Pathways to Inner Strength Finding Balance with Compassionate Inquiry

Ever wondered how your childhood experiences influence your resilience today? We tackle the tough questions, looking at how modern pressures may have left us feeling 'abandoned' and how trauma disconnects us from our true selves. But there's hope – through stories of suffering, growth, and the healing process, we uncover the silver linings that lead to emotional well-being. Grief isn't just a painful emotion to endure; it's a stepping stone on the path to a wiser, more resilient you. Let's explore together how personal accountability can lead to an authentic, fulfilling life, even when the past has been less than perfect.

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Transcript

Cleveland Oakes 0:02

This is.

Lindsay Oakes 0:02

Cleveland. This is Lindsay.

Cleveland Oakes 0:04

And this is another episode of the Devil, you Don't Know. So for those of us who regularly listen to the show and thank you very much for your patronage and listening to us each week we decided to take a week off last week just because things were busy, but we are back. Baby, and even though Lindsay is kind of frustrated this morning because having kids at any age is frustrating, today's topic we decided to talk about resiliency and we're going to talk a little bit about it from the teachings of Dr Gabor Mate, which is Lindsay is currently taking compassionate inquiry. So, lindsay, tell us a little bit about your thoughts and anything you just you know we can, just before we get in the main topic anything you want to just talk to the audience about, or just talk to me about, or just to bet you about, like in general.

Lindsay Oakes 0:52

I'm just irritated. I was having such a nice day. I got my new harmonium. I was playing some music. I'm so excited to learn the harmonium.

Cleveland Oakes 1:00

And then the kid called and then the kid called and without telling too much of our business, um, bigger kids, bigger problems, and it's like this is gonna be a lesson in resilience. Uh, for us today, and it's not even the kid that called, it was the cause of the problem. He was talking about the other kids who were causing the problem, which is like oh I, I did not know that happened I didn't really want to be aggravated well, we're gonna have, well, we're gonna bring joy to the world.

Cleveland Oakes 1:28

So you don't have to be aggravated you know what it is.

Lindsay Oakes 1:31

It's so triggered by, like, people who are not accountable for their stuff and yeah, it's, it's frustrating. It's frustrating when people are not accountable.

Cleveland Oakes 1:44

Yeah definitely One hundred percent frustrating, and I know I also hate no accountability either. I hate when folks are not active participants in their lives, and we've talked about victim and victimhood still frustrates me.

Lindsay Oakes 1:59

Well, I don't mind helping people out.

Cleveland Oakes 2:01

Yeah.

Lindsay Oakes 2:02

I really don't Right. I mean there's seven kids mind helping people out. Yeah, I really don't Right. I mean there's seven kids so I think at one point or another, I believe, five of them have needed financial help from us and three of them are still minors. So they don't really count Right? Well, no, I guess not now, but one is still a minor, but until recently, you know, only one has lived with us, and so you know, now the one is back from college, but he has a summer job, but it's, it's just frustrating because I guess for me, I, after college, I worked and I worked hard and I had this horrible job as like an administrative assistant, where I was treated like probably like the scum of the earth, and then I used to babysit at nights and on the weekends so that I could make extra money. I never asked my parents for large sums of money.

Cleveland Oakes 2:53

Yeah, yeah. What's interesting is I recently listened to Jonathan Haidt. He was on an episode of the Jordan Harbinger show and Jonathan Haidt recently wrote the book the Anxious Generation and he talks to that and I actually we're in a couple of weeks, we're going to do an episode about it but he talks to the lack of resiliency that this generation has and the overwhelming amount of anxiety that they have. That is due to our fault as the generation before right, that we did not teach them resiliency, we did not teach them socialization and instead we let our kids be raised on video games and the internet, 24-hour cable news and a lot of other things that have-.

Lindsay Oakes 3:33

It's very interesting that you say that, because you may recall that when I met you, I didn't even own a television. Yeah, that is true. That is true, because I don't like things like that, and the kids fared just fine.

Cleveland Oakes 3:42

Yeah, and they do good. They do for the most part. They still and I don't think a lot of kids watch TV today, but they are hooked to these devices. But with that being said, you know, let's just jump straight into this topic. I know you are a student of Gabor Mate and you're taking his Compassion and Inquiry class, so this is going to be more of a one-on-one with Lindsay and resiliency and what she's learned.

Cleveland Oakes 4:05

That's not what we talk about in the training, but okay, yeah well, listen, this is your episode, this is your show and I want you to Not my episode. Yes, Well, okay, Well, it is my episode. That is, you're going to help me build it out right. When we delve into the profound insights of Dr Gabor Mate on resilience, we know that he's a renowned physician and author and he's known for his expertise in trauma and addiction and childhood development. His teachings that I've learned in a large part from you, Lindsay provide a comprehensive understanding on resilience. He's not just a psychological expert or in this field Actually started as a family physician.

Lindsay Oakes 4:48

I don't know if you knew that. No, I did not know.

Cleveland Oakes 4:50

I did not know.

Lindsay Oakes 4:51

In Canada.

Cleveland Oakes 4:51

Yeah, but as part of his as as part of his medical practice, he found that emotional and physical, as a being emotional, having emotional resiliency is part of being like well physically having emotional resiliency is part of being like well, physically right.

Lindsay Oakes 5:08

What he encountered when he was a physician was that he he felt that his patients didn't have people to talk to and they couldn't, you know, find therapists or there were a lack of therapists, whatever it was at the time. This was many years ago. So he started doing all this research and learning about therapy and mental health so that he could help his patients when he saw them for medical appointments.

Cleveland Oakes 5:32

Yeah, One of the things. So let's just jump right into it and let us understand what is resilience. So, lindsay, when you think of resilience and you think of what you've learned in your compassionate inquiry class, what is, what is it? You know?

