Episode Transcript
[00:00:05] Speaker A: Opinions expressed in this episode are personal. They do not necessarily reflect the views of this streaming platform.
[00:00:15] Speaker B: Good day, everyone, and welcome to another edition of let's be diverse. I am your host, Andrew Stout. This episode is dedicated to all my loved ones who have supported me through this journey. Today I'm talking about something that's interesting. I don't have a lot of knowledge on it, but that's why I want to have this discussion to get a little bit more clarity on it. The topic today is self regulation, and my very special guest today is Trish Tutton. Now, Trish spent years in working cultures where stress and burnout were seemingly the only way to succeed. After suffering a shocking loss, she realized that stress was unavoidable. But it doesn't have to dictate our lives. Trish has spent 15 years studying with world class teachers, practicing mindfulness and learning about the science of well being. As a speaker and mindfulness teacher, Trish has taught the skills to become unshakable and thrive admissed, change and challenge to over 10,000 people across North America. She is passionate about helping folks become more resilient and less stressed with simple but impactful mindfulness techniques. You can find her as a teacher on the number one free meditation app in the world, insight Timer. And she is the author of Mindfulness Morning journals.
The first time I met Trish was one of those conversations where I almost didn't want to put down the phone because some of everything that she was telling me was just golden nuggets. And I was kind of disappointed in myself because I didn't have a pen and paper at the time. I was actually walking outside. But if I had a pen and paper, I probably would have been taking all kinds of notes from what you were saying because she just has super knowledge in many different aspects and she's a super individual, super nice, caring and compassionate. So we're so happy to have her. Welcome to the show. Thank you so much for coming on the show, Trish.
[00:02:27] Speaker A: Thanks so much for having me. I appreciate it. Happy to be here.
[00:02:30] Speaker B: Oh, you're very welcome. How are things with you, Trish? What's going on? What's new? Give us the deets. What's happening? Tell us. Give us everything.
[00:02:39] Speaker A: Well, in this moment, I'm currently looking out my window. We're mid to late March and it's snowing where I am. I'm in Banff National park in Alberta in the Rocky Mountains. We're getting some snow, so I'm looking forward to maybe a few more ski days. And then, honestly, in a couple weeks, I'm headed south with my family. We're going to Jamaica for a nice beach. So I'm ready for some snow and ready for some beach.
[00:03:04] Speaker B: Oh, man, I am all on board for that trip to Jamaica. I feel that's going to be such a great time. I've been myself, and it's such a beautiful. It's so beautiful there.
I love it. I love the culture. I love just everything. The beaches are beautiful, the weather is beautiful, the culture is beautiful. The food is amazing. You know, I jerk chicken and the roti, and my mouth just waters just thinking about it, so.
[00:03:34] Speaker A: Well, maybe offline, you'll have to give me some of your favorite spots.
[00:03:39] Speaker B: Oh, absolutely. For sure. The last time we were there, we actually got. I don't know where you're staying if you're staying in a resort, but we took.
So there are those people that take you on excursions.
[00:03:52] Speaker A: Sure, sure.
[00:03:53] Speaker B: So what we did was we asked the guy to take us to the best spots to eat.
[00:04:00] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:04:00] Speaker B: And he took us. So he took us to a roti hut. He took us for jerk chicken and for roti. So we had everything. We brought it back, and it was just amazing. So as good as you could think it's gonna be. So I would probably say your best bet would be to do that. Just tell them. Say, hey, we wanna get the best food. Oh, we got a jamaican patty as well.
[00:04:24] Speaker A: You gotta get the locals to tell you where to go. Right. If there's anything, you know, my favorite part of traveling, it's probably just trying local food.
[00:04:32] Speaker B: Yeah. And it's just so. So we have a restaurant here where I live in Saskatchewan, and they specialize. And the lady is from Jamaica, so my wife and I do frequent it often. And when we. It's just to die for. Like, you could just tell sometimes when people open up a restaurant like that, it's like, oh, it's a. You know, this. This style food, but they don't really specialize it, so it's okay. But you could just tell, like, she's from there. You walk into there, and it's just got that jamaican atmosphere. They got the music playing, and everybody in there is talking with the jamaican accent, and you just know, like, they know what they're doing.
[00:05:16] Speaker A: For any of your listeners who are used to your show, they might not know, but you've transitioned now. Let's be diverse is about diverse, you know, places to travel to and diverse cultures. So we kind of shifted.
[00:05:28] Speaker B: We did. We did for sure. For sure. So before we begin, I always have a fun, thought provoking question to get things going. Are you ready for yours?
[00:05:41] Speaker A: Oh, sure.
[00:05:42] Speaker B: So your question today is, if you don't have, if you didn't have to work to make money, how would you spend your time and what would you create?
[00:05:54] Speaker A: If I didn't have to work? I mean, honestly, I know this might sound a little cheesy, but I probably still do what I do. I feel really, really grateful to have found a job that aligns with kind of what I feel like is my purpose in the world.
