Episode 4: Community

Welcome, Shrinking America community, to the community episode! We had a running joke that we would just keep mentioning the community episode without ever actually recording it. And then we quickly realized this was a bit of a metaphor. It's much easier to talk about wanting more community, but the real work of building it can be just that…work. In this episode we try to use our own experience in building a community through podcasting to explore the possible roadblocks, the biological and psychological drives that lead us to seek out connection, and even small, actionable steps that can help us move toward creating a community we can all rely on. Full disclosure, this was actually our second time recording the community episode, because the first go-around didn't foster much, well, community. But as a quote from Woody Allen (misattributed to Woody Harrelson in this episode) states: "Eighty percent of success is showing up." So join us as we show up again, while exploring the therapeutic concept of rupture and repair,  to give building community together another shot. We hope you'll feel inspired to connect with us, as well as your fellow Americans, in our ongoing effort to form “a more perfect union." 

Deeper Learning Points

• Atomic Habits
• Bowling Alone "In a groundbreaking book based on vast data, Putnam shows how we have become increasingly disconnected from family, friends, neighbors, and our democratic structures– and how we may reconnect.”
• Loneliness: Human Nature and the Need for Social Connection “John T. Cacioppo’s groundbreaking research topples one of the pillars of modern medicine and psychology: the focus on the individual as the unit of inquiry. By employing brain scans, monitoring blood pressure, and analyzing immune function, he demonstrates the overpowering influence of social context—a factor so strong that it can alter DNA replication."
• Corrective Emotional Experience “A corrective emotional experience occurs when an individual experiences a healthier interaction with a therapist than they did with significant figures in their past, such as parents or caregivers. This shift allows patients to revisit painful emotions in a safe, supportive environment, promoting healing and growth.”
• Exposure Therapy “Exposure therapy is a psychological treatment that was developed to help people confront their fears. When people are fearful of something, they tend to avoid the feared objects, activities or situations. Although this avoidance might help reduce feelings of fear in the short term, over the long term it can make the fear become even worse.”
• Big 5 Personality Traits
• Sex Differences in the Impact of Physical Pain Relievers
  • VANGELISTI, A.L., PENNEBAKER, J.W., BRODY, N. and GUINN, T.D. (2014), Reducing social pain: Sex differences in the impact of physical pain relievers. Pers Relationship, 21: 349-363. 
• Dunbar's Number “The theory of Dunbar’s number holds that we can only really maintain about 150 connections at once. But is the rule true in today’s world of social media?”
• Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari "Homo sapiens rules the world because it is the only animal that can believe in things that exist purely in its own imagination, such as gods, states, money, and human rights. Starting from this provocative idea, Sapiens goes on to retell the history of our species from a completely fresh perspective."
• Social Battery
• Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation (2023) by Dr. Vivek H Murthy 19th and 21st Surgeon General of the United States.
• DBT Interpersonal Effectiveness Skills
• Tribe by Sebastian Junger “We have a strong instinct to belong to small groups defined by clear purpose and understanding--"tribes." This tribal connection has been largely lost in modern society, but regaining it may be the key to our psychological survival.”
• Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

Transcript

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SPEAKER_02 0:00

I'm Sarah. I'm Kyle.

SPEAKER_00 0:03

And I'm Jeremy.

SPEAKER_02 0:04

We're three psychiatrists, military vets, and friends.

SPEAKER_03 0:08

And this is Shrinking America.

SPEAKER_00 0:10

Where we put America on the couch. Well, Shrinking America community, let me be the first to welcome you to the community episode. We had a running joke that we would just keep mentioning the community episode without ever actually recording it. And then we quickly realized this was a bit of a metaphor. It's much easier to talk about wanting more community, but the real work of building it can be just that. Work. In this episode, we try to use our own experience in creating a community through podcasting to explore the possible roadblocks, the biological and psychological drives that lead us to seek out connection, and even small actionable steps that can help us move toward creating a community we can all rely on. Full disclosure, this was actually our second time recording the community episode, because the first go-around didn't foster much, well, community.

Community Dynamics and Challenges

SPEAKER_00 1:01

But as a quote from Woody Allen, misattributed to Woody Harrelson in this episode states 80% of success is showing up. So join us as we show up again while exploring the therapeutic concept of rupture and repair to give building community together another shot. We hope you'll feel inspired to connect with us as well as your fellow Americans in our ongoing effort to form a more perfect union.

SPEAKER_02 1:26

I feel like lead us, Jeremy. Let's do this.

SPEAKER_00 1:29

Let's do this.

SPEAKER_02 1:31

See, there it is. Let's go. Let's get it on. Let's face a girl.

SPEAKER_00 1:35

She's back. Should we make a name for her?

SPEAKER_02 1:41

I know my part, right? The get it fucking done part.

SPEAKER_00 1:47

Pilot said. I mean, uh I did want to bring up so after we did try to um record some of community before. And um, I was dealing with a lot of inadequacy in that because I feel like Kyle's done such a masterful job of like leading um our those sessions that she's done. And I came in with like my book report and um just kind of present, we realized very quickly we just presented way too much information and it wasn't very conversational. So we're trying this again. Um maybe that's part of the toolkit is is uh we try again and shift a little bit and accept that didn't go how we wanted and sit with our inadequacy there. Uh any thoughts there for you too?

SPEAKER_02 2:37

I feel like you noted in that episode how much you had enjoyed doing the research and the learning. And so there's a part of me that's that's like, I don't want you to come with complete inadequacy because there was so much enthusiasm there for sharing information that had inspired you and all the time you had devoted to that. And I agree, we're learning how to strike our balance on w what's too much, what's too little. But I was so excited when you said that, how much time you had spent, how inspirational it had been to do the community research.

SPEAKER_05 3:08

Yeah. It was enjoyable. It is enjoyable.

SPEAKER_03 3:13

Yeah, I love that. I love you, Jeremy. And um Yeah, I mean this is all a learning this I you know being vulnerable about that though too, I think, and having some self-reflection on how do we want it to look and when is it good enough.

SPEAKER_00 3:35

Yeah. Well, and I I thought a lot about uh speaking of community, how do we how do I engage you both to uh think and you know, I think Kyle does this so well, and I'm sure Sarah will, when she's leading one, um just to interact with the material and kind of get going on these, you know, tangential

Engaging with Community

SPEAKER_00 3:58

thought processes that we really hone in in psychiatry and kind of free association. I guess letting someone just start talking and see what connections are are made and in their brain. And so how do we how do we get people in community to interact and talk with us? And um I think that's kind of an interesting meta. Any thoughts there? Because that will come to our toolbox in the end.

