Redefining Hope & Why It Is The Greatest Predictor of Your Well-Being w/ Psychologist Julia Garcia

Welcome. I'm Kevin Miller, and this is a podcast about how we make meaning of our lives and experience the miracle of living in this episode

redefining hope and why it is the greatest predictor of your well-being. I

think we've gotten to the point of defining hope as this expectation of something good that's gonna happen in the future maybe, but I've really found that many

people who I'd refer to as hopeful, they don't

exude hope just in the future, but right here and now a

primary definition I found of hope is simply a feeling of trust and that's current in the present. So my guest in this episode says hope is the single best predictor of well-being

compared to any other measure of trauma recovery. So if hope includes having trust and it's relevant for us all to consider how trusting that we feel in our lives about our lives

not just on other people, but just again overall life in general.

So my guest is Dr. Julia Garcia. Julia is a psychologist and author dedicated to empowering people through the science of mental health.

Julia works with people facing life's toughest moments helping them overcome fear, doubt and hopelessness to build lasting habits of healing and hope.

She says her mission is to prove that hope isn't just something you feel. It's something you practice one habit at a time.

I find hope and trust seems like it's in short supply in our current culture.

And yet I find my own hope ongoing in the just the miracle of living as a constant fuel for the level of peace and joy that I do have.

Julia has written a book on this work with hope. It's called the five habits of hope stories and strategies to help you find your way.

We start off talking about these cultural concepts around hope and then walk and talk through her five habits of hope.

So coming up next is my conversation with Dr. Julia Garcia and the relevance and five habits of hope.

Julia, the topic of hope itself is always an area I am so interested in and hope and hopelessness both. So I'm eager to dig in there, though, even above that, a line that I found, I think at least twice on your website, I'm going to read it, you said we can't always alter external landscapes were up against, but we can level out the internal field were on.

And on some degree, I feel like okay, of course, but then I also think yeah, but we don't get it as a culture. I feel like I've never experienced a culture more focused on trying to control the external circumstances or overwhelmed and stressed out by the external circumstances and not that they don't matter.

But oh my gosh, I feel like I'm back to man's search for meaning with Victor, Victor, Frankl as as my holy grail these days of the my internal world is all I can really have a great impact on and if I can secure that I'm gold and no matter what.

So you put in that line, not once, but twice, maybe more on there. Well, you had me at hello then.

Well, I, you know, are you having me at hello when I read about you, not just promoting resilience, but sustaining it, so not just having habits, but having the emotional capacity to sustain them, the value system.

So I think we're off to something right away, but that one, I actually, if I'm honest with you, it makes me emotional to hear someone else read that and to share that because where that was coming from and where that is.

Really the roots of talking about external versus internal is growing up in a community and in even with family dynamics where there were just so many, I would say tragic traumatic external circumstances and there were no tools for any of us to navigate it emotionally.

Like what do you do when a parents on drugs, you know, like how do we learn how to deal with that at 10 years old, 11 years old or what do you do when a parent goes to jail?

You know, like how do you navigate that emotionally and then seeing other people experience things and and then on top of that, there's social issues compounding things and their systems in place and not in place.

And so really that is derived from not just like personal things, but also the external things I've seen and heard and research people around the country and the world's because I did have a global hotline during the height of the pandemic.

So I heard a lot of the issues people were facing in Africa and Asia and right here in our own communities and the external things are are never ending and they really have never been maybe wilder.

I'll say is the word now with the digital world in landscape, but internally we're not catching up.

That right there, that line internally, we're not catching up. I so concerned myself with, you know, such a focus on technology and AI and the evolving and progress, you know, progress that we're making and yet from a humanity from our psyche.

I feel like are we stuck or are we even devolving? I mean, you know, you know the stats, we look at chronic illness and disease, we look at mental wellbeing and all the stats are just showing we're getting worse and worse and I feel like nobody's we're not understanding this, we are, we seem to be unhappier and in more conflict than ever.

As a matter of fact, you had on, I think it's the top of your website and you mentioned connection and I feel like we are more in contact with each other, more communication with each other, but maybe less connection than ever.

Yeah, we're hyper connected and this is part one of the book I broke the book up into two parts because I didn't want to just write like some self help book, not that I don't, you know, appreciate respect all those, but I wanted to give context to why this issue mattered, not just to me, but like culturally.

And so the first part of the book really talks about and dives into what I call became the big social media experiment, it was a social experiment and how the digital world and the digital era, his completely hyper connected us, but we couldn't be more anxious, more lonely, more disconnected and disconnection and despair are parallel or they're intertwined together.

So when someone feels hopeless despair, they usually also feel disconnected. So that those two kept coming up those words that people would specifically use in the work that I do, they would say I feel hopeless and I also feel lonely.

So that's when I really started to dive into well, how are we so connected, but feeling alone and it's I believe a lot of it has to do with the style and type of connection we have.

The automated content, the engagement is what I would say we are consuming and not contributing to culture. So we are consuming other people's thoughts and seeing people connect and seeing people share, but our contribution is fading less and less or it's becoming more and more filtered or it's with AI replacing a lot of our original thoughts.

My career bio showcases me starting 19 different business initiatives about to launch another one and I'm never perfectly confident.

There's always some risk, always some insecurity, but at this point every effort has provided me with some value and some provided the world with value as well.

But I'm always looking for new tools and resources to make things easier, which is why I've been promoting Shopify for a couple years now.