[00:06:12] Speaker B: I love it.
[00:06:13] Speaker A: When I started teaching, which began, really as kind of a hobby, honestly, I was working in not for profit areas. I was doing event planning, and I was trying out yoga and these different things, and I just loved it. I was just. That's what I was not just not being paid money to do it, I was spending money to do it. And it was really just a passion and a hobby. And so I feel really grateful to have really created work that actually I probably would still do if I wasn't being paid for it, because it energizes me and it fills me up. Now, now, not, but, but. And we'll add on to that. And what I might also do in addition to, you know, the work that I do, because I do love it, I would probably spend probably more time outdoors, traveling, doing the things that I love to do, hiking, you know, being in the backcountry here in Banff National park, my husband and friends and I love to camp. So I probably do a lot more of that as well. But, yeah, I'm really fortunate to have found a job that aligns with what I feel is my purpose. And I feel like as I grew up and as I started to enter the working world, I was like, we in the western world spend so much time at work. Right? It really is the majority of the time that we spend. And I thought to myself, I want, if I'm spending most of my time at work, I want it to also be an expression of what I think is most important. Right. I mean, it kind of just made sense to me. I thought, if I'm going to spend most of my time doing it, shouldn't it be something I think is the most important thing? So, yeah, I feel really grateful to have found that. So I would certainly continue to be teaching mindfulness and speaking, and I would balance that out with probably some more adventure, some more outdoor time, some more traveling.
[00:08:09] Speaker B: Right. Well, you know what? I love that answer. You know, I always say to people, when you find something that you're passionate about and you have clarity, then you are, you know, it's so much better for you. So I love that you found something that gives you clarity and passion. And I cannot say there was, there's no wrong answer for that question, but I would probably say that was probably a super answer. I just love it. So thank you so much for having fun with me. It's greatly appreciated. So I know you kind of delved into a little bit, but what I want to know is, or what I'd like for you to do is to tell us a little bit about you, your story, and of course, your why.
[00:08:52] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah, you're right. I kind of, kind of began a little hint at it, so I love it. Yeah. Years and years ago, I sound like I'm really, really old.
I began my career, I was, like I said, I was working in the not for profit sector. That was kind of my first taste of I want my work to be a reflection of what I think is most important. And at that time, what I knew, I didn't know what was most important, but what I knew was it had something to do with having a positive impact in the world. So my first thought was like, okay, I'm going to work for a not for profit, and I'll pick a charity, or not for profit whose mission I really align with. And I worked for several. And, yeah, I had begun, kind of, like I said, in my free time, spending my money on something I found really enjoyable and fulfilling, which was learning about yoga, learning about meditation, learning about mindfulness. And so I was kind of. It was kind of these two parallel tracks. I was building this not for profit career, and I was on the side practicing yoga and meditation and mindfulness. And then I started to do a little bit of teaching. I ended up getting certified to teach. And alongside my kind of 40, maybe more like 60 or 70 hours a week job, I was also teaching a couple of yoga classes each week. And I also was experiencing stressors in life and challenges and difficulties. I was in event coordination for not for profits. And I actually have since learned that an event coordinator is in the top ten most stressful jobs, period.
So now, it's funny, looking back I go, and now I teach people how to manage stress. Maybe there's no coincidence there, but I was so kind of doing this parallel thing, working, experiencing stress, experiencing really for the first time in the beginning of my career, workplace culture, and seeing my friends and my colleagues really struggling with stress and experiencing burnout and starting to notice myself kind of, you know, teetering on the edge of burnout several times, and at the same time realizing that these practices that I was learning through mindfulness and meditation were actually supporting me really incredibly in my stress management. They were helping me to not get to the brink of burnout like I was seeing in my colleagues. And I then, you know, a couple years into that situation, I had. I experienced what I call kind of a clarifying moment. And I think, you know, everybody has these moments in their life, and unfortunately, they're often marked by some sort of loss. And it could be a job loss, or it could be a health scare, or it could be a loss of a loved one. And in my case, that's what it was. My mom had a very, very short battle with breast cancer, and very. We lost her really, really suddenly, and she was only 55. And that really shook me to my core, because up till then, I had believed we're guaranteed to live to 70, 80. We're guaranteed a nice, long life. And that belief was shattered with her sudden loss. And so with that kind of clarity and with these set of tools that are so helpful for stress management and working in this career building, this career where I was noticing everybody just struggling and stressed and burnt out, it was like these pieces of the puzzle went together. And I realized, you know, we might not have as much control over the quantity of our life, right? My mom only got 55 years. Some people get less, some people get more. But what we do have control over is the quality of our lives. And I thought, here I have this thing. I have this mindfulness practice that has such power and really researched based evidence to say it can prevent things like burnout. It can prevent our overwhelm, our stress, our sleepless nights, our irritability, our reactivity, all these really ways in which we suffer when we're stressed. And I just thought to myself, when my mom passed, actually, it was that same year that I was just beginning to teach. And I think also, you know, sometimes there's just these weird coincidences in life. I just started really teaching classes maybe a month before my mom passed. And then it was just this experience of, like, this is what I need to share. This is what I need to do. This is what's meaningful to me. And so that's. Yeah, the rest, I guess, as they say, is history.
