This is part two of a two-part series with Dr. Dorian Hunter. Welcome back to part two of episode #39.

We’ve had seven months now to get used to the new normal between the pandemic, life in quarantine, the mask debate, civil unrest, the kids at home, working remotely or trying to work remotely or not working remotely. The economy is shifting. The election is coming up and the news is constantly telling us it is the worst of times.

What the hell is normal, and how do we cope with a life that is so far from normal, let alone thrive?

 

This is part two of a two-part series with Dr. Dorian Hunter. Welcome back to part two of episode #39.

Audrea Fink:
We’ve had seven months now to get used to the new normal between the pandemic, life in quarantine, the mask debate, civil unrest, the kids at home, working remotely or trying to work remotely or not working remotely. The economy is shifting. The election is coming up and the news is constantly telling us it is the worst of times.

What the hell is normal, and how do we cope with a life that is so far from normal, let alone thrive?

The Washington Post came out with an article that said that the coronavirus pandemic is pushing America into a mental health care crisis.

They did a poll, and over half of Americans are reporting that this pandemic is harming their mental health.

Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
That is exactly one of the reasons that I originally went to Julie and Audrea and said, “Listen, we have to address the huge scale of what is 2020. There’s simply too much going on right now from the pandemic, black lives matter, for us to ignore how hard the world is being on our mental health.”

So then the big question, though, is what makes the world today, 2020, so much more difficult than the typical mental health issues that we have been battling with our entire lives?

Dorian Hunter:
Yes, this goes to the topic of self-compassion. That there is a way that we can talk to ourselves that is harsh and judgmental, and there’s a way that we can talk to ourselves, that’s understanding.

Validation is essentially saying it’s understandable why you’re doing what you’re doing, why you’re feeling what you’re feeling and it makes sense. It’s not abnormal, it’s understandable. So I think about this with self-compassion, that self-compassion is not the same thing as self-esteem.

I think sometimes people try to combat feeling bad about themselves, the self-judgments that they have with, actually, I’m good in these other ways. This just becomes sort of this tense back and forth battle within people that, am I good or my bad?

Self-compassion steps outside of this question, am I good or bad and just says I am. I am. I’m a person, and it makes sense why I’m struggling and acknowledges that the most normal thing in being human is to struggle.

Julie Holton:
Yeah, in our way, even sometimes just talking about these things, with like-minded people, I think that it is important sometimes to have those like-minded people when it comes to our mental health. Because if we talk to someone who we know is not going to be supportive, or we know is not feeling things similar to what we’re feeling or cannot nurture the emotions we’re having, then that can set us back even more.

Picking up where we left off:

Audrea Fink
I’m allowed to be angry. You’re allowed to be an angry black woman.

Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
You’re allowed to be angry … We’re allowed to have feelings. We’re allowed to have the same emotions as every other man on this planet. When they’re not, oh, he’s an angry man, and they don’t say that.

Julie Holton:
Well, let’s face it. It’s just an excuse. If you were saying something I don’t want to hear and I choose to then call you an angry black woman, that’s just a way of making it okay, that I’m not listening to you, and it’s not okay.

Audrea Fink:
So many feels on this podcast.

Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
Dorian, protect our mental minds.

Julie Holton:
It’s like we’ve peeled back all these layers like all the rabbit holes are gaping open now. So how do we-

Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
I’ll just say the minefield. How do we pull it together? How do we-

Julie Holton:
How do we protect our mental health?

Audrea Fink:
And how do we balance struggling with resiliency? Because we are … I mean, this group of women on this podcast today, is a bunch of really strong, smart, articulate, resilient women who are also tired and feeling burnt out and emotionally exhausted and feeling depressed, and, and, and, and…

Dorian Hunter:
So I’ll go back to what I started to talk about before the three Ps and dive into that a little more. On top of that, I think self-compassion is huge. I can’t emphasize it enough.

The three Ps are based on a type of behavioral intervention called behavioral activation, which is pretty much exactly what it sounds like. We are activating behavior. I like this as a response to situations that feel overwhelming and out of our control, which is a lot of what we’ve been talking about, is thinking about, what is my piece here? Where can I affect change? Where can I do things that feel mastery building for me?

