What if it's not the time to have an emotion?

Gillian and Joelle explore the theme of being humans in helping professions, and especially in schools when it can be important to stay “on” and present as fully regulated when in front of students.  When we are experiencing big emotions but can’t show them, this can contribute to something called “allostatic load,” or the stress response our bodies and brains have to try to address a problem and come back to homeostasis.  Joelle and Gillian consider an “emotional parking lot” to remind us of big emotions that we needed to “put somewhere else” during the day but may still need a chance to turn toward and feel before day’s end if possible.  Joelle and Gillian also review the theory of “allostatic load” in general, and how compassionately noticing, turning toward, and offering some form of completion to our personal “road signs” of fight flight or freeze responses can bring us back to homeostasis more than chronically avoiding these can do.

Here's the awesome book we mention during the episode:

https://www.powells.com/book/-9781984818324/7-2?gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQiAz6q-BhCfARIsAOezPxn0B9TRewy-G3rkTMIkiF2uP28q05CnyMeEnLydl1FA3W3xkXE3wYAaAjNbEALw_wcB

Find us on Instagram!

Gillian: https://www.instagram.com/clearconnectionpsychology/

Joelle: https://www.instagram.com/joelle.vanlent/

Transcript

All right. Well, hello, and welcome back to A Stance of Curiosity. I'm Gillian Boudreau. And I'm Joelle van Lent. Hi, everyone. Thanks for joining us again. And we are very glad to be with you today. A slight disclaimer is, I do have a small cold, so I hope to not become too much of an annoyance or a distraction. And I suppose if I am, we can always edit that out. So far, I feel like you sound like raspy, like a lounge singer or something. A Katharine Hepburn vibe. Maybe. Yeah. Wonderful. So when you all listen to this, it will be not right now, but we are doing great. So far. But, you know, Joelle and I are sitting here today, you know, about a week out from an election that no matter who you are, it's probably got you a little bit stressed out.

And, you know, especially as I meet with Vermont clients, Joelle, I don't know if you noticed this, but I'm noticing that this is when the glory of fall has become the dread of early winter. And so this also, I think, seems to be that week just for the various humans of Vermont, where things might start to feel a little bit suddenly more bleak. And we are just talking about, you know, there's elements of that for me too, like I'm sick, this time of year can feel overwhelming. So I think we were considering discussing today how what is it like to do a helping role when everyone around you is collectively pretty stressed And maybe when you too are feeling either that same stress or stress of your own where do you put all that Yeah I mean I think that

I've gotten so much better over the years at some of this and then some of it is still a lot of a lot of you know ongoing work but you and I have talked Gillian for years about self-compassion and Kristen Neff's work on self-compassion. And one of the things that struck me sort of like a lightning bolt when I was reading her work in more depth, probably four or five years ago, I remember at the beginning of the pandemic, I really leaned into her work in more detail. And she talked about how people who choose helping professions tend to be not always, but maybe as a group, as a whole, we all have more members of our group of helping professionals that are perfectionistic, that expect a lot of ourselves, that are highly motivated.

And those are all really good. Well, the highly motivated, high expectation part is really good. The perfectionism part, not so good. And what I understood from her research is that we are, those of us who are driven and want to achieve a lot and like make a, make a lovely impact on this world through our work, that we are successful despite self-criticism, not because of self-criticism, but because of self-criticism. Not because of self-criticism. And when I read that, it hit me like a lightning bolt because I did, I realized that I do actually hold the myth that Kristen talks about that if you cut yourself some slack and go easy on yourself, there is a myth that we will become lazy and self-indulgent. That's what Kristen says.

And that lazy and self-indulgent, like that hit me. I remember that quote because I didn't know that I had that belief, but I, realized that I did. So I, I notice a difference now that I've really worked on. How do you measure what a good day is? How do you measure what, like, was I productive today? Did I accomplish anything today? Was this a good day? Was I successful? The measure of that to me is where Kristen's work comes in so brilliantly because we will never do all the things that we think other people expect of us, or that maybe, even we expect of ourselves, we will never finish a to-do list in a day when you're in the busy jobs that mental health and educators have.

So how do you measure a good day? And I think that, that part really resonated with me. How do you measure a good day? I really like that too. It makes me think a little bit about goals versus intentions where, you know, where goals are like very specific. Specific and are externally oriented. Right. And usually have to happen by a certain time, right? Like a, you know, if a school psychologist goal, you know, might, you know, might just be IEP goals, right? Like everyone on my caseload will meet or exceed their IEP goals this, you know, this time around, how great would that be? And then, you know, there's a specific time associated with that. You can't actually really control that much what happens with other people.