We built one business website entirely on Shopify. You can get started with your own design studio. They've got hundreds of ready to use templates and can help you build a beautiful online store that matches your brand style.

Shopify is the e-commerce industry leader with world class expertise and everything from managing inventory to international shipping to processing returns and beyond.

If you got a question, Shopify is there to help with award-winning 24-7 customer support. You can turn your what ifs into with Shopify today.

Sign up for your $1 per month trial today at Shopify.com slash Kevin. Go to Shopify.com slash Kevin one more time. Shopify.com slash Kevin.

Do you I think you'll appreciate I had we haven't even published the episode, but I had a guy Bill Burnett on the show a couple weeks ago.

He's been at he's a professor at Stanford been there for like 40 years. So that's the context. He's yeah, he said he's there were dinosaurs there when he first started.

So he's been there and runs the life design lab there. And what is this and how do I participate? Can I do it?

Well, I'll tell you the book again hasn't come out yet. We haven't published it. It's how how to live a meaningful life that he they did through this lab.

But to your to what you just said there and why bring it up and because I got the book here beside me is he said in the 40 whatever years that he's been teaching at Stanford.

He didn't say he says we recognize the student populace as the loneliest populace ever.

It was actually in the former attorney general made it an epidemic said it's the loneliest generation of all time.

There are many different like articles and research organizations who have also affirmed that it is it's the loneliest generation, but the most connected hyper can fit.

Yeah, yeah, at least lots of contact. Okay, tell me this in regards again to that external landscapes quote from you and working on our internal field.

I am very I interest myself and focus a lot doing a lot of research on on quote personal agency. That's the easiest term. But if you look up personal agency, most of the feedback you get is kind of with the idea of okay, I can pull myself up on my bootstraps.

And I can go out kick butt and take care of all this external stuff. It's not what back to Victor Frankel what he talked about where he had this I'm going to call it inner agency when he couldn't affect anything externally.

He had no power, no influence. It was only inner and so you know personal agency being the kind of term that we talk about for empowering ourselves, but I'm wanting to give it the distinction of and what I felt like you are speaking to to internal agency.

Yeah, yeah, and I have a story I want to share with you now that you bring up Victor Frankel who man, if I could write like that, I'm just such it's hard to have that great of an example in your life to utilize.

Yeah, but I actually visited the one of the first internment camps ever in Germany. And when I was there was in the middle of winter and so it's freezing and I'm walking around. It's it's absolutely like blistering cold like not cute cold like the blistering like this is so uncomfortable.

I hate that I'm doing a walking tour right you mean personal problems here thinking about me doing a walking tour of an internment camp right how cold I am, but there's photographs everywhere and on the wall are the

there's the inmates and they don't have coats on. Some they don't have shoes socks definitely no beanies or scarves and they are not equipped for what they're what they're against they were you know actually sent there to die, but they're also working they're doing all these experiments on them it's it was horrible, but I remember asking the tour guide I said was there ever a revolt in this internment camp.

And he looked at me and he said no. And I asked why not that he you know knew exactly but he said well one of the strategies was to beat them down emotionally to where they they were treated externally like they were less than human and they were beat down and they were to humanize to a point where eventually maybe they believed it.

And it's the reminder I think what you're pointing out is external circumstances are one thing but you're regardless of what they are like the most powerful force to navigate any of it is what's going on internally.

Okay on that note another line then from your book hope is the single best predictor of well being compared to any other measure of trauma recovery.

Okay let's I want to look at hope and I think I actually put a yeah I did when you search it says a feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen but then a secondary definition is a feeling of trust and I want you to talk about the distinction of hope that this is what I was considering Julia is.

I want to feel hope not just for what may happen out there hope that I can be okay out there but I also I can want present moment hope and that's where I like them saying trust and I thought faith and it's it's you know not only faith that I'll that I'll be okay but can I have that hope.

And I'm I'm just okay now I can be okay right here right now thoughts yeah even aside from being okay or not being okay I think there's hope in attaching who you are to being enough to again going back to worth like there's still I'm still worthy even if I'm not okay I'm still enough even if I'm a hot freaking mess right now I cannot figure this out I still have people who care about me I still care and I'm passionate about.

Things even if nothing is going right for me so not attaching hope to outcomes but to these internal values in a sense of worth that there is worth to my life to my relationships to my ideas you're regardless of someone validates them or if there's an outcome that I desire to happen or not to happen and I think with the definition of hope that you shared it's what most people would associate hope with which is a feeling right like what we feel about it and it's so important that we talk about that because

our feelings dictate a lot of our actions right our feelings are kind of that route so if we can attach our feelings to an internal value system which I know you really stand for as well is that inherent values the things like why we do what we do then it's it really removes the outcome part of it and it allows us to come back to that present right like what is valuable right now to me.

Okay, you said something that reminded me here's my here's my preface to come into something you mentioned in the book which I greatly greatly value I a lot of my work and focus is on inner security again the Victor Franco concept I'll keep using them as an example but

inner security can I be just secure in my worth right here right now and had somebody ask and it brought up the concept of do I expect he's somebody it was my mom is my mom is discussion with my mom

I had all the mamas out there yeah there I got well she hears us I want to give credit where credit is due and she said so is your goal and I'm going to paraphrase a little bit is your goal just to be I'll I'll exaggerate the point you know captain secure nothing phases you I'm I'm just you know in the lotus position mom of air yeah she's going is that your is that your goal and is it even possible and I said well and what I did is help myself come to okay maybe I can't be secure

all the time but can I be able to secure myself all the time so there's my come into what you said this time toolkit okay here's you this is your line out of the book okay you ready I'm going to read you your book

tell me what I wrote I forgot okay here to here to you said the five habits of hope are less about having hope all the time and more about always having a clear process for navigating yourself back towards it.