So we’ve talked about People. People are hugely important, having a meaningful connection, ideally, every day, whether you live alone, or not, like finding creative ways of connecting with people.

The Pleasant Event is hugely important, and all of this has to be within balance. If I spent all of my time doing things that feel good, just for the sake of feeling good, I would ignore problem-solving. So, within the behavioral activation model, we have both problem-solving and having some break from solving problems. We can’t be solving problems all the time, and we can’t just ignore problems.

Pursuit is a huge part of that, challenging ourselves to do things that feel meaningful and important to us, and that are difficult. One area of growth, for many of us, maybe having challenging conversations about race that we haven’t had in the past. It may be that we are building ourselves in some other way.

So like my classic example is hiking. I am not somebody who by nature is a super athlete. That’s not me. But I do love being outside and I do love being in nature and challenging myself in that way. Particularly I’m coming off with having had a broken foot for a year and a half, so I can push myself and it’s Pleasant Event and its Pursuit, challenging myself growing, doing things that are difficult but possible, and continuing to push myself. When I get to do it with Audrea, it’s People too. We get to connect in that way, in a way that’s meaningful to both of us.

So I think those are the things that I would recommend people be thinking about in their day to day lives, both the self-compassion piece and the piece about, okay, what am I doing? How am I active versus running away, going to bed with painful emotions, and just wallowing in them.

Julie Holton:
Dorian, I want to bring up one more topic. There are also people listening to the podcast who have experienced some incredible successes during the last seven months, and I want to take time to recognize this too, because I’ve had friends who have experienced successes that they haven’t felt that they’ve been able to share or really, truly celebrate. Because they do have empathy for those who are not feeling successful. It’s so hard because we know … In my brain, I know that one person’s success does not mean another person’s failure, but yet we correlate the two.

We think someone’s out of work, or someone’s lost someone to COVID. I can’t feel good about what’s happening in my life. For those who are experiencing the successes or who have maybe started a new business or have a new birth in their family, or anything else that would be joyful and worth celebrating, how do we balance that and how do we help our friends who are feeling those successes? How do we help them celebrate?

Dorian Hunter:
This reminds me of this idea of deserving. People think like, well, I don’t deserve this success. I don’t deserve to have good things happening, because I see the pain of other people.

This is something to balance too. In some ways, many, many people are indeed suffering right now. So it’s not a time to be flaunting wild successes. But it’s also not a time to say okay, well, I shouldn’t celebrate this because I don’t deserve it. Or judging yourself about feeling joy and pleasure in things.

Instead use that energy to think about how to be helpful to other people, or to build this muscle for yourself, to use the positives that you’re experiencing to buffer against all the negatives, and helping people around you to do that.

The piece that I was mentioning about deserving is that I think this is a problematic concept, like the idea that people deserve things or don’t deserve things and it’s based on this … In psychology, we call it the Just World Fallacy, good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people and that that’s the way the world works. We get taught this at a very young age, and it’s in my opinion, just not true.

I think about throwing out the concept of deserving, just recognizing what is true. I am having success, or I am having this positive thing happen and balancing that with, of course, this is hard for other folks who aren’t having this, but that’s different than I deserve it or don’t deserve it.

Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
That’s such a great clarification because you’re right. We are taught early on that whole Just Desserts thing, what you are due. And I am one of those people experiencing success. I’ve joined this podcast, which is a success for me and how that moves forward.

I think that if we reach back to something you talked about before, with regards to action steps, so how about taking that success and saying, okay, how can I help this person? How can I take that success, that joy, and spread it into my little world as best I can for others and help bring others along?

Which to some might be an odd thing too, because what’s going to end up happening is there’s going to become more positive coming your way because you’re putting positive out. You don’t have to not put the positive out in the face of the ugly because the only way you’re going to beat down the ugly is by pushing in the positive.

Audrea Fink:
Preach. I was talking to someone the other day about how excited I was for Reischea joining the podcast and how this felt like such a big wondrous win, and they were struggling with a family member who had gotten news that they had cancer. I was thinking man, I am such a jerk, but at the same time when I have bad news and someone shares their success with me, and again, this is me and my perception, but when someone shares their good news, yes, I will hold on to that. That will be the lifeboat that keeps me afloat until I get past this piece.

