Dawn Taylor| 22/04/2024

Transcript

Dawn Taylor

I am your host, Dawn Taylor. And today I have the honor of talking to the amazing Doctor Jody Carrington. So what are we going to be talking about today? Happiness should not actually be the end goal in life. I know, I know, right? So let's all be offended by that. Before we get started, I just want to tell you a little bit about our guest so you guys can be as pumped as I am about this. Doctor Jody is a renowned psychologist. She does courses and written books, and she's a leader of Carrington and Company. She's funny as hell. She's sassy, she's unconventional and authentic and real and she's amazing. She's had a 20 year career as a psychologist, and she's all about, how do we connect? How do we connect to people, our culture, everything, anything and everything within that and that we're not meant to do this world alone. And so I personally saw her speak at an event a few weeks ago and may have kind of harassed her after I've been like, “I want you on my podcast and I want you to talk.” So here she is. She actually said yes. And welcome to the show, Doctor Jody Carrington. 

Dr. Jody Carrington

Oh, Dawn Taylor, come on. I am so excited to be here. And I am, and I'm very ready to have a heart conversation that you're so good at around here. So let's do it. 

Dawn Taylor

Thank you. So everything in life is these days. It feels like to me is totally guided towards like this toxic positivity self-help. And it's like, “Oh, I'm not fulfilled. Oh, I'm not happy. Oh I'm not whatever.” So let's get divorced one more time. Let's shift my career again. Let's change everything again. More plastic surgery, more, more everything. Right? Because we're so just determined that happy has to be the end goal. What are your thoughts on that? 

Dr. Jody Carrington

Well, I mean, let's come out of the gate hot. Um, all right.

Dawn Taylor

We're going to start real quiet. We're going to start real gentle on this one 

Dr. Jody Carrington

I love it, I love it. Listen, um, here's what I know to be true to the core of me that I have not met a human that does not have the capacity for good. And I think so many of us, I mean, I talk about this often, you know, I have assessed and I've treated over a thousand people in this country, and I've never not one time a bad human. I've met a lot of people that have lost access to the best parts of themselves. And how we lose access to the best parts of ourselves happens in places where, you know, unprocessed experiences or traumas or stories that live in our heads, that, you know, we haven't had the chance to work through or process or really question because they've stayed pretty stuck in, in the way of operating every day. And one of those things that I think stays pretty true to many of us in this country is the need to be or the expectation that we'll be happy. And, you know, as a child psychologist, I've often asked parents, you know, what is your one wish for your child? And many people will finish this sentence like this, “I just want my baby to be happy.” And I mean, I've said that too. As a mum. I have three kids, you know, our twins are 11 or well, this is 13 and like it is the most difficult job on the planet. I just, I worry much more about them than I worry about anything else in, you know, in my world. And I really just want them to be happy. And I think the elusiveness of happiness for all of us these days leaves us very concerned that we're not doing it right. The vast, the biggest feeling that so many of us feel these days is loneliness. And loneliness certainly is not synonymous with happy. Um, when we see an increase in anxiety and depression, particularly in our kids, we’re like, “Oh my goodness, they're not happy.” Here's my wish for every human being. Is that we have the capacity to feel all the emotions because happy and sad, depressed, guilt, shame, remorse, all of those things are just that. They're just emotions. And when you have the capacity to feel them all, the script to feel them all, you will be among the most healthiest in our planet. 

Dawn Taylor 

I love that you say that. 

Dr. Jody Carrington

Yeah. The issue is you can't. We don't have a script for futility or loss or sadness. And when we really just focus on keeping everybody happy, particularly our kids, giving everybody a medal or letting people down softly or whatever the deal is, we lose the capacity for our ability to handle futility, which is part, you know, conflict is part of every healthy relationship. One of the greatest predictors of couples that make it and couples that don't in the marital space that Gottman have come up with this after 45 years of research. It comes down to this. It's not how much sex you have or, uh, how much you fight or you don't, or how much money you have. It comes down to one thing - your capacity to repair, your capacity to sit in with those emotions. Not if but when shit goes south and you can't teach your babies, uh, you can’t tell them how to do it, right. You got to show them. And so our ability to lean into those all of those emotions, not just, stay hellbent. Unhappy is so important. And so here's your full permission to do that. 

Dawn Taylor

So I often use the metaphor of a rainbow, where it's like we're so focused on feeling like, I just want to feel passionate and excited and and success and all of these things all the time. And I'm like, yeah, but that's like having one color to a rainbow. It's beautiful because it has all of them. A piano is amazing because it has multiple scales and when played together and used together is when it creates the most beautiful music. 

Dr. Jody Carrington

Mhm. 

