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.org. Sorin, welcome back. Yes, welcome back.
I have to just draw attention to something first.
This is absolute brilliance. It's absolute brilliance.
I'm so excited about it. I was really afraid
that it was going to look like shit, but it's
gorgeous. And as I said to you, probably in an
offensive way, it is better than I imagined it
would be. Like when I hear craft project, I instantly,
because I'm not a craft project kind of guy.
This is gorgeous. And you did this absolutely
yourself. And for audio listeners, this is a
flower wall that we've set up behind us in the
studio. Of course, it's not real flowers, but
very beautiful nonetheless. And we'll take some
pictures and we'll put them up on social so our
audio listeners can view what we're talking about.
It's beautiful. It changes the whole vibe. I
love it. I love it. I'm really glad that it came
out like it did. Me too. Me too. All right. Inspired
insight of the week for me. So I have used shades
of this inspired insight from time to time, but
it is absolutely remaining true for me. And it's
a theme that you and I have talked about way
back, even the beginning of season one. And the
theme of this inspired insight is joy. And the
importance and the essential role that joy plays
in our health and our healing and our wellness.
And I had the opportunity to present a training
this past week for a local agency here on just
the importance. of joy and how joy is connected
to hope and resilience and healing. And last
week I was in the beautiful state of Ohio presenting
the LGBTQ plus version of this presentation on
queer joy and the role that social workers, pediatric
social workers have to play in supporting queer
youth and families. in centering joy in their
lives and just that's such a critical component
of our work as providers so joy finding joy this
wall brings me joy i love it i love it your inspired
insights yes so on a similar kind of topic um
my inspired insight is more about how to go about
achieving that joy And I think oftentimes we
hear a lot about this idea of gratitude and perspective,
but I think people don't understand fully the
importance of that and what gratitude as like
a tool is really doing. And for me, gratitude
is really about reframing situations and placing
a stronger emphasis on the positive, right? I
think especially when we are in a down mood,
we have a tendency to frame things negatively
all the time. And I see this in my friends and
I see this in myself sometimes. We can focus
exclusively on the negatives of given situations,
right? And ultimately, I think our perspective
on the world is guided mainly by our own internal
thoughts, which we have control of, right? So
my main idea is framing. How can we as individuals
take situations and look at them in our minds
in such a way that we are examining them rationally
while taking pleasurable emotions out of them
and not necessarily avoiding the negatives of
situations but rather seeing the negatives as
a means through which to mitigate future negatives
right yeah like and i think about the importance
of that with trauma a lot too right like um I
think a big step for me has been reframing my
trauma as a useless and awful thing that happened
to me into a massive opportunity for change and
growth. Yeah. Yeah. I want to I want to stick
right here and unpack this a bit more for for
you and I and for our listeners, because I. I
think this ties so interestingly to this concept
of joy and hope and resilience, right? And I
sometimes wonder, like, chicken and egg. Does
our attitude, our mindset, our thoughts shape
our reality? does our reality shape our mindset
and thoughts? And like, I love your point about
we have control over the inner narrative, right?
We have control over how we label something,
how we frame something. But what are your thoughts
on that chicken egg? Well, I'm going to start
first with kind of how I view reality, right?
Like, I think reality is primarily a reflection
of our internal state right because all of our
experiences are dictated by our perceptions and
we ultimately have no means of gathering data
about the external world past our internal sensations
right like we we as entities are broadly incapable
of determining objective reality without relying
upon our senses and our senses are um very much
at the whim of our emotional and mental state
right so starting off with that premise uh of
this idea that we quite literally define the
world around us through our own perspective And
then I think about this idea of the relationship
between our emotions, thoughts, and behaviors,
right? Like, I often talk with my mother, and
this is kind of her nugget of wisdom, but it's
very much like a triangular exchange. Emotions,
thoughts, and behaviors, right? I think as humans,
we can't really control our emotions. They kind
of operate externally, but... Our thoughts can
control our emotions and our behaviors can control
our emotions and our thoughts can control our
behaviors and we can control our thoughts. That's
right. That's right. Well, you're an. your mom
and I share being clinical social workers in
common and that triangle is the whole premise
of cognitive behavioral therapy right CBT that
my cognitions my behaviors and my thinking are
all connected there and I love that triangle
is so clear like that visual is so clear to me
and so when I approach a situation a problem
a conflict and I have this ability to conceptualize
the problem in a way that feels doable. I'm confident
that I can be successful. You don't typically
give it another second thought, right? Because
you just approach it with... And if we're confronted
with a problem that maybe we have some lived
experience navigating and we've been successful
in the past... Again, we don't give it that second
thought. We just approach it from the same lived
experience of success. Conversely, when I am
confronted with something I've never dealt with
before or I'm supporting somebody with something
that we've never dealt with before, I've got
to source information from somewhere. Yeah. And
if I don't feel confident about it and I don't
feel good. about it, it's going to lead me to
maybe not do my best or maybe feel like my best
isn't good enough. So that triangle is so important
in navigating, to your point, navigating the
world and figuring out what we have control over.