Lindsay Oakes 5:46

well. So I don't think you fully understand the training. But resiliency is the capacity to overcome something, to adapt, to mature, to be able to handle challenges and to come out on the other side, you know, a little bit stronger, maybe with a set of adaptive strategies to help you in the training I'm taking. It's called compassionate inquiry because it's really a way to look at your own self, your inner child, all the patterns that you have to look at them with compassion and to heal from them Right. So you do become more resilient in this training and you help your clients to become more resilient. But the whole model of the training is really how to take a deep dive with first yourself and then the other folks in the training and then with clients. So it's a year long training, but you first learn to recognize all of these things in yourself.

Cleveland Oakes 6:43

Yeah, what I find interesting is, sometimes we think of resilience as just be, just be tough, kids suck it up, right. But I don't think of it like that, right. I have a couple of clients who are African-American, who are Caribbean, and especially in Caribbean communities, um, in in Caribbean communities and so, as I was saying, in communities of color and oftentimes, minority communities, resilience is thought of as you, you just suck it up, you just take it, um, but that's not my definition of resilience. I sat down with a client, uh, a couple of uh, some time ago, uh, who was speaking about, um, their partner who is Caribbean, and the person is very stoic and is not expressive and thinks that that's what they're supposed to be as a man. And is that really resilience, lindsay? Like just pushing your emotions down and like put in, ignoring them and pushing them away?

Lindsay Oakes 7:40

No, we talk about that all the time over here. Right, that's not a healthy way to live your life, because that's just suppressing everything and pushing it down, and yeah, but resilience is when I think of resilience I think of like a boxer like Evander Holyfield, who had the heart of a champion right.

Cleveland Oakes 8:11

It's like you take the hits and you lean into your emotion, and your emotion is not something that you push away or you ignore, but it is your emotions or your emotional intelligence that make you resilient.

Lindsay Oakes 8:26

Absolutely, because you learn how to really feel the emotions and then how to process them or see what is leading to them.

Cleveland Oakes 8:35

Yeah, you know. According to Dr Mata, early childhood experiences playa pivotal role in developing resilience. Secure attachments with nurturing adults who help children build emotional stability and self-regulation are crucial components of resilience. Conversely, or on the opposite side, a lack of supportive relationships lead to difficulties in coping with stress and adversity later in life. And what are your thoughts on that?

Lindsay Oakes 9:01

I would love to talk to you about that for a few minutes here, because I was just saying to you when we were talking about this show that I don't feel like I had super secure and nurturing attachments in my childhood with family members and I asked you if you thought you did.

Cleveland Oakes 9:16

And I for the most part, I think I did. You know, my mom and dad were Jehovah's Witnesses and everything that we did was supposed to be for Jehovah, for the organization. I did learn resiliency through the religion because I've learned to have faith in God and believe that God would help me out through things. But there were other aspects of my life later on where I probably could have been more resilient or probably could have learned a little bit more about resiliency, if that makes sense.

Lindsay Oakes 9:50

Yeah. Do you think that the religion helped you with emotional stability? Yes.

Cleveland Oakes 9:55

I do think that. I do think that, but it wasn't. It was the religion that helped me with emotional stability, but not the people in the religion.

Lindsay Oakes 10:03

Because I think that we've talked. We talk a lot about emotions in our house, but you and I talk a lot about emotions and last week you told me that I try to make you look at your emotional pain and you don't like it. So that's why I was asking you that question, because I felt that you have a couple of modes. Right, I'm a crier, so we all know my mode. I could cry at the snap of a finger. But you have the two modes of like you're fine or you're pissed, Right. And so I think that you got the message in the religion and maybe it wasn't from the religion directly, but from other people in the in the congregation that you had to be what you were saying earlier. Yeah, A, you had to suck it up, develop a thicker skin.

Lindsay Oakes 10:51

That's the experience I have with a lot of my clients, and now they come into therapy and some of them have these things happen to them and they immediately become like crying and so upset and they can't cope with it and they don't know what to do. And it's not even really that big of a thing. I mean, of course you know to them it's a big thing, but being on the other side of that. As a clinician, it's like, wow, Right, it's amazing what some people perceive as a crisis. Yeah, yeah.

Cleveland Oakes 11:22

It's interesting, right, because people that read the Bible oftentimes mistakenly construe the think that the Bible is like you know, be tough, suck it up, you know, pray to God, god will fix it. A friend of mine, his mom, just passed away and her funeral talk was the other day, and in it they talk about it. They took a moment and I actually had touched on him with the scripture also too, about resiliency. They talked about Jesus and when he resurrected Lazarus. Are you familiar with that story at all?

Lindsay Oakes 11:48

No, but please tell me. So you know I'm not much for religion.

Cleveland Oakes 11:52

So so so, so Jesus, you know, believe in him or not, you know supposedly God's son or you know to other people he was just a nice guy. But if you believe the stories in the Bible, he, he, he was God's son. He had the power to resurrect the dead. Right, which should have made him very resilient, right Should have made him like, oh, there's nothing that's going to bother me. But when Jesus found out that Lazarus died, he cried, he was upset, he was in. The Bible says that he was moved to great emotion, right, even though he knew he had the ability to bring his friend back. Emotion, right, even though he knew he had the ability to bring his friend back. That's what resiliency is to me, right, like you accept the emotion, you power through, you ride with that emotion, you let that emotion get you to where you need to go, but you do not necessarily ignore the emotion.

Building Resilience Through Relationships

Lindsay Oakes 12:40

Right, and actually one of the things that Gabor Mate does say is that when you are triggered by something, you should in fact not respond. You should go and self-reflect, because whatever's happening within you belongs to you and it's not the other person's fault that they triggered a wound within you.

Cleveland Oakes 13:02

Yeah, one of the things that Jonathan Haidt talks about in his book the Anxious Generation, and he also talked about in that great podcast episode, was that we have failed this generation of children because we have not taught them resilience right. We have taught them go play a video game, kid, go look on social media. We haven't socialized them properly and we haven't really told them what resilience is Right we it's. It's interesting that there's this, that that Mate says there's a lack of. When you have a lack of supportive relationships can lead to difficulties because a lot of folks just let their kids get raised by X and by Twitter and by Instagram and by 24 hour news, and so you have this generation of anxious people that have no resiliency because they don't have secure attachments.