SPEAKER_02 4:23

I I don't know if this is a direct answer to your question, but the idea that community has come up in so many of the comments we've gotten about our prequel episodes of people relating to our dynamic, of people reflecting on community in their own lives. I feel like multiple times as we've thought about those first two episodes, that has this has that this has been the episode we've come to and said, Oh, we're gonna hit that. We're gonna talk about community eventually. Um, so it really is forefront of people's minds that um and we also talked about Kyle a lot, like that being a prime value is connection, community, friendship. Um which I think it is for all of us, but you've been the one who's really reiterated that is so core to you. Um Yeah, I think uh we we know there's an absence of it. And I think even those of us who are pretty social and connected with others are struggling in this world to figure out exactly what you're saying, Jeremy. Like how how do we connect? How do we make community? How do we find what we want? We know it when we hear it or see it.

SPEAKER_01 5:22

Um that's a yeah. It's interesting.

SPEAKER_03 5:29

One of my favorite bibliotherapy recommendations hashtag toolkit, if um hashtags are back, I think. Or millennials, it's always uh but James Clear, the author of Atomic Habits, he speaking of newsletters, has a newsletter that I the only one that I actually read of any subscriber things that I have. And just this morning I read, so he always has um quotes in them, which is where I steal my quotes for our board when it says, you know, quote of the day, like feel free to change it or whatever. So I take the initiative more often than not, and um, and a lot of times it's it's quotes from that newsletter. And the one that I read today was, I think it's Mary Kay Ash is her name. I think she must be the founder of Mary Kay Cosmetics. And it said something to the effect, I did not memorize it, but that everyone has a sign on them reading, like, I need attention and I need to feel important or something like that.

Balancing Leadership and Vulnerability

SPEAKER_03 6:40

And and as a leader, to recognize that um, that people want to feel that they matter and that they're being seen. Um, and I think that's a lot of what community when I think about how do we engage our listeners, um feeling like they're a part of something, that that they matter, that their voice matters, you know, I think that is ultimately when I think of a a healthy, thriving community, every person in that community feels like they have a voice that matters. That's an interesting one.

SPEAKER_02 7:15

One I want to come back to VA military. I think we talked about this in the the first community go round of how that's how we formed our little community of three. That's a community is a huge part of military service. So I think Jeremy and I both kind of keyed in on VA as a community. And and so I think we want to come back to that. But you just took on community from like the leader angle or the psychiatrist angle of the one being responsible for the community making. You see people and you figure out how to make them feel valued. And that's that's an interesting paradox that we are all also members of communities who want to be seen. But so much in our lives we've been responsible for being the ones ensuring other people feel that way, whether it's kind of one-on-one clinically, whether it's one with a couple group therapy clinically, whether it's as leaders in the military or in other organizations. So it's interesting. I I feel like I have thoughts and feelings about that, about always being on that, not always being on, but often being on that side of the dynamic.

SPEAKER_00 8:12

Um it makes me honestly think of when I was stationed in Korea. And in in some of these locations, you are the only psychiatrist on that base.

SPEAKER_02 8:22

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 8:22

And so it it was an interesting experience because your patients you're seeing in everyday life on base. And um I don't know, there's almost this idea of psychiatrists as kind of holders of secrets. And so sometimes the patients were very careful on how they wanted to approach you. We spend a lot of time thinking about, and I will have conversations with my patients about if I see you in public, you know, I won't acknowledge you unless you acknowledge me. Um but that that puts me in an interesting space. Like it it being out, you know, in Korea alone was was a fright, frightening experience and wonderful experience for me. But that's isolating for me to not be able to, you know, connect in those ways and and find community, partially because of the work that I'm doing and wanting to be careful about, you know, patients feeling like their information that they're sharing with me is safe.

SPEAKER_02 9:18

Yeah. That's exactly how Aaron described his experience in Korea too. And he was on I think an even smaller base than you. So it was like patients everywhere. He's the only psychiatrist and feeling extremely isolated, not being having kind of one friend who is also a medical provider, and then feeling very out of place in the culture and not having a lot of community to help navigate that. We joke about him having a corrective emotional experience to go back to Korea with some of our friends who are Korean and feel comfortable there and sort of like navigate it in a different way. But he said exactly that same thing about being the psychiatrist who couldn't really interact with anyone in a real way because of his job.

SPEAKER_00 9:56

Well, and to be fair about what a great psychiatrist he is, he made sure I had community when I got there. Um, he set it up for me. So I and I wasn't even fully aware of what he was doing until I got there. And he was like, These people, they're ready for you. They know you, these are gonna be great connections for you. And so I immediately had people to go on hikes with and um all of those just activities that can allow you to start building community and getting to know one another.

SPEAKER_03 10:23

Yeah. I was just gonna mention Sarah, a placeholder for a toolkit synthesis on uh corrective emotional experience. Thank you. Thank you for noting that. Yeah. Um, I had a lot of thoughts on what you guys were saying, but that's that go to go back, Jeremy, to what you were saying about it, it is difficult to sort of hold that role as maybe leader, conversation leader, whatever kind of leader that we're talking about, where you have sort of a mission, you have an outline, you have an agenda, but also you want to allow enough for spontaneity. And and that's part of being a leader too, is like figuring out that how much top-down control you want, um, versus figuring out how to allow some of it people to develop their own roles organically. Um, so, you know, getting always back to the dialectic on that balancing, um, empowering people uh and finding their strengths within a system

Technology's Impact on Connection

SPEAKER_03 11:33

and also directing them enough. And I think that's that's um, I think that was so cool that you were reflecting on that for yourself and how you approached the episode. Um, but you know, I know you as someone who is so in the moment, you know. So it was interesting to experience that too, to sort of and and watch you reflect on your own anxiety with it and and coming in so well informed and having these um papers that you looked up and and did find interesting. But it was, I mean, and just full transparency, uh, because I know you want this kind of feedback too. Like it was um, I guess a bit, I don't know if I have the language, but it was a bit like jarring to me because I hadn't I had no familiarity with that research or like where to go with it, you know? Um and I think was a little bit more we would having this expecting that we would have this style of conversation. So it's interesting.

unknown 12:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:39

Well, this is it's so meta as we're talking about creating our own community here between us three. I I guess I'll just kind of move ahead in some thoughts. You know, as as we're looking at so many people spending so much time with technology, um, it starts to feel like an especially I hear this a lot from Gen Z with COVID and everything. I think there's an anxiety around social interactions because there's there's less practice happening. And this is such an example of that. Like, how do you practice when you enter a situation and you're trying to get people engaged and um and they're just not biting? Yeah. And then, okay, let's come back and try this a different way. You know, how what what's another way to get people engaged and and wanting to be a part of community with me?

SPEAKER_02 13:28

I've also had a number of people older than Gen Z who theoretically have some pre-technology, pre-COVID sort of social framework stuff who have commented independently recently of how overwhelmed, busy, taxed, having their own stuff going on a lot of people in their lives feel. So even people who were in their community and certain people, certainly people who might be new or friends they want might want to make, people they're meeting out in the world. It just it feels to them like people don't have time for the depth of of connection that would be requisite for community. And maybe that's maybe there's a bias there of what people talk about in therapy and the depth they're referring to wanting. Certainly, community can have more superficial aspect, but um it does feel like there are various challenges and I d uh they seem sort of current or recent, like you're saying, since COVID, maybe for for some young people uh in in a currently uh very stressful dynamic in our country right now for a lot of people. Uh are you guys hearing that at all? That people feel a little stymied when they're trying to uh bridge gaps with others.

