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About this Episode

Welcome to today’s episode of The Communication Solution podcast with Casey Jackson, John Gilbert and Danielle Cantin. We love talking about Motivational Interviewing, and about improving outcomes for individuals, organizations, and the communities that they serve.
In this episode, we discuss the increasing stress associated with the holidays and explore how motivational interviewing can be differentiated from healthy communication in managing this stress. The conversation highlights the importance of aligning one’s behavior with personal values and employing empathy to reduce familial tensions. We also touch upon the ethical considerations of trying to change family members’ behaviors and the significance of maintaining holiday rituals and joy.

In this episode, we discuss:

• The Impact of Stress During Holidays: Discussion on the increasing stress levels during the holiday season and its effects on relationships.
• Motivational Interviewing vs. Healthy Communication: Differentiating between motivational interviewing techniques and general healthy communication practices.
• The Role of Brain Science in Communication: Exploring how understanding brain science can improve communication, especially under stress.
• Aligning Behavior with Values: The importance of aligning one’s behavior with personal values during the stressful holiday season.
• Empathy in Family Dynamics: Strategies for employing empathy to reduce tension and improve engagement within family interactions.
• Ethical Considerations in Changing Family Dynamics: Ethical implications of attempting to change family members’ behaviors to align with personal desires.
• The Importance of Celebrating Rituals and Joy: A discussion on the significance of maintaining rituals and finding joy in holiday traditions.
• Navigating Expectations and Boundaries: How to manage expectations and maintain healthy boundaries with family and friends during the holidays.
• The Spirit of the Holiday Season Beyond Clinical Tools: Reflecting on the essence of the holiday spirit beyond just clinical communication strategies.
• Self-Reflection and Personal Growth: Emphasizing the importance of self-reflection and personal growth in improving communication and relationships.

You don’t want to miss this one! Make sure to rate us or share this podcast. It would mean so much to us!
Thank you for listening to the communication solution. This podcast is all about you. If you have questions, thoughts, topic suggestions, or ideas, please send them our way at casey@ifioc.com. For more resources, feel free to check out ifioc.com.

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Transcribe

 Hello and welcome to the communication solution podcast with Casey Jackson and John Gilbert. I’m your host, Danielle Cantin. Here at the Institute for Individual and Organizational Change, otherwise known as IFIOC, we love to talk about communication. We love to talk about solutions and we love to talk about providing measurable results for individuals, organizations, and the communities they serve.

Welcome to the communication solution.

Hey, welcome everyone. This is Danielle Cantin. I am facilitating the communication solution podcast with Casey Jackson and John Gilbert. Hi guys. Hey. Hey, hey, thanks so much for joining us today.  I’ve got a fun topic for us to discuss.  The holidays are upon us, and it seems like it starts earlier and earlier every year.

 And I’m just curious as I’m starting to interact more and more with friends and family. And talking to other people and the stress that creeps up. So I thought that’d be a great topic to dive into.  Just stress in general around the holidays and where that little segue or interaction is or how motivational interviewing could potentially help.

This is one of those ones, Danielle, that I think it’ll be fun to differentiate healthy communication from motivational interviewing.  There. Because fundamentally motivationally, the constructs that I think would work well during stressful times or stressful family situations are things where are you trying to reduce resistance or tension or discord?

Absolutely. For some people during the holidays, that is, that would be a gift,  under the tree is if there’s a little less stress or discord amongst family members or friends.  So there’s aspects of MI that we know that can do that. But it’s not fundamentally, well, maybe it is about behavior change.

 But then there’s more, I know John would love to dive into the ethics of trying to get your family members to change,  just because you want them to, and is that, am I,  but I think it is a fascinating topic to talk about it. What I would even launch a little bit with is just my brain goes to brain science because I’m just so immersed in that right now, just trying to understand better and look at trauma.

And the more pressure we feel, I think your point, especially about how early it starts now,  you know, I know in our house, it was the day after Halloween that Christmas tree started going up,  which tends to draw a lot of ire from some people,  like it’s, you do not do that before Thanksgiving and, you know, just so already it creates tension.