I don’t think you can compare the success of a podcast to the grief of losing a family member or a family member getting sick, but I do think you stay in this place of everything is crap, if we don’t have someone saying, “these are the ways you can get out of it and these are ways you can deal with it and here’s a life jacket you know, just for right now.” Small and maybe meaningless overall, but keeps you afloat.

Dorian Hunter:
Yeah. I think what happens when we’re not paying attention to the positives is that we can get hopeless and give up. Nothing good comes from that.

Julie Holton:
It’s so interesting because this conversation is just caused me to reflect a lot on the last seven months. There was a time when in one day I could go from one extreme emotion to the other, like literally having something really amazing happen for my business or my client or something and then like swing down into oh my gosh, someone I know is diagnosed with COVID or insert other tragedy here. So for me, it’s been a roller coaster.

I know as many people, what has helped me and I’m not Dorian. Dorian, you tell me if this is good advice to give or not, but one thing that has helped me is to focus on having gratitude when I do have those wins and being thankful.

When I have a day and trust me, there are many when I’m struggling to find something to feel thankful about, it can be as simple as, I am thankful I’m working outside of my deck today, that the snow hasn’t started yet. I’m thankful that my dogs are running around playing in the yard. It can be something just, I’m thankful that I’m here and I’m breathing, even if I’m not where I want to be right now and just really focusing on those things.

I know that that’s easier said than done when the lows get low. I’m someone who was quarantined alone when we were stuck home and not able to go and see people and that is one of the hardest things I have ever done. I love my alone time. I also love being around people and I’m an extrovert. So that was hard on me to not see my nieces and nephews, to not see my sister for several months. That was hard, and it made the fact that I was alone, seem like this big looming obstacle in my life of something that if it were not for 2020, and if it were not for the pandemic, that was going to be something that I was working on this year.

Y’all might remember that I had declared, this was my year to find love and the universe responded by laughing at me and throwing out this global pandemic.

If I just sit there and focus on that, instead of focusing on the positive, I would be in one sorry place right now. But instead, I’ve been able to read so many books, to focus on … Okay, that was a lie. I’ve not read a lot of books, I’ve read a lot of like … I’ve ordered a lot of books.

I’ve done some period of like, I’m going to have all this self-growth and focusing on a lot of this introspection on what do I want out of life and what is this going to look like for me, and how do I make sure that 2020 isn’t a year that just goes down in flames? I want to get as much out of this year. This can be a throwaway year. Our lives are too short to have a throwaway year, so what can we do to make it the most we can make it?

I don’t know that that’s helpful at all because there are days when it’s hard to focus on that. Sometimes I go down the rabbit hole, but when I’m in the rabbit hole, I try to peel back the layers and figure out okay, what caused me to get to this rabbit hole? What’s in this rabbit hole? Why am I feeling what I’m feeling, and then how do I take action to get out of it?

So I think, Reischea, you keep hammering at home too, talking about these action steps and what do we start doing to make this what we can and it may not be the year we want it to be. I think that’s pretty safe to say for most people, but how do we get something out of it that’s going to move us forward?

Dorian Hunter:
I have good news for you, Julie. You’re doing an evidence-based intervention for a low mood.

Julie Holton:
Oh, thank you. Something right. So tell me what is that?

Dorian Hunter:
Practicing gratitude is a very, very simple way to re-attune ourselves with what is positive in our lives. One of the things we know is that when we’re really hopeless and depressed, we’re more likely to focus on the negatives.

The negative things expand in our minds and the circumstances could be the same for say, somebody who’s depressed versus not depressed, the depressed person will see things more negatively than the non-depressed person.

So one way that we overcome that is practicing gratitude, like shifting our attention from what is sucky to what is going well. Everything you said, I think is exactly what I would coach somebody to do. Validate yourself when things are hard. Say, of course, this is hard, and then take some action.

Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
And Julie, you’ve been learning to love yourself too, to recognize you. So you said this is the year of love. Well, guess what? How about the love of yourself?

Julie Holton:
Oh, I love that. You are so right.

