Dealing with Feeling Book Club Day 3 January 29

[clears throat] Hello everybody and we'll get started in just a minute. [clears throat] Just going to wait for people to join. Hello everybody. We'll start in just a minute. [clears throat] Hi Sharon from Atlanta. And hello Victoria from Toronto. [clears throat] I'm joining you from a remote island called Beckway. I'm actually here on a retreat doing some writing. So, I'm excited to be with all of you wherever you are and I'm glad to be where I'm at. I got New Jersey, Abu Dhabi. Welcome Abu Dhabi. We'll just give it another minute or two and then we'll jump in. Hello, Atlanta. Hello, San Francisco. All right. So, tonight this is our third book club and um I am jump right in. Hello, Las Vegas. If you might have seen um some of the social media posts that we did today um spoke about how really want tonight to be a place I can say to hold space if that is what you need right now. Um not sure if you've seen some of the um articles that um I put out there with my colleagues around um what's happening in the United States, especially uh in Minneapolis and Minnesota. But um it's been a lot uh for people to handle. And so my colleagues and I decided to write some pieces to be helpful and support during these uh very difficult times. And so what I thought we would start with um given today's our last day of the club is we've we spoke a lot about emotion regulation. You know what it is and why it matters. Uh and last week we spent a significant time on co-regulation and we talked about what it is and what it isn't. Um and I thought today we would really jump into the strategies. How does that sound? Like let's just focus on the strategies um and really think about uh how we can be

helpful to ourselves and to the people that we care about during these crazy times. So I hope that works for all of you. You know, as I was thinking about tonight, um I was reviewing um a presentation that my colleagues and I did um a couple of years ago uh because of another traumatic experience and I just want to read you um the quote and the quote is by Kretta Scott King and it goes like this. The greatness of a community is most accurately measured by the compassionate actions of its members. Let me say that again. Again, this is by Kretta Scott King. The greatness of a community is most accurately measured by members. So maybe let's just take a moment if you don't mind and in the chat on your phone or on your computer. How does that sit with you? How does that um quote kind of make what does it make you think about during these times right now? There's some audience participation part. What comes to mind after reading that quote to you? It brings hope in the midst of darkness. I appreciate that. It can make a difference. So, a couple of things that I really wanted to jump into tonight around emotion regulation. And so we've defined it really carefully. We've talked about self-regulation. We've talked about co-regulation. But I want to ground us in kind of this need for regulation. And so as we think about it, when everything's going exactly the way we want it to go, we don't really think about regulating our feelings, do we? Because if I have control over my environment, I think about this for myself when I have days. Right now I am writing and um as I'm writing my new uh book, I uh I feel very much flow and I enjoy that process. Um it's probably one of the favorite one of my most favorite things to do is that creative process. um if it's if I'm in flow, if I'm writing well, there's nothing to think about or to worry about or to regulate. Um we need emotion regulation, right? When you know the sand gets kicked in our face. And so I think that's the first bucket is that we really unfortunately tend to only think about healthy regulation um when the environment shifts in a way that doesn't align with our values and goals. In those situations, we have to do something. And I think for many of us, it's about relationships. We need connection. We need people that we love, people that we want to be around. Um and ultimately right it's about um social connection that we don't feel alone in our fear, anxiety, uh despair, trauma. And then um you know at the next level down in the hierarchy, we need to be able to self-regulate. We need the strategies um to help ourselves so that we can help other people. So I like to think of it that way at a societal level, right? We can create systems to help us better regulate, for example, policies that are um taking into consideration the mental health and well-being of people that live in the society. Um I mean when you think about it the top stressors for example of kids right now and adolescence is about climate change, school shootings, ice raids um so school shootings, ice ratings, climate change um and AI/social media slash you know achieving their goals. Um those are hard things to control, right?