Exactly. I think like ultimately my big emphasis
that I place when I'm talking with my friends,
when I'm talking with my family, is that we kind
of have control over everything, right? Like
everything is defined by us as individuals and
when we can understand ourselves as individuals
and when we can process things rationally to
benefit ourselves and others then we have control.
over the entire universe. The world is our oyster,
right? In unlocking the ability to control our
thoughts and through those thoughts sort of guide
our emotions and nurture ourselves and make sure
that we are behaving in the proper way, we can
control almost anything. What have you found
has been helpful for you? Like, as you were saying,
our emotions... come up like we don't have control
when that feeling comes up whether it's jealousy
or shame or joy happiness anger we don't like
that feeling is there what have you found helpful
in being able to press pause and lean in to naming
that feeling recognizing i don't have control
over the feeling but i have the ability to explore,
get introspective, and make sure that that feeling
isn't hijacking the thought or the behavior.
Yeah, I think it's really easy for us. And when
I was in crisis, I was constantly allowing my
feelings to directly control every thought and
action that I was taking. And it's really easy
for that to be the case because our emotions
are... urgent needs. They are not something that
is existing as a tool for us necessarily, even
though I do think our emotions can serve us really
well. They exist as sort of like a wild, internal,
natural force. I see them as a little bit more
like primordial, right? Yeah. And humans are
fantastic at shaping the elements to do what
we want, right? And I think... we can do the
exact same thing with our emotions. For me, I
think a big step in recovery and everyday life
is the immediate response to stimuli being thought,
right? And obviously, I'm sure our audience knows
I'm a bit more cerebral than your average person.
No. I'm not. No. But... Every single time I experience
something that might result in a negative emotion,
my immediate reaction is to first think about
it. And I think then it allows me to... break
i used to have these thought loops that were
fed by my emotions i would have an emotional
stimuli like a trauma reaction or something and
then my thoughts would feed into those emotions
and the emotions would grow more intense and
then it would make more negative thoughts and
it would become a spiraling feedback yeah and
i think a lot of people have the tendency to
do that right um and the biggest first step is
control your thoughts because your thoughts are
concrete uh your thoughts your thoughts are identifiable
and your thoughts are easily expressed yeah right
in this in the way that emotions are very difficult
to express and once you can sort of conceptualize
situations um off the bat then you can start
um behaving in ways that nurture yourself yeah
yeah that gift of introspection i think is one
of the greatest gifts we can give ourself and
To support somebody else, be that sounding board,
to help other people learn to get introspective
is the best gift we can give somebody else. The
ability to sit with your thoughts and name the
emotion, look at the trigger, what's going on
in the environment, know what our baseline is
like, oh, this somebody. gets in front of me
or takes my parking space in the parking lot,
typically that rolls off my shoulder. Today,
I'm furious and I cannot let it go. Well, why
is that? What's going on with that? And the ability
just to sit with that is a really important step
in self -awareness. I totally agree. And you
mentioned this idea of like a sounding board.
And I think in situations where we might start
to act, and I have made a very conscious effort
with this using my mom as a resource. When our
emotions are controlling our thoughts, we need
our immediate response to be, oh, I need someone
to think for me right now. So then I can get
into a more rational space, right? And I was
wondering if you could speak more to how you've
developed relationships so that like your husband
or your friends can be that person to think for
you and with you over your own internal experience.
Yeah, that's a great question. I think with over
time as relationships grow and evolve, and I've
seen that with you and I over the last year and
a half of spending this time together, in just
our small talk, I know more about what's going
on in your life. And so when something seems
off, because I have a deeper knowledge of what's
been going on in your life, I can help you press
pause and go, you know what? By chance is what's
going on over here. creeping into what's happening
um and so that uh having the luxury of a connection
with somebody to be able to source backwards
and i do this with strangers in my clinical worlds
all the time and helping folks to develop the
skills to press pause get regrounded because
you were saying um that emotion i love that description
you have of this really primordial ooze like
those are our emotions yeah and um they can get
the best of us and so okay stop let's get grounded
let's get feet on the floor and there's all kinds
of strategies for for those for just getting
mindful getting grounded but to interrupt the
thought from completely hijacking the uh interrupting
the emotion from completely hijacking the frontal
lobe right which we know trauma yeah has the
ability to do And so for me, it's helping with
the interruption. Stop. Like, enough. Slow it
down. Let's just sit for a second with this.