SPEAKER_00 14:35

Yes. I I and it to me it's it's kind of come back to we're getting a little out of practice with it. How do we interact off of technology? Um I'm even like we're I'm trying to build community here right now, and my computer is sending me alerts. And it it's just like constantly the this technology is constantly vying for our attention and pulling us out of these interactions, conversations. Um that's one piece that I see people really struggling with is now what do I do in real life with someone? You know, we're we're not on Zoom anymore. Uh it's a different experience. And also speak that makes me think of therapy. Uh, we do therapy by video now. We also do therapy in person. We may want to talk about different experiences in that realm.

SPEAKER_03 15:25

Yeah. Um, I was just thinking too, uh speaking of like the different generations experience of this or or their comfort levels with conversation or making new friends. I have found myself really being comforted by and um being drawn to interactions with boomers and older, you know, like people who may not um have technology as strongly integrated in their lives um who are more comfortable just sitting down and having conversations and they feel more present. Um and and then and then it allows me to, I think, as well. So I don't know exactly what that where to go with that, but I think I guess the other thought I had when we're talking about how do we that we're constantly bombarded, right? It I I'm always thinking about the metaphor between media bombardment, tech you know, technology stimulus, how this our brains are just not built for that. It's so hard to set your own boundaries around that. The the dopamine signaling that is happening there um and dysregulating us. And in comparison to what you know, we have evolved to in terms of nutrition and how we were hunter-gatherers, we are designed to, you know, eat as much because we don't know when our next meal is coming. And so now you know, we have 50% or more of the the country is um, I forget what we've changed the language to. It's not, doesn't we don't say obese anymore, whatever it is. Um, you know, we had have that epidemic, and it's interesting to see how it was forecasted, you know, how how um our obesity rates were were gonna keep on the increase. But now we have the GLP1s, which interrupt the GLP1 agonists, like um semaglutide, um rosympic. Yeah.

Emotional Energy and Community Engagement

SPEAKER_03 17:54

Which I'm sure I probably don't even need to give too much background because they're so ubiquitous now. Um, but those interrupt hunger signaling and are a sort of a hijack way of you know regulating ourselves. Uh so we've decided to sort of hijack our brain to adapt to this environment of abundance, of food abundance, well, for many people, not for everyone. Um, and what kind of food is abundant too? It would be a whole other conversation. But same thing for you know, technology and media. I mean, I'll keep coming back to that. Like what how do we regulate ourselves and put guardrails up, knowing the importance of community as social creatures?

SPEAKER_02 18:46

I have many thoughts about nutrition. I I feel like we there's a whole episode there of nutrition and brain and stimulation and not even just what it's um the GLP ones are doing in terms of kind of hacking and allowing us to maintain control, but also what ultra-processed foods do to our brain in terms of our ability to interact and emotionally regulate. I feel like that's a that's a whole thing um and a very interesting one. Uh but I I c I can't how do I tie these things together? I saw uh some people having lunch the other day. We've recently moved to a new area, like two women chatting, and I was like, I can't I don't even want to do that. Um there was something about sitting one on one with with someone else that I was like, uh I I don't have the energy to have that kind of intimate conversation and make new friends. And my mom said yesterday talking on the phone, oh, you're gonna make some new friends in your new area. And I was like, I don't even think I want to because I'm just tired. And part of it was that I could easily identify is the the tiredness that comes from our work, which uh depending on our level of introversion, extroversion, love talking to people, love talking about deep things, but it does take a toll. And that's I think kind of what I was getting to when you made one of your initial comments, Kyle, about us being on the leader side of ensuring other people are looped in and seen and made to feel valuable. And the other thing I think is what you're both referring to is this overstimulation, this constantly on brain, this like, especially for some of us who are more introverted, maybe the level of calm down we need to be able to achieve to

The Emotional Toll of Therapy

SPEAKER_02 20:15

feel safe, to to bridge gaps, to sit down and have a thoughtful conversation. So both of those things, some contribution from our work and how much social energy that takes. And again, for me, because I'm I I think I need a lot of emotional recovery time or something. Um, that's that kind of blocking community even desire, even though objectively I want to make new friends here. Um, and then the idea of this constant stimulation, just like uh it's exhausting. How much bandwidth do I have to then go out and do things with other people? And that'd be really sad, right? Like how how do you, like you said, how do you set limits around technology and constant pop-ups, uh stealing moment by moment, pop-up by pop-up, little bits of your bandwidth. And then we can come back maybe or maybe not to our career and what that does. I don't know if either of you have that experience of feeling like your life outside of work is limited because some of your emotional energy has been expended professionally.

SPEAKER_00 21:11

Yeah, that's interesting. I I, from a community aspect, I feel like I will have a lot of friends and family members that will come to me and and want to talk about um, you know, circumstances

Social Batteries and Emotional Energy

SPEAKER_00 21:22

that they're going through in their lives. And in the beginning, when we were learning therapy a lot in residency, I wanted to practice. And I quickly learned that uh there's probably some boundaries to set there that I need to refer them back to their own therapist first and foremost, because part of what's so powerful in therapy is the perspective of an outside person. And when you're actually in it and you're in relationships with these people, it's really hard to have that perspective. Um I also do find myself getting just emotionally drained at times where it's like, I've I just spent eight hours listening. Listening to people and trying to work through some of their concerns and make plans. And now, you know, I'm finally off the clock and it's still happening. Um it really is a balance to be struck because I also love that I have these skills and am able to offer some insight and help in those realms. But I think it's being mindful about maybe to your point, when I have the emotional bandwidth and the presence to do that. And that may be, you know, on a non-work day that I can say, hey, let's come back to that conversation. I just need some time to think about it or process it, or I'm just not really in a space to discuss that right now.

SPEAKER_03 22:42

Yeah. I just had a couple thoughts to add on to that too. Because I think a a large concept that you're talking about, not necessarily a research psychological concept, but the social battery, basically, to bring us all back to um how close we are to robots. Um but I think and and I do talk with a fair number of my patients too, I I bring in kind of two two concepts because a lot of them are secluding, self-isolating. And I do think a lot of that though is a response to a recalibration of, you know, if you are a leader and if you have many people whose literal lives depend on you and you being competent and you leading them, um, and then you get away from that, like you need a long time to recharge. And you don't want anyone, you don't want to feel responsible for anyone for quite some time. Um and so I sort of just give validation to that. And then also just thinking about, and I think this is an interesting question. I don't know if necessarily this is where we want

The Importance of Community

SPEAKER_03 24:03

to be a focus, but the concepts of introversion versus extroversion and how introverts still do have that need for socialization, but it does look different. Um and just recognizing, okay, it's not black and white. And and how do you still get what you need? And how do you um and we I'm just cognizant of how we referenced this community episode so many times to to hype it up, but the millennial episode, same thing. Like I feel like I as three millennial psychiatrists and military veterans, yeah. I keep coming back to thinking about that our position there as uh we we kind of a lot of us have been conditioned to be people pleasers. Um and saying no to things is tough. So we do get overscheduled, you know, and it's like, okay, how do I invest meaningfully in the relationships that matter? Yeah. Versus um versus yeah, just like not being present for any of it because we've just we're just so tired. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:16

Yeah. That's um Jeremy, I wanna I wanna um I feel like it might be helpful.

