Welcome to Sheep Persisted, the Gen.
Z mental health podcast. I'm your host, Sadie Sutton.
Let's get into it. I think self compassion is one
of the most important ingredients in emotional
fitness. Anything that makes a person who
they are, even things that make people annoying and frustrating
and infuriating, Those things served them well at some point
or they wouldn't be that way. And as we accept that about
ourselves and other people, we free up space to change.
Hello, hello and welcome back to another episode of She
Persisted. We have a repeat guest today and
I'm absolutely so excited to have her back.
Doctor Emily Annal is on the show.
She is a clinical psychologist, emotional fitness expert,
speaker, author, and the Co founder of COA Your Gym for
Mental Health. For the past two decades, she
has been working clinically with executives, leaders, and teams
and has conducted extensive research with prominent
psychologists and entrepreneurs about how leaders can improve
their emotional fitness. She has a book that has just
come out. It is called Flex your Feelings.
A link is in the show notes. And in preparation for this book
launch, we had a conversation that really went all over.
We talked about emotional fitness, imposter syndrome,
emotional intelligence, how we can train our mental health, and
we debunked some pop psychology myths.
This is just such an incredible conversation.
Emily is absolutely the best and you guys are going to adore this
conversation and leave with so much wisdom to improve your your
mental fitness. And if you enjoy the episode,
share on social media, send to a friend or family member, leave a
review, subscribe all the things I hope you enjoy.
So let's dive in. Well, thank you so much for
joining the MC persisted. I'm so excited for this part too
and have you here in person to this conversation.
It's so nice to be back and so cool to see that the next
generation is taking up mental health in a completely different
way. Yeah, I think there really is
this emphasis on mental health. There's definitely the belief
that it's malleable. There's that growth mindset that
was like drilled into all of Gen.
Z in middle school and elementary school.
We had the SEL classes. So I think it's a really good
time to kind of install this information, give people the
tools that they can use and hopefully they see the dividends
as they transfer out of high school, college into life and
you're kind of creating these habits that really last a
lifetime for sure. OK, amazing.
Well, I wanted to start with a philosophy that you have, which
is that who you are anywhere is who you are everywhere.
And so I wanted to hear how you discovered this and also its
implications for listeners because I really love this.
I think it ties a lot into emotional fitness.
I think that we can think of like physical health as being
fairly silent to some areas. We sometimes think that about
mental health, like it only applies when we're having a
breakdown or we're stressed or overwhelmed.
I'm so I'm really excited to your book there.
So I think I came to understand this idea of who you are
anywhere is who you are everywhere.
As I learned more about the patterns that we repeat
throughout our life, and one of the ways this became so clear is
the number of times that my patients would be talking to me
about the dynamics that they have with their colleagues or
with their boss at work. And it would be so clearly tied
to the dynamics they had with their siblings and with their
parents growing up. The fact is, we bring our whole
selves with us everywhere we go. We are emotional creatures.
We might want to think, oh, work isn't really the place for
feelings, but we're bringing our emotions with us to work whether
we like it or not. So the more we understand
ourselves anywhere in our life, the more we'll understand
ourselves everywhere in life. And as you heal yourself in any
part of who you are, you will see that ripple through your
entire life. Yeah, before we even get into
emotional fitness and emotional intelligence and all of these
different facets of this, I want to ask you about Gen.
Z in particular because I I'm probably on a very specific side
of TikTok because I'm very ears open or out.
Like what are people saying about Gen.
Z? Like what are what are the
topics there? But I've heard a lot of people
be like, they don't want to hire Gen.
Z Gen. Z is more gig economy.
It's less like really putting in the hours, doing these full time
roles. There's definitely a different
attitude around hiring Gen. Z versus millennials or whatever
else. And so I'm curious what your
thoughts are there because I think a lot of this is
synonymous to how people respond to their boss, whether it's
setting boundaries or making requests or dealing with
burnout. Like there's really a lot of
messaging that like Gen. Z is lazy, they don't want to do
the work, they're emotionally mature, like they're not
respecting their boss. And so I'm curious what your
thoughts are there, if you think that's accurate, if you think
it's just like a mismatch of communication styles, do we lack
emotional fitness? Like what are your thoughts
there? So I think Gen.
Z was dealt a really tough hand. Yeah, You know, we're being
handed all these insane circumstances.