So do I always 100,000% always have hope maybe not but can I at any moment have a process for navigating myself back towards hope even when I don't feel it in a moment.

So again that was another deal maker for me.

Yeah I think that thank you for sharing that because that again is a reminder for me not just where I come from and the things I've been through but the

really difficult things I've been beside people who have gone through loss grief you know all kinds of things and it's a reminder that hope isn't happy

and you don't have to have a ton of hope all the time you just need that little mustard side seed to help interrupt those thoughts it's that little tool that helps us break up those

thoughts cycles so that we can continue to rebuilds back towards where we feel aligned.

You saying hope is not always happy I have a chip on my shoulder Julia that I'll admit with happy.

I don't know that happy is the most fulfilling thing in my life I am aware now of sometimes the challenge and the hardship and the struggle is some of the most the sadness even some of the most fulfilling.

Aspects of my life and into some degree almost minimize just happy I mean happy is great in the moment but.

So you saying hope isn't always happy I that's the message I felt from your book is you're talking about.

An abiding I do like the term faith tell tell me your thoughts on my aligning those two.

Definitely and I felt what you said deeply hope this isn't in the book but it's coming to me now it's such a pureness unbiased it's it's it's a it's a pure place of honesty and if in that in that place wherever you're at you're honestly feeling discouraged or disappointed or rejected or abandoned or defeated or exhausted that's the only way hope can exist as if we're honest with whatever it is we feel.

And I believe that the reason you're able to find find meaning I'll say is the word and if that's not the correct meaning of what you were saying with all the feelings you shared the sadness the all the things it's because you are allowing yourself to feel them.

And what's currently happening and what has been happening in culture for a while but I do believe social media and in this digital air has propelled this happening more is we go on feeling detours where we do just about anything but feel and that's because there's fear there's repercussions there's all these things in place right but your ability you have done so much navigation and processing and work and.

You've probably built a support system around your journey and it's allowed you to be able to maybe feel anger and then not take you out or to get sad and still put your heart out there right you can these feelings aren't taking from you it sounds like they're.

I'm going to say yes and accept all you said and also admit how relatively new all of this is and I have the collateral damage from not being able to do that from being what you talked about.

I didn't feel I did I do things.

Yeah 100 yeah nailed me send send the invoice yeah it's totally but now yes now but now I realize what I was missing and I am reveling to some degree and I'm let's say in awe of the deeper you said meaning yeah meaning and we'll back to the other word use value and finding value value in sadness I think that one still.

That the feeling will come on and instead of running for it I may decide to dig into the feeling and I'm still a little.

I'm allowing a little disoriented like who the hell are you this is not this is not the guy used to look at them I didn't used to look at the guy in the mirror I guess it would be the truth and now wow wow so again that's why you're here yeah I feel like if you did I love that analogy of the mirror because.

If you did look at it you would see maybe things at the time you didn't want to see right that's why we were maybe not looking in the mirror the more you look in the mirror the longer you look in the mirror the more you allow others to come beside you and look in the mirror with you and maybe give you another perspective as well you I believe get to know who you were before all the other stuff start taking from it.

I I'm not going to go in a linear place here direction with you because you're hidden on some things that just stood out from the book so this is one that may be pithy to you but I don't think I forget it it's a section your book I don't remember where it was and you just called out somewhat our cultural propensity to if we're sitting here talking right now Julia and I get emotional and.

Start to tear up my propensity the cultural to go sorry sorry sorry hold on yeah and totally which unfortunately I don't even have the opportunity to do because of the difficulty for me to even get to that point to cry but.

I would do that I'm sure I would have done that would have you're going to be my avatar now to not and to.

Maybe speak to someone else who does that says sorry please don't thank you for the gift is what I thought instead of sorry how about or somebody say that to me go oh gosh no thank you for the for the gift but why are we.

Why are we that way to apologize because I can be emotional without being overcome taken over.

And yet just be honest I still want to be that.

I it's got a little poetic flavor but I say we can't actually deal for not real with how we feel and a lot of times we associate feelings with weakness and.

We want to be tough I think a lot of people who don't express emotion it's not because they're being stubborn it's because they care so much for others there's not really a lot of space they've created in their lifestyle design to go back to the stand for.

Glass or whatever that is the program they haven't really designed it into their life that they're allowed to be care cared for they're allowed to.

To have space and the best way I can say this is I was actually doing a podcast once with a young woman has a lawyer and she's this incredibly high performing insanely successful young woman and she never would break right because she was always doing all these things being really successful and just high performer and.

She was talking about how she felt a little bit lonely and I knew this person had a really strong relationship with their sibling so I said does your sibling know about this and they said no and I just revisited maybe a perspective of if your sibling were really struggling when she want to be there for them.

It's like don't chip her from that opportunity to be there for you because you're not the only one who cares for caring for others right and so I say the best thing we can do is not just share our struggles but share our strengths and.

If we can really get good at allowing both to coexist at once we share all the shiny but can we also share some of the struggles.

I'm learning I'm learning I again our topic here is hope you did what you talk about that I mean half your book is the preface up to your you know five habits for hope and in there I just found myself drawn to certain concepts that you shared one is how could I help myself if I hated myself I think you were talking about your own story and.