SPEAKER_02 25:24

I don't I can't remember all the research you did, but just to like set the frame for why community is so important and why we're dancing around this. Do we have the energy for it? How how much we try to invest in it? Um was there anything useful or sort of snapshots that you think we all know it matters, but from the research you researched?

SPEAKER_00 25:43

This is a good point. So it's it's when the conversation naturally goes to a place of, hey, we're interested in learning more. What is the research saying about this rather than the first time I jumped in with all the research? And as you were saying, Kyle, it's like, what is this? I'm not, I I don't know what this is. Does it where does it fit into this conversation in my life? Before I get there, I did want to touch on just kind of this. I keep saying meta, but this is such a we're building community right now. So I want to be very clear and mindful about that. That it this is very meta for us. And I love that concept of we we keep referencing community. In fact, Kyle, you know, jokingly said this in one of our texts and it just made me laugh that let's just keep referencing community but never actually make the community episode, which goes to show how it's difficult to create community, right? Like it it takes time, it takes concerted effort.

SPEAKER_01 26:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:37

Um and so

Building Community in Modern Times

SPEAKER_00 26:39

yeah, we can talk about community as as many are and the loneliness epidemic that we keep hearing about, but then actually getting down to building community and the work of it. Yeah, it has to be very intentional. In the midst of all that, we've been building community for ourselves by choosing to do this podcast. You know, this was an opportunity for us to connect with each other now weekly, which we weren't doing, you know, as much before. It's a set time for us. It's um uh an endeavor we're all engaged in together. So it allows you know, less vulnerable conversation sometimes uh than what we're actually doing right now on the podcast, but just kind of talking the nuts and bolts of building a podcast, we get to learn together, which is something we all love doing and utilizing our different strengths.

SPEAKER_03 27:30

So well, and Jeremy, yeah. Yeah, just if I can take off of that. I think when my patients who don't remember how to build a community for themselves, how to have a social support, because that's one of the questions, that's one of the things we look at for suicide risk, right? What is our social network? Um do and we it's limited, adequate, poor, you know, whatever. Um and for so many of them, it is lacking. And we have so many conversations about okay, well, what are you interested in? And then how that is your entree is this shared interest. And I think again, when we're talking about that push and pull between having an agenda versus um letting something organically build, this podcast itself was has has been mostly organic. Um and we keep, you know, coming back to okay, let's um build some format around it. And we're doing that too. But I think that is so important is that shared vision. And that is to bring it back to why it's shrinking in America. What is America's vision? Do we feel on the same page at all anymore? And do we feel like we each have any kind of voice or agency? I mean, then that sign around my neck, I matter. I think that's why we felt compelled to do this podcast together and form this community is because uh we were realizing so many people feel like, oh God, I don't have a voice anymore in this country.

SPEAKER_02 29:11

Kyle, I want to high, and I want to highlight your introversion, extroversion um kind of distinction. Because this for an introvert is not a drain because you are two people I feel really close to. We're very aligned. All the things you said, Jeremy, on what we're doing here, what our values are. It's a comfortable space with deep conversation, which for an introvert is like just three of us. I know you guys, there isn't this sort of I have to get to know you, or we're gonna just do small talk and it's gonna be so very interesting to kind of highlight. Whereas for an extrovert, their energy drawing type interactions may be very different or a much broader spectrum of things would be energizing. Um so it is interesting. I don't look at this as a oh my gosh, I worked yesterday, so this is a drain to talk. This is the opposite, but I think that is a really key introvert difference. Um and Jeremy, to your kind of to your point about the challenge of being community and Kyle's yours about the country we're in now. I didn't live back then, but I don't think it was this hard. Two generations ago, three generations ago, maybe even a generation ago. Um I think I brought it up in our previous record of this, but living in a very small state that's

The Impact of Loneliness on Health

SPEAKER_02 30:16

very rural where communities are very tiny. It it gives a feeling of what it used to be like where you just lived in a town and you had ever people knew each other. You had a role. It was sort of built in. People didn't come and go a whole lot for good or for bad. Um but making community didn't have to be this really thoughtful, intentional, uh weighted in some ways process. You just sort of had it. Um and especially in a world that is sped up in a lot of ways, and now oh, you have to add to your plate of accomplishment, like by go make community in your spare time and be really intentional about it and build relationships and like you said, Kyle, overcommit and inevitably fall off and had it's just one more thing now as opposed to I think it used to be much more um integrated into people's lives spontaneously.

SPEAKER_00 31:08

Yeah, I that's making me think of a little bit of getting back to I'll touch on some of the research as it's coming up, but um, sociologists, we mentioned this before, kind of we're looking at the chimpanzees and how their closest, you know, groups are around 20 to 50, and then they would start to split off and form new groups because there it was about that much communication that they could tolerate. And then for humans, they were saying we're probably around 150. And yet we're in this world of social media where, you know, you are aware of people all over the world and their struggles. And um, you know, Sam Harris on his podcast has talked a lot about how do I feel the same empathy for someone, you know, in Africa and their experience and their struggles, and also finding myself feeling a lot of anxiety about their struggles.

SPEAKER_02 32:00

And it feels like there's very little I can do here to help support I think we ID'd last time that military companies, at least in the Army, are often 100 to

The Decline of Social Capital

SPEAKER_02 32:12

200 people. So roughly that number. Uh, and I listened to some, I don't know, like a psych psychiatry education just quick podcast the other day. An older school psychiatrist was talking about patient panel numbers. I have no idea what the average psychiatrist patient panel number is nowadays, but he said 200. And I was like, oh, that's a that's a that's probably about the right number, which is getting to your point. How many people can you remember enough to have a meaningful empathy for? Yeah. Um because I I know I feel my number may be lower than that, but I know when I get to the point practicing where I'm like, I can't remember enough about you to feel connected when you pop in for an appointment, it really causes a lot of anxiety because my job is to have empathy for you and to remember a little about you, kind of like we talked about last time, how much is enough to review the chart. If I can't remember you organically when you when I see your face and I open and read your chart quickly, that there's a lot of anxiety there. Because that's what that's what we do for a living. So interesting that that number is does kind of pop up places.

SPEAKER_00 33:13

What do you all feel like is getting in the way? Uh you've you've referenced getting in the way of forming community. It seems like it might have been easier in prior. I mean, there's so in bowling alone, you know, they uh trying to remember the author for that right now.