 It makes us happy and that’s pretty much our behavior in line with our values.  But I think when it starts earlier, the pressure starts more and more and. Again, I think there’s combining features. I think one of the features to me is that when we know we’re moving to the holidays as adults, what we know is, Hey, if I can get a little extra time off or, you know, which means I’m trying to get all my ducks in a row before I leave work, which creates stress.

And then you get home because you’re probably working a few more extra hours or trying to get more things done. And then it feels like there’s a little different pressure. It just is going to pull us into our limbic system, that emotional system, or maybe into the fight flight freeze system, which makes us a little more on edge or a little more nervy,  when people are putting more expectation on us.

So, and then usually people that oversee us have their stressors. So then they’re saying, Hey, I need you to pick this thing up. And you’re like, well, I’m ready to try to pick up extra things. Cause I’m trying to take some extra time off. And I’ve got to get all this stuff done. And then we’ve got this party we need to go to.

And I don’t even want to go to this party. And, you know, we’ve got to go and I’ve got to go to my spouse’s party and I don’t even want to do that. So the brain is just going to start to get more and more in that defense. Motor that fight, flight freeze mode. And then all of a sudden the holidays become not fun.

For people,  you know, and whose families do we have to hit and, and, you know, which friends do we have to go visit? And, and all of a sudden the joy starts to seep out of, you know, a time of the year. That’s supposed to be, you know, wonderful for at least in construct, it’s supposed to be the most wonderful time of the year.

 And then it’s been some of the most miserable time of the year. So that’s just off the top of my head, kind of rambling about some thoughts that I have. Well, yeah. And that’s where I’m kind of curious, Casey, what you think about this be related to EMI and healthy communication, because, you know, we were just at the international conference for this with, with mint,  a little recently.

And  It’s like, is it, is it motivational interview and becoming just helpful communication? It’s like, well, there’s a, there’s a differentiation here of what is my, and what is healthy communication. So you were starting about that and getting into kind of the thinking around the holidays. And so I’m just kind of wondering what you think might be,  some key distinct factors there or things that, you know, this is really where the, some of the pieces of MI you think would come in such as empathy or some of these others Versus, you know,  maybe other pieces like strategically responding to change talk or other things that maybe you don’t do as much for, you know, communication with your family.

I don’t know what are your thoughts about the difference there practically or concretely or more tangibly. I, you know, you and I discussed this quite a bit. I remember the ethics, you know, breakout session, I went to motivation being an ethics and I told you part of my itchiness around that was that people were talking about applications of MI and then acknowledging it might not score high in, in a spirit of motivational interviewing or what we call the intentions with the MICA.

And I think, well, then it’s not motivational interviewing. You know, I think, I think that’s where we get looped in. It’s like, well, I tried to use that mind. Then you listen to the conversation like, well, you did reflective listening and you did open ended questions, but that’s not motivational interviewing.

You know, I, I always talk about that, you know, that’s flour, sugar and butter, but that doesn’t make it grandma’s recipe, but everybody thinks if you’re using flour, sugar and butter, it’s just a variation of grandma’s recipe. But the difference between a chocolate lava cake and an oatmeal cookie is significantly different, even though they both use flour and sugar.

 They’re not even close to the same thing. And I think people confuse communication skills with a communication style. Um. So, and what tends to happen when you use communication skills with friends or family, and you’re trying to use skills, people feel like you’re trying to therapize them or counsel them and can be very off putting,  and almost offensive that it’s like, you know, stop talking down to me, you know, it, it just can create all sorts of dynamics, which is to me, the antithesis of empathy, of people feeling deeply heard and understood, that’s a mindset.

I think even more so over the years, I realized it’s more of a mindset than it is even a skill set for people to feel deeply hurt and understood. So those are the things that I think of right out of the gate in terms of where people try to say, like you were talking about, I love is, you know, is helpful conversation motivational interviewing.