And so it's while we want to do everything we can, if we had better policies, um perhaps we'd less we'd worry less or better systems. And if we can't do that, it's the relationship. we got we're kind of on our own. Now, because of everything that's happening, I really want to put emotion regulation in context tonight, if that's okay with you, uh around what has happened um in Minneapolis. uh because we've gotten a lot of emails from schools um from teachers uh from parents just not knowing um kind of what to say and what to do about it. So I want to put this uh last session in the context of regulating during very difficult times. Okay. So I think the first thing I want to share is that there's abundant research on exposure effects. So exposure is obviously people who witness traumatic experiences or people who are you know the recipients if they're still with us. Um there's exposure in terms of like this is this has affected my community. So there's direct exposure, there's exposure from kind of being part of a community and then there's exposure like all of us are getting way too much of which is social media exposure. Um how many of you just for curiosity are comfortable um if you're here in the states or even if you're not you've probably been exposed to it. How many of you have um watched realels on Instagram or another social media platform of the recent tragic events in Minneapolis? I'm just curious how many of you are willing to say you yes or no to that. I know I have and um I'm really trying to limit it. Um, and the reason why is very basic and um, I appreciate you sharing that, Kim, and I'm sorry for that. What we have to do is we have to have that ability to um, to separate from exposure. Now, my point here is that there's some key tips here. So when possible, if you're a parent, um we have to limit our children's direct exposure to these um you know events. Um and that includes buffering exposure to news and conversations in the car and conversations over dinner um all these kinds of discussions. I think it's also important to help ourselves and kids uh engage in healthy distractions. So we want to surround ourselves and surround our kids with loving people, people we feel safe and comfortable with who uh who we trust and ideally people who are removed from the traumatic experience. Um as I said be mindful of the conversations. Um, but the point here is that, you know, we have this kind of strange addictive nature to wanting to know what's happening when we know what's happening. And so, it's really not worth putting yourself through um the news cycles. I know when I travel, which I do a lot, I don't watch television at home, but when I am home, I mean, when I'm traveling, I tend to have the TV on in the background of my hotel room, and it is the worst thing I can do for my sleep, for my nervous system. So, I know this sounds very basic, uh maybe too basic, but I just want to say that exposure is a big factor, um that um gets in the way. So, I'm just curious from everyone here given that um you know during these during stressful times, I want to hear from as many people as possible. What are your healthy distractions? Come on, let's share publicly. What are some of your healthy distractions? So, someone's using music and violin, going for a walk, music, meditation, walking outside, baking. I don't I'm gluten-free, everybody. Just going to share an aside. I have become I think the world's most secretly famous chef u or baker using

either um yogurt or cottage cheese to make chocolate soulets. Has anyone tried that? The high protein glutenfree sule. Um it's my new distraction. So writing song, Zumba, brunch, cleaning. Excellent. Um, and it sounds almost like you need some psychology professor who wrote a book on emotional intelligence and emotion regulation to tell you need healthy distractions. But I'm telling you, Um, so please limit exposure. If you need to check social media, do it in the morning. Don't do it before it goes to bed. What the research shows there just importantly to know is that um you know cortisol levels tend to spike in the morning and they we want them to go down at night. The problem with staying in bed and talking about um news events and revisiting social media around you know watching the news and stuff like that is that it spikes our cortisol again. And so what it does is it creates um more difficulty for us to fall asleep and also will help us or push us to engage you know in more rumination or other unhelpful strategies. So do something you know creative before you go to bed you know tonight even like do some yoga, take a nice hot shower. Um read something fun and enjoyable. um journal but really pull your attention away from you can read my book again. Um sure it's very kind. So the second um and I'm focusing tonight pretty much on children um and some of this it's common sense but we don't really take it seriously. So step one during traumatic times is to make sure um we limit exposure. Okay, that's our own exposure. That's exposing our kids to things through conversations, through videos, through whatever. The second piece of this, which may sound obvious, is the availability of a caring adult. Um if you go back in the history of traumatic research or research on trauma I should say the people and by the way what I'm talking about here also is about what are the predictors of resilience. So what do we know from decades a hundred years of research in psychology and other fields about what will build a healthy happier resilient child or adult. Number one is exposure. Number