Hates a strong word I don't know if everybody will relate to it but I so I was I was thinking you know how how can I help myself if I just have disdain for myself or apathy or negligence or indifference I and that last one really I resonated with that I think I didn't hate myself in the past but it's always a little disappointed you know the kind of the perfection concept that I never added up thought it was my job to be my own.

Slave driver and it's just kind of indifferent to myself I'm a tool to get things done I'm a tool to win a race I'm a tool to achieve this I'm a tool to be a great dad it wasn't all bad stuff but I just was indifferent to myself so back to your statement I'll replace it with my term for me how can I help myself if I'm indifferent to my self.

I'm going to continue with I may have I don't know if this is right out of your book or if I paraphrased but.

I think this is right at your book you said behavioral modification won't change that core feeling.

Hate in difference whatever it is behavioral modification won't change it and then you said external factors won't change this and I I just it's kind of like a ding ding if it did right now we got the Olympics going on if it did every

Olympian every every Olympian period just being there much less winning the medal they would all be great with themselves it'd be nothing but huge high self worth an internal joy and Victor Frank was running all over the place and of course it's not and we see are the stories of these people and they got five gold medals and they committed suicide or whatever to exaggerate the point but how can I help myself let's say that you're equating your ability to help yourself equating that correlating that.

To how you feel about yourself.

Yeah what's interesting is and I'm not going to say maybe it was apathy but I do want to associate in difference a little bit with apathy when we like kind of feel nothing about something and in a study done about hope that was actually determined to be worse than hopelessness is apathy and I think I think what's important about that is when.

Our spirit when we talk about faith like the spirit within us when that when that is numbed out then that's the real question right of who are we and set up if I don't achieve or do this or accomplish this then who am I really but it's like how do I keep my spirit alive and in a lot of times if you don't like yourself like me you really suppress your spirit because you don't want anyone to see it because you think it's bad or wrong or not good enough right so.

You don't want anyone to see it so you suppress your own spirit in that's really the danger I believe that said he was referring to they did not say that but that's what I believe when they were saying that apathy was was more dangerous than hopelessness.

Okay let's go there because you said something else I want to pick on to but apathy isn't Julia maybe you're more up to speed I haven't looked at it in a while but there was a time in the past years where they said looking at the chronic illness and disease.

Stats that not the greatest category but the fastest growing at the time was diseases of despair.

Which I think is headlined by depression and I think the word was apathy and just suicide is in there at the high end but I think apathy was a highlight in the diseases of despair which at the time I think was the fastest growing does that ring true.

I've actually haven't heard that term before so I appreciate you bringing something new to me that I'm going to deep dive into but it definitely makes a lot of sense because hopelessness affects it shuts down the the brain that has the very systems that help us to move forward the motivation the goal setting even our immune response so it makes sense because hope is a cognitive science even though we mostly communicate about it and it kind of affects our life based on how we feel about it but.

It shuts down systems in our brain and this affects our nervous system yeah that's going to spike anxiety that's going to spike stress that's going to probably propel us to isolate more which you know is not good if you're feeling those things and it can just do this cycle of things just shutting down one by one.

I'm going to go back to that phrase that you said of this is not about I'm paraphrasing about being king hopeful all the time but about always having a clear process for navigating yourself back towards that so that brings us to the five habits of hope which I'll just speak them out and then we'll dig in a little bit reflect risk release receive and repurpose.

So there reflecting so this is and again I want to keep coming back because I'm so just enamoring myself with these are the what you have outlined through your work with thousands of thousands of people as this is a process to navigate yourself back towards hope and I even found myself thinking of this is how to this is how we manufacture hope these are the processes so when you feel hopeless when you feel at the end of the day.

So this is what we can engage with to grow it fair navigate back towards it navigate back towards it okay it's there we're not growing it we're just going back to it okay yeah reflect reading that segment my first thought was the word auditing myself auditing my

word that I've been stuck on for about a year and it was being sober and in this case being well I don't know emotionally sober kind of being honest with myself how how is that encapsulate the paraphrasing my paraphrasing of reflecting yeah I think when you say sober I I feel like senses being awake right here I don't want to use the the spiritual term awake in but I think about senses and I think sometimes we can come back to you and I think

sometimes we can compartmentalize different aspects of our senses who we are right we filter things not just online but internally as well and it's really allowing all of your senses to be alive okay you yeah alert to all of them okay you said compartmental not compartmentalizing and a minute ago you said it nice I said I was going to come back to it and I forgot so thanks for bringing back and it was suppression.

Somebody brought that to me recently it was in a it was in a podcast that I was on actually but the term came up and I realized and I kind of devolved there that I think that that's been one of my primary habits is suppression and not only did I

engage with suppression did I do I actually agreed with suppression I thought I was doing the world of favor by being Mr. Cool Coleman collected no matter what and even protecting people from myself or or themselves by being again captain compartmentalizing suppression I found myself in reading on the reflect habit in your book of thinking this is

this is your call out to drop that stuff yeah thank you for sharing that I identify more than I could explain I actually wanted the book to be called originally the cycles of silence and it was going to be really framed around suppression there is a portion in the book called the cycles of silence so I do speak about it but it only made a couple pages it didn't become the entire book maybe another time but suppression

you know I I'm still angry to this day and I was very angry I remember when I first found out about it I kind of thought there there was so much wrong with me and it took me going to grad school I did drop out three times but one of the students in grad school I heard the words internal suppression and I was so angry that I had no idea what that was before that moment but it oh it sounded the alarm of