Well, no.  It could be the difference between a, an oatmeal cookie and a chocolate chip cookie, you know,  but there’s still two different recipes, even though most of the things you’re doing are similar motivationally is such a specific, you know, method of communication that is measurable and you’re either doing it or you’re not doing it.

You can be doing aspects of it. But are you doing all of it? That’s, that’s a whole different mindset. So that’s why I love what Danielle brought up. And what you’re bringing up is if we’re talking motivational interviewing, I wouldn’t say here’s how you use motivation during the holidays, that would feel like an unethical or,  misappropriated.

 Use of motivational interviewing, here’s how you can be empathetic to reduce tension and increase engagement and a sense of stability in your family. Absolutely. I think that’s a great lane for us to travel down, you know, I just have a couple of things popped out for me in a big way there,  because I had a very interesting conversation recently and, you know, I’m not practiced in.

Using motivational interviewing, however, the gifts of all the training and being around like osmosis with you guys.  I was able to really, I think, do something quite cool with someone I love who was really, really struggling with the pressures. Not only that you described at the start of this podcast, but also the pressures and ideas from childhood of what we took on as this should be something we do.

And then you go through losses and family members and parental figures and all of a sudden you’re like, do I hold on to these things that were actually kind of instituted by them? And is that really mine? There’s. So much going on and I was able to,  I feel have empathy and listen to somebody I care about deeply actually was just last night and what I was so proud of myself for was recognizing, oh, your stress is coming from you want to change other people’s behavior.

And you want the values to align with yours. And I’m like, Oh God, if I can just, I was so proud of myself for just recognizing that through all the stuff. And then to try to help redirect her, like all you can do with your decision about what you want to do around, in this case it was Christmas,  is just really get in touch with your values and make sure that whatever decision you make, that behavior aligns with your values and let go of.

The other thing that popped for me, as you were talking was expectations, expectations that of anybody else and how they might react to your behavior and your values. And, and so it was, it was really something, it was like one of those things where I was like. So grateful for you guys, because I’m not sure I would have ever been able to have that, that,  I just jotted it down.

It’s not communication skill. It’s a communication style, you know, that I think that’s so important. It, I think that’s a practical application of when we talk about the communication solution versus motivational interviewing. I mean, I think that is part of the solution in communication is that high accurate empathy and high accurate empathy, and then going into the values.

I it’s, you know, the first thing that clicked when you were talking about that, Danielle is, you know, in my life around the holidays, it really has reinforced is your behavior in line with your values because it’s stress. Increased in my life, I can feel myself getting more short tempered or more frustrated or more anxiety ridden as the holidays came in and from training at my salon, I kept thinking your behavior is not in line with your values.

It just is not. And, and the monumental task I can feel like sometimes to go, okay, what would it take to you to get your behavior in line with your values? And it’s like, but I can’t because I’m so stressed. It takes a deeper level of focus and intention to go, can I get my ship right? You know, can I get myself back on track and get my behavior in line with it?

When everything in you, your whole brain is getting sucked into that emotional reaction or that, you know, that more frustration or aggression or the, you know, fight, fight, freeze. And when everything is pulling you there to kind of claw your way back up into your, you know, prefrontal cortex and your executive functioning, that’s just takes a concerted effort, especially when all your human triggers are getting.

Flipped on, you know, and all your buttons are getting pushed and everything wants to have this reaction. The thing for me that really catalyzed it was having children is I just thought I was raised, even though my family had its own stress and chaos, my mother was just so. Enamored and obsessed with ritual and the joy of ritual.

And that rubbed off on me, not everybody in my family, but it rubbed off on me. So I have this just profound joy around ritual, even though we were, you know, I was raised in kind of probably borderline poverty and. It just, I had joy around the holidays and I’d have disappointments and everything else, but I, to this day, I feel magic around the holidays because I choose to believe in the magic of the holidays and I have, you know, the twins are 14 now and one is definitely not a believer, you know, kind of that, that.

Facade was cracked for her, probably about four. Cause she was always advanced for age, but probably admitted when she was probably 11 or 12, like, yeah, there’s no such thing. And my other 14 year old twin,  is a believer today’s, this is the year that she’s writing the, tell me the truth, Santa letter at 14 and all of her friends make fun of her.

