scrolling or constantly watching news, the negative, you're going to find more negative in the world. If you are seeking out the love, the joy, the kindness in the world, you will find more of that. There are so many stories of good news that's out there from the world, from our neighbors, from our family. If you just ask, you know, what's something good that's happened to you today or this week, seek out those good things and feel so finding the balance. Again, we're finding the balance. Be informed with the bad thing.

John:

Another thing, when you remember you wrote this thing and you got so much positive feedback from it. I did. But you know what that was? That was love responding to love. Yes. Okay. You wrote a loving article, and people resonated with that. So a thousand miles away, five hundred miles away, next door, people responded to that loving vibration that you sent out into the universe. Now, all of us, every day, all the time, are sending out either love or hate. Yes. Now we can send love out by being more loving, journaling, being aware, making yourself aware of the kindness, the goodness in the world.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes.

John:

And uh being aware of how important each individual that we are, how important it is for your soul, your spirit, your body to send out loving, if you will, vibrations everywhere you go.

Wende:

Everywhere you go. That's that's the bottom line. I think we've wrapped up with a good nugget of wisdom. Find the balance, be aware of what's going on, but send out the loving kindness.

John:

No sorrow can defeat love. No dark can defeat the sun. No hardship can defeat courage. Amen.

Wende:

See you next week.