like you're not crazy you are not out of you there's not something wrong with you there are there are things that suppress us externally right but when you start to believe the things

yourself when you start to believe you don't deserve you're less than you're not enough you're not good enough I feel in the blank when you start to

believe it it becomes an internal suppression so when you said agreement that is exactly that we agree to it now it's like what I

said and shared earlier about the internment camp when the prisoners were told they were not human that they were less than human maybe that's one thing to hear it but when they started to believe it it was a totally different situation that's internal oppression and I that's again goes back to my anchor about it my righteous

anchor about this not knowing what this was and how to navigate and unpack it with this new knowledge of like I'm not crazy there's there's this is something right that goes back to we don't always have the external we can't control the

external outcomes but how can we equip people internally more internally more Julia why do you think what are some highlight reasons or

causalities maybe that if you look at our culture now insane suppression is high emotional suppression internal suppression is high why well there's actually top three reasons that in my research surveying hundreds of thousands of people around the country from students to parents to organizational leaders educational

institutes like superintendents teachers things like that and the top three reasons are one they don't want to be a burden so this is the opposite of like oh this is selfish culture right now it's like they're actually trying to look out for you that's they're holding in because they're trying to help you out right so don't want to be a burden

don't want to be a burden I don't want to get these wrong they are in the book don't want to be a burden

don't think anyone cares that one always gets to me but they don't think anyone would care especially when you see it in handwriting that it's it's heartbreaking it makes you want to cry

when people literally write that they think no one cares about them and they don't think people will understand being misunderstood

and I would also add they don't want to look weak yeah I I can attest to all those I my here's a curious one don't want to look weak I also though feel like and maybe I'm misleading myself a little bit that there is just ignorance if I am I perceive my

self as being so emotionally unintelligent somewhat disconnected it's just what it was like a language it's like it's somebody said you know gosh how much time do you speak do you spend

speaking German no no exposure to this German lane why would it why would I do that it was kind of like that tell me about your emotions yes yes so exposure is a great I mean man you landed it

I don't know was there more you want to say on that no go wait because exposure

there's one thing information exposure we are inundated with that right inundated we can get information any day time whatever

but experience exposure is very different it's extremely rare which is why I do not do traditional lectures

that's just my style my format I try and create an experience where there's like real-time activities real-time

transformation real-time conversations facilitation at all it has to be an experience they have to walk away

the other I actually don't know what that was that was supposed to be a keynote but I feel like there was

some things happening right because exposure without experience can only stick for so long that was

really good we should like write that down because I don't think I've ever conceptualized it that way but

that's okay yeah okay exposure without experience won't stick so what I said I got a walk to play

I got it I got it written down awesome sure that would relate to make a t-shirt out of it

the I like your term are your your reference to your speak and I know you do a lot that you don't

do lectures it has to be an experience I do not enjoy lectures and I am doing a gigantic

speaking engagement this summer and I'm doing a conversation so I'm going to be doing this

congrats on that first of all and we need more people to to step into that and to be courageous

and to communicate in a way that's authentically you because guess what there's no rules

there's no rules to be in a speaker thank you thank you not many rules anywhere I think these

days so reflect where your old can download an app I can do poetry and do activities in my job

thank you and I do appreciate your focus on poetry I did my first show on a book of poetry a couple

I think we published it a couple weeks ago and I'm I'm growing I'm growing in there all right second

habit here is risk and you I feel like you kind of juxtapose the concepts of feeling weak or feeling

worthy that was a section where you talked about our propensity culturally to if we show a

motion especially crying to say I'm sorry when we are when we are vulnerable and this but I wanted

to highlight your focus on risk because I view I'm going to include myself I I view us as a culture

going back to mental health stats right now and the sense of unwell being that we have I feel like

we have why have we gotten it feels like we have gotten to be the most fragile culture ever

oh I feel like we're set up to fail actually I feel like the infrastructure is what's fragile

I feel like especially I would say the younger generation man they have been exposed to so much

trauma on just repeat or there are just no guardrails for them right now there's none they can

literally access anything at any time they can be triggered at any moment they and we're all

navigating things in a different way from where we're at but the younger generation who is

growing up with technology I feel like the infrastructure is not there to support them and I think

that people in society are misplacing that and putting it on them first of all they're not even

developmentally ready to take accountability for all these things we're putting on them being sensitive

being fragile I think that the infrastructure is what's fragile it is a lot of the culture in which

they are growing up is created by a very small group of people in an elite group who do not

have any mental health well being at least in the beginning now it's like how do we fix

the what we did but in the beginning mental health was not in the actual infrastructure of the

cultural designs in these digital landscapes that they've grown up okay I want more because I

made a reference to feeling like the culture is more insecure and fragile than ever I got pushed back

from someone and said well I for you know first how do you measure that and and what about back

with you know world war whatever you know too when we were going through that and and the cultural

insecurity or the great depression or whatnot but I feel a difference one of my dear friends Jake