But she leans more that direction of, I believe, I just believe, you know, and I just tell her, I still believe you’re. Your grandma believes, like we, you know, your, your dad believes. We just believe in Santa. We believe in the magic of the holidays and you can feel the shift. If you believe you can feel the shift when either the, the weather changes a little bit, or the leaves start to fall.

You can feel a shift. You know, I can feel that shift viscerally. I can feel the shift. And that to me is the start of the spirit,  and the shift in, in the world and the perception of the world. But that’s how I perceive it. Some people feel that shift and start getting nauseous and depressed and anxiety ridden and angry as they feel that shift.

And this goes back to what you had just talked about. Is your behavior in line with your values? What would it look like if your behavior is aligned with your values? And when I had children, I was very clear. I want my behavior to be in line with my values.  Because that, that’s my vision. If I’m watching the movie screen of my life, that’s one that I’m going to be sitting there after the lights come up and just staring at the screen going, I am so impressed with how that played out.

That’s who I want to be when I grow up.  And that’s, that’s how Casey talks to himself about is your behavior in line with your values is, is the gift is not the gift, but when you think about, all right, I’m going to shore up my values, my behavior with my values. And I’m, I’m having to interact with somebody who has a completely different experience.

Like you said, you have joy, others could be triggered by depression.  Is it then just honoring that difference and allowing the other person to not poop on your parade? But also don’t poop on theirs and kind of let, let every, however it plays out. Is that like the forgiveness? The kind of,

I think that’s the mindset behind it. For me, it didn’t feel like that might be enough. And again, I don’t need to fix or change their perspective, but it goes back to, it just. Sure. When I was talking about this, it just triggered me about the whole movie screen analogy. And when, you know, I was actively a clinical therapist, you know, with with a practice, that was one of the things that I would always have clients think about is when you look on that movie screen and.

Whoever the actor is playing you, how would they play this situation out that when you walk away from that scene, you’re like, Oh my God, that’s what I want to be when I grow up. Like, how can I be like that? So it’s not just handling with grace. There’s more of an intention or an activation of how do I know the situation was better than it would have been if I wasn’t in the scene, how did they walk away?

So I may not fix their perspective. I don’t need to fix their perspective. That’s not my job. But how did I do it in a way that I think has components of grace? Like you talked about, how do you do it in a way? That’s just honoring. But there needs to be something else that there’s something that I did, that the person walks away.

And I think what clicked in my brain is maybe they went from pre contemplation to contemplation,  or that I shine something about them that has a beauty or a purity or a hope,  Or desire for hope that I could reflect that back in a way that something activated in their brain that they’re like, I wish I could, or I’d like to be and just, I guess, from an perspective that it just initiated a little bit of change talk, not because I’m trying to change their behavior.

But just that it was granting them,  a life preserver when they feel like they’re just drowning,  you know, and all of a sudden they get a full, you know, full capacity air in their lungs again,  for the first time in a while. And if I can do that, that’s different than just. You know, allowing them to be where they are, not triggering.

So I think that for me that I just want to make sure that if I watched that movie of myself in that scene, that what I did, I was all inspired by,  not because I’m trying to be inspirational, but just because it was such a beautiful thing to do or provide for another human being that their place in the world or their space in the world is just a bit better because we interacted versus if we hadn’t.

 So I think it’s just a little bit, there’s just a little bit, something extra. To that than just, you know, offering grace or, you know, not being judgmental. It just feel like there’s just a little bit extra that tries to ignite a little bit of hope in them, if that makes sense. Wow. It’s beyond making sense to me.

It’s that’s profound. And it always, I always say, I’m going to, I’m going to hold it together when I get on these podcasts, but I always get a little teary eyed when, when there’s an opportunity to,  help somebody be better or live a higher quality life. That’s really awesome.

Yeah. I can see you’re going to have a thought, but I can definitely share and chime in here if you want. Well, the thing I just want to, what I appreciate about these, when we get in this level of conversation is,  transparency about that. Like I liked being able to have the real questions that you bring up because it lets me talk very transparently and less clinically About what we do and I think this you know, we’re talking about now.