Dawn Taylor

And I think access to all of them and the ability on how to deal with them. And we've become so scared of our negative emotions, that we run from them. We run from them constantly medicate ourselves from them. We're so scared of them. I remember a client years ago, she's like, “Dawn, I can't sit in my heart, I can't, I can't.” And I said, “Okay, so I want you to do me a favor.” And she goes, “What?” And I said, “I want you to set a timer. And I want you to just feel it. The thing that you run from that makes you drink a bottle of wine. I said, I can sit on Zoom with you while you do it if you want, but I want you to just sit with it. Just sit with it and feel it.” And she's like, “what if it kills me?” And I was like, “here's the cool thing no emotion has ever killed a person.” That's right. Oh, and I said, but we also have to remember that no emotion is permanent. They're not permanent. And I said, “So just sit with it. Just sit with it and play with it like a train driving through it, going through the station.” And just like let your thoughts go where your thoughts go in your fields, go where your fields go and just see what happens and look at it with no judgment, just curiosity and just in awe of where it goes. And I said, and see what happens. I said, set a timer on it. Set a timer on it for like an hour. Just like I'm going to sit there for one hour. I said, you've watched a bad TV show for an hour before, 

Dr. Jody Carrington

And I would say an hour's way too long. So here's the interesting thing is that very few of us have the capacity to be still for 20 seconds. What I think is really critical in this moment, right. Is that so many of us, we're the first generation of parents, we're the first generation of humans that have had this much access to data to noise. We never get a break. So, you know, I have to ask. I think we asked this question, you know, where do you charge your phone? And so many of us, you know, me included by our beds, which means that, you know, in the middle of the night, if you wake up, the capacity just to sort of replay the day or feel the emotions or figure out what you're going to do next is so easily thwarted by just scrolling Instagram even at 3:00 in the morning, and then in the morning when you sort of get up and you think about your day and it makes you feel like, oh, Christ, so you're gonna just check your emails or do the things that kind of interrupt that thought process. And what happens in this moment if we think about even just, you know, one generation ago, our bodies are not. Scripted for this quite yet. And so the necessity of introducing this concept of even just seconds in a day, right? Seconds in a day of dropping your shoulders of, you know, I for a very long time, I've talked a lot about, um, the concept of meditation. So eastern philosophical practices have long been the place that has, um, touted some of the healthiest practices on the planet that decade after decade, century after century, we always go back to. And it often comes back to the very basics, right? Which is that when your body is in a state of calm, you have access to the best parts of you. And when we are in our most dysregulated state, we lose access, not our ability. We lose access to the best parts of ourselves. So when we have so many opportunities to get away from, that will take it. Because the hardest thing we will ever do is sit in that stillness. So if we know that to be true. If we know that is the fact. If we know that even in this one generation, we're completely out of practice in that regard, our expectations of ourselves, just to be able to do this for five seconds. 20 seconds and, you know, I mean, after the talk that you were at. You know, I often have this conversation about all I want you to think about is putting the word “shoulders” on a sticky note, put it on your computer, on your bathroom mirror, um, because the body keeps the score. Bessel van der Kolk has written one of the finest books on trauma. It's called The Body Keeps the Score. 

Dawn Taylor

Oh. It's amazing. 

Dr. Jody Carrington

Yeah. And and it often talks about the importance, right, of how you can cognitively work through anything you want. That's irrelevant to me. Completely irrelevant. The definition of trauma, of course, as you know, is not what happens to you.It's what happens inside of me as a result of what happens to you. And so we can spend a lot of time on the logistics of what happened to you, which is always very important part of the story. But what matters most to me in this process is what happens to you when you think about these things, when you go still in your body, and can you get into the state of just dropping your shoulders? So when you see that cue, you know, shoulders, all I want you to do is you sort of suggested to your client is just notice, just notice what is in that moment. Because oftentimes there is no fix for it other than to reconnect the mind and the body. And so when you do those two things, um, you put your body back into the state of emotional calmness or emotional regulation that then opens up all the access to the best parts of us. 

Dawn Taylor

I started a practice years ago. And side note with that client, she did that and she called me after laughing because she's like, it just kind of came and it went and the emotion went with it. She's like, that was really weird. And she started it as a regular practice to just like sit and sit with her feels to get comfortable with them. And I was like just kind of rumbling them, like, invite them in to hang out, like you're having a coffee date. So yes, I challenge people to try, but I started a practice years ago where I turned off all my notifications on my phone at all times, so it doesn't matter. Even if I glance at her, I look at it. I think the only one that still pops up is for garbage day, because I need that one, and it's once a week, but there's no notifications and I don't remember the last time my ringtone was 

On. Idon't, and I offer my clients unlimited texting and emails and different things, and they know my hours that I take those and stuff, but I'm like, no, no, no, because I can then choose. When I look at it, I can choose when I go to it. And I would challenge anyone listening to do the same thing is even acknowledging those moments of when you walk into the grocery store and you're standing in the lineup, instead of picking up your phone to scroll. Just look around. Right. Look around and just. Just sit there. It's a safe way to just hang out with yourself. In a totally different way. But just like standing in a lineup at a grocery store.