Eagle psychotherapist differentiated fear said fear is there's a real and present danger there

would bear about to attack you or there's a war going on or there's COVID or you know there's

something that's literally a threat to your physical well being different than anxiety which is not

a real and present fear necessarily but is a worry in essence and it seems that we are

suffering more from anxiety than from real and present danger or that's not fair help me out

no no I totally get what you're saying but just talking about like world where to write like

something like that people really struggled with addictions with like abuse to alcohol and drugs

at the time so why I say that for context is it wasn't like the problems internally have really

not been there it's just there was a different numbing method before and now we're way more

exposed to other people opening up about things so now it's like oh shoot that's what it did

that's what and maybe that's what I mean and then people are going on their own journey some people

are maybe following other people instead of maybe staying on their own journeys that could be a

little something in there too but yes anxiety is very it feels very real so if you're struggling

with if you're having like panic and worry and stress and maybe there's nothing to us for you

to be stressed out about right we're like what are you doing you're you're going your life is

awesome you what is what's the matter we're just going to the movie right now but it's very real for

them and that's not to say that that wasn't happening in other generations but there was a much

different way to to not navigate that people weren't talking about it with this this is the with

risk is the easy terminology with this that you're talking about any we need to risk being honest

with our feelings is that too simplistic no I think it's any emotional risk and only you know

where you hold back emotionally only you know so it could be in a relationship it can be

professionally not taking that emotional risk right not trying again after feeling like a failure

that's an emotional risk right that's a that's a performance tied to an internal belief system so

it's these emotional risks that I'm speaking of I love the external adrenaline junky risks right

I've jumped out of a plane a bunch of times and I'm sure as a competitive athlete you you've had

you like the adrenaline rush maybe like me but it's an emotional risk and it's very different

than external risks because it requires us to look in the mirror like you referenced earlier

until now it's allowed someone else to see us yeah that's I am I am I'm in that I have been

I've lived in that club my entire life external risk man bring it on it's it's actually fun

right still is but emotional risk that's I'm a little more scared now roller coasters I'm always like

okay what if that little button just flies out you know now I'm like over thinking because of the

kids and yeah so I can't just like go low the way I used to yeah okay well I gotta admit that too

I'm just gonna say I'm more mature maybe no I don't think I got mature I think I just got like

scared I'm sick I became sick yeah well okay I'm not I'm not gonna risk that much vulnerability

so we'll move on to the next one um release all right this one um release I my right away thought

as I started reading letting go I have the book letting go by I can't remember the guy's name

Watkins or Hawkins I think it was David Hawkins and so many people especially from a spiritual

standpoint you know if you're talking I don't know Eckhart Toler or what not so much of this

just letting go and accept so difficult for me to well go to number four have it to receive

that concept I feel like number four might be your your biggest um tension there

but I don't want to jump ahead but I feel like that knowing what I've learned about you I would

feel like number four possibly possibly the release didn't even feel I don't know if it felt

hard I just couldn't conceive it what do you mean release and and kind of along that letting go

and accept well first off am I tracking with those concepts too letting go and accepting being

part of what you're pointing to with release yeah I say what what we release releases us

when you think about suppression you can only contain so much and there was a point in my life

where I suppressed so much where it started coming out and ways I could not control and it was

it so for some people can come out in like raging anger violence um it can come out in self

destruction self harm self injury it can come out and um and and that doesn't always have to be

physical you could emotionally be trying to um sabotage a relationship right so it's not

just external things that we do when we self destruct and for me I got to a point where

it is a miracle I made it out of my twenties alive I did so much self destruction internally

and externally and it got to a place where I couldn't suppress any longer it was slipping out

and I had I literally didn't have a choice for me it was a life or death choice to figure out

how to to release things and for a long time verbal communication words were not how I could do it

I could not for the life of me you couldn't pay me to cry in front of you I I paid someone else

and I still couldn't cry in front of them I tried I was setting myself up positioning myself to be

vulnerable and I just I couldn't get there there were so many walls and I haven't shared this

story yet but I want I feel like I should share with you right now please so I have a great friend

who's a world renowned yogi he is the yogi mat okay you could look it up I'm not lying he is world

renowned and yogi and all the things he does and when we were younger I had never been to a yoga class

and even though he's working up his yoga career at the time and he was like do you want to come to a

class and I was like fine I was not into any kind of like relaxed peace like that wasn't me I was

more like we described earlier I want adrenaline I want to go jet skiing I want to like anything else

so we go to this yoga class and at the end of the class they had us lie down on our back

which I could show you I can't lay down with this wall behind me but we lie down and then they

put a towel over us like a little blanket and then like a warm towel I think over my eyes if I can

remember and then they they sit up at your palms up and then your feet kind of just out or

lax and when I tell you the second I my palms went up even though I had this little towel thing on

my eyes I was like I'm going to lose it I'm about to have an emotional meltdown like I I'm I'm

going to freak out I need out of here because I got so emotional being still and I had never in

my life experienced that kind of stillness it was always do do do do do sleep because you have

to get go and get moving you know like build try and prove myself all the things and I had never

my mom always said or my stepdad said it if your head wasn't attached to you you would lose it

because I was just always on the go and it was the first time I realized that I understood the

practice of being still can also be a form of release because I had to be still enough in order

to let something out. Julie you said palms up one of my closest friends who I

I cite as a spiritual mentor he is my guru of palms up and that was not my life my life was gripping

hmm controlling do what it takes and when he brought me palms up eat I feel like and I've got my own

filters around that but just the kinesthetic movement of palms up. I still feel like the I can go

back to feeling the nakedness about having my palms up I felt like shame it was very I felt

dirty like uncomfortable all the things. Yeah it feels vulnerable just it is not I mean our

arms aren't even constructed to do it that well I have to make the effort to palms up and then

have your palms exposed. I don't know if you are listening but if you don't feel what's happening

right now there is this that's like so there's so much in that there's so much there.