Lindsay Oakes 13:51

Absolutely.

Lindsay Oakes 13:52

And if you listen to some of his lectures, I know you're going to do his training one day, because it's really that amazing of a training.

Lindsay Oakes 13:58

But when you listen to him, when you listen to him, he talks about this very issue that, especially in America, right, we're a very individualized society, rather than like a tribal society, say in Africa or other places in the world, where people live with the whole family or with the whole tribe and children know from infancy all of the mother and father figures in the tribe, right, and they'll go to any one of them when there's an issue and they develop very secure attachments because they have healthy relationships with so many people. What we do here in America is work and put our kids in the care of other people from the time that they're very young, right, and our society is set up that way. And he does talk about that. And he talks about how unhealthy it is because the society you know, we're supposed to be a free society but we are not in any way a free society. And he actually has a book that I would like to read and I think you should read it as well and we can talk about it.

Lindsay Oakes 15:06

But it's like called, I think, hold on to your children, and it talks about why hold on to your kids hold on to your children something like that and it's about why, parental, it's more important for you to have a relationship you know with your children, like a familial or parental relationship, than it is for your children to have strong peer relationships, like a familiar parental relationship, than it is for your children to have strong peer relationships. And so it's very interesting because we do pretty much abandon our kids from a young age and it's not our fault. Many people have to work to get by, right, because it's a very expensive country that we live in. But it is harder to develop resiliency when you don't have those kinds of relationships and you don't have that kind of support.

Cleveland Oakes 15:47

Part of what triggered this episode. As we move on into segment, into the second segment, the roots of of trauma and its impact on resilience is is out of the you live with, you got seven kids that you raise between you. You're always going to have, like, people who have different experiences in life, right, and out of three of those, out of three of those seven, um, some of them are more challenging than others and three of those people in this family and I'm not going to name who they are, they know who they are um, are passive in their life, right, they will look at life and be like, oh, I experienced this trauma and this is, this is the world's fault and this is me versus the world. And Dr Monte explains that trauma often results in a disconnection from our true selves and our emotions, right, and this disconnection will hinder your ability to be resilient.

Resilience and Trauma Healing

Cleveland Oakes 16:43

Recognizing and addressing unresolved trauma is the first step to rebuilding resilience if you have lost it, and this process involves understanding and accepting our traumatic experiences and finding ways to heal from them. So, mate is not saying suck it up, right? In fact, when we know, when we talk to the, the black Republican in Florida, when he was talking about his victimhood. I think you shared something from Mate that was like if you've suffered from trauma, it should make you and I let you finish it it should make you wiser.

Lindsay Oakes 17:16

Well, I wanted to touch on what you were just saying, because I do think that you know a lot of what we experience comes from childhood, right, I can't remember the conversation you're actually asking me about. That's why I can't answer that question right now, um, but I really wanted to talk on another point. I lost my train of thought a little bit. But, right, everybody and I think what it was that I wanted to touch on is that every single person has experienced trauma, right? Some of it is what would be called like a capital T trauma, right, if you're the victim of a sexual abuse or rape or you know any kind of severe trauma, a crime, right, or you see something occur that's really impacts you, then you know that's more severe than you know maybe somebody teasing you, but it's still trauma and it still lives in you and it still impacts how we experience life.

Cleveland Oakes 18:16

Yeah, yeah, I was looking for the exact quote from Mate because you actually shared it with me, which it was if, um, if you have experienced trauma, you should be wiser for the trauma right that you should not be like.

Lindsay Oakes 18:29

Oh, but I. I meant I couldn't remember about the Republican you were talking about.

Cleveland Oakes 18:33

I'm talking about the, the, the, the, the one of the people that frustrated us today. I'm not. I don't want to say his name, oh well, you didn't tell me it was a kid. Yeah, the black Republican that's so now you know what conversation I'm talking about.

Lindsay Oakes 18:46

So yes, let's talk about the kids anymore. Today I'm so aggravated.

Cleveland Oakes 18:49

Yeah, but that's the context that I was saying.

Lindsay Oakes 18:52

I just want to go play my harmonium and be happy.

Cleveland Oakes 18:53

Yeah, go be happy, but harmonium helps you be resilient, right, but yes, so I want you to speak to that, where Mate talks about that, where he speaks to that.

Lindsay Oakes 19:04

Well, it goes back to this point of that you are responsible for who you are now. We talked about this. I forgot. You know we haven't had an issue with that kid this week. That was all in the past couple of weeks.

Lindsay Oakes 19:15

So, right, at this point in your life, if you've experienced these things and if you have looked at them and recognize them and taken accountability for your role in them right, even if it was a terrible role that you played in the act, in the activity or in the event you still you can still like move on from it and be better. Right, we do not have to live in inauthentic life because of something we've experienced. And that's why I think I said to him last week you are responsible for your life now, for who you are now. Right, that happened to you, but it's not happening to you anymore. So at some point you do have to clean up your side of the street and move on. And then you have to say, oh, my dad did it this way. Right, because I think the big thing in the past few weeks is what a terrible father you've been.

Cleveland Oakes 20:02

That's what the accusations have been Because I offered them opportunity.

Lindsay Oakes 20:07

Right, right, and it's amazing. It's amazing Right, because I can't wait and I say this for all of our children, not just those ones. Right, but I cannot wait for our children to have children. It's going to be, it's going to be really a very fun ride, because they're going to all of a sudden see all of the things that they think that we're doing just to be terrible to them. Yeah, right, and, but it's, you know, you, you are responsible. If you want to do something, no one is stopping you. Go and do it.