SPEAKER_01 33:33

Um I'll look it up for you while you talk.

SPEAKER_00 33:36

Oh, Robert Putnam. That's who it is.

SPEAKER_03 33:38

So that was a 2000 book talking about how Is he an anthropologist, real quick?

SPEAKER_00 33:42

Sorry, I think All I know is Harvard political scientist.

SPEAKER_03 33:47

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 33:49

But he, you know, he really focuses on the decline in social capital, maybe that you're getting at. And he was looking at since the 1960s, kind of a decrease in our involvement in um membership organizations, PTA unions, bullying leagues, as as the book's entitled. We also think about like post-World War II suburbanization as Americans started to move out, owning their own single-family homes, having cars. There's some accounts that Americans move more than um people in other countries and um can isolate ourselves in in that way. Touching on the American dream to own your own home, the white picket fence, it's, you know, it's even that is separating, you know, from community. This is my space. Um, and I think we're also seeing a shift now to where people can't maybe afford homes and starting to see some of the multi-generational living that used to happen. Um, I wonder if that will bring us back to community. Even the place that I live now, there's a lot

The Biological Need for Connection

SPEAKER_00 34:51

of shared parks, but it's smaller. There's shared driveways. People don't have their own um big yard, you know, around their houses because people can't afford that here. I can't. Um, and so now there's a lot more opportunity in some of these spaces to interact with people and create community again.

SPEAKER_03 35:12

Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's that's what's so interesting too when we were talking about the different generations. I I think before there probably was more integrated, more natural systems for community to develop um in the same way that there were natural ways for social skills to be more developed. But um, you know, I I wonder there's a lot of shifts happening, including climate change, including economics that may and and also just our awareness around, and then that's what's so funny about these things too. Like we we analyze these things so much that it almost like creates this anxiety that that the other generations didn't have. They just didn't know have these terms or whatever. Um, but we are thinking about it, we are informed. So then we do have like a new opportunity to be more thoughtful about the communities we can plan and and systems we can build. And I do wonder, you know, especially as our landscapes are going to naturally shift with climate change and everything, too, um, that we can intentionally build better communities, better um food sharing, Sarah, to go back to your point about the importance actually of nutrition and not just nutrition, but food as community, like you were saying as well.

SPEAKER_00 36:42

This is making me think of so it's it's John Cacciopo's work. He was uh the director of the University of Chicago Center for Cognitive and Social Neuroscience. So he's done a lot of work in this realm. He wrote Loneliness, uh, human nature and the need for social connection in 2008. And um he got a lot into yeah, interesting time. He got a lot into um I think what you're getting at there is as far as like how to build community. And one of the pieces was just volunteering, um, finding these ways to do something that's helpful for the community, which creates less social friction for you. Um, and and getting out into a space where you can meet people, but you also are helping them and they can, you know, show their grace for that help that you give them. I will go back and touch on some of the biological aspects, or um, maybe I'll do that right now. Like he, in his work, he showed like increased levels of cortisol when we're feeling lonely. So that's kind of the stress hormone, um, which has had cardiovascular impacts, it affect people's sleep. It also put people psychologically in this hypervigilant state where um

Moral Injury and Community Healing

SPEAKER_00 37:55

they become hyper-aware of social connections and they may have more of this, what we call a negative attribution bias, which is they will interpret neutral stimuli in a social interaction as negative, as maybe an attack on them. They're more likely to view it that way. Oh, yeah. And it was also really interesting, too, that he like found that in in their social interactions, they had less kind of um, it was the ventral striatal pathway, but less dopamine released, less of the reward hormone in their social interactions when they're in that kind of hyperarousal cortisol state. It made me think a lot of our veterans.

SPEAKER_05 38:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:38

And PTSD-related symptoms, isolation there. I guess the last piece I'll say in that biological realm was um a lot of you've all Noah Harari's work in um sapiens, where you know, they were kind of pointing out that that we need these social connections. We did evolutionarily because we have really big brains, big heads. We're very vulnerable from the time we're born for a very long time. And we need that social support in order to survive. We were kind of middle of the food chain for a long time. Um, and it was that social connection that allowed us to survive. So it makes sense that our bodies are sending stress hormones and warning us when we're in this state of loneliness and isolation, uh, because evolutionarily we've been set up that way for survival. And there was even some work at University of Texas where they showed that taking ibuprofen, so uh a pain reliever, could help the pain associated with social rejection. Yeah. Interestingly.

SPEAKER_01 39:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 39:43

We um we shared the so that was you're taking it all the way back to 2008. Bowling alone was what year? 99, you said? I want to say pretty um 2000. Pretty well known book in this realm. But before people were talking about loneliness and disconnection as widely as they are now. 2023, we linked uh the Surgeon General's report on loneliness in our 0.125 episode, because we referenced community and he um, he or his team, I guess I should say. Chapter two, how social connection impacts individual health and well-being. And there are sections on individual health outcomes, survival and mortality, cardiovascular disease, hypertension, diabetes, infectious diseases, cognitive function, depression and anxiety, suicidality and self-harm. So well beyond he he ends with our realm, the sort of mental realm that everyone might jump to thinking, oh, community, it's a mental health thing. No, it's it's a physical health thing. Um and you also noted uh we kind of started on this the idea of military as community. Um, a lot of issues for veterans when they leave. I mean, there's certainly PTSD and suicide issues on active duty, but when people leave the military and they take a big blow to their community, um, what that does for their mental health, the number of people that you hear about who commit suicide soon after leaving the military because of that or maybe not even realizing how supportive that structure was, the relationships were, and why the VA is so important is like this continuing the connection for people to something that will get into probably meaning and values at some point, not only community, but like values-oriented community where you've served, where you have shared some kind of mission. Um, I I don't know that we'll get deep deep into military and veteran stuff today, but I like that you brought that back in. Um yeah.

SPEAKER_03 41:29

I mean, I think yeah, there's there's so much in that mix um uh adjusting from having that whole when we talk about the importance of systems and our cultures actually just having that naturally and and the military is a good form of that for a lot of people. Um, and that's a huge loss. And then figuring out I I do love um trying to help my my patients find volunteering or whatever it may be if they're not going to be working anymore. Um figuring that out for them. We I I love our vocational rehab special specialists who often that's part of what they can do as well. Um, and I was gonna, yeah, I mean, part of that too though, yeah, it's not all PTSD per se, and and what comes with that, but I'm sure we'll have a moral injury episode at one point too. Just the feeling betrayed by society in a lot of ways and that natural pull away, um, you know, and in that cortisol with with interactions, feeling under threat and not trusting. I think that's I mean, that I see so many of my patients when you're talking about that, Jeremy. Um, and then the last thing I was gonna bring into that as you were talking about that is Jeremy, is like and and one of the the best-selling books right now, I think, is Amir Levine's Secure, which is his second book on attachment theory. And people are so interested in that right now because yeah, I think a lot of they can sense that their attachment um systems are getting so dysregulated with what's going on in community in our society right now. Um, and so how to feel more secure with your relationships um when your your attachment system is um you know firing in all sorts of ways. Yeah. Um it's it's a true biological um system, just like our and and very linked, I think, to our fight or flight, you know, hagenergic nervous system.