[00:13:29] Speaker B: Thank you for sharing that story with me. Now, first off, what your story, as far as your mom, that resonates with me because I lost my mother as well, to leukemia. And it was a very short timeframe. Like, she found out that she had it in, like, November, and then. And this is about five, six years ago, but in November and then the following April, she was. She was gone. So it was very quick.
We thought that everything was gonna be okay, and that. And she was doing her chemo, and everything was good, and she was gone within an instant. So a friend of mine, when their father passed away, way before mine, my mother, I should say, I said to her, sorry to hear about your dad. I understand what you're going through. And she said, andrew, I love you to death, but you don't know what I'm going through. And she says, unfortunately, you're going to feel it. And when my mom passed away, she was the first person that I didn't call anybody else. She was the first person I called. And I said, I remember. I want to tell you. I remember when you told me this, and now I understand what you meant. And so that's the first thing that I wanted to comment on everything, is that you figured it out. So a lot of people get stuck.
They're in a hamster wheel, and they feel like they're stuck in this job, and they don't. They can't get out. They don't feel like they have the schooling or the experience to change position, to change jobs, so they have to. They feel like they have to stick there. So kudos to you. What I want to say for figuring that out, saying, hey, you know, I see people around me suffering. I'm feeling it a little bit. You know, I need to make a change, and I need to do something, and you did it. So kudos to you for figuring that out and actually doing it.
[00:15:27] Speaker A: Still figuring it out day by day.
[00:15:30] Speaker B: We always do. But at least you got out of the. You know, I'd say that the big part, the major part, because I don't. You can always hear the way somebody's speaking, and you can always tell when they're so happy, even if they're on the phone, you can always hear the smile and the passion in their voice. And I know in our phone conversations, I've heard it, and I can almost feel you smiling on the other end of the phone, and that's because you have a passion for what you do, and that's super, super important.
[00:16:00] Speaker A: Yeah. I'm very grateful.
[00:16:02] Speaker B: So today's conversation, I'm anxious to hear your thoughts on this area. I've been thinking about this since we booked it, actually.
The conversation is on self regulation.
So what I want to know is, what is self regulation?
[00:16:18] Speaker A: Yeah. So, as a mindfulness teacher, you know, one of the things. Kind of a little peek behind the door for your listeners. As a business owner, one of the things I'm tasked with is proving my value to the people who hire me, which in general is, you know, conference organizers hiring speakers or HR folks hiring speakers or trainers or, you know, looking to do workplace wellness programming. And when I just tell people I teach mindfulness, that doesn't tell them the value I bring. Right. They just go, well, why do we need that? So really, self regulation is one of the skills, one of the benefits of mindfulness. And I'll go into more depth about what it is. But essentially, you know, there's so many challenges that folks and teams at work have, and so many of them can be chalked up to people being what we'd call regulated, which is really just a fancy way of saying that your nervous system is stressed. Okay? So the, you know, think about all the repercussions and all the negative side effects you experience when you're stressed. Well, first, maybe you try to fall asleep and you can't because your mind is spinning and worrying and wondering and what ifing. Okay, so then you get a bad night's sleep. You wake up in the morning and you're cranky immediately, and you're irritable. And first, maybe it's with the person you live with or the people you live with or your family or your roommates or whomever. And then you didn't get enough sleep, and you're tired and you're cranky, and then you spill your coffee, and now you're more irritable, and then you get to work, and now you have to interact with clients and you're irritable and you have to try to get through, you know, and then you've got an email from someone and it's bad news about a project you're working on, and then you're even more upset. And then you're tasked with going to a meeting and trying to solve this big problem that's going costing your company lots of money. And you're tired. Remember, you didn't sleep, so your nervous system is in that kind of stressed out state. You actually don't really have access to the part of your brain that is good at problem solving, at being creative, at coming up with those solutions for that problem, right? Then you're so tired that you just think, oh, God, I need a fifth cup of coffee right now. So you see where this is going. It's a domino effect, right? You don't have the energy maybe to take care of yourself, to do that meal plan you thought you were going to do. You wanted to make that food that would really nourish you and energize you. You don't. So you, who knows, get something for lunch. That kind of, it gives you a little boost. But then you crash in the afternoon. Now you need more coffee, more sugar, and it goes on and on. And then that night you have another bad sleep because you drank too much coffee. And we all know, many of us know, what it's like to be on that hamster wheel of stress. So again, the fancy word I'm using for that is dysregulation. It's a nervous system state. The power of what I teach mindfulness is that it helps us do the opposite. It helps us self regulate. So now I'll kind of go into what that is. So there's a couple different kinds of self regulation.