two is the availability of a caring adult. So, um why does that work? Well, what do you think? What do you think are the um the primary benefits of a caring other person? from a biological or psychological perspective? I mean, what is the impact on our minds and bodies when we're around someone who's caring? Someone's saying role model. Definitely. What else? Create safety definitely. Empathy, oxytocin. Thank you. The first piece is that the availability of a caring and loving adult reduces the impact of stress. And so that's just the most important thing um that you know we have positive stress. Let's you know the stress in preparing a presentation or something for work. There's tolerable stress which is serious temporary stress and there's toxic stress which is prolonged activation of the stress response system and that happens more so in the absence of a protective relationship. So throughout you know um history if you look at the research on children who end up being healthier, happier and more resilient in their adulthoods, it is that availab availability of a caring

adult. So, one of the things that we talk about um in Ruler, which is our school-based program, and I wrote about in my book, if you remember the last chapter, gotten there yet, is around being the best versions of ourselves. So, how do we step in to our best selves? And I thought tonight would be a beautiful opportunity to just think about that. When you think about yourself um being the best version of you, the person that you want to be talked about or the way about, experienced, um how you want to be seen by other people, please just take a moment and think about that right now in your life. Not 10 years ago, not tomorrow, but right now, if you were to think about how you want to be seen and talked about and experienced, I want you to come up with about three adjectives. What would those adjectives be? Just put them in the chat. I'll start. I think right now probably my number one trait or characteristic is compassionate. I just want people to see me as someone who actually really cares. Sharon, you're saying make people feel seen, heard, and valued. Kind, empathetic, and compassionate. safe, trustworthy, supportive, kind, creative, thoughtful, caring, beautiful. I think I told you this, but and this is actually the topic of my new book in much more greater in much greater detail than I'm going to go into tonight. But of the thousands of studies or of the hundreds of studies that I've done on the characteristics of the people that we want to be around, the top three characteristics are non-judgmental, good listeners who are compassionate. And so just keep that in mind during these challenging times when you're kind of being the uncle Marvin or Aunt Maria for someone that you uh love or care about. People are not looking to you to solve the problem, to fix the problem. What they're hoping for is someone who shows up, who has good listening skills, empathy, and is less and or non-judgmental. So, let's take a moment to think about those three. The ones you've added are awesome. I mean, you've got a lot of sim synonyms there, compassionate and empathetic. But if we take a moment and think about showing up for other people, the non-judgment is such a beautiful gift. You're not kidding. How many of us struggle with being judgmental? I think I'm probably I just sometimes I feel like I just have to give up on trying to be less judgmental because my automatic response is always like, "Why are you doing that? " And what's going on here? And that's ridiculous. Is anyone like me? It's crazy. It's just like my automatic is like, I know more and whatever you're doing is not the right thing to do. I just have to take that breath and be like, she um so I'm going to ask you a question now, which is what would 10% less judgmental look like for you? Take a moment and think about that. What would showing up for people you care about being 10% less judgmental look like for you? I'm going to say it again. What would 10% less judgmental look like for you? Being more patient. Okay. Less offering of solutions, more listening and supportive, taking a

breath before speaking. All great things. So, all right. What have we covered thus far? Number one, during these crazy times, these difficult times, we're going to limit exposure. That means what I said. The second is that we have to do our best to surround ourselves with people who are non-judgmental, who listen and who show compassion. We're going to try to avoid the people who are the know-it-alls who try to fix us or, you know, uh, problem solve for us. It's not what people are looking for. How we feeling about that so far? Good. Okay. The other piece of this, and this is an important piece that I discuss in my book, is that when we're providing emotional support for people, we have to realize that what we think might work best for us may not work best for them. Does that resonate with you? that we tend to almost project or um just have a belief system. Oh, I you know when we're when I'm upset, you know, I like to do this and therefore everyone should want to do that when they're upset. Well, there's a term in psychology that's used in child developmental literature. It's called biological sensitivity to the environment. Um maybe you've heard of that sometimes people call it um the orchid and the dandelion. Um and I think we need to understand that when we're supporting kids that there are some of us yours included who are more like orchids. Um we are more sensitive to our environments. Uh I always joke that I have