And you're really setting yourself up to fail and to, you know, have some negative things to say about yourself if that goal isn't met. Right. Whereas an intention is ongoing, right? So an intention could be something that's more internally located. Like I'm going to intend to be as truthful as I can today, or I'm going to intend to at least imagine that everyone is doing the best they can today. And if I inevitably kind of fall off of that horse at any point today, I can always just, you know, I'm going to be as truthful as I can today. I can always just recommit to that intention and start again. And I find that when I can choose my own intention, for one, that makes me feel like I'm more in control of my life, especially if I have, you know, a job where I have a lot of bosses.

And also if it's something that I really cannot fail at, because for one, I can always start again. And for two, it's ongoing, you know, then a good day can start to be like, well, did I keep remembering to at least try to believe that everyone was doing their best? Yeah. And maybe I really can feel good about that driving home, even if there's a host of things that I couldn't control that perhaps ended up in a dumpster fire kind of way. Right. Right. I mean, it's so interesting because like, I think about how I've been thinking a lot lately about the curriculum, you know, that has been so carefully researched and selected for literacy and math in Vermont anyway. And the pacing, guys, and the expectations.

I've been thinking about that a lot because it's particularly misaligned right now with where the students in especially elementary school are developmentally. And I've been thinking about how really hardworking, thoughtful people developed those with really good intentions to support. And the problem that it's misaligned isn't any one person's fault. Nobody did anything wrong. And so we're not going to meet those expectations this school year. So then who's going to, you know, how are we going to sort that out? And I've been thinking about that a lot in terms of like, if your intention was to, like, for example, my intention today was to make sure that the people that I interacted with felt heard. So I did not get several things done that I really felt that I needed to get done today.

But I did have the opportunity to sit with a student, a parent, a group of teachers. And I was very focused on listening to what they were saying and reflecting it back to them and writing it down. And I think that their nonverbal indicators indicated that they felt heard. So this does feel like a very successful day. My to-do list looks the same as it did at 8 a. m. And I did just finished, like, nine hours straight of work. But what is the measure of success? I fully met my intention. And so I could have been distracted and rushed as I was talking to those people because I wanted to get to that. I wouldn't have actually gotten anything on that list done while I was in fact sitting with other people, talking to them.

So, I don't know. I think that the values that you hold, your key values and the intention that you set, and having that be the measure, it's important because I think teachers are going to have to say when they sit with really hardworking people, where are we at in terms of the progress academically, socially and emotionally? The students. And if it isn't where we thought it would be, then let's just together look at where it is. How far did it come? What did we prioritize? And and and then it's just about readjusting. It's not about looking to see who didn't do what they were supposed to do. That's not going to happen for a little while.

So that reckoning with the difference between the expectations and the developmental readiness of the students, the reckoning, the readjusting, which I do believe in my optimistic way will happen. That's not tomorrow or next month. That's like a little bit down the road. So then how does an educator measure a good day when they and the students are unintentionally at no one's fault, sort of set up to not meet the expectation? Yes. Oh man. And you know, as I remember being like a full-time school psychologist, right. With a list that I would never get to the end of, I remember bracing for punishment on that so much. And, you know, and I didn't know you yet then. Right. And I didn't hear a lot of messages like this then, right.

Like, let's look at what did get done. Right. Let's re-adjust, you know, and just put myself back in that spot. I think that would have felt so like such a relief and so spacious to me. Because I think a lot of the reason why I would have de-prioritized, you know, connection, making people feel heard, trying to create a community vibe that is healthy, which maybe is the real work of, you know, human service jobs or any job where we're sort of world building, right. In a school, we're kind of creating a whole world that hopefully will teach kids what the world is like, and hopefully we want it to be a healthy world. It's so easy to miss that big job and to try to do the little jobs, which often look like paperwork, being able to show someone.