Dr. Jody Carrington 

Yeah, I know, and it is, you know, driving in silence is another one that is really scary for people sometimes. I saw this meme not very long ago or was like that, you know, we saw this guy at Starbucks the other day and he was like, no phone, no computer, no nothing. He was just sitting there drinking coffee like a creep. And I was like, right. So, like, we don't have a plan for that. And I think that, you know, again, I think it's just those little things that, you know, sometimes can feel really big to sort of engage in a meditative practice every single day, to be able to do those things. But I just want you to think about, you know, getting your body back into that state of emotional regulation that can just be so critical in this time of busyness and overwhelm. 

Dawn Taylor

So can you define emotional regulation from your standpoint? Because everyone there's all these like verbiage in terms out there that a lot of people just don't understand. But 

they go, aha, yeah. Aha, I know what that is. And they actually have no idea - to you what is emotional regulation?

Dr. Jody Carrington

How not to lose your friggin mind. How to stay calm in times of distress. So the greatest capacity for, I think, the most successful leaders among us, when we are pushed up against the wall as parents, is that we will all the time emotionally be feeling incompetent and overwhelmed.

The ability to regulate emotion is something that is in our bones, because as human beings, we all start in exactly the same place. We hear the very first sound that any of us feel is the heartbeat of our moms. And I often say, whether she's alive or you have a relationship with her or not, your capacity for emotional regulation is in your bones. It's that capacity to slow down in that rhythmic exchange. Often what we do, with the crying baby. So it's a universal response to a crying infant when they're losing their mind. If you have never, regardless of age, race, religion, socioeconomic status, gender identity, if you come upon a crying infant on this globe, you are biologically wired. If you are regulated to pick up that baby and engage in a rhythmic exchange, even if you've never, ever had a baby, if I watch a grandpa or an old papa, you know who hasn't changed a bum in years? Or maybe never? Uh, you put a crying infant in their arms and very quickly there's a rhythmic exchange that happens often, huh? Uh, and that's in our bones. Because when we're most distressed, what we don't need is somebody to tell us what to do. We need somebody, the physical presence of another to show us. And we never, ever outgrow that. And the more disconnected we are. So we're the first generation of people that are so wildly disconnected.

Dawn Taylor

Horribly disconnected.

Dr. Jody Carrington

So the response then often is we're in a mental health crisis. And I actually don't think that's what's happening. I think we're in a loneliness epidemic because this is an appropriate response to being very disconnected from other people. And so the response then isn't, you know, we get very worried. Is it the government or what is the administration going to do or how are we going to superintendent, you know, the president of the organization? Uh, we're not going to live that long, um, to be able to see, um, the rest of us catch up because we're playing by a set of rules that was established for a world that no longer exists. And, we have changed so dramatically in this one generation, and technological advances aren't the problem, it’s how we use them. That is the issue because despite the fact that we're neurobiological wired for connection, the hardest thing we will ever do is look into the eyes of the people we love and we lead. And now we've been given so many exit ramps that we will take them, and we're losing skill in the ability to just be kind, to slow down long enough. And so we won't have the senior leadership positions held by the vast majority of leaders these days come with that set of rules in their bones. And it wasn't bad. It used to work. But the point is, now we are leading people who feel so empty and unseen that being able to initiate a relationship first approach of being kind and not tolerating bullshit in that order is sort of the new set of rules that we play by often around here. And, um, you know, when I wrote Feeling Seen, it was often about this conversation of, you know, rules still apply to everybody. If everybody gets a medal, it's a waste of time because we need a script for futility. But the issue is kindness, the capacity to engage in relationship first with your kids, your partner, particularly with the ones who don't seem to deserve it because the ones who need it the most are the hardest to give it to. 

Dawn Taylor

Always. Always. It breaks my heart when and I have clients online. I have clients in person, probably like you do. It breaks my heart when someone contacts me in. The first question they ask is, are you willing to see me in person? 

Dr. Jody Carrington

Mhm.

Dawn Taylor

Yes, yes. You can come to my office. They're like oh okay. And that it breaks my heart and it breaks my heart for a lot of industries and a lot of things. And I think that with the disconnect over these last two years, like working from home is amazing and yet it's created more disconnect. My husband and I were talking while we were driving yesterday. We drove two hours to hang out for three with his brother and wife and kids because we're like, no, no, no, we want to connect. I want to play with your toddler. I want to wrestle and tickle and hug and cuddle. And, you know, he made a comment. He's like, “I love that you didn't even go check your phone once or pick it up once.” And I said, “Well, no, because I don't want her to think that I live on my phone.”

Dr. Jody Carrington

Mhm. 

Dawn Taylor

Right. I want her to know that Auntie Dawn is the one that'll go to her room and giggle and tickle and wrestle with her and throw her on the bed and laugh and hug her and play like that is what I desire her to know me as. 

Dr. Jody Carrington

Right, right. Yeah, right. 