Climate change threatens existence, period.
It's one of the first generations where people are
making less money than their parents did.
The ideas of being able to buy a house to do all the things that
our parents were taught are really important or almost
impossible. And so my feeling is that Gen.
Z is a generation that's saying, OK, well, if sitting down and
working one job for my whole life isn't going to get me
everything that I've been told is important, then I better care
about what I'm doing. Yeah.
I better feel passionate about my work.
I better be doing something that is changing the world in some
way. And I think they get a lot of
shit for that. When really, it makes perfect
sense to me. Why would you stay at one job
for your whole life when you're not even being paid enough to do
the things that you feel like you're supposed to be doing?
So to me, I don't think Gen. Z is lazy.
I think they're a meaning making generation.
I think they want to do things that actually matter.
And I think that's amazing. And it just means that it gets
complicated when Gen. Z and Millennials and Boomers
and everyone are in a workplace together, and they all have such
different values and such different compass being the way.
Yeah. So to me the question is more
how can we find common ground and make sure that everyone
feels seen and understood and that what them doing matters?
Yeah, I also do think there's the, like, vulnerability element
or Gen. Z doesn't have many qualms about
voicing where they're at or being really transparent with
like Taylor Swift didn't release the album yesterday.
I'm honestly in a really bad mood because of that.
And I'm sure rumors are like, I'm sorry, like this is work
like that can't be impacting your mood.
Like we put on a front here. And that's not how this works.
First, Gen. Z is very vocal about these
things. It's very normalized.
And so I'm sure that also has repercussions when it comes to
perceptions of Gen. Z and how they show up for work
and not just putting on that masking thing like everything is
perfect all at the time and it no way impacts our ability to
provide and show up in a career context.
I'm sure like anything, there's balance to be found.
I know. I think that there was the
pendulum that swung one way where there was no room for any
emotions and everyone had to suck it up and just do what they
were supposed to do. And that resulted in a lot of
trauma and a lot of problems. And then it's possible things
have swung the other way where there isn't a lot of serve
skills to figure out how to compartmentalize and to make
sure that you are feeling your emotions but also doing the
things that you have to do. And at some point, balance will
be found. But I'm a big fan of people
being able to say yeah and what they need. 100% you've also
debunked this idea that if you find a job you love, you won't
work a day in your life. But I think Gen.
Z aspires that right? We want our passions to be
aligned with our careers. We have like that sense of
purpose. We want to make a difference,
but I also think this is an interesting philosophy and
you've talked about how this isn't necessarily the case, even
if you're doing something that's really aligned with your passion
and it feels like you're fulfilling that sense of
purpose. Can you speak to that a little
bit? I want to caution people to be
very wary of anything that has all or nothing thinking built
into it. This idea of, oh, just find the
right job and it'll never feel like work, it'll never be hard.
That's bullshit. That's just not how life works.
The truth is, anything that you want, anything you want to
achieve, even something you're so excited and passionate about
is going to live on the other side of some struggle, on the
other side of some discomfort. So if you're doing a job you
really like, then hopefully most of the time it's great and
you're enjoying yourself. But some of the time they're
going to be tasks you don't really feel like doing.
There's going to be something that's harder than you thought
it was going to be. You're going to fail or you're
not going to progress the way that you thought that you would.
And my worry with this idea of find the right job you'll never
work a day in your life is that people, people then think the
second they come across any obstacles or struggle, but that
means they're on the wrong path. The truth is that life includes
suffering, it always will. And I think by accepting this,
we are more likely to face it with some conviction in our
ability to move through it, instead of this intense desire
to take a left turn or avoid it. Altogether, yeah, 100%.
I want to talk about these different facets of emotional
fitness and you break this down a lot in your book.
And so people want like exactly how they can improve their
emotional fitness specific practices they can do.
But to start, what are the signs that people lack emotional
fitness? I think we more commonly not
like that person maybe isn't the most stable or like that's a
very sensitive person or they're not being super effective.
But I don't think we have the strong articulation of like
there's room for growth there. We could potentially be more
effective and almost the preventative work that we're
doing. And so I'm curious how this
shows up and like day-to-day subjective of experiences,
career, relationships, all of that.