Okay, now talk through it. What's going on? Name
it, shape it, and start. not pushing the emotion
down, but finding a balance where the emotion
isn't oozing everywhere. But we've put some guardrails
around it to at least contain it. And the image
that keeps popping in my head is rather than
this volcano or this slimy ooze coming everywhere,
these strategies to interrupt and press pause
really is about building some building a structure
around it so we can then study it. Yeah. And
really take a look at it. 100%. And not let it
continue to flow and get away from us, but put
it in the aquarium tank, let it do its thing
in there while we're going, huh, that's interesting.
What's that about? And then that introspection,
right? Like we live, we talk about this all the
time in my business and personal relationships,
grind culture. is unlike anything I've seen even
during COVID. Like the grind culture going on
now, I think is the catch up result of a little
bit of the COVID stuff. We are go, go, go. You're
on the go all the time. Like go, go, go. And
we have lost the ability. of just sitting with
ourself for a couple minutes of silence and just
be one with yourself in your head. I think actually
I was talking to my former AP chemistry teacher
who used to be a professor and one of his major
qualms with academia was literally that there's
no longer opportunity to just think and digest
material anymore. um and that doesn't necessarily
pertain to emotions but it's a very similar situation
right i think but it's introspection yeah it's
introspection yeah it's and also like in science
you're trying to investigate a natural phenomena
and i bringing it back to this idea of framing
like when i'm experiencing a really strong emotion
my first thought is oh this is really interesting.
Let's investigate. It's an opportunity to kind
of put on my Sherlock Holmes hat and get out
the pipe tobacco. Right. Well, and you're a naturally
curious person. And so you apply that curiosity
to everything that you do, whether it's the book
you're reading, the subject you're studying,
the documentary, whatever it is, and yourself.
Yeah. And I wonder, like you were mentioning
about healing. and how this process of introspection
really assisted you in your healing process.
The curiosity that you approached what was going
on for you and what was going on around you,
what was going on for your family. I think about
our conversation with our siblings, our brothers,
last season. And you and your brother got into
this about... your brother saying, but I didn't
know what was happening. I knew it was something
scary, but nobody was talking to me about it.
I didn't know. And so I think one of the pieces
of your resiliency is your curiosity. And that
curiosity allows you to reframe and get really
cerebral about reframing it. Okay, here's what's
going on. I can continue to do more of what's
not working for me. Yeah. Or I can make some
changes. I agree. And I think the curiosity is
kind of part of learning to love ourselves, right?
Like even in our worst moments, we are interesting.
Like humans are psychologically fascinating.
And I think the most fascinating interaction
that you can have with a human is in using yourself
as a case study. Yeah. Right. Like sort of stepping
back and trying to dissect your emotions like
you're a surgeon and your emotions are on an
operating table. Yeah. Yeah. Which is very like
cold image, but I feel like it's kind of what
we need to do sometimes. And this doesn't mean
we're separating ourselves from our emotions
and like no longer feeling them. It means that
we're processing them in a more systematic fashion.
Yeah. Rather than suppressing them. And I think
emotions naturally want to hide, right? Like
think about the little boy who has a crush and
then tries to hide it and instead bullies the
girl or something of that nature. Or the other
boy. Yeah, or the other boy. Real. And like our
natural tendency to not want to cry around others.
Like our strong emotions don't want to be revealed.
So you have to get curious to want to like sneak
around that corner and take a peek at them. Yeah.
Yeah. And that's really three seasons ago. That's
what brought you and I a part of what brought
you and I together about this podcast is reducing
stigma, reducing the barriers, because oftentimes
the barrier is us. Yeah. We're the reason that
we don't want to allow other people to see that.
piece of us. Maybe we're ashamed of it. Maybe
we're scared of it. Maybe we're afraid of the
narrative that that thing will try to tell about
us. But I think that brings us to that framing
insight that you had earlier, is that from where
I sit, the more we've put on the magnifying glass
and the more we put it on the table and looked
at it and identified it and named it and understand
it, the more easy it is to then reframe around
it. 100%. And change the narrative. Yeah. Our
emotions are part of our internal environment.
They are us, right? And they have the opportunity
to serve us. Emotions evolved because they are
a viable tool for humans to facilitate social
interactions. And they can do that really well
and they can help us connect with others. But
we have to let them out with a leash on them
in order for them to make friends. I just got
to say, this is probably our record for the number
of metaphors we've used for emotions. We've got
volcanoes and ooze and pets and cages and surgeon
tables. But those are literally the pictures
I think about when I think about our emotions
getting the best of us. And I think every human,
everyone listening to us has experienced at least
one time in their life. when they were overwhelmed
by an emotion. And maybe it was anger, maybe
it was jealousy, maybe it was sadness. We've
all experienced what it's like to have that emotion
show up and then just take over. Yeah. And I
think that's a beautiful part of life as well.