Dawn Taylor

Not another parent watching TV or another parent on their phone or another parent. That's not a bad bash to anyone who is doing that. But there is a lack of presence. There is a total lack of presence happening. And yeah, what are some ways that you can see or just some easy, tangible things for people as saying that could be like,” Oh, there is one tiny shift I could do in work at home, with my kids, with my spouse. To engage in a different way.” Because often the loneliest people are the people that are the busiest and have a million friends and family members and people everywhere, and they still feel completely alone. 

Dr. Jody Carrington

You know, it's interesting. It reminds me of this conversation we were having this past week around artificial intimacy, the new AI. And, um, you know, there's lots of conversation, a beautiful book that was initiated, you know, has initiated many of these conversations called Artificial Intimacy. And it's really this concept of, you know, we have a thousand friends on Facebook, but nobody to feed our dog. We have, you know, we chase a million likes in the run of a day. But like, you know, when I come home and I need to get my kid to hockey practice, it's like, who do I call? And I think that, um, I think what is so critically important is fostering those relationships in your community on purpose, and also the thing that makes it quite easy for me to remember this sometimes is that the bar is so low. So it's not just you and me, you know, feeling this, right? You give somebody a compliment in the line at the grocery store or at the hockey rink, or you buy somebody's coffee in the lineup behind you at Tim Hortons. Right? It is remarkable what will happen. And in order to do those things, you see sort of like this 007 trick, because in order to do those things, you have to be emotionally regulated. And so if we make it a goal on our part to be able to sort of build our own community up, to be able to be the one that, you know, gives out a compliment, even on our shittiest moments in the days that we feel like we don't, you can have an awful day for the vast majority of your day. Feel every bit of it, but your only job is to give two compliments a day. I know when you switch into that mode, you're pulling your prefrontal cortex on, and it is allowing then us to build the communities, to build the connections in a community and some of the healthiest among us, like if we look at the data, um, Susan Pinker's written a beautiful book. She's a Canadian psychologist, and she talks about how in the blue zone. So some of the most you know, the centurions, the ones who lived beyond 100 years in a healthy way. Um, the greatest predictor of longevity isn't necessarily. In fact, it's not how fat you are or how much you drink or, um, how much you smoke or don't smoke. The greatest predictor of longevity is social reciprocity in your community. So people in the blue zone, for example, uh, on the island of Corsica, off of Italy, they live close together. Uh, their access to steel, to their daily functioning, like going to the post office. They get bread, fresh bread every day. They go get their milk. And they have to not necessarily have a bunch of close friends, but they have the social reciprocity with people that's checking on them. Hey, I didn't see you come by for your milk today. Uh, how are things going? Or did you make it for coffee or did you do those things? And so those social engagements become some of the most important things. And now that we can do many of these things post-Covid, in particular from home ordering our groceries, you don't have to go to Costco because there's too many people, which means we don't take our kids on Costco trips, which is a rite of passage. You should have a meltdown in Costco with your toddler at least three times, you know? And like all of those things become really critical because you can't tell somebody how to navigate those experiences. You've got to show them. And I think that on purpose choice to be able to play cards with your neighbors on the weekends too. I was too tired to go to the movie, or we're too tired or whatever. Being able to sort of do some of those things, not all of them, but some of those things on purpose, will serve the next generation well, because the concern for me isn't necessarily us. It is so much about what the babies coming behind us are watching. 

Dawn Taylor

I love that you said on purpose. Right and doing things on purpose. It's so hard to naturally, so I come from a background where and for anyone who's read my book or knows anything about my personal story, I was born to a mom who tried to miscarry me her entire pregnancy. So I struggle with bonding a connection. My entire life. It's just been this ongoing battle that I've had my entire life. And one of the things that I have done is I have an on purpose in my calendar of like, “No, no, no, I'm going to make time not just for a zoom date with someone, but I'm going to like, I will drive to your house.” I will, like, let's meet somewhere and do something that's spend time together on purpose. But I track it. I make sure in my calendar that there's so many connection points in a week where it's like, no, no, no, I need this. Like I need this, scheduling dates with my husband. I mean, we've been together 28 years. Do we still need to schedule dates? Probably not, but yeah, we do, because the disconnect can happen. And you know, we're walking into 20. Yeah. We're almost at 28 years together on in like two weeks. Which is incredible. And 24 married in May. And we just had a conversation about it where we're like, no, we need to like, schedule time together again because we're both passionate about what we do, and we both have careers and we both have lives, and we have totally different hobbies. And we now have like time blocked in our calendars. And he's like, I hate that it feels so awkward, like it's an appointment or a meeting. He's like, but we have reconnected more in the last two months of doing that than we have in probably the last year. Yeah, because it's intentional actions. Intentional behaviors. We're doing it on purpose, right? 