I’m gonna get emotional I’m gonna talk about the spirit of seasons, you know, and we’re talking about the spirit of the seasons. That is not a clinical tool That’s beyond the intention of motivational interviewing. That’s just how do we Engage each other  in a way that just, let’s put the chaos and the insanity of the world to the side for a minute and just, can we just look at each other and just go, Hey, you know, I know you want it to be okay.

I want it to be okay. Let’s just, just right now, let’s just be us, be okay. And if you and I can be okay, even if we don’t agree right now, like, I mean, just be okay and just have a real conversation and not have to be on the defense and that would be, I think that just contributes to a better holiday season.

And John, what were you thinking? Well, there’s, there’s so many things here around, you know, Danielle, what you brought up and Casey, what you’re getting at with. You know, things related to, am I like compassion for other people and Danielle, what you’re talking about of what do you grow up with and, and am I motivational interviewing is not a psychoanalysis tool that gets into our childhood and gets into the beliefs that we’ve come up with and our cultural constructed a container that we grow up in that creates certain types of.

Ways of being in the world beliefs. Right. And I just want to highlight that that’s a big container that if we’re talking about Western American culture versus, you know, I don’t know, Hindu Indian culture versus a different, but we’re, we’re talking about a Western lens right now and that it’s important that that has some similarities, but, you know, other people might have different experiences in the holidays for whatever reason, but that.

Yeah. Your family growing up and how you’ve been modeled or not with things like empathy will really matter to how you treat that person, Danielle, the person you might have a lot of compassion and fall into the fixing reflex. If you haven’t been exposed to as much demonstration of understanding, like Casey, you’re, you’re really bringing up here as a key thing.

And if you haven’t been modeled that and, or you don’t have as much skill, I know I’m still working on that skill.  That it takes a lot of practice and discipline to work on expressing what it must be like for others when especially we’re just used to saying, no, well, I think this or, oh, I can relate to that because I’ve had this experience and I, I, I mean, me, me, and we’re just used to doing it because that’s how we operate.

And so to not to have the modeling of that. And just the awareness that that’s a thing versus the experience when we get it from a good friend or a therapist of what empathy feels like that’s its own thing. And the compassion, Danielle, that you’re talking about, you’re seemingly like you’re feeling is its own thing.

And they tend to get conflated like, oh, if I’m compassionate, I’m in. I’m an empathic being, right? And we know they’re distinctly important and distinctly different. The one thing that I wanted to bring up around this is there’s so much around values you both are getting at. Like, do I want to connect with those people in my family?

Or there’s certain people I want to just have healthy boundaries around, but still respect them and honor them. You can do that too. And just get clear, how much am I doing this out of my own sense of obligatory connection so I don’t feel judged. By other people and how much am I doing this with a sense of integrity that tries to balance that with my own sense of being in the world and in a way that tries to not have me feel selfish.

And that helps me feel like I’m making an impact on my friend that might be depressed or my family member that’s really struggling. How much do you balance out these values of a sense of integrity? Your sense of your own self health, your sense of connection with other people. It gets really, it can get really complex, but if you boil it back to what you both are getting at, it’s like, how do I want to be with people and what really matters to me?

And I think it also could go deeper and deeper for people if they wanted to seek therapy around it. But Danielle, what you brought up that’s so powerful is, okay, what do I have control over in this moment? It’s trying to listen deeply. And listen for their perspective. Like you’re talking about Casey, listen for what motivates them and what’s important to them.

And if I care enough about connecting with them or contributing to them, which is a big, if around the holidays, certain people, depending on your own triggers and all that stuff, then if you do the spirit of, am I treating them with compassion, being curious about their thoughts and ideas, supporting their choice,  things like this, treating them as an equal person.

That’s a thing that can be used in multiple conversations, even if you don’t use all the other components of MI. So I think there’s, there’s pieces of the recipe you’re talking about, Casey, that can be really helpful for how we see and treat others. But I also think there’s an internal sense of, do I have healthy boundaries or am I doing this obligatorily and building resentment and contempt for a lot of the situation?