Yeah I almost don't know where to go from there I think I'm going to do a palms up session

when we're done. I love it palms up because in that position and you said the word gripped

my sample chapter to my publisher was actually about that that was the word that was like the

opening line about how we we learn how to fight at a young age and it's not a class we're taught

but we learn how to fight but it's not just external things it's the internal battles that we

have and it's that gripping that holding on that leads to the suppression right but it starts with

that gripping that withholding and I do this exercise do you want to do it can we do it okay great

we're talking about palms okay so grab both of your hands and each of the habits just if you're

listening to wanting some tool more tools that we don't mention here each of the habits are

equipped with a an exercise you can do like a prompt so this one is for release are you ready okay

so what you do is you think about a struggle that you didn't really open up about it could

have been years ago days ago minutes ago you got it locked in okay now both of your hands if you're

able put them in a fist that you describe grip them tightly now if this was a really difficult

struggle for you I want you to grip even tighter like as tight as you can you go for it okay now

for me I have nails so make sure just don't hurt yourself okay I know I you're you're gonna push

yourself to the limit no matter what I say but just don't don't hurt yourself don't start shaking

the people start turning pale so if I were to walk over to you or someone was to walk over to you

could they open your palms your hand thanks so unless they were really big okay well I'm really

big in top so I think I could now okay so I want you to think about if for the rest of the day

I don't I think you're in Pacific time zone I'm not sure mountain time zone for the rest of the day

you are going to operate your day with these fists just like this no I'm actually really doing

this so it's hurting at this point I want you to go eat whatever you're eating if you're having

chicken later I want you to try and get the fork I want you to go on your phone answer your

notifications I want you to give somebody hug I want you to sleep like this I want you to do this

as long as humanly possible and I bet you could figure out if I gave you that incentive I bet you

could figure out how to do it you would probably be up to figure it out up for the child most people

listening y'all it's not being stubborn it's not stubbornness it is so many things it's like all

of the mixture of just how we approach anything we approach things grip in with bare brute force

doing it on our own yeah so I don't know if yours is hurting but mine is and if you're doing this

while listening okay we're gonna relieve ourselves right now I'm gonna say one two three what's

the first word that comes to mind oh just release relief either yeah yeah and the thing about it is

it takes effort to also let go and it might feel a little uncomfortable and weird and shameful right

but when you release now you're available to receive but there's a risk in that

that's why we have to I think they should go in order but if you want to go out of order with habits

but if we can continue to sharpen our emotional habit of risking then we know that no matter

the outcome maybe you get slapped right because your hands open now maybe someone comes and

slaps it but you'll like who you're becoming because you're choosing someone to be brave

yeah Julia I had two people through a transition that was dramatically difficult for me

the two two guys closest to me my brother and then a close friend within a short span of time

I don't know if it was within a day or a couple days or whatever but both came to me with

the concept of I can't remember who kind of made it well known Alan Watts or somebody I can't

remember a be like water be like water and obviously impacting to me it wasn't it wasn't just an

easy release and now I'm go be water but it was maybe a beginning a beginning release it was the

initial initial release you know I had a friend recently who I'll give credit to Marianne

Marianne Renner talking about this and she said she was playing right now with the concept of

gripping and palms up with also the like if you're picking grapes you've got to you know you've

got to have a grip to pull them off there but you can't clinch or you're going to squeeze the

grapes can you do both a little bit I'm playing with I'm playing with such things yeah it's really

understanding when each needs to happen right like when we do need to grip because that is a

defense and it's well it's supposed to be there right we're supposed to protect ourselves as well but

we know when one is for holding back because it's familiar or more comfortable

well receive is your fourth habit and the first word I have written under that is trust

which is a word that continues I continue to grow my value and my interest in the word trust and

what that means as a culture what it means to me and how I am I think really pulling into question

where my trust is and is not I think I don't have that defined yet I think I'm aware of feeling

like I have been trusting and realizing I don't think so yeah tell me well what do you mean

specifically by that or you don't have to be super specific but is there an arena that you're

pulling that from I I wonder Julia if I say that I trust people but I don't really I just trust

that I will be okay especially with my you know external abilities or whatnot but even more so now

with you know internal loss and then wondering but do I I think if if we look at my actions we

would show that I'm probably over self-reliant over don't ask for help don't rely on others and I

I think my my other note under receive from your book was receiving receiving love I am still aware

of I'm learning I think I think I've made great strides recently in receiving I don't know

if love but even receiving people's testimony of my positive impact in their life I was just at

an event and had a lot of that and just at least aware enough to watch myself into guy you don't

really know what to do with that do you Kevin how does that feel I I don't know where I am there

so I'm a lot of questioning but I love that you I love what you just said because I think that

and I could be wrong so go ahead and redirect me but even the this idea that you have to know

like what is that why do you always have to know okay that's yeah you yeah you've spot on spot on

I am striving to grow in security in peace in the uncertainty but I would say what you just

picked out as I my core nature still reveals me there's no striving in presence there's no

performance in presence there's no perfection in presence there just is that's the water there's

the water yeah it can be manipulated to be a ripple effect or a tide right it can be manipulated

by those things but water itself is just chilling it I find myself watching my words because it's

so easy to say I'm striving to be present well you just screwed it but even that like it's not

even like like being present is not if it if it's something we have to grow in then again it's

an effort and performative so there's no like doing it right or doing it wrong it's just really

this like navigation back to self like you know just it's just it's not about oh I was present

or it wasn't because then it's like now it's this goal thing that we have to strive for it's

like setting us up to fail right it just it is or it isn't and that's it's okay like

we just try and get more with the I would say alignment is the word I think that you can maybe

resonate with I think by driving a car and you kind of know when you're jerking it around like