a very high startle reflex. So, I have a fifth degree black belt and a Korean martial art called hopkido. Nevertheless, when I um am walking down the streets of New York City and there's a loud noise, all of a sudden, you know, I um I'm, you know, freaking out or I get really kind of like antsy. Um I'm just sensitive to my environment. And now I'm 57, 56, just gave myself another year. I'm 56, fifth degree black belt, PhD in psychology. And even still, this is my biology. And so I've had to learn how to work with my own biology, my own kind of sensitivity. Um I have tons of strategies, but I've also had to make other people aware of it that um some of us just need more time to process I appreciate that, Michelle. Thank you for sharing that. Uh, and then, you know, I'm uh traveling right now with a friend who is not an orchid orchid. Um, she's much more of a dandelion and I'm blown away by it. I'm almost like envious of it sometimes because um, what are you worrying about? Let it go. It's not the most sensitive thing for sure, but and by the way, I'm not gossiping. We've had endless conversations around this during this week. But the point is that um like why am I she would say things going to let that bother me or you know you got to move on. um just kind of you know pretty darn resilient, pretty good or pretty darn um you know um kind of just strong in that way. However, um what's important to know is that people like that person still have a lot of deep feelings on the inside and they get hurt. they just show oftentimes on the outside this sturdiness or this um resilience. People like me are more comfortable talking about it and saying, "Hey, I need a hug. Anyone want to love me tonight? " Um and here's what the research shows, which is quite interesting, which is that you we just assume that the dandelions among us are going to be the ones that make it because we're so sturdy and resilient. It's not always true because the dandelions, you know, sometimes it's a very rainy season or sometimes

it's a very dry season. Um whereas people who are the orchids just get often times, you know, with the right supports more practice in dealing with their feelings. Does that resonate with people? Just want to make sure that's clear. But the point is that each of these different kind of temperamental characteristics just require different levels of support and we want to be mindful of that. so you know in the book um we spent a lot of time talking about the emotion regulation strategies and I really want to spend some time now you know helping you through those or getting your questions uh answered. So if you think about the book, there are the building blocks to emotion regulation which are um the mindsets and beliefs which we spoke about a bit last week. Um and then there are the um the labeling skills. I don't want to spend too much time on that. Remember all of you can download the how we feel app um and you know build your vocabulary. But then you know the third section of the book focuses on five major buckets. The first one is on the breath work and the mindfulness work. The second one is on the cognitive strategies. And so I thought we' just spend a few minutes um just let me help you. If you have any questions about any of the things that I wrote about in the chapter on breathing or mindfulness or the chapter on cognitive regulation, remember there we spoke about positive selft talk versus negative selft talk. Um, I spoke about reframing versus blaming and we spoke about the different forms of distancing, spatial distancing, temporal distancing or psychological distance. Any questions about those strategies? Take a moment and just think about that. Anything come up for you? Anything not clear? Anything you'd like me to go deeper on? What are your thoughts? Well, while you're kind of thinking about any of the questions you might have, let me just share a few thoughts of my key takeaways as I was writing these chapters. I think the first is that the breath work really does matter that if we can't deactivate our nervous systems, we're not going to have all the cognitive abilities that we need to regulate with other strategies. So it is the very first step is deactivating that nervous system through the breath. And as the research shows, you know, you can do different forms of breathing. They all pretty much produce the same result. As long as you're doing slow breaths to deactivate the nervous system, you're going to do just fine. Whether it's box breathing or coherent breathing um or just simple belly breaths. Uh the mindfulness exercises I think also were quite interesting. you know, as someone who has practiced mindfulness for 45 years, um when I was writing the book, I thought, "Oh my gosh, can I do anything that's original in this space? And how am I going to support people in thinking about it? " And I'll just share one thing about that which is the real epiphany for me was how different mindfulness activities are supportive of different kind of mental activity. So I think that the big message here is that, you know, if we're looking to have greater focus, you know, greater kind of um stillness. Um doing the Zen kind of breathing in and out, counting breaths can be very helpful. So just let's just if we [clears throat] did that right now, we would sit up straight in our seats and we would breathe in and out. and say the word one. And then we'd breathe in and out and say the word two. And we would do that exercise, you know, for as much time as we needed. And it just it's a way of like, okay, the vexations come