Dr. Jody Carrington 

Good for you. Yeah. That's amazing. I mean, I struggle with this all the time. And I think that, um, I think that's part of it, you know, is, is really that idea of we're also exhausted. So being able to schedule things on purpose, even a bit in and of itself feels like I can't even do that. Like I'm failing at that too. It's almost like another expectation that we also can't get right, you know, so I, you know, I think it is so critically important in this space to, to give ourselves some grace. I am amazed all the time at how much rest it takes to compensate for what our bodies are set to navigate this season. So, we have so much. Our kids have so much access to us now, which is, I mean, beautiful in so many ways. But it's also, I know when we have a phone, we have our Apple Watches on all those things. If I miss a phone call, I'm going to get buzzed on my wrist. Right. And our parents also never had this much access in previous generations. Right. And so in the run of a day, I can, you know, in an hour, I get a phone call from the school saying, you know, mom, I'm feeling anxious. I don't know what to do about these feelings, which I love. I created this monster. And then my dad, who's struggling with dementia, is like, hey, I just don't know how to get the curling on. Okay? So if we think about just one generation ago, we talk about this, you know, often when our parents would go to work, they would go to work. It would be very difficult to get a hold of them. If there was an emergency, for sure. There would be very many channels that you could do that. But at the end of the day, a 40 hour workweek made a lot of sense because things were done. Nobody could get you, your clients, your patients. Your customers couldn't get you once you entered the threshold of, you know, the sanctity of your home. And many of us now work from home, many of us, you know, check our email before we get up, even though we say we won't, we get something in the middle of the night and we're like, you know, we want to be really helpful because, you know, this is where our identities live as first responders or as clinicians or teachers. You know, we fall in love with the people that we, you know, serve in this regard, because we're worried about their safety and their physical well-being and their emotional well-being and all those things. And so there is a cost to that, that we haven't quite negotiated yet, because when we still consider  it necessary to be at work on Monday morning at 8:00 and to work until 5:00, um, we have not taken into consideration then that, that we actually don't get to then seeing into our families or go to hockey practice or go home and make dinner because we're doing all the same things, um, way into the evening. And then in an effort to regulate our systems, we feel like we've earned the right then to, like, watch Dateline for two hours before bed 

Dawn Taylor

And we're like socially acceptable thing these days.

Dr. Jody Carrington

Which I mean, again, makes complete sense to me if you understand the inundation of our system. So it's not the problem of, um, I think that sort of the development of technology, it really is what we do with it that becomes really critically important. When we have many exit ramps, we'll just take them.

Dawn Taylor

Oh, we absolutely will. We sat down. About a year ago, we sat down and my husband and I both have very busy careers and we work a lot and there's an intensity to it. But he is so phenomenal at shutting off when he shuts off at the end of the day. Like his phone's done, his work is done, and he's good to go until the morning. And he hobbies like he's got hobbies, he's got his things. And we had a conversation. And one of the things he said to me, and this is something that I am constantly looking at within myself, is like, what are the expectations I've set for myself? Because those came from a standard that I set based on a situation. Right? And often he's like, I look at them and I'm like, okay, what are the expectations that I am putting on myself right now, or that I'm allowing society to put on me right now that no longer match my capacity? That no longer match where I am in life, right? And one of those was like, make a home cooked meal every day. Right like that was one of mine. But again, being raised by German farmers and my parents like that was what you did. It didn't matter. What was the expectation? Yeah. Pancakes. It didn't matter. You still made a home cooked meal every single day. Like we laugh about it as adults now, my siblings and I were like, there was always like a plate of cut up cucumbers and a plate of cut up tomatoes to make sure you had your veggies. And like, all of like the carb, the starch, the meat, right. Or the veggies. And we were laughing about it. And I sat down and I looked at him and I was like, I don't want to do that anymore. I don't have the capacity. And what it's doing is it's making me not enjoy it. And I'm not happy about cooking anymore. And I love cooking. But because it's like this rushed expectation, it's no longer enjoyable. And he's like, so don't cook. And now he laughs to me. And my inner circle knows, like I make one meal every Sunday and then I make another one on Friday to last for Friday, Saturday, Sunday. And then I make another one on Sunday. But I am now at a point where, like, I've done this for over a year now, I cook two times a week. And I'll eat that same meal for lunch and dinner and just add, like, a new hot sauce to it, or shift something about how I eat it. But it's this beautiful gift I've given myself to be off a little bit. And I think it's even just those simple things. So simple things, at the end of the day where, like one of my team members, she refuses to put emails on her phone. She refuses. She's like, nope, nobody can email my cell phone. I don't ever want to look at it. Yeah, she's like, so if I'm not at my computer, I cannot check an email. 

Dr. Jody Carrington

Yeah, brilliant. And it's really and it's like, it's so many of those things that we've never even thought about doing.Because like, oh my God, can we do that? Is that allowed? that allowed? That's awesome. 

Dawn Taylor

Right. And it's laying out those expectations, this thing with those expectations for ourselves, but also the people around us to be like, no, I'm not available at two in the morning.

Dr. Jody Carrington

Yes, yes, yes. 