Cleveland Oakes 20:36

What's amazing is so my friend, dear friend of mine, his mom passed away a couple of weeks ago and I went to the uh, the funeral talk. And part of what was said in the funeral talk was you know, we get this idea and people think they're helping you when they come up to you and say, hey, you know, they're in a better place and you don't have to be sad, and and time heals all wounds. And, and the and the brother that gave the talk was like no, no, no, no, no. Time doesn't heal all wounds. When you have something terrible and traumatic happen to you, it hurts, right, it doesn't go away.

Lindsay Oakes 21:11

It does not go away. It lives within you, of course, but what do you do as a result?

Cleveland Oakes 21:18

of it Exactly, and that's what the brother said in a talk. It's not that we're going to ignore this thing that happened. We're not going to say that this terrible thing did not happen, but we are going to figure out how this terrible thing that happened to us, how can we live with it and how can we learn and how can we grow from it.

Lindsay Oakes 21:36

And on a totally different point, I was chatting with Trish this week, my favorite breathwork teacher in the world, and she had said something about making difficult decisions and how you still do need right Even if you make the decision. For example, we I use the example of a client of mine who left a very toxic relationship and I had said to her this week like it is okay to grieve that, even though you don't have any love in your heart for this person, it is okay to grieve what, what could have been what you wanted it to be, what you gave the person that you regret. Now it is okay to re, to look at those things and to grieve them. And so I said to Trish it's like I know we need a t-shirt that says grieve that toxic shit right.

Lindsay Oakes 22:25

Because you do. You have to sit in it too to move through it, Right, it's that pretending everything is okay. If my client got up and said, oh, it's fine, I went back to my ex, I would have been like, but what, Like? You need to, you need to sit in it and you need to feel all of the pain. It's not like. Oh, I decided I'm not going to do this, Right?

Lindsay Oakes 22:44

How many times do I tell you I get tired of going to my own therapy, because and not right now because I actually love my new therapist so much. But I had a therapist that kept bringing up stuff and I'm like God, I don't want to talk about that anymore, Right. But now I see, with my new therapist, like sometimes I'm like my God, it's like doesn't that ever go away? It doesn't, it doesn't go away. I've been going to therapy since for longer than I've known you and the things that happened to me. They don't go away, they're a part of you and you need to learn to live with them and then those things can help you to be more resilient.

Cleveland Oakes 23:19

And so, going back to what we talked about in that first segment, and especially when it comes to not just communities of color but people that think that, oh, resiliency is and I sat and talked to somebody about this a couple of weeks ago. That was like, oh well, I don't want to do this because it's going to make me realize that this thing that I do is messed up, that sticking your head in the sand like an ostrich is not resiliency. Pretending that the storm is not here is not resiliency.

Lindsay Oakes 23:45

Absolutely. It's just avoiding it.

Cleveland Oakes 23:47

Yeah, yeah. And so resiliency is as you said. It's like understanding that this terrible thing happened. Grieve it, grieve it.

Lindsay Oakes 23:55

And say it's a part of me, but it doesn't define is self-medication right and it's?

Cleveland Oakes 24:12

often a coping mechanism that many people and it's amazing how many people you will meet that will, hey, I don't need therapy, but then they. Then they will go visit the therapist named Jack Daniels, right? Or they'll go see Mary Jane every every other day. You know Mary Jane is marijuana.

Lindsay Oakes 24:26

I know, I know, I know, I know you think I'm so naive.

Cleveland Oakes 24:34

Oh, they'll take the. Well, we've learned that you're not naive. But hey, they talking about. I'm talking about the crochet class. We're talking about the crochet class that we, that we took the other day. But you know, one of the things that I've derailed Lindsay's train of trouble, derailed Lindsay's train of thought, but that is once again those methods of self-medicating. That is not resiliency.

Lindsay Oakes 24:55

No, and let's talk about addiction for a moment, because what Gabor Mate would say about addiction is that there's a function for the addiction, right, and it's covering pain and it can be any addiction. It's not just drugs, alcohol, it can be any addiction, right. It's a distraction from looking at what you don't want to look at because it's painful. And you may see, in therapy, with your clients as well, what I see is a client who comes to therapy and they have alcoholic parents and siblings and they don't drink at all, and they sit there and they cry and they cry and say well, what's the difference between you and your parent?

Lindsay Oakes 25:31

You're not covering up the pain, like you're sitting in it, it hurts, but you're watching everybody else cover it up and then behave in a manner that is so hurtful towards you because there's such a lack of awareness. Because when you're always on a substance, you're really, you're lowering your inhibitions, right, things come out of your mouth. You and I talk about that all the time. But I should say also that, because there's a lot of controversy when it comes to addiction and he does touch on this too is that there? You know, people say there's a genetic component to addiction and he does say that there is a genetic predisposition in people that have addicts in the family. Right, because it's what they've experienced, it is what they have observed no-transcript food.

Cleveland Oakes 26:35

They can be addicted to retail.

Lindsay Oakes 26:36

Exercise eating like, even just not eating right. What are eating disorders, right? That's like an addiction to a body image.

Cleveland Oakes 26:44

And so addiction is not resilience, right, it is not resilience, you know, and it actually. How does addiction like hurt resilience?

Lindsay Oakes 26:54

I want to ask you you know you use a substance and what happens and why people become addicted is because you do it a few times and you feel good. But what happens? And let's use Xanax as an example, because Xanax is a drug where you get a you know high for 12 hours and then you come down from the high, versus some other anxiety medications where it's a daily pill and it's, you know, builds up in your system or it keeps your nervous system at a certain level, like the. You know it works with the chemicals in the body, but Xanax is.

Lindsay Oakes 27:41

So if you think about drinking or taking a Xanax, right, you take it and for those 12 hours that it feels good, or for however long you're you know, high from alcohol, lasts, you feel okay, but then, high from alcohol, lasts, you feel okay, but then when you come down, the stuff is still there, right, all the pain and all the things that made you drink in the first place are still there. And then what do you do? You take more because you want to feel good again and you don't want to look at it. Right. And I think a lot of this also comes from what you were talking about earlier, which is early development and not learning how to experience emotions and how to process emotions and how to just be OK with having emotions?