SPEAKER_02 43:42

I'm glad we're bringing PTSD moral injury. I'm glad we're bringing up the idea of this interconnection between the physical and the mental and the social and like biopsychosocial, how they can't be disconnected. Um and moral injury in particular, like uh Kyle, you can probably talk about this more adeptly, but a lot of the healing around it is. Is community based. It's like, can you be absolved of your sins? Can you be accepted for the things that either you feel like you betrayed or were betrayed by in terms of social norms? One of the therapies for it involves sort of like literally or imaginally like having someone who you respect absolve you, forgive you, walk you through that process of being reaccepted into community despite what you did or in spite of what community did for you. So a lot of moral injury is betrayal by you betraying something or something like your organization betraying you. And it that's all interpersonal based. That's all community-based. So I'm glad that you I'm glad I'm glad that we brought up the biological connections uh with loneliness and isolation and also the social component of healing from certain things that uh are connection-based, I guess I should say.

SPEAKER_00 44:50

It makes me think of Sebastian Younger Younger's book, uh Tribe, where in in you know, part of the aspect he talks about that we evolved in these small interdependent groups and everyone had a role, everyone was needed. In fact, we I think of a lot of um active duty military and vets talking about how their deployments they want, they keep wanting to go back because the connection they felt they're working on something together, the community there was so important to them. And in the book, he gets into talking about how Native American tribes would allow their warriors to speak in front of the entire tribe and talk about their experience and um kind of process it with the tribe. So partially they could understand a little bit about what they went through. And this was some of the treatment for maybe the moral injury as well for veterans now is to allow them to get up and speak in front of a community and talk about their experience. It makes me think of all the data on you know, PTSD research and how the symptoms worsen when you don't talk about it and you hold it in and you isolate.

SPEAKER_02 46:00

That starts to get to sh what shame is, right? Like this thing that you hold in and can't be

Understanding the Draw to Community and Meaning

SPEAKER_02 46:04

can't be shown, can't be shared, and that perpetuates the shame, which is so much part of PTSD. Um also deployment. Weirdly, perversely, a simple environment, an environment where a lot of the the chaos and distractions of modern life it's removed. Like someone cooks your food generally, someone does your laundry generally, you live in a very small space, but you're with your team, you have a mission, you work on it all the time. There's that aspect too that people are like, get me back to that place where I had community, I had purpose. Yeah, there's some terrible things about deployment, especially for certain people, but my life was simple and straightforward. I knew what I was doing, um, which speaks to everything we've been talking about, right? The the the chaos of constant stimulation, running too many directions at once as humans, how that detracts from community. Um yeah, that was always a sad, a sad but totally understandable thing to hear people say when they were coming in for mental health was I just want to go back on deployment. Like, wow.

SPEAKER_03 46:57

I think the movie The Hurt Locker really depicted that well. I'm not sure if you guys saw that. That was my first sort of introduction to that. And it it definitely I remember being so perplexed by it, but all the things you're saying, sir, I think hit it right on the head. And um I was having a conversation with a patient on Friday where he feels very drawn into what's going on in Palestine. He's like a 75-year-old white man, um-ish. Um and he's never been to Palestine. Um, but there's something inherent in their struggle um that he is very drawn to with his past of feeling um unseen in his world growing up. And so he is drawn because he identifies feeling that that the Palestinians throughout history have been sort of displaced, um, not really thought of. And so I think he identifies very strongly with that. And he he and I were talking about um what would it mean? Because he's actually considering going over there and he's really searching for meaning in his life. And yeah, I think that it's so interesting when we we, you know, Freud talked about um the repetition compulsion, right? Where we see people sort of re-traumatize themselves, and and that's kind of what the hurt locker is. It's like, what is that what it is? Is this repetition compulsion? Is it this death wish? And that's kind of what I was talking with this patient about because he he was questioning that. Why do I want to go over here? There's so much risk right now. But it wasn't, even though he's has passive, he's been depressed most of his life, he has passive, you know, uh passive death wish. We realize it's not really that. You're not being looking to be a martyr, you're not um hoping that you'll you'll die out there. He's looking for community. Yeah. He's looking for his voice to matter. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 49:18

Which goes to show people will risk their lives for community. And then we're kind of getting into meaning to do something meaningful. And I do something meaningful with community, that's like the ultimate human um aspiration, I think.

SPEAKER_03 49:30

That um Yes.

SPEAKER_00 49:32

Well, biological and evolutionary drive. Sorry, yes, Kyle said like this.

SPEAKER_03 49:38

And that, and science, Jeremy.

SPEAKER_02 49:41

I I feel like we're reaching maybe our time, but Jeremy, I I can we give

Building Community: Tools and Techniques

SPEAKER_02 49:46

a couple minutes for you to toss in anything that you think like you really covered that you want us to know about. I wanted to go to toolbox.

SPEAKER_01 49:54

I love that.

SPEAKER_03 49:56

Wait a lot, growth. Thank you, Erin.

SPEAKER_02 50:00

He's got so much more for us, guys. He's got so much more.

SPEAKER_00 50:03

We're taking feedback uh from other members of our community. We're learning, we're growing together. Um, we are also trying to build community, and we're thinking very mindfully about that with um how can we better reach and help other people want to be a part of our conversations, learn from them. Um, how can we make sure we're not getting caught up in our psychiatry lingo? It is another language. And remembering that not everybody holds all of that language, and that's okay. Um, and we can talk about it and learn together.

SPEAKER_03 50:37

And that's okay, but that is also kind of a part of the point. The point of this podcast is that this is the lens through which all three of us see the world. And maybe there's something in these lenses that can help us all right now with all of these different shifts and you know, whatever we want to call them challenges in our country right now.

SPEAKER_05 51:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 51:02

And we do want to clarify them for people and help people to use them in a way.

SPEAKER_00 51:08

So we've been touching on toolkit items kind of the whole time, um, as you're alluding to. And where I kind of went with this was okay, what what would be helpful psychological therapeutic aspects to think through as someone's trying to build community, working through the anxiety of getting off technology, getting back out into the world? It does make me think of some of the exposure we do in trauma therapy with uh PTSD and um the isolation that we see there. Uh it made me think a little bit of some of our dialectical behavioral therapy. There's interpersonal effectiveness skills, uh, so the give portion of that in maintaining a relationship, uh, which we've been doing a lot of those today, just in our conversation, being gentle with one another, acting interested, validating what people are saying, having an easy manner as you interact with them, which as we've been getting at the social anxiety might uh make it difficult for you to create community um when you are in kind of more of that anxious space.

SPEAKER_03 52:11

Jeremy, can I flesh that out a little bit more?

SPEAKER_00 52:14

Please.