Dawn Taylor

I'm not going to answer my phone call at 10:00 at night. I'm not going to respond to a text. Sometimes people laugh at me. They're like, is your ringtone ever on? I'm like, very seldom. If I'm like in a shopping mall, separated from people I'm with, and I know we're going to call when we're done. Yes, I'll turn it on. But other than that, it lives off all the time because otherwise it was that constant, just constant ding ding ding ding ding, right?

Dr. Jody Carrington

Yeah, 100%. And I think that like, I think I think so much of it is, you know, we can always sort of not, not make the excuse. But I think for many of us there is that real expectation that, you know, we do have to be available for our children or our aging parents or, you know, we're on call because of our job. And I think that, like, accessibility is also not always a bad thing. I think it's a little bit about, you know, do we have the counterbalance to be able to do that on purpose? Because I think if you shut off all of your things and you spend the vast majority of your time wondering, are you missing something? Um, it's also not a benefit. And so I think the idea is also with respect to whatever works for you, doing that on purpose, because I think, again, it's that that concept of, you know, even this week, charge your phone outside of your bed one night, one night outside of your bedroom, one night, if you know, if it's like, no, I'm on call for the volunteer fire department or, you know, I'm my kids got the car and I don't want to okay. Like if it's going to be more difficult to not do those things, then don’t. 

Dawn Taylor

100%. 

Dr. Jody Carrington

Right. And I think that it's these easy little things that -  not easy. I shouldn't say - um, tiny little switches to our, you know, 30seconds of dropping your shoulders, breathing deep, letting your gut out, wiggling your toes, doing those things that sort of get our body back in alignment, you know, which is really, I think, where the self-care rhetoric came from, their very prescriptive way of, you know, move, um, you got to work out, you got to do yoga, you got to drink your kale. And part of the deal is that if you do all of that with your shoulders up, it's of no benefit. And so the purpose of sort of moving our bodies, um, whether it's, you know, you're training for an ultra or you're, you know, going for A1K walk outside. When you do those things on purpose. And so many of us exercise with the point of getting through it. Right. So we got to we got the show on, or we have the best playlist that can just make us like, totally zone out and like, oh shit, good. There we go. We got the five minutes. I think what's so critically important is how we do some of these things on purpose. And I'm not saying I mean, certainly this is, you know, my time to watch my show was on the treadmill or whatever the deal is. But like being very conscious of what is happening to your physical body, just even a little bit more than you did yesterday, um, can make all the difference. 

Dawn Taylor

I love that you say that. It's because it is right. It's doing it because you love yourself, not because you hate yourself. 

Dr. Jody Carrington

Yeah. Isn't that true? That's a great line. 

Dawn Taylor

These things aren't supposed to be about punishment. 

Dr. Jody Carrington

Yeah, yeah, but they have for so long, though, and I think that's the thing that we really need to just sort of acknowledge is that, like, it's okay if that's what you feel like in your bones, because for so many of us, me included, it still is that bias that is very deep, right? And I think that you can't address what you don't acknowledge. And so this I think, you know, this conversation around just do it this way or just do this more often is so hard for so many of us to consume because it is, again, this is what everybody seems to be doing. It's not what everybody is doing. Everybody does not do this perfectly. And, you know, I would even argue your husband struggles despite the fact that it is like, yep, I shut it off. Yeah, it's almost physically impossible to do that sometimes. Right. And so I think the expectation that people actually can do  that and maybe there is an anomaly, maybe there are those things. But I think we have to be very conscious of the fact that it is difficult for everybody, and the vast majority of our consuming of what other people are doing is a highlight reel on social media, which makes it look as though you know, you're getting all your workouts in and you're drinking green in between them. And you know, nobody's also like and I had 17 Oreos as soon as I got off the treadmill, you know. Right. And you know what I mean. I think those are the things that and you know this. Right. Like I think particularly on our platform on my podcast, it's really this conversation around, you know, vulnerability begets vulnerability. And it's not about sort of, you know, Brené Brown has talked beautifully about vulnerability isn't like a vomiting of self-disclosure. It is really that there is this time in our lives where sometimes it feels like it's undoable. There's this time and there's sometimes, moment to moment that it feels like, you know, parenting is hard, marriage is hard. All these things. And I think the acknowledgement of that creating safe enough spaces to acknowledge that sometimes while we then also celebrate the wins, is such a balance that I think for the rest of our generation, we're going to have to work really hard at. 

Dawn Taylor

I always laugh. If we did all of the things that they told us we needed to do to stay 

healthy. Right? Like, if we all did all of the workouts every single day and we journaled and we meditated and often with friends. I'm like, cool. Who told you to do that? Yeah, it's always my 

first question. And they're like, what do you mean? And I'm like, was it somebody with no kids is telling you to do all these things, and they don't have to deal with kids in the morning? Is it somebody who, maybe this is their full time job is all they do is self-help. Or they like, do self-care all day. Is it? Who is telling you that? Do they have your situation, your metrics, your body? Your stuff going on? 

Dr. Jody Carrington

Yeah, right. 100% 100%.