One, there's behavioral self regulation, which is basically just your ability to act, to implement behaviors that are actually having your long term interest, your best interest in mind, right. And they're consistent with your values, with what you care about. It's the ability for us to either behave one way or behave in another way. Right. So maybe eat the meal that we know is going to make us feel good and nourish us instead of eat the meal that we're going to just feel really crappy after. Or it's our ability to, you know, decide to take the behavior and go for the long walk after work instead of just sit and scroll on our phone. Okay, so if you have ever. Really good example is like, if you've ever dreaded doing some exercise. I think we all have dreaded doing our exercise. I'm already dreading my personal exercise tomorrow morning. So we've all been there. If you've ever dreaded it, but you've actually done the exercise anyway, that's behavioral regulation.
You're choosing your best long term interests in mind. Then we also have emotional self regulation, which involves having an influence over your emotions. So if you've ever talked yourself out of a bad mood, if you've ever calmed yourself down when you're really angry, really frustrated, that is effective emotional regulation.
[00:20:56] Speaker B: I love the difference between the two. So the one thing that it makes me think of is years ago I was working for a company and they wanted us to read a book called happiness is a choice. And I've heard people say this a lot that you can choose how you want to be for that day. So, for example, like you said, if you wake up, you're tired. Well, you can choose to be miserable or you can choose to say, well, I'm gonna be happy. So if you are in a miserable mood, can we actually do that? Like, can we actually just instantly change our moods? Like, for example, let's just say you get into, you know, or another example, you, you talk about your partner, you. I get up and you're getting ready for work and you have a, you know, a spot with your partner, and then you're going to work. Well, right. You can't just turn off your emotion. You're going to be like, thinking of that, like, most of the morning, probably because it's, you're, you're annoyed. So can we actually change our. Because it seems that you're talking about the different types of self regulation before. Yeah, can we change it?
[00:22:12] Speaker A: Yeah, I would say. I mean, yes and no, right? And I would actually say they're intricately connected, you know, behavioral and emotional. Okay, so let's go back to that example of, like, losing a night's sleep, right? And then you're really cranky and you've got some kind of, like, frustration, you know, some of those emotions, but it's probably due to the fact that you didn't really get a great sleep and then some other things might have occurred. So can you just choose to flip a switch and feel a different way? No, but I, you might that day be able to say to yourself, okay, I'm gonna display some behavioral regulation and I'm going to plan tonight to do a few things to get a better sleep. Right yet tomorrow I feel better now, I can also, in the moment, make choices to focus on certain things rather than others. I could make a choice to notice. This is another really big benefit of mindfulness. I could make a choice that day to notice, wow, I got a really crappy sleep. And now my mind can't stop dwelling, can't stop thinking about that conversation I had with my partner, that little, that little, you know, tiff we got into. I can, with mindfulness, choose to notice, wow, my, I can't even focus on my work because I keep thinking about this. I'm going to do my best. And this is the skill that we train with mindfulness is we train a mind being in the present moment instead of wandering back to 08:00 a.m. this morning when I had that little spat with my partner. So in a way, we can, we can kind of do a few things there we can notice. Wow. My mind keeps wandering. I'm going to practice my mindfulness and keep my mind in the present moment on the task I'm doing, knowing that tonight, the next time I see my partner, maybe we should have a conversation about this, both coming from a nice, calm, centered place. Maybe I get to work. I notice my stress level is all like, I'm dysregulated, my heart's racing, my jaws clenching. I'm, you know, wearing my shoulders as earrings. I'm so tense. Maybe in that moment it's not a choice just to say I'm not going to feel this way anymore. But it could be a choice to take an action, like a simple breathing practice, a mindfulness practice to remove the shoulders from the ears, to regulate the heartbeat, to regulate our nervous system. Then so I can actually show up to my work, I can pay attention, I can do my work later tonight. I can then talk to my spouse from that calm, centered place and we can figure our stuff out. And then I can go and do something that's really going to keep regulating my nervous system, calming me down. So guessd what? Now I put my head on my pillow at night. Now I can fall asleep. Then I wake up tomorrow morning. Now I'm in such a better place because I've done a few things. I've done a bit of emotional regulation and I've done some behavioral regulation.
[00:25:06] Speaker B: So I want to ask you this, though. So, like, for example, in a work setting, okay, so let's just say we'll go with the scenario. We haven't had a lot of sleep, we're tired, we get into work, you had a spot with our partner, we're in a bad mood. Can we decide? Like, for example, if your coworker says something to you that you wouldn't normally like, but can we decide? Okay, I'm gonna use my behavioral self regulation and I'm going to, and I'm going to decide.
At this point, I don't want to say anything because I don't want to start something. Can we do that?