Cleveland Oakes 28:20

It's. It's interesting that you say that, because one of the things that you don't like about me taking high blood pressure and cholesterol medication is that right that it's not really addressing the problem.

Lindsay Oakes 28:30

It covers up the problem. It changes the number, but it doesn't clear the plaque out of your arteries Right and that's and that's. You know, and I know a lot of people don't want to hear that, but that is actually the truth and if you listen to all of the doctors which is why people on those medications still die of heart attacks and strokes because they don't really work. All they do is lower the numbers. It's like oh, you took your pill, now your number's good, okay, so continue to eat like crap please.

Cleveland Oakes 28:53

And that is one of the things that I listened to the authors of Ozempic bad and I did not know that people that die, that have diabetes, they still die Even if they're, even if they take diabetes medication and it erases all of of the results of their the problems and makes their sugar numbers he was like they still die from diabetes because the diabetes medication does not actually treat the diabetes. It does not make them change their diet Right. And so when you think about resiliency and how it relates to drug addiction, you know people will be like well, I drink because it makes me feel smart or I smoke this because it makes me feel this way. You are not treating the root problem of why you don't have resilience.

Lindsay Oakes 29:38

You are not treating it, you are covering it over my practicum in graduate school in a substance abuse facility in long island, and I wish I knew then what I knew now. However, at that point I did have my spiritual practice and that was a lot of what I actually brought to the group therapy and it was so well received by people, um, and especially all the people who were in treatment, except for the ones who didn't really want to be there and were court mandated, but that, you know, is a whole different story.

Cleveland Oakes 30:15

So, now that we've covered that, let's move on to to healing and rebuilding resilience. One of the key components Dr Mate advocates for healing trauma and building resilience is compassionate inquiry. This approach and this is where hopefully you know like you can be the expert on involves deep self-examination, empathy and allows individuals to understand the roots of their trauma and develop healthier coping mechanisms. So, lindsay, this is where you can. This is your time to shine. Tell us what you've learned in compassionate inquiry, in this training.

Building Resilience Through Self-Compassion

Lindsay Oakes 30:46

It is a deep self-examination, which has been, I think, why I've been so emotional over the past several months, because it's a really like looking at a lot of things that come up for you. The thing that's frustrating for me really is that now, when things happen, instead of blaming the other person, I look at myself and it's annoying, because then I'm like why is this bothering me? I want to know why this is bothering me, but I can't figure out why it's bothering me. And it's, you know, so it is. It's a deep dive into your own self, right? So it's this kind of self exploration, but also having empathy for yourself, because it gives you a level of understanding about why you are the way that you are and why you have developed the way that you have developed.

Cleveland Oakes 31:27

Yeah, I think about it now and I've I've worked in corporate. I've always worked in corporate in various parts of my career. Corporate is tough, right, and I think about it now in this concept of self-compassion, of emotional expression, of community and support and mindfulness and self-care have helped me now succeed in my corporate job, which I am actually, you know, at a point where I don't know if I even want to do it anymore, right, because I have other things. Well, you know you don't want to. Yeah, well, I know I don't want to do it, but I have other things and other ambitions that are out there calling me.

Cleveland Oakes 32:06

However, no matter what happens to me at work, I am responsible for myself and I never look at myself as a victim. I never say, well, this person did this to me and that person did this to me and this person did this to me and what I do. Respect about many of the young people that I work with when the job does not work for them anymore. And I have a young colleague who I love that guy dearly, I respect him dearly. When the job did not work for him anymore, he did not work for the job and he was like you know what I've tried. This is not working. You are not working with me. I'm not going to be a victim anymore and sit in something that is not working for me and I'm going to get out of here. Right, I'm going to, as Jesus said, I'm going to shake the dust off my feet.

Lindsay Oakes 32:52

If something doesn't align with you, you shouldn't do it. Yeah.

Cleveland Oakes 32:54

Yeah, yeah. So tell me so if we can talk through some of the steps. How does self-compassion help you build resilience? Or tell me something that you've learned from Mate's training that you feel would help build help people rebuild their resilience.

Lindsay Oakes 33:07

I actually always tell my clients to be kind to themselves, right, and that's a variation of self-compassion, right? It's like be kind for yourself, give yourself permission to not be perfect, right, Give yourself permission to have a bad eating day or to take a day off from exercising or, you know, to do whatever it is that you have to do. Um, you know, and so that's, you know. It's like just be kind to yourself and like love yourself and love the version of yourself that you are right now, even if it's not the version that you want to be, and also recognize that the things that you don't like and you don't want to look at are probably a result of something that happened to you, even if you haven't been able to identify yet what it is.

Cleveland Oakes 33:51

Yeah, Some time ago I sat down with a young man who was a new father and a new husband and he and this is a guy who I took this expression from where he was like, well, I have to give myself grace when I don't succeed, right? But he was beating himself up, he was calling himself a toxic man and he was like why, why do I keep on making mistakes as a new dad and a new husband? And I said did you hear the adjective that you just put in front of that New? You are new at this, right.

Lindsay Oakes 34:19

We've been doing this for like almost 30 years and I still make mistakes, and I still make mistakes.

Cleveland Oakes 34:23

right, he's a watcher of cartoons, and so, for those of you that don't know what Transformers is, this is not going to go, this is not going to land, but if you're a fan of Transformers, you know. There's Optimus Prime and there's Megatron. Right, optimus Prime is a resilient leader. Right, he's been at this for thousands, millions of years and he still makes mistakes. Megatron, on the other hand, is also a leader, but he's evil. He doesn't self-reflect, right, he doesn't care about what he does. Right, and he does not care about anything and the fact that this young man could sit down and think, wow, how am I messing up and how can I do better. That is the key to resilience, right, it is not falling down, it is not giving up on yourself, but it is like how can I get up and get better Once again? Always, look to like evander hollifield or I look at the lebron jameses of the world or the kobe bryans, who had losing seasons and were like okay, lost that one, but how can I come back and win a championship?