and go and we're just trying to clear our minds. Excellent activity for that. Other kinds of meditation like um the one that I learned from technan around where you say a mantra like in and out and deep and slow etc can be used to just calm our brains, calm our bodies. So one can help us have more kind of focus, feel more calm and then there's also the ones around compassion. And so when we're doing some of that compassionate mindfulness work, what we're doing is we're trying to generate a sense of connection with people in the world. And so point being that um people used to think, oh, all mindfulness is created equal. But if you look at the clever studies that one of my former employees did, what he found was that actually people who excuse me, uh people who may engage in more self-focused mindfulness exercises, they're going to be in a situation Thank you. uh in a situation where there is conflict may be less likely to kind of move forward and say, "Hey, listen. Let's talk about this. " Because it's more self-focused. But people who engage in more of the interpersonal mindfulness work, you know, the compassionate meditations, they're more likely to take action, you know, and understand the perspectives of others. Does this resonate? So that it's not just like all mindfulness is created equal. It's that there are different exercises and activities that can support us in having more clarity, more compassion or just um less activation in our minds. So let me stop there. Any questions there? questions about the um the myopus work. Okay, so the next bucket are the cognitive strategies. Any questions about any of the cognitive techniques, whether it be psychological distance or spatial distance or temporal distance or just basic reframing. Just take a moment and think through that. Anything come to mind for you? We're very reticent tonight. Any questions? So, which one do I use the most? The truth is, um, I really use them all for different purposes. So, I'll give you a few examples. Um, when things when I'm by myself and things aren't going the way I like, I tend to use a lot of the distancing techniques. Mark, is this going to really matter? Like, I'll give you an example. I was out to dinner um just the other night with a friend of mine and she was going out of her mind at this restaurant about the service. Now, I don't care if it takes, you know, for me, like going out for dinner is a beautiful thing. And if I have to, you know, I don't care about waiting an extra 10 minutes for the waiter or whatever else. But some people, you know, they're like really highrung and they want that waiter to come. And so, anyhow, um, and they were giving out like a little appetizer at this restaurant. Anyhow, point is that uh the other table next to us got their advertising before we did and my friend was like, "I can't believe this. This is ridiculous. " And so I just looked at this friend and I said, "Are you really going to is this are you going to not sleep at night because you didn't get your appetizer right away? " like in a year from now when we think about this last week we've been together is this something gonna is this going to be like the defining moment you know the thing that is the uh you know the memory of our time I hope not probably not because it really doesn't matter now I probably did a little too much telling in that situation but um that's the distancing technique I tend to use it a lot for myself and I really to help other people. It's like just getting people to pause and reflect. Is this really going to matter next week, next month, next year? So, I use that a lot. Um, I also use a

lot of reframing. Um, I like to I actually think that emotion regulation in terms of the reframing um is one of the biggest tests of our creativity. And so I love to challenge myself with coming up with different ways to reappraise things. Like what could be another part? What could be how could the story be thought about in a different way? Um, and so that could be asking a million kinds of questions. Like for example, um, I may reframe uh, if I'm waiting for someone, you know, and I'm annoyed, you know, what could be the possible, you know, thing that made them so delayed? Oh, maybe they won the lottery. No, just kidding. But point is that just building that space to engage in reframing can be really, really helpful. And I like that a lot also because it involves um cognition, which is a way to help us kind of sometimes move away from the strong emotion that is impacting us. Um, my favorite I always ask people the kind of the cognitive the CBT kind of question which is, you know, what makes this true for you and go, huh? And then it just forces people to pause and kind of rethink. That's reframing. So, let me look at here. We have uh so the question here is how to deal with the commodification of mindfulness and emotion regulation suggestion for learning and development practitioners who have to demonstrate impact efficacy through metrics. I'm not 100% following you there. What do you um are you can you say more? Um I can it sounds interesting. Um I get the commod the commodification you know that this is a uh everybody's an expert these days. Uh I sometimes analyze while breathing so I need to count by threes to remove myself from thoughts. I think the the most critical piece of mindfulness is non-judgment. So, you're just trying. That's the mere fact that you were sitting and breathing and just counting your breaths, [snorts] you're you get an A+ in my class. Just, you know, it's there's nothing. There's no outcome. Uh the