And I think that’s its own kind of navigation of your personal values. And what you really want, how you want to communicate with others. So that was just some thoughts going through, you know, the thing that, that that brings up for me is when you look through kind of a Western holiday model, or you leave the Western model and you look, you know, more globally, it, it seemed, I think we’re some, it seems like it’s hard to reconcile is that every culture has celebration.

And. And celebration is when you think of the concept of celebration, it just kind of lightens you up and you think we get to celebrate no matter what the culture is, no matter what the struggle is, no matter what are the, you know, socioeconomic political issues are going on. Celebration is celebration.

What makes sense to me when I look through any of those different lenses or look through my own lens, when you’d have no reason to celebrate, if you’re in a war torn country or your parents are abusing you or drinking and fighting with each other. There’s not a lot to celebrate. So while everybody is celebrating, it makes the distance between your experience and their experience so vast, that chasm is so wide and so deep.

It can just develop such a resentment or an anger. So not only are you experiencing the trauma. You’re having these imprints about what celebration is that has kind of this antithetical effect, you know, that it’s just like, this is the exact opposite of what celebration is supposed to be. But when you’re feeling the exact opposite of other people celebrating, whatever that celebration is, if you, again, if you know, there’s bullets flying over your head or you’re, you’ve been separated from your children, there’s really not a lot to celebrate.

 And I think this is what has given me goosebumps just thinking about it. But I think this is where in spite of that, how do people find hope now? And then, which is a whole different podcast, because when, you know, the things that you and I listened to, what Miller was talking about, about hope and the research behind it is in spite of.

You know, adversity in spite of, you know, trauma, when people access hope, it actually improves outcomes. But then how do you expect people to access hope in the middle of trauma?  You know, and, and, and stress. But this phenomenally, you know, dynamic thing, you know, in our skull puts us in a place where we have the capacity to do such amazing things and just having the cognition to go, do I want to go down this path emotionally, or do I want to try to.

Raise myself up into my values to have the resiliency from childhood and protective factor that you can even do that. So even though we’re raised in the same neighborhood, it doesn’t mean our brain developed exact the same or raised in the same family, depending on what our protective factors and our resiliency is and that plasticity.

And then since it is the holidays or or the season, what I think of is it, and then what’s in your spirit, you know? Different people in the same family are born with a different spirit.  And so is there just something that there’s a gravitational pull that I will succeed. I want to believe I want to see the best in people.

I want to rise above. I want to be the best I can be in spite of my circumstances is, you know, those are things we can talk about protective factors that we know of that we can measure. But then I think there’s a whole, you know, spirit side of it, of, you know, what. Did this person, what makes them tick beyond their body?

 Why are they here beyond their body? I mean, now we’re really getting into the holiday season and the spirit of the season.  But I think all of those things contribute to how do I want to show up? Where do I want to put my attention? What do I have control over? And this is why for me, when I can go all the way from the spirit side to the, and of one side, what I have, you know, some choice over is how do I open my mouth and what am I going to say?

 There’s all the things I want to say, but what am I going to choose to say in this moment? Because which one is going to get me the outcome that I most want?  And that’s what brings down to effective communication. And, and clarity and mindset. Daniel, you, you were about to jump in. I just wanted to throw in like, what am I experiencing and what do I want to experience?

And I think there’s, there’s a self reflective component that you and Daniel are getting out here. Around how much is it my role and how much do I really want to help that friend or family member that’s really struggling and how much am I aware that this is how I want to be in that movie of my life?

How much have I self reflected on these things? What are my values and what does it mean to feel connected with certain people in my family? But still operate from a place of integrity. What does that even look like? What does that sound like?  I’m not very practiced in empathy, for example. So how would I even express that beyond?

I understand. And how would I even start that process with? You sound like you’re frustrated, right? Like just these different, there is skill sets and there is awareness is, I guess what I’m saying. Putting on the table here to self reflect on and get clear about. And that’s where talking with a good friend or therapist seems like there’s possibility there to help inform your M I to be the most potent with your M I skill set and awareness as possible.