So let's first think about the difference between health and
fitness. So if you think about someone
who's physically healthy versus not, you might think they're
either sick or they're well. But to be physically fit is a
different thing. You can be not sick and still
not be fit. A person who's fit is someone
who eats healthy, sleeps enough exercises, they're actually
preventing a lot of the illness. They're less likely to get sick
because of the work that they're doing.
So similarly, emotional fitness isn't about a lack of emotional
disorders or problems. It's about having an ongoing
practice that bolsters you against the difficult things
that you're going to face in life.
So a person would probably know that they don't have great
emotional fitness if their relationships aren't as strong
as they want them to be. If they're noticing that the
feelings that they have don't feel like they match the
situations that they're in, they don't have all the coping
strategies they need. If they feel like they're
putting out one thing and people are perceiving them a totally
different way, that's probably a sign that they need to learn how
to empathize better or communicate differently, or that
their self-awareness could use some work.
So the idea in the book is, all right, what the hell does that
actually mean? How do I do an emotional push
up? How do I get stronger so that my
life in these areas improves? I think that's really
interesting. And I think you mentioned
something there that unless you've been through mental
health challenges and you get yourself back to like, OK, I'm
back to normal functioning. I'm almost back reset at zero.
And then you're like, OK, but how do I thrive?
Like, how do I flourish? How do I build this life that I
really enjoy? Not just like back zero, no
longer in distress, struggling actively trying to solve these
problems. And I think unless you've gotten
to that point where you're like, this isn't sustainable, this
doesn't work, I need help. We kind of just accept our
emotional vulnerability and our emotional health, our emotional
fitness as it is. We don't think of it as
malleable. We're not like, my emotions
don't match the situation or it could be more effective.
It's like, well, it's not horrible.
It doesn't need clinical support.
So this just must be how I function.
There is not that like subclinical almost like
awareness that we could potentially have effective
interventions that allow us to thrive and allow us to do these
things more effectively. And it's not just a given that
we have some amount of emotional health and it's not something
that can be impacted through things like emotional push ups
and going to the mental gym and all of these different
interventions. That's such a good point.
I do think we forget often as adults that if you practice
something, you'll get better at it, that you can flex your
emotional muscles and get stronger.
Every single person out there can level up when it comes to
their emotional fitness. Every person can improve the
relationship they have to themselves and to other people.
And I totally get it. If it's not broken, don't fix it
kind of thing. But just imagine what your life
would feel like if you cranked up the volume on how satisfy you
feel and the relationships that you're in and in how authentic
it feels to be living your life. You know, we we forget how
important things are until we feel them.
In fact, often hear patients say, I didn't even realize till
I was depressed until I wasn't depressed.
So wherever your life is right now, I promise you that working
on your emotional fitness will level you up in ways that might
be hard to even imagine right now, but are so worth doing.
100% I definitely agree with that philosophy and that kind of
lived experience that you don't really realize how ineffective
it is until you've been in a different position.
I think the same thing is absolutely true for our physical
health. Like if we're not sleeping well,
but we have slept the same our entire lives, totally didn't
know, could be different. Or like you see athletes with
insane cardiovascular strength, that's fine for them, but like,
that's not something I'm capable of.
And we don't have that growth mindset that yes, our capacities
are different, but there's still room for improvement.
And that baseline benchmark isn't something that's set in
stone and unable to be changed for the better.
We don't know what we don't know, and that's the beauty of
this practice is you're going to realize that there are things
free to work on that you never could have even imagined before.
And there's something so profound about that.
It's so exciting for me to see someone say shit.
I didn't realize I needed to work on this.
And now that I am, everything in my life around me is improving.
What a cool thing that each of us can tap into.
In your book you talk about soft skills, which I hadn't heard the
term before. And so I'm curious what those
are, why we need them, how we can develop them and the
different areas that they benefit.
I'm we talked about how mental health impacts all these
different areas, but I imagine there's ones that are especially
related to our ability to develop our soft skills.
Yeah, so the term soft skills I think was born in the world of
tech to describe non-technical skills.
So hard skills are knowing how to code, that kind of thing.
And soft skills are more how to manage your emotions.
So I actually hate the term soft skills because they're not soft.