[00:25:50] Speaker A: Yes, you absolutely can. This is literally one of the things that I teach people in my workplace training programs. One of the things I teach, I call it turning a reaction into a response. Okay? If you want to know or understand what a reaction is, a reaction often comes from when we are in that dysregulated state. We're irritable, we're angry, we're frustrated, we're just, you know, it's like we're wearing a coat that's five sizes too small.
[00:26:18] Speaker B: Right.
[00:26:18] Speaker A: It's uncomfortable, we're uncomfortable, we're angry, maybe. And a reaction usually, again, comes from that tense place. It usually comes really, really fast. Right. It would be like, Andrew, if you said something to me and then I just jumped on the back of it. And, you know, it's probably aggressive, too. That's usually what a reaction is. And a reaction is usually because we're kind of just running on autopilot, right? So I teach people a really simple tool, and this is one of, I probably have hundreds of tools I teach people. It's a simple tool to actually do both of the things we just talked about. It self regulates your emotions. First of all, it helps you to go from a ten out of ten of, I'm angry, I'm stressed, I'm irritable, it helps you to bring that down a little bit. That's the first couple steps of this technique I teach. Then it teaches you how to regulate your behavior and actually respond to the situation in a way that is hopefully going to have the most positive benefit for you, for the other person involved, for the other people in the office, for anyone else who interacts with either of you that day.
And it helps you to turn what could be a really harmful reaction. Because think about it. Let's even take it out of the workplace. You're driving on the highway. We've all seen this is called road rage. A reaction on the highway is called road rage.
It's tense, it's aggressive, it's quick, right? That's a reaction. It's someone slamming on their horn, yelling out the window. That is a negative situation in that it's not constructive, it's not helping anything when somebody does that when you're on the highway, right. And not only is it not helpful in that situation, it probably could have a negative ripple effect because now probably both of those drivers involved, or maybe multiple more than that, now they're tense, dysregulated, their nervous system is stressed. Who knows where they're going to? Maybe they're going to pick their kid up and maybe their kid had a rough day, and now they pick their kid up and then they yell at their kid because they're tense from that road rage. And. Or maybe they're, who knows, right? It has this ripple effect. So, yes, short answer to your question is yes. Long answer is there are tools. We can practice our brain, if you've ever heard of neuroplasticity, our brain actually responds and it learns and it can change habits. We think, oh, I'm just an angry person. I'm just reactive. I just am really heated behind the wheel and I can't help butt honk and scream at somebody. It's not true. You can change the way you react and the way you act in situation. It does take training, right? But just like we might lift a weight that again, I'm going to do this tomorrow morning. I'm going to do my exercise and this muscle is going to get stronger. You can strengthen the connections in your brain that are going to help you respond constructively to a stressful moment instead of react and then go into a shame spiral that night going, oh, my God, why did I act that way? I'm so embarrassed.
[00:29:28] Speaker B: Right. So my question to you here is quite simply, why do you think people don't do this more, especially in a workplace setting, why do people like, instead of getting into like, heated arguments, and it may not even be an argument with their partner, but just whatever, they didn't like what they said or that person is behind, so they have to cover for them, why do you think people don't do it?
[00:29:58] Speaker A: Such a good question. If I have learned anything about human beings, it's that I think we are all motivated by basically the same desire. It's a very simple desire, and it is to be happy. We all just want to be happy. So then that adds another layer. Why the heck are we doing this? This isn't going to create happiness. Why are, why? We just all want to be happy. You know, when I think about your question, it really just occurs to me that people don't know how. They don't know how.
[00:30:31] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:30:32] Speaker A: You know, I know for me, and everybody's different. Everybody has grown up in a different family of origin and a different my family. And I love my family, but they didn't teach me how to regulate my emotions. They didn't teach me that I could feel an emotion. I could feel anger, but I don't necessarily have to act on it in a way that's going to hurt other people, hurt me, you know, have a negative consequence. I didn't learn that, you know, I didn't learn that until, and as I understand it, I don't have kids, but as I understand it, stuff is starting to make its way into schools, which I think is so important. My best friend in the world has, she's a teacher and she tells me it's showing up in schools, which I think is so important.
[00:31:18] Speaker B: It's amazing.
[00:31:19] Speaker A: I really like to be generous in my assumption of people, and I think if people knew how, Andrew, they would, because what I know now, knowing how to do this myself, again, I'm not, you know, I'm not perfect. I do it. I do it a lot. I don't do it all the time. Sometimes I still mess up. We're only human. But what I know is once I learned these skills, the amount of stress and suffering I had just dropped so dramatically, it improved my relationships. It improved literally every aspect of my life. So I just think people don't know how. They don't have the tools, because if they did, again, that basic desire, we all want to be happy. This is a helpful tool to increasing our happiness and our fulfillment in life. And I really believe that if people know the tools and learn the tools, they would use them and that they just don't know how yet, which is hi, where I come in.