And that's part of what makes humans so complex
and so interesting and so curious. and so beautiful
is that even at our worst there's still something
to be learned we still have something to offer
yeah i agree and again brings it back to that
framing right there is always something positive
to be looked at in any situation right like i
look back on getting assaulted and the worst
years of my life and i'm grateful uh right and
i keep uh going over this idea of gratitude about
it because if i hadn't have gone through that
i would not be where i am right now i wouldn't
be talking to you i wouldn't have the awesome
friends that i have i wouldn't be able to use
my story to help yeah so like we have to view
negative things uh for their bad parts so that
we can mitigate those but once we've stepped
back from it It is not a stain on our record.
Yeah. It's never a stain on our record. Right.
Well, and our listeners know that I often quote
my girl Taylor. And that song, Thank You, Amy,
where she says, and I've said this on our podcast
before, but when I count the scars, there's a
moment of truth. If there hadn't been that, then
there wouldn't be. Oh, I messed it up. when I
cut the stars, the moment of truth, if there
hadn't been this, then there wouldn't be you
or something like that. You know, like she, sorry,
Taylor. But really recognizing that we grow through
these things that happen to us, the things that
we go through, we can grow through. And whether
it's literal scars or whether those scars are
more on the inside, to reframe that as you have
done so beautifully as those scars, are reminiscent
of something I grew through. Yeah, 100%. And
I wouldn't be sitting here if it hadn't happened.
I 100 % agree. And I often think of this idea,
like, I used to think that I was enduring my
emotions and I was enduring my thoughts. And
I have a friend who often says, I'll thug it
out when they're experiencing an emotional crisis.
And... We don't have to endure our emotions.
We should be reveling in the curiosity and beauty
that is ourselves. Even in our worst moments,
it is an opportunity for discovery, right? Like
I've had a, probably the, I can't say worst because
I think it's a really good week overall and we'll
have really good results, but I've had the most
emotional week I've had in probably... Since
freshman year. Yeah, years. Years since I was
actively in crisis this week because I have a
lot going on with my friend group and I have
friends experiencing behavioral health crises.
But and I just every night when I'm driving home,
I think of how grateful I am for this opportunity
to examine human emotions and this opportunity
to grow closer with my friends through this hardship.
And what you can offer your friends because of
your past experiences, right? And you give the
gift of your insight, your inspired insight,
to those friends who are in need of it and who
are actively seeking you out because of your
openness to talk about your past. And I think,
Soren, that is one of the pieces about you I
love so much, about who you are and who you've
become, is your not just ability to share, because
it is ability, it's tough to share and be out
there and be bold and be upfront and authentic,
but your willingness. and your courage to share
that part of you that at the time almost destroyed
you, came pretty close to destroying you, and
now is probably, of all the superhero capes that
you wear, that's probably one of the ones that
I see shining through the most because it truly
is a part of your story. It truly does. contribute
to who you are, but it does not shape you. It
does not define you. Yeah. That's very high praise.
I appreciate that. Mean every word. Yeah. Yeah.
I think as this episode sort of winds down, I
really want to leave our audience and viewers
with this idea of control. I know that the world
really can feel out of control and you can't
dictate anything of what's going on around you.
And the reality is, sometimes you can't change
what's going on around you. But ultimately, the
emotions you experience about what's going on
around you are what you can control. And they
are what you should be focusing on. If we can't
control a situation, we can control our reaction
to it and how we deal with it. That's where we
should be deriving value. Yeah. Right. Yeah.
And then we pay it forward when we're able. We
can pay it forward. And the gift of insight and
the gift of reflection and the gift of perspective
sometimes is exactly what the other person needs.
Precisely. Yeah. Ooh, deep thoughts. In the 04401.
Well, Thorne, thank you again. I know I say this
all the time, but thank you for being who you
are and doing what you do and sharing these pieces
of you with me and with us and with your friends.
Yes, and I'd like to thank you too for being
wise and knowing what's going on and always having
a Taylor Swift quote that pertains to what we're
talking about. Always, even though I may lose
it in the moment, it's there. And I'll always
post about it. I think maybe I'll start listening
to Taylor Swift because it's, I think it's kind
of crazy. Every single time we talk about something
deep and I'm like, wow, this is really intense
philosophy. You're like, you know, Taylor mentioned
this in a song once. Yeah, that's right. And
I still, I remember back, I owe you a playlist
and you owe me a playlist. We've got to do that.
We've got to make it an effort to create the
playlist. And thank you, Amy, will be on that
playlist. Until next time, our friends, this
has been Inspired Insights. I'm Chris McLaughlin.
I'm Soren Peterson. Have a great week. See you
next time. Thank you so much. The Inspired Insights
podcast has been brought to you by Inspired Consulting
Group, LLC. Edited and produced by Amanda Seidel
and Derek Carter. Marketing support for the Inspired
Insights podcast by Elizabeth Kaden. Music by
Derek Herter. Please visit www .inspiredcg .com
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