They're, they're very difficult and they're very important, but
they are profoundly shifting in the way you live your life as
you develop these skills. So really, I would maybe say
that the seven traits that I talked about in the book are the
seven quote, UN quote, soft skills that I think will change
your life. I based these for, for those who
aren't familiar with this emotional fitness stuff, it's
based on research I did about 10 years ago.
I interviewed 100 psychologists and 100 entrepreneurs and I
asked them the question, how would you know if you were
sitting across the table from an emotionally healthy person?
What does that kind of person do?
What do they not do? What does that feel like to be
with them? And out of this research came
these 7 traits of emotional fitness, the seven things that I
think emotionally healthy people are working on all the time.
And these are 7 things that at least I definitely didn't learn
in school, but I don't know anyone who couldn't use a little
bit more work in all of these, or at least a few of them.
So the idea is at the beginning of the book, you will kind of
rate yourself of where you feel like you fall in these 7 traits.
And then by at the end of the book, you'll rate yourself
again. And most of the time, those
ratings go up. Can you walk us through the
seven traits so people can be aware of like, oh, I definitely
don't have that one as established as it could be, or
like, oh, I'm totally nailing that area and feel pretty
confident about my ability to operate in that domain.
For sure. And then I'm going to ask you
what your biggest strength is in.
Your area of growth. I'm ready.
So the first one is mindfulness, which I define as the ability to
become more comfortable being uncomfortable.
So, you know, staying in the present moment is hard.
We tend to move away from it. We tend to avoid the things that
are uncomfortable. Mindful people can deal with
discomfort. Second one is curiosity, which
is asking questions of yourself and of other people and being
able to hear feedback when people come to you with it.
Being curious opens the door for the third trait, which is
self-awareness. So understanding your emotions,
your triggers, your biases, everything about you that
defines who you are after self-awareness is resilience,
which is the ability to bounce forward through setbacks and
failures. And notice I say bounce forward
and not bounce back because I don't think we ever go back to
being the person we were before we went through a hard thing.
And so instead of trying to get back to who you were, resilience
is about taking what you've been through and using it as a
springboard into a better version of yourself moving
forward. After resilience comes empathy.
So if self-awareness is understanding of your own
emotions, empathy is being able to understand and feel other
people's emotions after. Empathy is communication.
So being able to put words to your needs, your boundaries, all
of that, and also being able to listen well and take in what is
being said to you. And then finally is playfulness.
And that actually might be my favorite one.
I think we wildly undervalue how important play is.
And being playful is really about saying yes and meeting
people in their ideas, building on those ideas, not worrying
about the destination so much as the beauty and joy of the
journey. Yeah, OK.
I wrote down which ones. I was like, OK, I think I got
that. Definitely room for growth.
I think like self-awareness and resilience piece.
I think having been through a lot of mental health challenges,
it's been through all the therapy intensively, it's hard
to not know kind of where your blind spots are or what keeps
coming up and you're like, oh, that's still something I'm
working on. So I would say like that
awareness of where my strengths are, where I'm likely to get
triggered, what I can do preventatively to solve for
that. Then I think that goes hand in
hand with resilience, having to overtime establish these coping
skills that allow me to be effective in these emotional
situations. And then I would say like the
mindfulness and the playfulness are two things that I wouldn't
say that I don't do them, but they definitely are things I
have to be more intentional about.
I'm definitely someone who is avoidance prone.
I'm more of a distractor. And so when it comes to like
sitting with the emotions, sitting with the discomfort and
someone who's like, maybe later, I'll come to back to that at
another time. And the playfulness as well.
I think it's, it's more comfortable to have the control
and the certainty. There's the self-awareness.
And so I think that I tend to learn more towards like that
self-awareness, resilience, problem solving versus
playfulness. Let us happen and we'll be
mindful. We'll see how it goes.
Nice, I love it. So you know what a fun thing if
your homework is to play more. Yeah, exactly.
I'm curious if there are some of these from working with clients
from the interviews you conducted where you think that
most people are lacking or most people inherently easily pick up
like empathy or self-awareness. Like are there areas where
you're generally like the general population does not have
this one nailed or most people can function effectively for the
most part with this trait? I found that it really varies
what you're strong in, what you need to work on can look so
different from person to person. I will say, and there's plenty
of research to support that almost every person thinks
they're more self aware than they actually are because you
don't know what you don't know. You know, when I, when I do my
talks, I will do a poll where I ask everyone to say, do you
think you're generally more self aware, the same or less self
aware than the average person? And 95% of people say they're
more self aware 100%. It's like, well, you can't all
be more than average, right? And so there's something I think
really freeing about telling yourself, you know, it's OK that
I don't know everything yet. And in science, one of the
things you realize is the more you know, the more you realize
you don't know. So similar, you know, I've been
in therapy since I started grad school and.