You know, you've got enough done; all of that is about bracing for punishment, right. Whereas if we can back off from that, you know, this also takes admin that people can trust, but if admin can hold that same stance of 'what did you get done?' Okay, let's start from there. You know, that's just healing. Right. Yeah. I mean, I guess I, I don't know if it takes; I'm not sure if it's just healing. I don't know if it takes, I don't know if it takes, I don't know. It takes decades. There's probably people that have a shorter learning curve than me on this. It took me decades to be able to be like, I'm going to go at a pace today that feels good for me and what I'm not going to think about what I what I'm not doing when I'm doing something that sounds I'm not going to think about what I'm not doing when I'm doing something that took me decades to just be like,

well, I'm not doing that right now. So I might as well be fully present in what I am doing because I do actually love this job. And so why not enjoy this student, this teacher, this parent, because thinking about the things I'm not doing isn't actually going to get them done. I'm not going to think about what I'm not doing when I'm doing something. Right. You know, that also makes me think and we've talked about this now a few times about a parking lot. Right. And how, you know, when I was an anxious high schooler studying, I needed. To learn to like write all the competing thoughts and worries in the margin, knowing I would come back to them later.

You know, it sounds like one thing you're you're talking about, Joelle, is kind of parking lotting all those other things that you're not getting done. You know, I also think that sometimes the things that we are grappling with as helpers. I think a lot of times it's connected right to this sort of unreasonable standard and overwork thing that I think a lot of the theme of this podcast is trying to relax, and giving people permission to relax on. And then also sometimes it's like being a real human. Yeah. Who is in a job where you're a little bit playing a role. And that role is pretty forward-facing and a little bit like doing a play for an audience of children about how all the adults are fine, you know, and I wonder if we could talk about that a little bit too.

Like, and, and, oh, yeah, the compartmentalization. Required for that, right? Because, you know, no matter whether or not it's about overwork, like, you know, my most classic example of this, when I first started, so being a school psychologist, full-time in a school was my first job out of grad school. And that was also part of a transition that was hard for me for a lot of ways. So I, in a lot of ways, I'd left my home state for the first time. Everything was very different. You know, I'd left. I'd left my grad school cohort. I was expecting to feel more mastery over my new job than I had, right? I came to really love that time in my life, but the transition in was pretty rough and I was experiencing grief about what I had left and so well-meaning, right?

But all anyone knows to ask the new school psychologist from out of state is, 'Do you miss New York?' Oh, which was like the most weep potential, like, please don't say that to me, or I am going to begin heaving with sobs right in this moment. So it was just so hilarious because everybody was like, oh, well, so nice to meet you. Do you miss New York? There's like, right. And, and so it, it also is so interesting, I think, to the compassion we need to cultivate with ourselves to be like, 'I am a human having a big emotion.' I will get to that emotion. And also right now I need to run this meeting, right? That's also a wild thing about being in a helping profession. Right.

And I think when, when you and I collaborated more closely, thank goodness for, for both of us probably. And hopefully other people benefited too, but we collaborated so closely at the beginning of the pandemic. And we talked a lot about like, um, when you do sort of put on, you know, a lot of the on like your best, I'm fine, professional stance and shove something somewhere. Um, like you're not just parking lotting. Uh, I have to do something later. So I'm going to put that in my parking lot. You actually shelved some like real emotion. Like one of the things that we talked about with the work on, um, allostatic load is you, is you just want to remember to come back to that within that.

My takeaway was like, before I go to bed tonight, if I was super angry and I stuffed that, or I was super, I felt like I wanted to run away and I didn't, I stayed and, and put on a good face and plowed through there. There's a cost to not ever like cumulative cause of not circling back to that within that day. And sometimes we can tend to it right away. And sometimes we can't often, we can't tend to it right away. So maybe we should talk about that because that shift for me was also like a pretty, big deal. One example was the, the, I'll let you explain in the beautiful way that you do the allostatic load in just a second.

But for me, it was like the difference between getting another cup of coffee versus having a power nap when my whole body wanted to just shut down. It was like, I could get another cup of coffee or I could sleep for seven minutes sitting up. I'm really good at the sitting up nap. And my daughters love to take pictures from the side of all the chins. When you take a sitting up nap, but that, um, it, it's just a different approach. So, yeah, it is a different approach and, um, our work together is so fun. I want you all to know that over the weekend from our personal cell phones, Joelle and I were texting about the definition of allostasis because this is how much we enjoy this stuff.

Um, a little bit, but that's okay. Yeah. And that's fine. We accept that about ourselves. Um, so. Okay. Yeah. So many of you may have already heard my song and dance about this. I'll, I'll do the song and dance and then I'll share kind of the updated, more nuanced information that Joelle and I kind of looked up again and re-taught ourselves over the weekend. Um, so no, I'll leave it in at the beginning. So homeostasis is a neutral, balanced position, um, that all biological processes try to maintain, right? So, um, the lungs are taking in oxygen and expelling carbon dioxide, they're trying to maintain homeostasis, which is just a nice, good, even balance of oxygen and carbon dioxide in the blood. Right.