Dawn Taylor 

Right. And that's where it is. So like, we need to like settle into our bodies and to actually sit with them and be like, know what works for me? Yeah. Not for somebody else. For me, meditation in our normal way doesn't work, had a brain aneurysm at 17. My brain vibrates at three times the pace of an average brain. When I close my eyes, it doubles. Meditation is torture for me, right? It's like watching strobe lights and going to a rock concert all at the same time. But I love to sit and play Lego. And the action of doing that is very meditative to me, and it totally calms me. Right, but we're so busy attaching a judgment to everything. And this is a right versus a wrong, a good versus bad, instead of like, no, let's just get really curious. What do you need? And if you did it out of love. Like I said, I often tell people it's like, no, no, no, do this because you love yourself, not because you hate yourself. 

Dr. Jody Carrington

Right? 100%. Yeah. Yeah, I love that. 

Dawn Taylor

If you loved your body enough to eat healthy, what if you loved yourself enough to say no. What if you loved your life enough to make a change? Yeah. Instead of doing it with the intention of like, I hate this, so I have to fix this. 

Dr. Jody Carrington

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, 100%. I think it is. It is always this journey. And I think that's the point, right? Is that we don't arrive. We had this conversation, you know, and I often have this quote over my shoulder from Ramdas. Actually, often I do in this moment. Uh, a philosopher and a Yogi. And he just said, I mean, this is our job here. We're all just walking each other home, and it's probably the most profound sentence in the human language for me, because it really grounds me back into this place of, like, even after we do all the things, even when we fuck it up, even if we took wrong turns and felt as though we made bad decisions, which many of us or all of us will, we're just here, walking each other home. Nobody gets out of here alive. And in some moments, in fact, in the exact same moments, you can be a walker and a walkie in need of somebody walking you while you were doing that for somebody else. And some of our legacies, our most profound legacies, will be in the moments when we are walkers for other people. And so as parents or teachers or first responders or best friends moms, um, those are the things that I think we get most proudest of is when we are in a state of emotional regulation for another human being, and it often doesn't involve fixing it because we can't, you know, when somebody buries a child or tells you that they they have cancer or, you know, some of those big moments where kids are saying, like, you know, I'm scared to go home tonight or, you know, whatever the deal is, I think it's not about having the answer. It is about the physical presence of another human being doing that concept called walking. And, um, and I think that's my favorite thing about this season is that, um, the world is isn't just such need of you and of what you, um, can offer to the people in your community, your friends, your best friends, you know, all of you listening. This is the time in our respective lives that we can write our legacy so beautifully. And it really just so much involves showing up for ourselves and for each other.

Dawn Taylor

So our motto in our marriage is how can I love you even more right now? And I think that without boundaries it can be harmful, but with healthy boundaries in a marriage or a relationship at all. Right? Even with the people closest to me, it's often like, no, no, no, it's not. How do I love you? How can I love you even more right now? And sometimes that is buying them a coffee in a lineup. Sometimes it is just being there when they are having a bad day. Sometimes it is, you know, giving the support when they need it. Right? 

Dr. Jody Carrington

Right. 

Dawn Taylor

Yeah. Right. It is. It's the walking. You're just walking everyone home. Right. And. I don't know. It's a really powerful statement in our household. Yeah. 

And our actions and our behaviors and all of those things. 

Dr. Jody Carrington

Yeah. I love it.

Dawn Taylor

So going back to the beginning of happiness isn't the destination. Why do you think that our society is so stuck on this idea that we're supposed to just be happy all the time? 

Dr. Jody Carrington

Um, I think that it is probably the most regulated state is, uh. It's predictable. We know what to expect from other people. Uh, they tend to be the most communicative in those states. And I think it's the desired outcome. I mean, it's what behaviorism is built on. I just want to get you back to this place of compliance. And, uh, I think that's why, I mean, again, it feels the best in our body from a neurophysiological perspective. And I don't think it's wrong to want. To get people there. In fact, it is what I would like most often. Um, for the people that I love but I think that's not necessarily synonymous with what is required for us to be the most well-rounded human beings. So I don't know that the desire to get back there will ever change. I think the permission to, you know, sort of feel all of the emotions, um, is the conversation that becomes most important.

Dawn Taylor

Is it that but also understanding that, so we were talking earlier about how like even in my hardest year of my entire life, there have been some doozies. I started tracking years ago what my mood was every day, and I was like overarching at the end of the day, what was my day? Was it like ten? This is the greatest day of my entire life. For one, I actually have a shovel and I'm digging the hole in the backyard. Right, like I'm out. Where am I sitting? And I marked every single day for 3 or 4 years and actually, I still have it. I marked what my number was at the end of the day. And it was like, no, no, no, not in the moment. Just as an overarching at the end of the day, maybe work went horrible, but personal was amazing. And then I was like, no, it was an all right day. And the fact that in the hardest year of my life, one of the hardest years, it ended at a 6.5 average over the course of a year. And I remember talking to a friend about it and I said, we there's this idea that we have to live like either were in like the zero to 3 or 4. Where it's like depressed, not functioning. Life is hard and horrible or we have to be in like the eight, nine,  ten. Where it's amazing. And I said, sometimes life is really awesome between the like four and 

seven. And that that's actually where we spend a lot of our lives. And it doesn't mean that we're sad or that we're depressed. We're actually just kind of calm. And that we're okay. We're actually kind of good. 