Audrea Fink:
You also have been building your business like crazy this year. Oh, my goodness. I wish our listeners could see Reisch just like raised the roof. That was amazing. It’s moments like these where I wish we did video, and then just all of the other moments where I’m glad we don’t.

I think you also are learning to love your business and that growth there and you’re learning to build a life that you love, and I think that that’s important. It’s not the same. There’s still a loss but there’s also … I think it’s still the year of love for you.

Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
Not a loss of love.

Audrea Fink:
No, a loss of the ideal. The Plan.

Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
Right, but a preparation for the other love that will be coming in.

Audrea Fink:
I’ve one thing I want to talk about. I think it’s really important to know that we go through cycles where you’re up and you’re down and you’re back and around. There can be little things you do that help, and sometimes those little things are really hard to do.

Dorian, I was saying to you how positive physical activity is, for me. If I go on a walk, if I work out, I feel 200 times better. But right before that walk or that workout, it’s the last thing I want to do. I don’t have any motivation to do it. I can’t get out of my head, I just … I want to lay there and stick my head in a buck.

Can you tell us, in addition to gratitude, which I love, maybe some other small, daily or weekly, or monthly activities we could be taking to help us break that cycle, or to help us stay looking for the positive at least?

Dorian Hunter:
The cycle of depression comes from behavioral activation too and it’s a very simple model, which says something happens internally or externally and we feel bad, or mood is lower. Then what do we feel like doing? Usually not much. Usually, we want to withdraw, isolate, do less, sulk, hang out in bed, and think about how bad the world is or how bad we are, or both.

That becomes a feedback loop where you feel bad, and then you withdraw and isolate and then you feel bad, you withdraw, and isolate and ruminate, then you feel bad.

So part of what gets us out of that, the thinking piece is the two-minute rule, that like, okay, look at this. I have been hanging out in bed, thinking about how awful things are for however long. I’m going to stop doing that because that’s not effective, reminding yourself that you’re not solving problems by chewing on them. What often helps me if I’m in that state of mind and mood is to think about, I guess this concept of self-care, about what is the most loving thing that I can do for myself and the world right now.

Being a caregiver, I’m in a role where much of the time I’m providing care to people. I do think it’s true for most of us, but it’s a formal role of mine, which means that I have the oxygen mask. I have to take care of myself if I’m going to help take care of other people.

If I burn out, I’m not going to be able to live my life according to my values and do what I want to do with my life. So it’s, I have to put the oxygen mask on myself to do that, and I think some people, yourself maybe included Audrea, really push past what our true limits are.

So the other thing is that scheduling pleasant events and doing them whether or not you feel like doing them. You schedule things that maybe you don’t find any pleasure in right now, but you used to get pleasure out of. You put in the calendar and you do it regardless. I think another really helpful thing is getting people on board, make public commitments to do things like, go for walks, go for hikes, go to the gym, things like that. Have a buddy.

Audrea Fink:
So this has been incredibly insightful. Thank you so much for sharing with us today. We appreciate you coming back.

Usually, at this point in the podcast, we do our three rapid-fire questions. But considering that one, you’ve already provided them because you’ve been a guest before, and then two we are dealing with a completely different playbook, I thought we could do rapid-fire pandemic version, like Real World: The Pandemic Season… Right? Nobody? Nothing?

Julie Holton:
Yeah, I like this. Let’s do it.

Audrea Fink:
So number one-

Dorian Hunter:
I’d want to watch that show.

Audrea Fink:
Don’t. Oh, God, it’ll rot your brain.

Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
I stopped watching it after I think season four or something. I’m like, okay, it’s not real anymore, because they’re too well aware of the cameras.

Audrea Fink:
It was such a good show when it started. Wasn’t it one of the original reality shows?

Julie Holton:
Yeah.

Audrea Fink:
Are there any lessons that you’ve learned during 2020 that have changed how you view or how you treat mental and emotional health?

Dorian Hunter:
So I don’t know if there’s anything that’s been new or has changed my mind about anything, but what I’ve noticed has happened is that I’ve gotten more aware of how important people are. People are super important to me. I’ve always known this, and it’s become clear to me that this is true for, I would argue, everyone.