But at the same time, you don’t have to have that. You could have just a sense of what am I picking up from M I. On how I treat people and how I see them, like you’re talking about, Casey, that I think is really important that you don’t have to have all that. It’s the lens in which I see other people and how I want to treat them.

And also, how do I want to treat myself and look at myself with compassion as well? I think all of that can create this sort of sense that you’re talking about, Casey. Sorry, Daniel, you were going to jump in with something there. No, I think this is great. And as we move to like final thoughts, I, I know what mine is and my takeaway.

And I want to thank you guys for it because. The movie,  analogy is really helpful and also the acknowledgement that there are many people who don’t have quote, unquote, something to celebrate.  I’ve experienced, you know, deep loss in my life and have been around other people who have experienced and are going through deep, deep grieving and loss and pain and.

So many different things. And you said it again, it’s that, that word I’ll, I think will always work into a podcast, which is hope. And it’s like, what if there’s always reason to celebrate hope? And if in, when I think of my movie, I’m like, Oh, whoever I’m interacting with, what, what’s aligned with my values.

And it’s like, Oh, if I can help that person walk away with a little bit more hope. Then maybe they had before they encountered me. That’s a good life.  So this, this really helped me. So thank you. And I want to pass it to you guys for final thoughts, but.  Super, super helpful. Thank you. But my final thought is just, I think if there’s a gift for yourself, for anyone, it’s just the gift of grace for yourself that whether you love the holidays or don’t love the holidays, it’s not always easy, just giving yourself grace that, you know, you just want it, you’re trying to do your best and you want to do the best and, and.

I think when you’re stuck and don’t know what to do, when we talk about, you know, just ambivalence, I think it is just kind of looking at that movie screen and just going, what, what would be a profound interaction on that screen that would make you feel better. So when you’re stuck and don’t know what to do, I think sometimes that just helps to take, take a step outside of yourself and look at that movie screen and go, how would I deal with this in a way that I would just be profoundly in awe.

Of how that person navigated the situation. And sometimes that can move us to a better place when our brain just feels so stressed and overwhelmed. So,  but that’s my thought is just grace for ourselves that, you know, life is not easy and when it may be a time for celebration, that that’s not always easy for all people either.

So I’ll just, lastly, this sense of grace for ourselves and compassion to build resilience, that some people, um. You know, grow up with extremist situations that I’ve only heard of and experienced with participants in trainings. That is just horrendous with adverse childhood experiences. And that resiliency can be very difficult to build.

So what is it that, as you think about yourself listening to this, what is it that builds resiliency? You know, we know sleep is really important for not being triggered. And so what are the things that build your own? Self compassion. Where did things go too far? If you’re talking with someone,  either someone that’s triggering you and your family, how do you, how do you be that person in the movie?

But how do you set yourself up so that you’re not feeling so triggered? You can’t be that person. How do you set yourself up to have that resiliency in that moment of good restedness, centeredness, groundedness, What do you need and how do you not stretch yourself so thin that you start to have those triggers or build resentment and, or come in with contempt.

And I think creating that self health, compassion, taking care of ourselves, physically, mentally, emotionally. Casey, you were talking about spiritually. How do you do that in a way to be your best self? And am I as one way to have a lens to treat other people when you can operate from that place? I love that.

I love how you brought it back to self care and, and compassion. So that’s awesome. Thank you. I hope everybody listening, you got as much out of this as I did.  Keep, keep just really tuning into you and your values and,  really appreciate you guys. Thanks for joining and we’ll catch you on the next podcast.

Thank you. Awesome. Thank you for listening to the communication solution podcast with Casey Jackson and John Gilbert. As always, this podcast is about empowering you on your journey to change the world. So if you have questions, suggestions, or ideas, send Them our way at Casey@ifioc.com. That’s Casey@ifioc.com.

For more information or to schedule a training visit ifioc.com until our next Communication Solution podcast keep changing the world.