I think of myself as a self aware individual and then I'll
leave a session and be like, oh shit, I just blew my own mind
with something I had no idea was completely standing in the way
of the things that I want in life.
So that's one that I would say no matter how self aware anyone
out there thinks they are, there's probably still more.
Work to that you up perfectly for that one.
Yeah, I love it. Oh my goodness.
I want to talk about imposter syndrome and I think this will
also tie in to a little bit of like shame and play because
those two things are really correlated.
I love Brene Brown's work there and I think this is something
that very like type A high achievers, we struggle to have
these things that we do for fun that serve no purpose.
We struggle to kind of let go and not feel shame around these
things. And similarly, we at the same
time feel imposter syndrome and shame about the context that
we're in. And so I think this is also
really related to our emotional fitness because a lot of shame
is how we are interpreting events.
There is that level of, I think self-awareness at play, our
ability to be resilient when those emotions arise or when
those thoughts are something that pop up.
And so I'm curious what your thoughts are there and how
emotional fitness ties into imposter syndrome because it's
such a buzzword and people are always talking about how they
feel impostor syndrome in in some context and it's painful.
People want to move past that and feel comfortable and
confident, whether it's in an educational setting or a career
setting. For sure.
I mean, imposter syndrome's really common.
There's actually something a little bit healthy about
imposter syndrome. So what we were just talking
about the idea of you don't know what you don't know.
Have you heard of the Dunning Kruger syndrome?
Right. It's like if you don't know a
lot about something you think you do because you don't realize
the scope of the problem. In my mind, imposter syndrome is
almost the opposite of that. It's it's almost like you see
that the scope is so big that you rate yourself too low on how
much you actually know. So there's something cool I
think about saying, hey, what? What don't I know?
Where could I be challenging myself, etcetera.
The problem comes when we have such an unrealistic idea of how
we're seen in the world. When I talk about imposter
syndrome, I talk about the deeper psychological truth of
it, which is imposter syndrome is essentially that if your
inner voice doesn't match what people are saying to you, that's
really uncomfortable. So if in your own mind you think
I'm not smart enough, I'm not good enough, or I shouldn't be
here, I don't deserve this job or whatever, and then someone
comes to you and says you're doing so great at this job,
you're so smart, I think you're so great.
Those two things not matching is so uncomfortable that we would
almost rather convince ourselves that other people are lying than
to think maybe this voice I have inside isn't right.
And that's because we formed that voice very young in life
and it served us at some point. And so it's uncomfortable to
change it. So I think it ties into
emotional fitness because the more you learn about yourself
and the stronger your relationship with yourself gets,
the less you're going to reject what other people think about
you when it's a positive thing. And the more you're going to be
able to hold a strong core of yourself when you get negative
feedback, if that makes sense. Yeah, I also definitely think
there's something to be said for awareness of what your strengths
are, even if it's like a drop in the ocean compared to the field
you're working in. Being able to say, I don't know
the vast majority of this, there are all these people that have
so much more insight. But in this like tiny area, I
can provide some value. And being able to show up in
that respect, I think can be really effective, especially in
work settings, even though it does kind of go against that
internal need of like, I don't want to be rejected.
What if I reject myself 1st and what if I just set up for
failure? And so it's not a surprise when
I'm doing this thing that I'm really passionate about, it's
aligned with my purpose, which we talked about a lot of people
are now aiming and striving to do.
And the prospect of rejection there and others not sharing
your belief that like, this is what I want to do and I'm good
at it and this matters in my life is really daunting and
really scary. For sure, it is one of one of
the little exercises I'll tell people to do when they feel this
is start a self esteem file or a smile file or a win bin,
whatever you want to call it, whether it's a digital folder on
your desktop or an actual box in your room.