outcome is a an illusion. Just stick with it. How are educators using reframing? Um yeah, asking for different ending to a familiar stories. Yeah. So I think you know the there's different forms of reframing but the basic of reframing is um putting a different spin on it. So um you know and I think again I want to be mindful that um reframing is often helpful for smaller emotions as someone is coming to you and saying I'm feeling devastated by you know the fact that they're friend has you know stage four cancer and they're feeling really kind of overwhelmed by that. you're not going to give them the advice to reframe obviously. So, it's important that we understand that reframing is used for generally um less intense emotions. I'm feeling frustrated and I want to um you know just I want to rethink this as an opportunity. Mark, I do that a lot. Um, one of my favorite reframes is I do a lot of public speaking as some of you know and sometimes I'm just not in the mood, mood to do the talk and I'm getting on stage and I'm like, I can't believe we got to do this and I have to reframe that negativity and I'm like, Mark, this is an opportunity to get your stuff out to a new group of 500 people. Go for it. You can do it. So, um, my point is that's, you know, lowcost emotion regulation in more severe situations, right? We're going to want

to do that social support piece. [snorts] Um, pausing to see my reaction is proportionate to what my is a big problem. Not Yeah. I mean, um, the stronger the experience, the longer the pause is going to need to be between the stimulus and response. I think that's just fine. Um, if I do this for my job, but I don't just do it for utility sake or for profit, how do I tow the line? Again, I'm not really sure where you're going with that, but I think that, you know, it seems like you're doing important work if you're helping people to manage emotions as a coach. Um, I think that's fantastic and no reason to feel bad about that. Uh, thank you. I'm hope I'm glad that you like Permission to Heal. That's my first book. Um, [snorts] I think there is. It's a good question about is there a difference between acceptance of where we're at or others versus judgment? Let's think about that for a minute. I think there is a difference. So, I can accept the fact that I'm anxious and be really, really hard on myself for it. It sounds counter, it doesn't sound like it's possible, but um because it's not only our feelings. It's I may have come to the conclusion that I just am feeling anxious all the time and I accept the fact that this is I've kind of renounced. Um, but I can also um wish and kind of think of myself as being weak, you know, or incapable, you know, of moving on. It's tricky, but I think you can have both. Other questions? So, we've got about 10 minutes left and I said, you know, the real um I wanted to make sure that we're I'm going to share with you the different links. I don't know if I can do that in YouTube, but if you're interested, um let me just get that up. um the article that I wrote with my colleagues in education week. If you're an educator, I'm gonna see if this I can do this. Oh, it's there. Good. That's the article in education week. And just today, I published an article in men's health uh on this work. So my new book um is focused on it's going back to my first book on permission to feel and it is a um it's what I hope will help people how they can learn how to be an Uncle Marvin both as a parent, you know, as a friend and as a leader. So, it's the uh it's called Uncle Marvin's World and um it's taking all the research I've done for the last five years, six years since publishing uh my first book and kind of fleshing it out to be the kind of ultimate guide to how people um support others in having permission to feel, which then benefits the self. So, look out for that. It's going to be a whiles away. I'm still doing the research, but feel very excited about it. Um, now a couple of things. One is I just sent you links to some articles that are hot off the press just this week. Uh, the education week one is for teachers. Um, the men's health one is actually uh it's a fun article. I wrote that one after being on all these podcasts with bros. And I thought it was interesting because they were interested in my work on emotional intelligence if I made the connection to longevity or you know high performance work high performance workouts. They didn't really want to talk about their feelings. They just wanted to learn what aspects of emotional regulation are

relevant and important to like being a superhero and living forever. Um so anyway that was that's my take on that experience. Um so a few ways to stay in touch. Number one is um if you're familiar with the podcast it's called um dealing with feeling [clears throat] and uh yeah so actually I wrote that's funny about Louiswis House uh who I think is great uh the um a couple of things. So, one, check out the podcast. Uh, new episodes are going to go up. Um, it's now available on Apple Spotify and YouTube. The second is, um, if you're not on my social media, join me on social media. I will be I'm actually going to start a Substack in the next couple of weeks where I'm going to be um doing short essays around this work to support people in thinking more critically about it and applying the strategies and skills in their everyday lives. Um yeah, and that's I mean that's where I'm at right now. Um you know as we bring this to a close um a couple of more things. one is um [snorts] the the last kind of I'd say strategy if you want to call