Um, you know, the gastrointestinal system is trying to maintain homeostasis between what, you know, hunger and satiety, right? So we don't want to let the body get too hungry, but we also don't want to like be made to feel sick because we're so full. Um, the emotional system also tries to maintain homeostasis, uh, which is, you know, I have this fear lens. I think everything is about safety. I would say that homeostasis emotionally is basically experiencing more safety than threat. Right. Um, so that we can just feel fairly neutral and kind of open to experience. That's how I would define emotional homeostasis. Does that feel right to you, Joelle? Yeah. I think your basic needs are met. Yep.

And you have the level of stress or challenge that you have is within your skill set and support to manage homeostasis might also, you just made me think of it dovetails with that term window of tolerance. Yeah. Right. So it's keeping the stress within like your window of tolerance, um, before, before your nervous system would go into more of a survival mode or more of an emergency mode. So it doesn't, it doesn't totally mean that you're like, you're napping. Like you can be challenged, you can be doing something that is new or fun or interesting or hard, but you're, you homeostasis means I have the support and skills to face this challenge, or I'm doing something that doesn't feel challenging either. Yeah, that's right. So it's like homeostasis is maybe prevention of overwhelm and eventual shutdown.

Um, so that's homeostasis. So I'll, we, we've been talking about all a static load for years, but we hadn't fully looked at allostasis. So thank you so much. I'm sure this is so boring audience members for sticking with us. So allostasis, the definition of that is actually the process that gets turned on when a system needs to come back to homeostasis, right? So the allostatic system only comes to life when homeostasis is threatened. I'm just going to change my video in case we never, I need to sneeze. Okay. Um, no more friend. Okay. Okay. Um, so the allostatic system can, so then allostatic load is when by definition, we've left homeostasis a little bit. So the allostatic system has turned on, right?

To be like, Oh, what do I got to do or change to get this person back to homeostasis? Um, so for example, like if a person gets too hungry, right. The process of seeking out food is part of allostasis, right. Okay. Then it looks like I need to eat. So the allostasis is going to be. I need to be engaged until I can eat and I'm back to homeostasis. So allostasis means to be, or likes to be a temporary process, right. Of we're outside the window window of homeostasis. Let's go meet a need and great. Then allostasis can stop and we're back to homeostasis, um, chronic uncertainty or chronic problems that cannot necessarily be solved. Let's say in one or two steps by one person in a given day.

We'll lead to something called allostatic load, where basically our emotional system keeps trying and trying and trying to solve the problem in some discreet concrete way. Um, and can get exhausted from doing that. Um, so, you know, when Joelle talks about, I could do a cup of coffee or I could take a nap, right. The research on allostatic load basically tells us this also goes back to, um, the Nagoski sisters wrote a book called burnout. Which we will eventually link in the show notes, which talks about like completing the stress cycle. So all of this is related. So if you have an emotional stressor that is kind of ongoing and it's unlikely to stop in a given moment, just because you do something differently, which is true of many of the uncertain stressors we face in schools, um, your body will go into a bit of, you know, a bit of at least a mild to moderate fight or flight.

That's what allostasis emotionally looks like. So. The body might, um, it might try ramping us up and making us antsy or wanting to escape stuff. That would be a bit of a flight mode. Then if that doesn't work, which it won't, if it's an abstract chronic threat, then the body might try a fight mode. It might make us really angry or really purposeful or wanting to punch a wall or wanting to write a strongly worded letter. Um, and if that doesn't work, then the body might swing around to a freeze mode, which does feel really numb and foggy. And that's the one that we tend to watch. We want to caffeinate through when in fact, if we can recognize it and give ourselves permission to go with it and take a nap, sitting up for seven minutes,

then it, then we might actually get back to homeostasis at least for a while, rather than the risk is if you don't do that, then you just swing back through this cycle of distress for a long time. Right. So it's like, if you're, if you, if you can tell the difference between like, I'm just legit tired versus I, I, I, my body is, is feeling. Overwhelmed with stress. I either have a threat that I can't neutralize an uncertainty that I can't make certain or a problem that I can't solve. And, and I'm, I've circled between wanting to fight or wanting to escape and neither has worked. So now I'm just going to shut down. You can, you can satisfy that the instinct to shut down with a nap, a power nap more so than a cup of coffee.