[00:32:14] Speaker B: So, I mean, maybe I'm asking or thinking too much, but I mean, I'm thinking, like you said, it's, you know, it's not taught in schools. And I know you go to a lot of companies, and I feel that more and more companies should probably be having somebody come in and talking about this so that leaders can learn to do this so that if, for example, somebody. No two co workers are having it out and you want to, you know, you say you're a leader, you grab one of them, not because you're trying to pick or pick on one of them, but you grab one of them to have a conversation, what's the going on? What's happening? And they tell them what's going on. If they had the training to say, listen, you have the opportunity to change your behavior here. You know, here's what you can be doing and explain to them what they could be doing or which directions that they could go.
I feel like that would, a, help out a lot of organizations, and b, I feel like instead of the leader, like, jumping on them and saying, you two guys cut it out, instead of having, you know, like, having a conversation with them and, you know, explaining this to them, I think there would be a lot more trust and respect for that leader by taking the time to not chastise the person, but, you know, help them to deal with it a little bit better by using that technique.
[00:33:40] Speaker A: And you know what, Andrew? It's actually even simpler than that, because when a leader shows up to work, like, just, you know, for your listeners, like, picture. Picture two different bosses you've ever had before. Right, right. And, like, picture them both in a crisis moment at work, right? One maybe you've had before, it was really calm and really reassuring to you and your team in the face of this crisis. And that leader was probably still feeling that same intensity. You know, they're the leader. In fact, they're probably feeling it the most. If you're in crisis mode. They were probably feeling maybe emotions like fear or anxiety. But they, if they're showing up to their team calm and reassuring, they've probably self regulated. So they're not acting impulsively on their emotions or their stress. They're acting intentionally based on choice. Maybe you've also had another leader who in times of crisis is high strung, is irritable, is reactive, taking actions again, behaving in ways that are fueled by their stress and their emotions. And, you know, if you've had a leader like that, it adds even more stress to an already tense situation. Now, the interesting thing is because of an effect called the mirror neuron effect, it's the reason why if I yawn right now, I might because it's getting close to my bedtime. If I yawned right now, Andrew, who's also seeing me, he would probably yawn. That's the mirror neuron effect. Okay. It means that more than just germs are contagious. For us, yawn is contagious. My, you mentioned we had spoken on the phone before, and, you know, you were, you could see, hear that I was smiling. You could hear our emotions are contagious. So what that means is if your leader in a time of crisis has self regulated, they show up calm and reassuring. Guess how the team is going to feel? They're more likely to feel calm and reassured and confident that they can navigate that challenge. And the mirror neuron effect is going to do the same for the reactive, tense, irritable boss that's leading their team, it's going to have a negative ripple effect. So, yes, you're right. A leader helping to maybe direct their team about how they can do this is helpful, but purely, even the leader showing up in that state is going to have a positive contagion out to their team.
[00:36:16] Speaker B: So I have a story, I think, that kind of goes along with this. I have someone that I know, um, years ago, was working for a company. She was having, uh, realizing that she was, uh, that something was not right. She feels like, I don't know if she felt. She didn't know. She felt like she was burnt out. She didn't know she was suffering from, um, mental health. She didn't know what was going on. But she knew something wasn't right. So she had two leaders. The first leader she went to, she told them, I, you know, I just, I don't know what it is, but I just don't feel right, and I'm not sure what to do. What have you. So this first leader told her, listen, I'm not sure what it is. Why don't you go take five minutes, basically telling them to just basically go walk it off. Like, if they hurt their ankle, go walk, go walk it off, take a time out, come back, and you'll be fine. The second leader she went to talk to, she went to go talk to another, the other leader, and I, she told him exactly what she told the first one.
And he said to her, what do you need from me? Do you need me to listen?
[00:37:21] Speaker A: How can I help?
[00:37:22] Speaker B: Do you need a shoulder to cry on? Do you need me to take you home? Do you need me to take you somewhere? What do you need from me? Tell me. Tell me what you need from me and I'm going to do it. So I'm just thinking like this. You know, there are two different people.
They both chose their own behaviors of how they're going to react to situations. And it's the same company. They both work together. One handled or their behavior was one way and the other one's behavior was another way. Interesting.
[00:37:54] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And, you know, that stuff kind of comes down to as well, like a leader's self awareness. Like, if a leader has gone through burnout, if they know that sometimes the toll of stress is really high on us, and guess what? We're not machines. We can't just push through. And sometimes a five minute break isn't enough, that leader's self awareness, you know, can help them to make that decision, to be like, yeah, what, you know, check in, what do you need? But if the leader just kind of pushes through and never takes breaks and never, you know, works 12 hours, 16 hours, days and seven days a week, and never, they're never going to give that opportunity or that option to their staff member either. Right. So that self awareness pieces is really powerful, too, to know that sometimes people need a little more than just a quick timeout.