it that is um I think you know what some people might call having a higher power. Now, for some people that gets very nerve-wracking because maybe you're not religious. Um, whether you're Christian, Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, or anything else. Some people find that having that connection really does work. As a matter of fact, I was visiting a school recently where I was asking students about their strategies and the ones they felt like were the most helpful to them. And one young man, maybe a sophomore in high school, said it was his faith that he wanted to really um have more faith and that was going to be helpful to him. And if that does help him, then he should have used that strategy. Um for other people, a higher power might be a poet. Uh for other people, it might be your guru, you know, in your meditation uh school or class. um for other people it might be a ritual you know that you do by yourself uh or with your family and so I thought it'd be fun for us to end on a note of sharing some of these cultural beliefs that people have something that's meaningful to you and or your family or is there a signature practice you know that gives you strength And I'll start by sharing first. So, um I uh am one of those gratitude fanatics. Um I think gratitude is um a solution to a lot of our problems and I think about my circumstances and I think my goodness, I'm like the luckiest person alive. You know, I had a horrible childhood of abuse and bullying. And now I feel blessed to be a professor and be in a healthy relationship for 30 years and get to travel around the world giving speeches. And I just sometimes just like pinch myself when I'm like annoyed at something or irritable or tired or angry or whatever the heck it is. I'm like, "Mark, things are pretty darn good. " Um, so for me, gratitude is a big one. What are your practices? We have a loving kindness meditation. Does anyone have a daily ritual or practice? For me, it's morning coffee also. I am a really particular about that like cup of coffee, sit, do a little kind of mindfulness exercise, set goals, move forward. Really helps. It grounds me. Comedy is great. Romy poems are powerful. We're not a drop in the ocean. We are the ocean in a drop. Nice. Someone's doing a lot of yoga and meditation. Go for it. Going to have the best abs out of all of us.

What are some other routines? Okay. Well, the last thing I want to say to all of you in this little bit of time we have together is that the book ends with helping us strive to be the best versions of ourselves. And I say the word strive because we never will achieve our best self. That's not an outcome. It's a it's something to work towards to strive towards and it will shift in your relationships in your workplaces etc. But I do think that the appendix in the book is very helpful. So we have the dealing with feeling wheel with all the different buckets of strategies. And what I want to do is encourage you to use that wheel more regularly. Meaning just in that month do a reflection on the wheel just ask yourself am I is my how is my self-t talk this month how am I how is my nervous system in my brain this month how are my relationships this month um how is my self-awareness this month am I kind showing up as the best version of myself this month. And so, it's not an exercise um to make you feel bad or guilty. It's an exercise to help you remind yourself that this is life's work and that I've got gosh, I've just whatever's happening in my world right now. Oh, the negativity uh box has been checked and I'm noticing I'm being very critical, self-critical, other critical. I'm going to spend this month focusing on tuning into my negative talk to shift it to more positive talk versus I'm feeling alienated, lonely, isolated, connected. Okay, I'm gonna spend this month focusing on healthy relationships and cultivating and being around the people that bring out the best in me or my nervous system is out of whack. I can't focus. Okay, this month I want to dedicate more time to the breathing exercises and the mindfulness exercises. Does that make sense? Because it's going to it's going to be messy. And so messy is okay. Um that is life. But I think having a tool to revert back to to remind us to reflect on these different strategies and then focusing on those strategies can be really helpful. And so I'm going to end on that. Um there'll be more opportunities to engage. Um we're going to do lots of creative things at the Center for Emotional Intelligence that I direct. Um, you should check out those websites to look if you're interested in the research. Um, check out uh LinkedIn where I do a lot of posting and Instagram primarily are those are two places that I spend my uh social media time on. And um the last thing [snorts] um thanks page 275 is the worksheet. Um, I would love if you haven't already for you to provide a review of the book on Amazon because it's nice to see what people have to say about the book. And so, if you can do that, that would be amazing. And on that final note, I want to wish you all a fantastic um, what is this month? It's coming up is February. So, have a fantastic February. Keep reading. Keep looking for more articles. There'll be more coming out. I have one that I'm excited about uh that I'm about to publish. It's called AI is the symptom, not the disease. And so, um I won't tell you what that one's about, but I hope you uh see it when it comes out. And um wish you all the best and I hope you have a great February and uh be well and we'll talk again soon. Bye everybody.