I'm thinking in that instance, to me, anyway, another cup of coffee is going to actually keep me in that, that allostatic load zone. And I'm just going to keep swirling the nap makes my brain feel like, Oh, we shut down. Look at that. We like me, my brain, me and my brain. We got a chance to shut down. Yeah. Right. And I, I, this has really worked. It's sort of like, I've been creating plans for students where. They gain a sense of completion. Like if the chronic stress, for example, is I cannot make friends in this place. No one seems to want to be friends with me. I cannot keep pace with the learning because they feel overwhelmed with the academics. If they're not yet appropriately accommodated.

So, so you allow them an experience of confidence where they can shine. I can go and be a reading buddy or a recess buddy, or I can help with a job in the school. Or I can do a puzzle that can be finished in four minutes and be solved. Then your brain and your body has the experience of being competent, successful, and taking something to completion. And it, it satisfies the instinct to, and I think can shift you back. Now that doesn't mean you won't soon enough have another experience that brings you up, but let's take the election. There is nothing I can do more than vote. Right now, one week out from the election, I can do nothing about it. I feel pretty worried about it.

So I want to be angry or I want to run away to Canada or I want to completely shut down. So what would allow me a little dose of that? Like walking on the treadmill, watching a great show that really captures my, my imagination for 40 minutes while I'm on the treadmill. I, at the end of that, I do feel. I feel a deeper sense of calm. It's, it's not, it's psychological, not just physiological because my instinct was to run or escape. So I walked and I escaped mentally to a different world imagined by some Netflix creator. Yes. And your body rewarded you with a dose of homeostasis. Right. Right. And then soon enough hours from then I will be reminded that there's an election that I can do nothing about.

And I might go back. I might go back to that place, but I'm going with the instinct, allowing yourself that sense. It has, it does allow you to complete that stress cycle and come back to homeostasis. So you're not chronically in that, in that stressed place. It's pretty, I have found it pretty powerful, pretty simple and pretty powerful. I have too. So I think the thing about it is that it does require a fair amount of, dare I say mindfulness, because you need to have some kind of witness part of yourself, recognizing when you're off, figuring out in which direction, right? Probably fight, play, freeze you're off and, and then identifying a way that you can, you know, um, appease or appeal to, or come to some level of completion with whatever stress response your system is trying.

Um, right. So that's the only thing, right. Is I think it's a beautiful thing, but it, it does require that we have a pretty good sense of where we're at generally, or that we get into the habit of, even while we're sprinting around in the stampede experience of a school that we get in the habit of somehow remembering, let's say at least a couple of times an hour to be like, where am I at? How is my body feeling? Like, what are my cues for fight, flight, freeze? Am I getting any of those right now? Yeah. Um, and then that brings me back to what we were talking about a few bullet points ago, which is this idea of like an emotional parking lot, right?

So, you know, if somebody is bringing, bringing up something that you could really cry about in that moment, but it's not appropriate to do so. So you're not right. If something does happen during your school day, that makes you really angry, right? But it's, it's not. It's not strategic or helpful to, to move from that in that moment. I also think that weirdly working well in a school for one, because the school experience is so intense and for two, because a little bit, the school performance does ask of adults that we do shelve a lot of our more visceral emotions. If we're feeling them even about other things throughout the day, it does also require us.

If we're going to make sure that we let some of those feelings, our feelings out within the day, we also are going to have to kind of remember which ones they were, right? So, you know, if, when I was in that time in my life when it was probably mostly going to be, you know, crying about New York city, I could remember that pretty well. You know, like even if I were just going in a car from school to school, sometimes I could be like, this would be a really good time just to get some crying out about missing New York City, you know, and then when I get to the next school, I'm fairly refreshed and you know, I have, I'm ready for the next time. I'm someone asked me that question, right?

I've already, I've already cried that day, but I think it, it can, you know, if it's multiple things in a day or if it's things both from, you know, personal life, but maybe also from school day that I think all of these things require sort of a tender attention to the self and, and a practice of just asking ourselves periodically, like, am I okay? How is this for me? That, um, also to get back to self-compassion. Can feel kind of cringy or maybe, um, you know, inefficient or disadvantageous to do if we, if we don't know the research. Yeah. I think the metaphor that I've used that folks have shared has been helpful to them is the idea of if you're on a road and the road is starting at self-compassion and the end, and it can go all the way to burnout, that there's road signs and you, we, we're all on that road.