The other thing I think I’ve had more insight into is how resilient A lot of us are, that we can go through incredibly difficult things, and still do things like provide care for other people and practice loving ourselves and take action in the service of our values, things like this. I do tend to be on the trying to be hopeful side of things, and I think that there’s a lot to be hopeful for.

Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
Dorian, I know you’ve mentioned this several times throughout this podcast, but I’d love for you to touch on it one more time just to put a bullet point right on it.

For women who might be struggling with isolation, depression, exhaustion, burnout, what is that number one piece of advice that you would give to those individuals?

Dorian Hunter:
The self-compassion piece. Be nice to yourself. I have been hearing throughout this … Probably throughout my career, that mostly women, some men too, don’t do things for themselves, because they feel like they don’t deserve it.

This is a pet peeve of mine, this idea that we deserve or don’t deserve things because that’s just not how the world works. So be kind to yourself, recognize you don’t have to argue with yourself about whether or not you deserve something. Just recognize that you are a human being, and therefore you are valid, therefore, you deserve kindness.

Julie Holton:
I love that so much even just talking to yourself as if you are talking to your friend.

So knowing that working from home can often feel like you’re living at work, how would you encourage women to process that work-life balance?

Dorian Hunter:
I have struggled with this myself. I walk across the hallway from my bedroom to my office and I’m at work already. So I heard somebody saying that they instituted a policy that they go for a walk before they go into their office, and then they go for a walk after the workday, and this sort of substitutes for their commute, gives them a way to decompress. I love that idea. I haven’t worked in the morning walks yet. I’m working on that, but I do the after-work walk.

The other thing that I’ve been doing that I think has been helpful among the people I know who are doing this is work in all sorts of pleasant sensory things into the workday to give yourself novelty, to give yourself … Sort of remove some of the sense of being deprived of things.

So like I am in love right now with my essential oil diffuser, and I have a whole bunch of oils now and I get really into it and like, ooh, what scent am I going to use today.

Audrea Fink:
Speaking Julie’s language.

Julie Holton:
Literally. Yep. So much mental health with the olfactory system and it’s just so many benefits when you’re diffusing good quality oils.

Dorian Hunter:
I think I have fresh-cut grass in today.

Julie Holton:
I love the idea of a walk. That’s like a twofer for me. Like if I could just get my butt moving sometimes, I think I’d feel better for so many reasons. So what a great idea to kind of lengthen your morning commute instead of just across the hall, walk around the block first. That’s such a great idea.

Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
Getting some sun on your face is always I think a beneficial thing.

Audrea Fink:
Dorian, can you share the best way for our audience to connect with you if they have additional questions or business interests or maybe want to work with you?

Dorian Hunter:
I work with a group called The Seattle Clinic, sort of like a co-op, and their website is theseattleclinic.com and if you go to that website, you should be able to find my page.

You’re welcome to email me at Dorian@theseattleclinic.com, and then I’m on LinkedIn too. You’re welcome to reach out to me that way.

Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
For those who maybe aren’t in the Seattle area, but want to find a little extra help, can you recommend some resources for reaching out, for those individuals?

Dorian Hunter:
Yeah, I think this is a really important thing to say particularly the time that we’re in. Now is a time to be hopeful, and it’s a dark time for many, many people, and for some of us, there’s been lifting and for some of us, it’s things have gotten much worse.

So if you find yourself that you’re getting to a place that you’re feeling hopeless, I want everybody out there to know that you are not alone and that there is hope. If you get to a point that you’re feeling overwhelmed, if it feels like a crisis, I want you to know that it will not last forever. Our emotions come and they go. That’s part of what they do. They don’t stick around all the time. They don’t last forever.

So there’s a national lifeline phone number that you can call for support if you’re inside or outside of Seattle. It’s 1-800-273-talk. That’s 1-800-273-8255 and then if you’d prefer to text them to talk, there’s also a Crisis Text Line where you … To initiate with them you just text hello to 741-741.

Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
Dorian, thank you so much for that information and thank you so much for joining us for this podcast. Your insights, it’s been phenomenal and deep. We went through a lot in this and we appreciate your mind and helping us walk through it.

That is going to do it for this episode of Think Tank of Three.