And every single time you get positive feedback of any kind,
anytime your sibling, your boss, your colleague, your friend,
your kid, anyone in your life says something that they love
about you or that you do well, write it down and put it in that
folder. And then when you're feeling
crappy about yourself or the imposter syndrome kind of peeks
out, go through that file. I've been doing this for 10
years and it's very compelling to see 10 years of data that
I've made difference, made a difference in people's lives.
So the problem is we tend to to obsess about negative feedback
and let positive feedback fly right by us.
So the goal here is collect that positive feedback and don't let
it escape you completely. And if you're like looking for a
new job or up for a promotion, that's like the best thing you
can do is be like this person said, I was killing it at this
time. That's true.
This is a strength. It's like not only internally
super effective, but there's a lot of external purposes as
well. So I'd ask you a question, which
is what is 1 strength that you didn't know you had until
someone pointed it out to you? That's a good question.
I feel like again, what you said about our almost internal
dialogue about how we show up in the world and how others
describe how we show up in the world when that doesn't match,
it's confusing. And so I know that I try like
very hard to be compassionate and understanding and kind
towards others, but I know I'm trying and putting in that
effort and being very like consciously aware of it.
Like I'm taking these steps. This is a behavior that's being
engaged in. And so when I hear friends be
like, you are like one of the most thoughtful people and
you're such a great friend, having that synonymous with
identity versus behaviors that are taking place or like the
effort that I know I'm intentionally putting into this,
it just just naturally happen. I think that's almost
interesting to see. And Dick, OK, that strength,
they perceive that like I'm trying hard at this and this is
something I work at. And so I think that's a cool way
where like it almost mismatches and there's almost that
discomfort of like, Are you sure?
Like, I don't know, everyone doesn't perceive it that way,
but it also is, again, it's interesting to see when people
can highlight those strengths that you maybe haven't
internalized, just something that's like a win and can go in
that win bin. It's so nice to be validated.
I think this is another thing that Gen.
Z gets a lot of shit for is like, oh, we, you know, they
want trophies and recognition all the time.
It's like, we all want recognition.
We all need recognition. Each of us needs to feel like
what we're doing means something.
Why would we slave away at a job if it's not working or if nobody
wants to be doing what we're doing?
So I'm actually a big fan of ask for the recognition that you
need. You know, a lot of people are
bad at accepting compliments. And I say, not only should you
accept a compliment, but ask For more information.
Someone says gives you a negative piece of feedback.
You'd probably say, oh, well, can you give me some examples?
Or what do you mean? But when someone gives us
positive feedback, why don't we say thank you so much?
Like, tell me more like, when did you see that show up?
Or what does that feel like for you?
I don't think there's anything wrong with needing to feel like
what we're doing is working. What is the like emotional push
up you recommend people do if they are adverse to compliment?
Good question. I'd say it's mindfulness for a
lot of people. So if getting compliments makes
you uncomfortable, to avoid that discomfort, you're going to turn
away from it and instead just take a slow breath and say to
yourself, OK, I know this might not feel good to just take this,
but actually I'm doing everyone a service by being gracious and
I deserve this compliment. You know, I think that when we
are convinced people are bullshitting us, we're
essentially saying it's more likely that you would lie to me
than it is that I am wonderful in the way that you're saying I
am. Why would the people in your
life be? Mind you, you know, take it in,
let yourself have it. What about for people who
struggle to accept feedback, they're not doing that?
Example of can you tell me a little bit more?
Is there a situation that I can tie to this so I can really be
aware of what the behavior was or the interaction and reflect
on that? For people that don't respond
well to feedback or criticism? This comes up a lot in
workplaces because it can be so direct and formal and objective,
even though it feels very subjective and personal.
What is that related to emotional fitness wise and what
do you recommend that people do to combat that?
Taking in feedback is hard. You know, hearing that you're
not doing something well or that people didn't like what you put
out there, that sucks. You know, it completely makes
sense that your first instinct would be to push it away or to
deny it or to be defensive or, you know, whatever.
But this is one of those muscles where you can get better at
taking in feedback. So the next time you get a piece
of feedback, give yourself a little space.
Say that's interesting. Give me 10 minutes to think
about that, and then let's talk about it.
And in that 10 minutes, tune into yourself, what's happening?
What is your body telling you? What are you worried about?
You know, if they said, oh, the project you turned in didn't
really work, does it feel like they're saying you suck at your
jaw because that's not what they said.
And so you have to distinguish that.
