text stringlengths 0 1.05k |
|---|
**Adam Stacoviak:** Yeah. I mean, as soon as you're done with the marathon, you're like "Okay, next one please." Unless, obviously, it took you way longer than it should have, and you're depressed, or your feet are falling off... But the best time to sign up for the next marathon is after the existing one, because you'... |
**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Sure. And if you think about it from even a multidimensional perspective, when you're exercising outside, think of all the sensory data that you're taking in while you're moving your body. |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Well, yeah, you're getting the experience -- well, for one, Vitamin D from the sun, likely, because you'll probably be running the marathon outside... Potentially, in a clouded or overcast day, but you're still getting some rays... You're getting to see a lot of nature, and whenever I get to experie... |
**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Right, but it's all real-time, Adam. All of that sensory information is live, so your brain isn't in fast-forward, like anxiety, about what's to come... And you're not depressed, going "Oh no, what did I do that I still need to do, that I forgot?" You're actually living live, now... And th... |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Being in the present, you mean? Being in the here and now. |
**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Being in the here and now. Our brains are always wanting to hijack us; our emotions sort of move us to the future. Some people would offer than when it comes to mental health, we're really trying to manage aspects of chaos and rigidity. Just like that teeter-totter, too emotional, and I'm ... |
**Adam Stacoviak:** \[24:08\] Coping kind of reminds me of habits in a way, because you have something that sort of cues this emotional charge, the emotion attached to whatever the scenario is and how you deal with it, the coping practices, how you navigate troubled waters, right? Like, that's what coping is. How you r... |
**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Right, and that's why too you might be really skilled in one area, because that cue carries a different emotional charge than a different one. So you could say "Professionally, in my work, I feel incredibly competent and skilled and master, but then I move over here into relationships, and... |
So if it is that I wanna use exercise and that isn't very skilled for me, then I wanna go "Well, what other thing am I more apt to do, or that I would enjoy more?" So you can think about "Do I wanna hang out with my friends? I really wanna be able to go to dinner with them on Friday night." It's like, "Okay... Then wha... |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Right. Kill it doing this, and then as a reward you get fun time with friends. |
**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Right. So I'm also building that dopamine as coming from something else, but I've now linked it into something else that would feel more chaotic or undesirable. |
**Adam Stacoviak:** So what would happen then, if you didn't accomplish said hard thing that day? Would you just go to dinner anyways and feel bummed out, or what would happen? |
**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** I'm so glad you asked... That's an awesome question. This is where really the shift -- we wanna move from being so fixated on outcomes, like "It has to look like A, B or C", to effort. I wanna reinforce and reward the effort, not a particular outcome. |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Okay. So basically if I try, "Okay, pat on the back. You tried. You made an attempt to cope in a manner that is more healthy", rather than give up and not play the game, like we said earlier. |
**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yeah. Have you ever heard of SMART goals? |
**Adam Stacoviak:** It rings a bell, but I'm not familiar. |
**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Whenever we're looking at goals, we want them to be SMART, like an acronym. So is it Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and that there's a time associated with it. |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Right. |
**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** So if I just say I want to get better at X, Y or Z, that's very unspecific. There isn't a time coordinated with it, so I can't necessarily measure the effort I put forth. If it's related to a healthy habit, or something at work that's aversive, it would be that I'm going to spend 15-20 min... |
**Adam Stacoviak:** \[27:48\] I like the focus on the effort, because I think we all try. Sometimes we try harder than other times, sometimes we struggle to try harder etc. but the outcome is always the variable; the effort is always gonna be present, whether it's small or large... And I think we need to give ourselves... |
**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Exactly, Adam. Exactly. I think that as well everybody's evidence of effort is going to look different. |
**Adam Stacoviak:** So it's still a variable. You can't really name or describe what the effort is gonna look like; it's gonna be different for you, it's gonna be different for me... |
**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yeah. This is what I love with watching my son with his soccer team. All of the boys are around the same age, but their level of skill, and even personal strengths and weaknesses, are all varied. As a parent, I've had to practice going "How can I see evidence of his effort?" We have conver... |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Right. |
**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** I'm like "Can you do a maradona?" That's one skill. Can you stay on your feet for X amount of time? I just want him to fall in love with the process of getting better and acquiring things that were hard, because then you learn -- really more of this grit, that goes "I can tether in the pos... |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Yeah. It's also building on something over the long term, too. We often so focus on microwaving results, and actually results take a lot of -- I mean, it's varied, but there could be a lot of time involved, and just incremental... What I like to say "iterative change" or "iterative process." That's ... |
**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** You do. And that's why seeing those small changes repeatedly over time is so huge... Because we don't always see the gains we make without more perspective. So I want to be able to feel good about whatever it is I'm working towards, while I'm working towards it. Not because I hit that expe... |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Since 2006. |
**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Right... So why do you keep doing it? |
**Adam Stacoviak:** I don't know. \[laughter\] I like it, it's fun, I get to meet people... Many reasons. It's now turned into my job, so I kind of have to like it... |
**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** There's an aspect too that pays... And I would offer that part of what pays for you is that experience of learning, because each individual you interview or hear about their story, it makes you more curious. Then you get to interface with all sorts of different people, with different stren... |
**Adam Stacoviak:** In all honesty though, one of my biggest motivators has always been to be a servant... Because there's a lot of things that we've done through our main show (The Changelog) and others to serve the community of the software ecosystem, software developers, anybody in and around the software world - te... |
**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** \[31:59\] Yeah, and so it pays for you to be able to help people struggle less. Because if more people have access to information -- and that's what I would say with this; if I don't know that there's other options for how I navigate my feelings, why would I choose something else? I didn't... |
So this is another thing when it comes to emotions - we can have expectations. And when those expectations go unmet, we're apt to have feelings about those... And going, "That doesn't infer anything about me, my value or my competency." But we're really apt to make meaning of things, because that's how we're designed a... |
Moving right along, other options... This is an interesting one. Have you ever held a piece of ice for an extended period of time? |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Sure. |
**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Right? This is an interesting one-- |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Wasn't sure if it was a trick question or not. |
**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Well, if you get a small piece of ice and allow it to melt in your hand, one - again, it's a process, so it doesn't happen immediately, but it also distracts you away from that internal chatter, or the other overwhelming emotion, while also sort of constricting blood flow. Because when we ... |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Yeah. |
**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Right?! |
**Adam Stacoviak:** It's almost jolting. |
**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yeah. And very unwanted. You're like "I should put this down!" |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Right. |
**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** But if you allow yourself - and I'm not talking a huge piece of ice, but a small piece of ice, and go "Okay, this won't last forever. I just have to ride it." Sooner or later, the ice cube melts and your hand numbs out a little bit. And it then also gives you a file for what it's like to t... |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Right, right, right. Geez, I really wish I could tell myself some of these things whenever I'm at that critical moment of high emotion in a moment, because I think I would tell myself, given that I have rational thought now and not then, in those moments, "Chill out. Chill out, take a break", or "na... |
**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** \[36:02\] Yeah, and that isn't a bad strategy in that sense, but the key different is that you're actually going to come back to the thing or the feeling that's causing the upset, as opposed to just "I'm not gonna deal with it again." |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Right. |
**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** So that's a really important distinction when we're talking about it. |
**Adam Stacoviak:** So maybe not have a deep conversation about something in the heat of the moment. "Let's pause this scenario here. This is important, let's talk about this, but just not right now. Let's talk about it when we're in better places, when we're not in HALT", or whatever it might be. |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.