Lindsay Oakes 35:21

yeah, I feel like athletes are not the best example of that, because even if they lose, they still make a whole lot of money. Well, it's an ego thing, of course. Yes, they do want to be the best at what they do, but you know, you, you get my point with that.

Cleveland Oakes 35:35

I get your point, but that's that's usually for most people who are in the sports. That's what that's, that's something that like that that conveys that message to them. But self-compassion and self and self-care are really, really, really important pieces I think self-compassion makes you more compassionate to other people as well.

Lindsay Oakes 35:53

A big thing that Mate talks about, too, is and this is really probably very challenging to you know to counsel people who are, you know, sexual predators and things like that, and but you know he talks about also finding compassion for them, because imagine what happened to them in their lives and the kind of trauma that they experienced, that this is the person that they became. Yeah, yeah, yeah, right. So it does allow you to be more compassionate for other people, and I feel it gives me a different perspective on other folks, especially because, you know, in my field, it's very challenging when I go out day to day and do home visits and things like that I want to move on to the next piece of building resilience, which is emotional expression.

Cleveland Oakes 36:39

Right, and one of the things I talked about in the first part of this is is there are some cultures that are like well, why are you, you know, like emotions are weak, right? I actually listened to a guy speak the other day and he was talking to women. He was a mental health expert talking about the mental health of black men and men in general, and he was like men have emotions and we have been taught as men to hold on to repress that, that motions are weak, right, and he said a lot of times what happens in a marriage or in a relationship is that a man will come to you and bear his heart to you and then later on, when you are upset with that man, you will hit him with everything that he told you, that was his secret or in his heart, and then that will make that man shut down and he will never, not every woman does that.

Cleveland Oakes 37:23

No, he didn't say every woman. He said that's what some women do, right, and you can say vice versa. Some men do that to women. But the point is, is when somebody expresses themselves emotionally, you should, as a supportive spouse or supportive friend, do what you should have compassion for them and you should support them.

Lindsay Oakes 37:41

But typically, if you can't do that, on the flip side right, if you're going to be a person who's going to throw everything back at the person, then you probably haven't done your own work on yourself.

Cleveland Oakes 37:50

Exactly, exactly.

Lindsay Oakes 37:51

Right, because I think our relationship is a really great example right Of working on yourself and working on your relationship, because you and I have, you know, we both came to this relationship with kids with very different lifestyles, with very different upbringings, and a few weeks ago, when we were away I can't remember where we were, but or maybe it was in Barbados, right we commented on how far our relationship has come. Right, and there there's. You know, I think I think that we both practice compassion for ourselves and compassion for each other, and I think that we do spend a lot of time talking about our emotions or, in the case of you, telling me that I want you to talk about them but you don't like to.

Cleveland Oakes 38:35

Yeah, Well, I understand Right, because I'll tell you the other day I'm not going to say my friend's name, um, whose mom died, but we, I had a long conversation with him the other day, talking about resiliency and talking about death, and I did tell him hey, man, it's really important that you let yourself cry. And he was like, oh, I learned that Cause. He said you know, like, when his dad died about 30 years ago when we were in high school, he remembers that he was trying to be strong and trying to be strong and he was driving down Bushwick Avenue in Brooklyn and he got to a stoplight and just out of nowhere, out of like, just hit him like a ton of bricks. He just started crying his head off and just was like wailing in his car. And it just just he and just was like wailing in his car and it just just he didn't even know what caused it, right. And he said this time, with this he was going to let himself feel everything that he needed to feel.

Cleveland Oakes 39:21

And I didn't tell you this, but yesterday, as I was sitting there and I'm getting to look at it a little emotionally, we're showing the video of his mother from when she was a small girl to an older woman in her nineties, I cried right, I cried, I cried my head off, and that was something that in the past that would have been like oh men, don't cry Right. But when you go back and think about Jesus, even if you don't believe in the Bible, once again, and think about that story of Lazarus, he knew he could bring his friend back from the dead and he still cried Right. And so resilience is not pushing your emotions down, it is not shoving them aside, it is leaning into them and expressing them, and feeling them Right.

Lindsay Oakes 39:58

I mean, that's really really important.

Cleveland Oakes 40:00

Why is community and support important in building resilience?

Lindsay Oakes 40:05

Well, I think you just need to have a group of like minded people. That's one of the biggest things that I struggle with here in our community, because I have some interests that not many people have. This is where we live, in our community, that people are not really big into meditation and breathwork and mindfulness and chanting and all of these experiences that I really enjoy, and so I find it really hard to find my sangha or my group of like-minded people here. But I do have them, but you do need to have. It doesn't even have to be a big group.

Lindsay Oakes 40:38

I always say I keep my circle small, right, and I can probably tell you on you know four or five fingers who I can support, who would support me and who I would go to when I need support. Um, but it's important, and I do tell a lot of my clients the same thing, because when you tell people that you're going through something, they can have a better understanding for you as well. Right, If you just ignore people and then they want to know what happened to you, then you come back two years later and say, oh, it's just going through a rough time. It's like, oh well, are you even that good of a friend? Right, Like you need to go to people when you need them.

Lindsay Oakes 41:15

I mean, when I started this training, do you remember me sitting here and just crying for weeks and weeks? I'd get in the car and I'd cry. I'd call you from the car at work and I'd be crying because I'd be like digging up more of my stuff that I didn't want to look at. And you have to. It's not easy. It's not easy to look at your own stuff.

Cleveland Oakes 41:31

Yeah, I think and I'm probably butchering it because you know I butcher songs but I believe that many years ago that Garfield I kind of remember the theme song to the Garfield show, yeah, but I think it was a song called Friends Are there and from what I remember the songs, it was like friends are there even when you don't want them, even when you don't care, but a friend is there, like when you don't care, but a friend is there Like when you don't. Because it was like friends are there even when you don't need them, even when you don't want them, and even when you don't care. But that is real support, right, like right.