SPEAKER_03 52:15

Um, so when you're referencing the the dialectical behavioral therapy, um Marsha Lenahan's type of therapy, there are four sections of that. One of them is interpersonal effectiveness skills, and it has a set of actual ways to learn interpersonal effectiveness, effectiveness in your relationships with people that she marches out. And um, this is why, as military psychiatrists, we love acronyms. Um, she has a lot of them. So, in the interpersonal effectiveness skill set, um, the the acronyms are dear man for when you have an objective you're trying to meet, give for when you're trying to maintain a relationship, when that's your priority. So that's what Jeremy just went through was the give acronym. And then uh fast for when you actually want to prioritize your self-respect. If your personal boundaries are being transgressed too much, how to stand up for yourself, and and that's a whole other skill set that I'm sure one episode will get into.

SPEAKER_02 53:22

I'm glad you brought that up though, Kyle, because DBT, we use it for specific things in our field. I often joke, I think everyone should go through DBT in high school because the idea is these skills are not always intuitive. Like if you are lucky, if you have a certain kind of personality, if your parents raised you really well, if whatever. Some people get them very readily, but the idea that she has all of these acronyms and methods, it's okay to have to learn this stuff, to have to figure out, okay, how do I connect with people? How do I set boundaries? Like there's nothing wrong with any of us if some of these things, even in our 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, whatever, don't come naturally. We don't know how to do them.

SPEAKER_03 53:58

Sarah, I'm gonna clip out you saying that we should teach that in school because there's actually a a program in my son's school that is doing that. And I am trying to support it and pump it up as much as I can.

SPEAKER_02 54:14

So I will leave it in so that more schools pick it up. Cause seriously, it's it's 100% agree. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 54:20

It's huge.

SPEAKER_00 54:21

Some this takes me to some other ideas on just creating community. And a lot of this came from Dr. Cacciopo's work from University of Chicago. Um, so one is is rebuilding third spaces. Um that's kind of what I'm talking about about the area that I live in. It makes me think of Europe, but but having some of these spaces where people can rub shoulders and and at a park and um find community cafes, um, finding things that you're interested in, uh doing activities side by side so where you don't have to be quite so vulnerable in the connection. I talk a lot about this with my male patients that sometimes um men have not really been socialized to express emotion quite a bit. We see this a lot in the military. And doing something where they're engaged in some type of work sometimes makes it easier to start opening up and talking about feelings when it's not such that direct um approach. Sarah, you have some thoughts?

SPEAKER_02 55:18

Aaron just had a friend visit. All the people who come visit for Aaron come so they can do manual labor tasks, building our barn, like using heavy equipment. And it's really sweet to see some people are quite emotionally in tune people at baseline, some people are not. But the idea of this bonding that occurs when they're doing things side by side that sometimes results in in really intimate conversations and a deepening of the relationship is is fun to watch. And Kyla gets to the idea you were saying, I love that you brought up volunteering because that gives you a task to do alongside people. You show up and it's not just twiddling your thumbs. It's like, I have a role, I matter here, and I can do this. And that might lift some of the social anxiety. Um, as you're getting to know people, you're kind of being being functional, being important.

SPEAKER_00 56:02

That takes me to also how we use technology now, because in some ways, technology has allowed us to connect more. Um, I think of like the meetup app, those types of things that I'll talk about with patients, but using technology as a bridge. So the the quote was if it doesn't lead to a calendar invite, it doesn't count. Um so it's not just social interaction over the technology, but using the technology to get you to those actual interpersonal connections.

SPEAKER_03 56:30

Yeah. And just to piggyback off what Sarah just said, too. I think when we were talking about the going back the and the the grieving of the loss of the of military community, the warrior ethos kind of comes to mind. And that for for men, that was a an a socially acceptable lens with which to love someone um

Quality Over Quantity in Relationships

SPEAKER_03 56:58

to to experience that bond. Uh um, sorry, uh C.S. Lewis. Yeah, that's who has like the concept of the four loves and talks about that quite a bit. And I do think about that a lot with my patients. I think that is a little bit the the grief process of coming out of the military for a lot of them. It's is they miss that. And then they women, for whatever, you know, social script or or if if it is biology, whatever it is, socialization is important in and of itself. And so it's socially acceptable to go meet up with someone just for coffee. Um, whereas for men, yeah, having an activity to do seems maybe perhaps a bit more socially acceptable or or or biologically wired, whatever, you know. Um both, maybe nature nurture.

SPEAKER_01 57:49

Agreed, both.

SPEAKER_00 57:51

Just kind of a last few thoughts there, too, would be um focusing on quality of friends, not quantity. So we've talked about limited time and feeling, you know, just even emotionally exhausted sometimes just by what's happening on technology, checking social media all the time. Um, so picking a few high-quality friends that you focus in on and um normalizing contact. So it's same time, same place. Make it easy to get over that hump of meeting up with someone, kind of what we're doing, find a reason. So, like a podcast where we're meeting same time, same place, you know, every week, and it gives us an opportunity to create community that way.

SPEAKER_02 58:35

Yeah. Which we might this is probably beyond the scope of this episode, but religion and and Christianity is kind of dominant in our country, but religion does that, right? You have a weekly, certainly, sometimes bi-weekly place where you meet with people, their shared values. I hear a lot of people, I think myself included, think, gosh, I wish I were more religious because that would be an easier way to build community. And it sort of does provide that. When you think about what religion does for us, does provide that social function and makes it easy. Everyone's going to church on Sunday or everyone's going to synagogue or it's kind of built in. Um so that's I'd never thought about that, the kind of the routine.

SPEAKER_00 59:13

I think that was a point in bowling alone, as well as some of those, you know, spaces that are becoming less prevalent as we were seeing a lot of Americans each generation was leaving religion or less involved with religion than their parents were. Interestingly, there's some data coming out now that that is slowing, um, that we're seeing less of a of a move away from religion. And I think a lot of the focus has been, interestingly, on Gen Z, which, you know, maybe a whole nother topic, but having gone through COVID, the social isolation of attending school on online, all of those types of things, and seeing them start to look and growing up with technology, you know, from basically most of their lives, um, seeing them start to move back to these spaces that allow that ritualized community contact. Maybe that's one of the primary reasons that many of them are becoming more interested in religion at this time.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:08

I hear a lot of people say they're not even particularly into it for the God. They're like, well, I'll work on the spiritual part, although spirituality without the structure of some religion is also a thing we'll talk about. But a lot of people are like, I'm not deeply going to church for the, you know, I'm really, really, really super into the dogma, but I need something to provide that spiritual need, that meaning, that community. And this is kind of the one place, like you said, that it's all those things still meet.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:36

Well, and the other one, kind of a parallel for America on on Sundays is our football. Football. Going to the warrior and how to bond as well. Tribal. Um, but also another segue into uh my next activity, speaking of community, uh, is pickleball with one of my good friends. We'll we'll have a pickleball episode. Actually, that's not bad, why has it become so big? Yeah. Phenomenon.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:05