I don't know much about cars but I do know that I feel the thing when it's misaligned right so it's

really just getting more back to aligned and in Christianity and my spiritual faith we talk about

um the aligning being really what we're going for as far as like even being Christ like it's

it's really I'm not gonna I'm not gonna get there but can I just align myself with my values and

my beliefs okay I'm a fan of that analogy of alignment of feeling like we tend to I tend to look

I think I've looked at alignment as either you're you know if your car is out of alignment and you're

not holding the steering wheel you're just going to drive off the road so we as our strong

externally capable selves just grip that thing and we keep it in line oh my gosh I'm so exhausted

it's the gripping right it's the remember I said you would figure it out you'd use your nose

for your phone you'd use your elbows to do something you'd figure it out and that is us being

performers yes yes I am a I'm reforming um there's another

you're reforming performer yes you gotta retire you know just retire okay okay okay fair I

I'll accept I'll accept that you're okay so I'm gonna I'm gonna pick on Christian faith because

that has been my construct my entire life as well that I still align with uh to a great degree

the last one repurpose so I wrote down I don't know if this is out of the book or just or paraphrase

or written right out of the book a quote or my paraphrasing that pain our pain can have a purpose

okay but I'm gonna pick on that because I did grow up with that concept of no matter what happens

you know it can be redeemed agree with that don't like the construct of justifying

everything no yeah you're I did not grow up in this construct of Christianity so

I poke holes at it all the time and I think part of my um experience with it has actually been

just brutally honest and um I have really had a lot of tensions in my faith journey a lot because

yeah I you cannot you can't expect for someone to um do something great with something without

acknowledging the bad I ended my dissertation with a quote from somebody I don't know their name

off top of my head but that it was something around the sentiment of we can't acknowledge we can

acknowledge the something about loving the stars in the sky but we have to acknowledge the

darkness around them that allows them to do that right um I botched it but it it spoke to me so

much because I think a lot of the work and especially with this book about hope I first was like I'm

not writing a book about hope this is way too fluffy this is way too joyful this is not the the

kind of like uh wait that I really wanted to say things with um but I realized that that's why

the book has two parts is I really wanted to approach hope in a way that isn't without the hopelessness

the heartache um that is also uprooting the things that block us from hope and in bringing

context to all of it because yeah I have no I do not support just like oh we're gonna just make it

better and it's redeemed no we got to uproot that first we got to figure out and then we got to

get to the honest root of something before hope again hope and honesty have to coexist

so with hope being our repurpose being a part of your path towards back to hope is there any more

you would unpack than that there's that that our pain can have a purpose I think people are used

to hearing that I don't know that it gets that much traction I think we hear those things

that let it be a lesson let yourself grow if that we hear that but I don't I don't I think I've

questioned myself that I've made it through I and I have faith that no matter what happens I'm

gonna make it through I'm gonna be okay but did you learn anything Kevin but no I gotta I gotta

pause you for a moment with that let's refrain no learning no understanding no growing no growing

allowed for the duration of this no growing no learning it's it's just it's just journey through

it's discovering it's curiosity and those those perspectives allow us the fullness allows our

spirit if you believe in the the Holy Spirit allows our spirits to come out and and to have a say

because we're not in control we're not trying to determine something we're not trying to figure

something out that's that that stillness that water that it allows it to be manipulated right

yeah the water and the letting go still I am it'd be growing in familiarity with still

disorient myself a lot yeah growing you don't have to grow yeah no I like to say and if I could

show this you know way visually it's gonna be very hard but I have some paper here so this is

this is you okay you're this awesome yellow letter notebook beige whatever

your whatever reason you got to be a high performer right there all your productiveness inside

of you right there maybe external things you've been through here people who've impacted your

life here etc all the things that kind of have like influence to you are right all the things I've

motivated you to get to this space where you want to grow you want to grow you want to learn you

want to evolve you want to all those things right all that's on here I believe that the process

of navigating and being on our journey being present allowing our spirit to be fully

alert to all of our senses right to not be in a position of we have to grow we have to know is

just taking it reflecting on it and then putting it in a place that's not

on top of us so it has it's all going to different places I'm I'm putting them I'm repurposing

them in different places but they're not me anymore I like it but they each can serve a purpose

right could be business relationally whatever it is but it's it's not my purpose

I like the visual and I relate it to my letting go of the doing

for the being when you took that breath yeah yeah I do more and more these days take the breath let

the shoulders down breathe the free air yeah Julia thank you

this has been amazing I'm so glad that um you took the time to just be so real with me

in this time together and um I appreciated all of it I I really this was very meaningful

conversation so I really I'll say it while we're still recording that I feel very grateful to have

a lot of great conversations my favorite ones are what we just did and I honor your

considering and contemplating everything that I directed to you and felt like we got to go

on a journey together so thank you and and thank you I'll continue thanking you as I take

aspects of this and go forward palms up palms up that's going to be our teacher we're going to

have a teacher palms up palms up maybe maybe there's the headline for the show

I love it well thank you so much and whoever's listening never lose hope

thanks for joining us in the discussion that again is Julia Garcia doctor Julia Garcia the book

the five habits of hope stories and strategies to help you find your way and she does walk through

all five of these habits and you can get that book anywhere and everywhere till next time here's

the you and me making better meaning from our lives and experiencing the miracle of living