Lindsay Oakes 42:01

Absolutely, and I think another thing that you and I do, um is, you know when you need support from people, is to be able to tell them that this is how I'm feeling. Right, and the thing is is that we become very quick to end friendships if things don't go our way, but instead we need to do that self exploration and say did somebody say something that was really offensive or did it bother me because of something else that happened in my life? Right, and these are also the way to strengthen those relationships. I know for me, when I go on retreat, that's usually a place where I feel like I have a really supportive group of people who come there for the same reason to work on themselves, and so nothing that you say can be so outlandish there that people are going to shun you. Communicate with people about certain things, because I definitely think people don't understand.

Mindfulness, Self-Care, and Emotional Balance

Cleveland Oakes 42:53

I definitely know that people find me to be a little strange with my hobbies, but my lifestyle, really probably the only person in a 40 mile radius with a harmonium in a 40 mile. I'm sure there's plenty of people in New York City I was going to say. I'm pretty sure there's plenty of other people in New York City with harmonians, but in the Bronx.

Lindsay Oakes 43:12

We wrap this up. I'm going to play some more.

Cleveland Oakes 43:14

Oh, yeah, go ahead, do it Good.

Lindsay Oakes 43:15

Which let's take a side note, cause I took you to that Krishna Das show.

Cleveland Oakes 43:18

Oh, it was great. It was great, it was great. I actually told my own therapist that me and I had and I told my reactions to it and that I it was very different experience. You were up in the aisles dancing and then those sonic waves hit me and it just was like I thought you were asleep.

Lindsay Oakes 43:39

Yeah, Washed over me and just put, you were just completely relaxed. It was like Barbados level relaxation. For you. They're not a care in the world, and I was just feeling the music and moving around in the aisles with everyone else. But yeah, I think it's. You know, everybody experiences things differently too, so we have to remember that when we have interactions with people right, there's not always an intention for the other person to aggravate us or to upset us.

Cleveland Oakes 44:06

The last piece on this is mindfulness and self-care and engaging in mindfulness, which is something that you always talk to me about and some and something that my professor in the university my internship professor in university talks about and he's a Buddhist is engaging in mindfulness and practicing self-care are the only way to maintain emotional balance. One of the things that my professor likes to say that I want to go back to and I want to revisit is perfection is the enemy of good enough right, and sometimes and you've definitely talked to me about this and it's obviously something that people see in me because he has said this to me, my own therapist has said this to me is not everything has to be an A, not everything has to be perfect. Unfortunately, in my corporate job, everything has to be perfect. Sometimes it's just good enough, but sometimes it's just good enough right. And being mindful and practicing self-care is understanding. What has to be perfect very few things and what has to be good enough most things.

Lindsay Oakes 45:06

Yeah, I mean most of my clients. Every single one of my clients could tell you that I am an avid meditator and practitioner of mindfulness and breath work. Every single one of my clients could tell you that I am an avid meditator and practitioner of mindfulness and breath work. Every single one of them. Do they all do it? No, do I send them all a free 40 day course? Yes, guess who is more successful in working on their stuff? The people who do the 40 day course? The people who do the 40 day course and they do it, and they do it religiously, every single day at the same time. Right, and I'm talking clients who were like, riddled with anxiety to go out in public, who are now like, oh, I feel a little something. But because having these practices keeps your nervous system more balanced, I will say that, and I will say that a thousand more times when we record, probably more than a thousand times over the years. Say that a thousand more times when we record, probably more than a thousand times over the years.

Lindsay Oakes 45:55

But, and mindfulness itself, or meditation, or breath work, or yoga, or running, whatever it is that you do, that is a self-care practice. And I have a client who, real tough guy, love him, one of my favorite clients and he does a lot of work. The one thing he hasn't done yet is the mindfulness and I keep telling him. I said, look, we could do it here every week. I will sit with you and I will meditate with you. I will lead you through a meditation, but it's self-care. And I said to him if it's not right for you, go for a jog, go for a walk, right, because if you're constantly feeling aggravated, your nervous system is telling you that it needs to release something, right.

Cleveland Oakes 46:29

Right, right.

Lindsay Oakes 46:30

And you have to learn to make that connection between the mind and the body. A lot of the emotions and I could have said this at the last piece a lot of the emotions that we feel invoke a physical sensation in our body up and I work with my clients to help them. Before you get to the anxiety attack, something happens that leads you there. So when you sit and do a body scan throughout the day, you see where is their tension. Am I sweating, is something shaking, is my heart beating fast? But recognize the symptoms because the symptoms are physical much more before they're in your head.

Resilience and Overcoming Challenges

Cleveland Oakes 47:17

Yeah, it's, it's a biopsychological social system for a reason, right, and one of the things that I always do sit down and any good therapist that will sit down and is ask you what are you feeling? Right, my own personal therapist is like how are you sleeping, how are you eating, what is your, are you working out, like, are you taking care of yourself? And that's where we start. And then it's like, after we've established that, then we move on. So it is really understanding yourself and what's in your body, right, I want to move on to our last segment and I want to talk about and, lindsay, you can, you can zone out for five minutes and think about your harmonium, cause I do, I love my harmonium. I want to talk about John McCain for a second, and John McCain was somebody who I first really became aware of, maybe about, uh, when was that? Like, maybe 2008.

Lindsay Oakes 48:05

So like Ooh almost getting up there.