I don't know why it's coming up for me right now, but one thing that uh Dr. Kachiopo said was look for the nourishing relationships. So look for the people, as you're mentioning, who you're going to spend time with pickleball or who we're meeting up with for this podcast. Look for the people that you walk away feeling nourished uh from after the relationship occurs and really focus on and maybe finding ways to invest in those. That's beautiful. Um, setting a time and a place to get together.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:32

That's kind of what you said earlier, Jeremy, about finding yourself doing therapy for people early on and then realizing that's not a nourishing relationship for you necessarily. That's not a balanced relationship. And how do you find relationships that that are balanced enough and go both directions? Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:49

I was um starting to re-watch the show Stuts or the um documentary Stuts. Um, and you guys are if you're familiar with that, uh Jonah Hill's therapist slash he's a psychiatrist, I believe. He has kind of his own tools, actually, is a big concept for him. Um, but one of the things that he does, uh one of his guiding principles is looking for your life force. And speaking of nourishing and and you know, community, I think that is what this it really has become for me. Um, and and why it's it is easy to s start to sustain and build this is because it is so life force invigorating. So just a moment of gratitude for you, you guys for nourishing me.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:37

And hopefully that's something that people feel from us is that like that that energy transmits. I am so much in agreement, Kyle. Thank you for saying that.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:45

Well, and just showing how important it is to express these things in relationship, that that vulnerability is really important

Rupture and Repair: The Importance of Vulnerability

SPEAKER_00 1:02:52

to let people know that they're important to you, that you enjoy spending time with them, that you love them. Um I feel like for me, the root of relationship work all typically comes back to vulnerability. Yeah and how vulnerable are we allowing ourselves to be uh with other people, knowing that we're gonna get hurt sometimes. Like I love uh Tara Brock, she's a a kind of American Buddhist meditation teacher, but she gives the metaphor of we're porcupines, you know, and and the closer porcupines get together, we're bound to prick each other. And the this was in Dr. Cachioppo's work, how do we how do we work through those moments when we do prick each other? Do we come back? Do we talk about them? Do we express our vulnerability there, or do we kind of pull further away into our own silos?

SPEAKER_03 1:03:40

Rupture and repair.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:42

Yeah. Bring us back to America, Jeremy. Bring us back to how do we heal ourselves?

SPEAKER_03 1:03:48

I did want to give a quick plug too, as we're closing, I think. Um we're referencing toolkit items, which are available on our on our website. Um we also do have very in-depth exactly show notes. Um, so not necessarily everything we we bring up will be on the toolkit, but we do have actually hopefully people do go to our show notes because um, especially if you're not necessarily within the field, but we will have um references. And Jeremy, you have dropped a lot of um great bibliotherapy recommendations, I think, on this one. So I'm sure we'll have those references.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:27

Yeah. And I and we'll continue, I think, to explore building our community with shrinking America. Like, is this another metaphor? Is America shrinking? Um do it, I don't know. Do we create more of a community as we find uh people getting closer and closer around us? Like where where does the metaphor for a shrinking America fit into building to the community?

SPEAKER_02 1:04:49

Do we Aaron asks, are you guys too close in terms of your perspectives? Do we bring guests on like we talked about before? I was like, I don't know if anyone wants to be our guest yet, because we have a tiny platform, but eventually do we bring people of different opinions in and try to prick each other in conversation and work through it? And um Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:07

We have a way for people to reach out and send us thoughts. Um can you speak to that a little bit?

SPEAKER_03 1:05:16

Well, and Sarah, I can't I can't not pick up that as much as we're trying to close, but like would people want to come on because we have not want to come on because we have a tiny platform. I mean, so American to like immediately think about how do I how do I capitalize on this versus just have a conversation? No, it's true.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:36

I I'm I'm more like kind of getting to the inadequacy thing and posture of like who would want to come talk to us? We've had 40 listeners. Any of you guys want to come? Like any of you 40 want to be uh um, but I I kind of mean getting to the idea of will ever people who have different opinions who are not, because we we've talked about how we present at different angles on things, but at the end of the day, we do have a lot of overlap. And would it be interesting to have people with Much different life experiences, different perspectives, come on and build community with us in real time in an episode and maybe prick each other and work through differences of opinion and kind of model that. Um, that'd be an interesting like community in real time, which is part of our mission is do we educate? Do we also show vulnerability ourselves? Do we show the dynamic community of us? Do we show how to build community with other people by bringing them in and conversing with them? Um it brings me back to relation to do yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:30

Sorry, Jeremy, you're probably you're probably going where I'm going because we're so aligned.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:35

No, I maybe I feel like I in a community piece. I feel like I'm always off. Like we're like, actually, let's let's come back to where the conversation was. So go where you're going first, and then I'll tell you my thoughts.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:47

Well, I mean, I think that's again, getting to the big idea of the podcast, like America's so divided and um having harder conversations, having conversations with people you don't necessarily align with, like, and then that's okay. And um being able to do that, and then again, enacting the the rupture and repair, which if that's not a toolkit item already, I'm sure it will be.

unknown 1:07:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:16

Something I did want to touch on just before we leave is so it also made me think of acceptance commitment therapy

Closing Thoughts: The Journey of Connection

SPEAKER_00 1:07:21

where you think through your values. And one of those is values and relationships. And um and also back to the dialectical behavior therapy in that it's coming back to what is important in this moment? Is it important to maintain the relationship? Is it important to be right and to get my point across? Um what is my value in the relationship right now? Is it more important to me to show up and connect, or is it more important to me to get my political stance out there and scream at another person about what I'm feeling frustrated about? Which sometimes can be, can be therapeutic as well, uh, if that person's able to take it and willing to listen. It made me think of the quote by Woody, Woody Harrelson. I should probably check this. But it's like most of life, it's this is the general idea is most of life is just about showing up. Like you just keep showing up. And so it's a matter of in in community and connection with somebody else. Yeah, you had a difficult political conversation. Great. Keep showing up. Like keep talking about it. This is therapy. We rupture and repair. We keep showing up every week. We keep talking through it, we figure out what we did. Um, this was this episode for me, you know. Like I didn't feel like I created much of a community the first time I tried to do this. I just talked to you. Um, but we showed up again and we talked through that. And now this, I feel like we got to some really great um viewpoints from everyone. Anyway, thank you all for today. That was, I feel like that was wonderful.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:48

Beautifully done. Yes.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:50

Well done. All right, guys. All right. This podcast is separate from our respective clinical practices and employers. The views expressed are our own and those of our guests and do not represent the views of our employers. We do not endorse the views or statements of our guests. This podcast is for educational, informational, and sometimes entertainment purposes only, and is not a substitute for professional medical care. Nothing in this podcast constitutes medical or mental health advice, diagnosis, or treatment, nor does it establish a doctor-patient relationship. If you are seeking personal medical or mental health care, please consult a qualified health professional. If you are in crisis, including thoughts of suicide, or harming yourself or others, please contact local emergency services or a crisis hotline like 988.