[00:38:43] Speaker B: Right. For sure. So when you're dealing with people, when you're, and you're having your courses, when you're doing that, what's the, what's the number one things that you tell people how to deal with these situations? What's the, you know, I know you said there's two different types, but what's that? What's the number one thing that you tell them how to deal with that to get them through that situation? What's the number one things?
[00:39:06] Speaker A: Yeah, I think, you know, self regulation comes down to self awareness, right? So what we're regulating, again, is our behavior and our stress and our nervous system. Well, we can't know to actually regulate unless we know that our stress is mounting and that we're getting. Right. Kind of like you only know how to take care of your vehicle because your vehicle has gauges. And you go into your vehicle and you look at your gauges. Is my gas low? Oh, I need to fill up because I've got a big drive coming up. Right.
Looking at the gauge in your vehicle or looking at the sticker that the, you know, the mechanics put in and say you need an oil change at xxx, you know, number of kilometers, that's equivalent to self awareness, to being able to look like, quote, I'm using a air quotes to like, look inside of ourselves and go, hmm, what do I need? Where am I a little low? Where is my, you know, where is stress kind of starting to mount and really starting to kind of wear away at my well being? Or do I have something really stressful coming up that I should actually probably maybe proactively care for? So, as a mindfulness teacher, that's the modality that I am, you know, that I study and that I teach and that I'm an expert in the practice of mindfulness. Any techniques, and there's many, are all encouraging our mind to be in the present moment. And we might be like, mind in the present? Well, yeah. Where else would your mind be? Well, thinking of things from the past, worrying about things in the future, and that mental habit is often quite stressful. We know that two thirds of the times your mind wanders from the future, you're either dwelling negatively on something from the past or you're worrying negatively about something in the future. And that's just putting your nervous system in that dysregulated state. Those worries, those fears, those anxieties, mounting, mounting, mounting. So I would say the main skill that mindfulness teaches is the ability to be self aware. How often am I thinking all those thoughts that are cranking my anxiety up to a ten? How often is my mind somewhere other than the present moment? How often am I feeling myself wear my shoulders as earrings? How often am I grinding my teeth while I'm working and clenching my teeth? And how often am I experiencing tension headaches, maybe, or sleepless nights? Right. Because that knowledge piece is really so important. We have to know before we take action. We have to know. Oh, I'm feeling stress. The stress is mounting. Or that I need to take some proactive steps. Right. If we just never change our oil until our car breaks down. Well, there's burnout. Right. So the ability to practice that self awareness piece, powerful.
[00:42:05] Speaker B: So, yeah. So having, you know, instead of, you know, letting it from what I'm understanding, instead of letting it, you know, fester, trying to be, like, more self aware of the, like you said, the present. Oh, my God, this is what's happening. This is how I'm feeling. Okay. What do I need to do to fix it instead of letting it go is what I'm getting.
[00:42:27] Speaker A: Yeah, that's right. Or even just noticing the self awareness to go, hmm. You know, this last month has been a really intense one at work. We had that big project, that big client, and I have been irritable.
I have not been pleasant to work with or live with. What can I do again to emotionally regulate myself so that, yes, I'm going to have those feelings. I am going to be irritable. Of course we're going to be irritable. Life is hard. Work is hard. But what can I do to reduce my irritability? Can I do some breathing techniques? Can I do some mindfulness techniques? Do I need to go back to that really relaxing yoga class I used to go to ten years ago and I felt so good, and I haven't been going because I've been so busy. Do I need to make time for something I'm passionate about? Oh, I used to love reading books about, I don't know, whatever. Right. And I don't do that anymore. And that really gave me a sense of. Brought me a sense of joy. Do I need to. I used to. I'm just making these things up, but maybe you used to play guitar and that was something that brought you a lot of joy and relaxed you. Do I need to get that out and start doing that and maybe that will make me less irritable because at the end of the day, you know, I always come back to this motivator of this loss of my mom. Listen, life. Life is short and it's so precious. Do we want to spend our life irritated, reactive, frustrated at. Is it worth it? No. Absolutely. To me, no.
So that awareness. No. When we're in those states that we need something to help us manage, really.
[00:44:08] Speaker B: Right. I love that. I love all of that. It's such a great topic, and it makes you kind of think about things a little bit differently. And you probably were thinking that way before, but, you know, you're just kind of like, hmm, you know, maybe I should kind of look at things a little bit differently.
[00:44:27] Speaker A: I think what you're pointing to is this, in the busyness of the modern life we live in, it is so easy. So easy. And so many people do it for their whole life. It is so easy to get caught up in the minutiae.
Oh, what's the task I need to do tomorrow? Oh, the laundry. Oh, the kids lunches. Oh, and then soccer. And then, oh, I gotta get those groceries, and then I gotta do this. And every day becomes like a slog living life. And I think what you're pointing to and what I try to encourage in people is to, like, pause, stop for a moment and zoom out.