Cleveland Oakes 48:06

Oh yeah, almost like 20 years ago, um, but during the first presidential election cause remember it was, uh, bob McCain of John McCain, john McCain versus Barack Obama during that time, and me being a black person and you know an American, I was all about Barack Obama, but I learned a lot about John McCain and even though I did not agree with everything that John McCain agreed with and that's fine, because you can learn something from everybody John McCain is somebody that people look to as an example and a role model of resilience, and it's for several reasons right. John McCain's resilience was most notably demonstrated during his military service in the Vietnam War and as a Navy pilot. He was shot down over Hanoi in 1967 and was captured by the North Vietnamese. He spent five years as a prisoner of war, in which he endured torture, solitary confinement and inhumane conditions. One of the things his captors always said about him is they could not break this man's spirit, that, no matter what they did to him, he was always joyful, he was always smiling and he just kept it going Right. Despite the severe and physical psychological trauma, john McCain refused early release under any circumstances and chose to adhere to a military code of conduct that required that POWs be released in order released in the order of their capture. So he was like yo, you got me, I'm here, but I'm not going to say anything against America, I'm not going to do anything that's going to violate my code. I'm going to be resilient and I'm going to stand strong.

Cleveland Oakes 49:42

After he returned from Vietnam, mccain continued public service and eventually became the Senator of Arizona, and his resilience was evident in his that. He was able to transition from military to political life Right and he overcame his physical disabilities that were caused by wartime injuries. John McCain had numerous health challenges throughout his life, including a bout with skin cancer, and his resilience was further highlighted in his final years when he was diagnosed with an aggressive form of brain cancer cancer and despite that diagnosis, he continued to fulfill his duties and engaged in the course of his role as a politician and a legislator until his death in 2018. Throughout his career, john McCain and I am not, like I said, I'm not a McCain fan, and you can probably be telling me all the evil things he did and the wicked things he did, or things you don't agree with but he was known for his steadfast adherence to his principles. To your point, lindsay, this man knew who he was Right, he knew who he was, and a lot of folks in life that, especially the folks that are out there.

Lindsay Oakes 50:45

I'm still figuring out who I am.

Cleveland Oakes 50:47

Yeah, well, everybody is, but he knew who. He was. Right, no-transcript, a prison of war camp. Moving on from him. I have a client that I've talked to in the past great guy, and when I asked him the miracle question and the miracle question is something that therapists use to ask clients well, if your life could be perfect, what would it be? And, linz, what have you found? That most people is the answer to the miracle question, like you know, and I was really blown away by this kid's answer. But when you ask somebody the miracle question, is it usually about themselves or is other people that they?

Lindsay Oakes 51:47

Well, most of the time, it's about what other people want for them. Yeah, and I always tell clients why should? Who said you should do something and why should you do it? I don't like the word should, right, because you, what you should be doing, is exactly what you want to do. What feeds your soul.

Cleveland Oakes 52:04

Yeah, and this particular kid and, like you said, it's usually when you ask somebody the miracle question is something that that other people want for them or something that they want for themselves. When I asked this kid the miracle question and he's one of the most resilient people I ever met he was like I wish I could make enough money so that no one would ever have to suffer like I did. And I was like wow. I was like think about that. I've sat and asked people the miracle question all the time and it's like, oh, I wish I had a million dollars that I could do this and I could be happy. Or I wish I could be what my parents wanted me to be. No, this kid, who I think is the example of resilience, was I want to take my life and teach other people the level of resilience that I had, which I thought was.

Lindsay Oakes 52:47

Yeah, I think that's amazing.

Cleveland Oakes 52:49

Yeah, I think that's amazing. Yeah, so that wraps up this episode. You know, we talked about a bunch of key points. We talked about mindfulness and self-care.

Lindsay Oakes 52:57

We talked about compassion for yourself, compassion for yourself, emotional expression, having a good system of support. Look at me paying attention.

Cleveland Oakes 53:06

today You're not gaming in the background. I'm not usually gaming, I'm usually just looking up some other things to talk about, like your refrigerator no, I wasn't looking for that right now or your stove.

Lindsay Oakes 53:16

No, no, I already know what I'm getting. So we're about to start a huge kitchen renovation, huge.

Cleveland Oakes 53:21

Huge and we've been quite resilient, linz, because we've suffered in this house. That has never. This house is from A little bit of self-disclosure about ourselves. We recently well, not recently, we've been here for about five years now, but this house is from 1940 and it has never. Never been updated, renovated so if anyone from HGTV is listening, we will.

Lindsay Oakes 53:44

But I do want to say I'm so glad I brought you to the appliance store yesterday, because once you saw the appliances, there was just not even a question in your mind about what you wanted, and I did not have to, you know, have like a whole speech prepared about why I needed the better looking and more expensive appliances. So, thank you for coming along.

Cleveland Oakes 54:05

As soon as your boy saw it it was like, yeah, we got it, we got to get that. But Lens, any other on the topic of resiliency, any other quotes, comments or anything you'd like to add?

Lindsay Oakes 54:14

No, I just think you know, get to work on yourself. When something happens with you, look at yourself and see if you can figure out why, what is it triggering you, what wound is open? And I think that's a really important part, because once you do that and you start to overcome and heal yourself, you become more and more resilient Part, because once you do that and you start to overcome and heal yourself, you become more and more resilient. And once you do things once right, once you say no, once it becomes easier to say no Right, once you put up boundaries, once it's easier to put up boundaries, and so the first few times are definitely the hardest, but once you do it, you become really comfortable with it.

Cleveland Oakes 54:57

Yeah, I really don't have anything to add beyond those words of wisdom. I've been thinking this through and, because of certain things that have been going on in my life, and especially with the kids and especially with clients and these are challenging times that we live in I decided to do a series of some of the best teachers that I've encountered, and we started off with Gabor Mate and next week we'll move into Jack Kornfield and embracing failure and how failure can lead to success. So, if you enjoyed this episode, please rate and review us on iTunes or Spotify or whatever platform you are listening to us, like and subscribe and share the good news with your friends and with that, this has been another episode of the Devil. You Don't Know. This has been Cleveland.

Lindsay Oakes 55:40

And this is Lindsay.

Cleveland Oakes 55:42

And we will see you next time. Thank you.