Dr. Jody Carrington

Yeah. The negativity bias has long been a concept in the world of, you know, psychological understanding that really comes back to this concept that we will pay most attention to when things are not going well. And I think that, you know, it is this phenomenon that equally or easily takes over for all of us. And the concept then of being able to balance that to the best of your capacity, you know, a good friend of mine, and has written a book called um, Find the Joy. And it really is this, this idea that when you are, you can't hold to emotions, um, in your head at one time, one will always win. So you're going to mixed emotions, but one will always slightly overtake the other. And the idea is that when you are focused on all the things that are going wrong, what you will inevitably miss is all the things that are going well. Because you can't selectively numb. You can't just, you know, exercise excessively to get rid of the bad emotions. You will also then lose your capacity to hang on to the good. You can't drink effectively to just, you know, dampen the bad emotions. You will also dampen the joy. And so the concept of being able to, you know, even call into awareness and negativity bias becomes really important when we want to shift the narrative. And I think when we use words like always or every time or, um, I'm never lucky or I'm always in this bad place really lends itself to, you know, no room for another narrative. And so just really watching, I think the way we speak about our children and our use of technology, our concepts, you know, um, becomes really powerful in the way that we sort of see the world, um, because it can really dictate how we think it is. 

Dawn Taylor

Oh, yes, 100,000%. Yes. I remember sitting, so I got diagnosed with this crazy rare thyroid disease about two years ago, and I sat in an IV chair five days a week, up to eight hours a day getting treatments. And it was brutal. And I remember a friend sitting there with me one day, and he was laughing at me because he's like, you still can crack a joke through the tears, through the pain, through whatever. And I said, you know what? This is a blip. This is one little blip in my life. But so much of it is good. Yes, this sucks. And I'm going to fully own the fact that this moment sucks and this moment is hard. But how amazing that I even have an opportunity to do this and that at some point, this moment too, will end. And I won't be sitting in this damn chair anymore. 

Dr. Jody Carrington

Yeah. 

Dawn Taylor

Right. And I don't know, I think I've always been not a glass half empty or glass half full, but cups are refillable. That's how they work. 

Dr. Jody Carrington

Mhm. And I think this is so true. You know I hear parents say this often or you know when we're in this place like um, you know when our babies are little and you know, we're getting up 2 or 3 times in a night or, you know, at the beginning stages of any diagnosis or whatever those things are. I mean, I think that's the whole point. And you might have even said this earlier, is that, you know, the emotions are temporary, but it is so hard to believe that to be true when you're in the middle of it. And I think both of those things can hold space and reality. Right. Like I think I think it is supposed to feel overwhelming and exhausting. That's okay. Um, and it is also, uh, temporary. 

Dawn Taylor

Yeah, I always laugh that my success rate to date, to overcome every hard thing that's come my way has been 100%. 

Dr. Jody Carrington

You got it. 

Dawn Taylor

To date every day I thought I wouldn't survive. Every moment I thought I wouldn't survive every trauma I went through. Right. Like success rate to date is 100%. So what makes me think that this is the one that'll take me out? 

Dr. Jody Carrington

So far, so good. Yeah, you got it right. 

Dawn Taylor

And that's that's always where I go to is I'm like, no logistics wise, the math says I'm going to survive this thing too. 

Dr. Jody Carrington

Yeah, yeah, you got it right. 

Dawn Taylor

But yes, people in my life laugh at that. Jody. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you for being here today and hanging out with us. Is there anything else that you want to leave with our listeners? Any little last minute thing? 

Dr. Jody Carrington

Oh my gosh I don't know I mean I, I just, thanks for, you know, thank you for having me. I appreciate your work. I think that, you know, oftentimes it is the necessity of just having places to land when you need to get regulated again. And, um, I mean, I would love your community to be a part of ours. And I think that access to resources and being able to understand that we're not doing this alone is probably one of the most important things these days. So, yeah. That's it. 

Dawn Taylor

So for anybody listening, we are going to link everything Jody in our show notes located at the TaylorWay.ca, all the books that she recommended, all of the quotes that she recommended. There's a full script of this entire conversation there. If you need to read through it, highlight it, whatever you need to do with it, please check out TheTaylorWay.ca and join us again in two weeks for another really cool topic. Thank you, thank you, thank you so much for hanging out with us today. And Jody, thank you. Doctor Jody Carrington. Thank you for the work that you do. 

Dr. Jody Carrington

Thank you, Dawn Taylor.