Zoom out of your life. Right? If the last six months has led you to burnout and you just feel like you're on a hamster wheel and you're always irritated and you're not sleeping and you're not eating, and your body feels like crap and your mind feels like crap and your heart feels like, is that worth it?
[00:45:21] Speaker B: No.
[00:45:22] Speaker A: No. Right? So it's that kind of 10,000 foot view of, like, what really matters, what's really important. And it's not to say we won't all get into those points where we are stressed and it's totally human of us, but we don't want to let it dictate our life. And that, to me, for myself, and I know, honestly, millions of people around the world who practice mindfulness, that's the power of it for us, is that it's this tool to be able to calm ourselves, to regulate ourselves so that we can show up to our life the way we want to in a way that we're not going to look back and regret. Why did I spend all that time so tense?
[00:46:01] Speaker B: No kidding. No kidding.
If you could choose one word to describe yourself, what word would that be?
[00:46:11] Speaker A: So if your listeners don't know, Andrew sends these questions in advance, except for the sneaky one at the beginning, but he sends them in advance. And I was, like, thinking and thinking and thinking.
And I think, you know, it's really hard to describe yourself. But what I came to was this, the word that I tried to align myself with consciously and that I hope people would describe me as.
It's like my idealistic version. The word that I would want to be aligned with and that I do my best to align myself with is intentional. I think. And it just comes back to, you know, my experience of loss. It's like if we don't know how long we get, it means every moment we do have really matters. And again, I think in the rush of busy modern life, we forget that, right? There's so many moments that we're like. We rush through our life. We're trying to get rid of the moments as quickly as possible. And then we get to a moment, and then we're like, oh, now what? Oh, would this moment go by faster? Because now I got to get to the next moment. We forget that our life, you know, even the word, we use the word life, and it's like a tiny little four letter word for this big, big, big, huge jumbo thing.
But what your life actually is, is just a series of moments. Yeah. And that, to me, is why mindfulness is so powerful, because it reminds us of that. It's like, remember this moment matters. Be here. Be here. Instead of being in the past and being in the future can't change the past. Who the heck knows what's gonna happen in the future? We all learned that during the pandemic. Who even knows? All you can count on, the only place your life really is is right here, right now. So to me, I wanna really align myself with using my time intentionally, not looking back and going, what the heck was I even doing? Because I wasn't paying enough attention.
You know, I think people, and I've been in this situation, too, before, where years go by and you're just, you're in it, and then all of a sudden you go, how did I end up here?
Right? Have you ever met people like that or had that experience? I have so much in working experiences. It's like people go like, oh, man, I don't know. I just started working this job, and then all of a sudden I looked up and, like 40 years went by, and it's like, that hits a me.
[00:48:42] Speaker B: Sure does.
[00:48:44] Speaker A: And it's like, I want. I don't want to live that way. I don't want to get to the end. Whether that's tomorrow, next week, five years from now, 50 years from now, I don't want to get to the end and go, what the heck was I doing? I wasn't paying attention. I wasn't making any choices. I was just on autopilot.
[00:49:00] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:49:00] Speaker A: So intentional is my word.
[00:49:03] Speaker B: So I love that word for you. I think that's a super word for you. I think that fits a t of who you are. A word that I would pick for you. As well, is powerful. And the reason, the reason why I say powerful is because I mentioned earlier, we've had several conversations over the phone and several conversations back and forth. And the conversation, the memories of the conversations that I've had with you were powerful because just the way your words were so intentional and you just have a way of soothing somebody and making them feel good. So I just say that that word would be, the word powerful would be one that I would pick for you as well.
[00:49:55] Speaker A: Thank you. I received that. I'm going to receive that. I will not forget that anytime soon. Soon.
[00:50:00] Speaker B: Well, I hope not, because I really feel like it's, it's that word for sure.
I want to take the time to thank you for coming on. I really feel like this was such a great conversation. I feel like it went really well. It was so fun. And I think there's so many golden nuggets that you put forth for our listeners. So I really want to take the time to thank you for coming on. You're such a genuine, compassionate individual, and I appreciate you for you and I appreciate you taking the time for us today.
[00:50:35] Speaker A: Thank you. I appreciate you hosting me as a guest. You know, this is one of the ways that helps me to get my, my message. The teachings of mindfulness, which are not, not mine. They're, you know, they're universal. They're everybody's. But it's what helps me share my message and that really helps me stay aligned with, with my purpose. So I appreciate the platform and the invitation.
[00:50:56] Speaker B: You're very welcome. You can come back anytime you want. You're welcome anytime.
[00:51:00] Speaker A: Love it.
[00:51:01] Speaker B: On behalf of myself and my guest, Trisha would like to thank you all for listening today. And until next time, everybody be safe. And remember that if we all work together, we can accomplish anything.
[00:51:19] Speaker A: You have been listening to let's be diverse with Andrew Stout. To stay up to date with future content, hit subscribe.