We're all on that road in various places between self-compassion, which is that stance where you're authentically connected to your work, but in balance with your personal life, professional life, and you, and you're in balance of, you have adequate support and resources to cope with stress that's coming your way. So that's the optimal place. We want to be in self-compassion. We want to be in a compassionate, satisfying place. And then the other end of that road is burnout, which is the place we're trying to not be but many of us visit and can come all the way back from. So from point A to point B, there's road signs that are unique to all of us. So knowing what your road signs are and, and then having accountability partners, which means people that you trust enough in your life, professional and personal to say, 'Hey, if you notice me doing this, it means that I need to pull over and in a rest stop or make a U-turn or, or do.

The things I do when those things happen.' And that makes it a little bit easier to see that these things are happening. Like for me, if I'm foggy and I make like silly mistakes, like last week I was driving to one school and ended up at another. And then I was like really frustrated with myself that I was going to be 10 minutes late because I just, I guess was lost in thought. And automatically drove to the wrong school. And in Vermont, those can be big mistakes because our schools are pretty spread apart. So you're sitting in the parking lot at the wrong school and you're supposed to be at a different place. That's 15 miles away in two minutes. So, what are you going to do now?

Like we just mess up sometimes, right? Like, and so that's for me, the first thing I do is just let people know I messed up. I don't have to give explanations or rationalizations or excuses. I just call and say, 'I messed up and I'm going to be 15 minutes late.' And then you just remember that every, most people are pretty kind and forgiving, much more so than we will be to ourselves with each other. And then while I’m driving to the right school, I think about like, so what does this mean? I'm, it doesn’t mean I’m incompetent or, you know, dumb or anything. It means I’m clearly foggy. So I probably should at some point today do the things that I’m not supposed to do.

But I do to take care of that, right? I’m distracted. I’m not sure what’s going on, but I just take care. So I just note that note to self, take care later, drive to the right school, listen to some nice music, sip a little bit more coffee, walk in and just say, so sorry, I’m not sure how that happened, but I didn’t go to the right place. And we move on with life together. And it was just fine. It’s really just fine. And, and so, um, uh, 15 years ago. I would have beat myself up for days over that. So there's actually like a palpable relief when I screw up that I don't have to deal with the, the self-criticism that is good.

I'm just not going to do, I'm not going to spend energy on that. And also then it's before I go to bed that night, my thing, I don't even know if this is what that research would indicate, but I didn't have time to clear the fog right then I had to drive and go to work and then have a pretty intense day, but before I went to bed, I did the things that I do to clear my head. And, and, and so it, I think it's good enough. A lot of teachers ask me, 'Is it good enough?' If I'm angry, stuff it, and then later do the things I do to release that anger, like yell at the top of my lungs on the way home from work with like an angry song or something.

And I think it is, I think it's, yeah. I mean, best case scenario, the world stops. For you, for an hour. So you can tend to that. That's not any of our lives. Nope. You just make sure though, that you notice that this me, this is the, this is the road sign. That means that I am foggy and I have a foggy plan and I don't really need to analyze why I'm foggy. I just was, I just was. And I know how to address it on a nervous system level. Yeah. You know, from a systems perspective, I also really want to like shout out when you, when one. But you were the one who did it. Good job can get to a place where you can own a mistake and move on.

Right. Be like, I messed up. Okay. Right. That also takes a lot of the burden off of your colleagues, because like, if I was thinking about myself as a young professional, I too would have beat myself up about that for days. If that had happened to me and that stuff would happen to me because I was foggy. Um, and also I know I would have shown up. In a. A little bit of a panic and a little bit codependently needing the team, almost needing the team to now feel bad for me a little bit, because I was clearly so distraught that I had made that mistake. So look at what, look at what a dedicated helper I must still be that this would make me so upset that I would make a mistake.

Yes. And now they're kind of comforting me so that I can sort of demonstrate that I still really care about my job, which nobody was questioning. You know, and I also think the ability just to be like, just to own the mistake and actually not explain it eight ways till Sunday, what a load off that team to not have to spend all this time now, therapeuticizing you through the experience of having messed up. Right. And I think you have to own, like I owned the impact. Like I, I, I am 15. It doesn't sound, it does not sound like you were dismissive, but also like not all. If you're, if you make a mistake and then you have to spend more time taking care of the person who made the mistake to make sure they feel okay right now, we're even further, you know, sort of behind it.

And, and so I think it's, it's that like acknowledging impact and then really just moving on because I think about how, like in that self-compassion research, it says that if you are self-critical, but you don't directly state your internal self-critical narrative, the people who you are in a room with, like such as a teacher with students. Or like me with a team that I'm consulting with, they will actually be more self-critical of themselves. Even if I didn't say anything self-critical out loud, which is kind of scary because it's like, it's like, they're going to, they're going to treat themselves the way I'm treating myself. Even if I don't say it out loud and I put really nice posters on the wall that say mistakes are welcome here.

That's the terrifying magic of emotion contagion, right? Because if it's not named, if it's not named, then it's not a mistake. Then all anyone's mirror neurons can tell is that someone's being criticized in this room. Right. Right. And so like your self-criticism will make others feel more criticized just because there's the energy of criticism. We don't know where it's coming from. So everyone's going to personalize it. Right. Right. And, and it becomes sort of like fuels the culture. It's like, I guess what we do here is when we screw up, we talk about it a lot because it's a big deal. Cause it's a big deal. Everybody's saying like, it's okay. It's okay. It's okay. But I, I kept talking about it, which means it's, it's a big deal. It's not.

So if you show up and you say you screwed up and you were late and you're so sorry. And you, and you noticed how did that impact you? In my example, last week the teacher that I was 15 minutes late to said she had not had an opportunity to sit in a room by herself for 10 minutes and drink a cup of coffee in a really long time. She was thrilled, but other times it actually is, you know, inconvenient and creates like a little bit of need to juggle. But it's really never that big of a deal. I mean, sometimes we do screw up on bigger levels and we can, we can work through that too. Right. But it's like when you're just are like, notice the impact, repair what you need to, and then really just move on.

It is a relief for everyone. For everyone. And then they, and then what did they just learn? Like when we make mistakes, we just own them, notice impact, move on. Not a big deal here. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I, I don't know, like when you, when you describe that, I can, that resonates with me so much about situations in my prior work life where I would have screwed up and I would have needed a lot of help to recover from that. And it felt like I was being responsible. Yes. Being so guilty about screwing up, but it just, it was probably responsible, but also like not necessarily the healthiest process. For all of us as a community. Yeah. You know, there's a thing I don't even have full language for yet.

Cause I feel like I'm still learning it, but I was, I was doing like a meditation series on, I was taking a meditation series on like toxic guilt and sort of that same idea that we think that like us falling on our own sword or us like being so guilty or feeling so terrible. It's somehow feels like that's a service to others. Like that's somehow helping. People are like, that's taking responsibility in any kind of real way, but it, it isn't actually right. Because that draws in people then to need to take care of us. And then also it steals so much of our bandwidth that now we're exhausted from how guilty we felt and we don't have a lot left to like, just openheartedly share with others, you know?

So it's, it's, it can be very counterproductive, but that's a lesson I'm definitely still learning. Yeah. Yeah. I appreciate the people well in my life who I can say this is what I did. How big of a deal do you think it is? And they will say actually that's kind of a big deal. You probably shouldn't apologize for that right? Or that's like not even worth anyone's time. So move on. So that kind of accountability partner is helpful. And I appreciate people like you that I can text and say, 'I'm going to run away.' And then you will fantasize the escape with me, not tell me, 'Oh, you're a good psychologist. You shouldn't quit.' Yeah. To Canada, you say like, 'Where, where in Canada might you go?' Like what, you know, what, what might you do?

And, and we daydream a little bit, run away together a little bit in a back and forth text. And then I, I just feel better. So it's helpful to build this mutual understanding among people that you coexist with of like these things, these, these desires to fight, flee, freeze are just human nature. And when it pops up, let's just go with it a little bit. Yeah. Let's help each other go with it a little bit. Yeah. Oh, well, maybe we'll help our listeners go with it into the rest of their day, but thanks, y'all, for being with us for this conversation. Um, and we'll see you next time on Stance of Curiosity. All right. Thanks, everybody. Take care. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.

Bye. Bye. Bye. Specific concerns or questions related to their personal situation. Stance of Curiosity is produced by Jillian Boudreau and Joelle Van Lent. Our cover art is by Aaron Lanute, and our music is upbeat indie folk by Twin Music. See you next time.