And then think about the fact that they trusted you to give
you this feedback, which says something about you in a
positive way. And then go back to them and
say, I'm really going to think about that.
Thank you for being willing to share that with me.
So the push up that I would tell people who aren't so right at
taking in feedback is lean into the discomfort and send a text
message to someone in your life once a week or once a month that
says, hey, I'm working on my emotional fitness and in
particular, I want to get better at taking in feedback.
So I would love it if you would tell me one thing that I'm doing
well in our relationship and one thing that I could do 10%
better. And I think 10% better is nice
because you're not saying like, what should I completely change
about myself? It's more just how can I level
up a little bit? And then when you get the
message back, look at it. Check in with yourself.
How do you feel about it? Thank them for it, offer to
return the favor if they want it.
And the more you do this, the less it will feel really
uncomfortable to get. Feedback of a funny anecdote of
like the reverse of this, which is that when I was in treatment,
I was in a therapeutic boarding school for 14 months and we went
heavy on the feedback, like 3 * a week.
We had like circles with all the girls and there was always the
opportunity for feedback. Sometimes it was bullying as
feedback, but it was like very direct.
You're just not being authentic or like this tour wasn't done
like how the rest of people have been doing it.
Can you work on that and being able to be open and accepting to
that, sit with it, not respond with something like after 14
months, you can do. And so I was talking to one of
my friends and she was like, I will frequently go up to my
boyfriend and be like, what's the feedback like?
Do you have any thoughts? How can I improve?
And I'm like, this isn't a, this is a relationship, not a
quarterly review. Like I will come to you if
something's not going right. She's like, is there any
feedback? Is there any room for growth?
And so it's really funny when we really emphasize these areas and
we almost are like overcorrecting and making like
all the effort to make sure we're showing up in that way.
And I just thought that was hilarious because most people
don't have that problem of asking for too much feedback.
For sure, although I think that's cool, like in my
relationships, I will every once in a while say, hey, let's check
in. How are we doing?
How are we feeling? What can we do better?
How can we show up for each other in a in a better way?
So I'm here for that. But the other thing to remember
is any feedback a person gives you is at least partly to do
with them and not you. You know, every relationship
between two people is Co created by both of those people.
And when someone says here's a way that I see you, well, that's
partially because of their experience.
So emotional fitness is being able to check in with yourself
and say, how much of this is actually mine?
What responsibility do I hold here?
In what ways could I show up better, which will allow them to
show up better? And what ways do I have to just
be OK with the fact that I can't fix anyone else and that I might
not be able to be what this other person needs me to be in
this moment? Yeah.
I think the other piece of feedback that's challenging what
you mentioned is like the emotional intensity for some
people and taking that 10 minutes to like step back, calm
down, be more logical. I think this is one of those
areas we talked about the beginning, which a lot of people
have room for growth because I'm like, I'm very sensitive and
learning those skills to respond more effectively to my emotions,
know what my emotional bandwidth is, was so freeing because it's
not like your emotions are controlling you.
Obviously we can't control our emotions, but it's more I can
work with them and I understand what to expect and what skills
work and how to communicate my limits.
And so I'm curious what your advice is for people that have
that experience where the emotional intensity city maybe
doesn't fit the situation. It's valid, but it's not
justified. And rather than just being like,
OK, I'm super sensitive, anytime I get feedback, I'm going to
start crying. And that's just a given.
Or any other context that emotional intensity can show up.
What are some ways that people can work on that?
Yeah, I tell this story in the book that when I first started
going to therapy, I would cry all the time.
Like I'd tear up anytime I was talking about anything.
And it felt really frustrating because I'd be like, I'm not
actually sad about this. Don't worry about this.
I'm not. I'm not upset, it's OK.
You're right. And eventually my therapist was
like, maybe you're not super upset about this, but obviously
something is trying to be seen here.
So what if we just let you feel what you need to feel?
So if you feel like you're hypersensitive, it probably
means that there's something very valid that needs to be
understood. And I think therapy is a really
amazing place to understand that.
The other thing I would say is never underestimate the
incredible power of a few slow, deep breaths.
You know, I agree that we can't control our emotions all the
time, but when I'm feeling overwhelmed, I do have more
control over it than I thought by just pausing and taking a few
deep breaths and calming my nervous system down.
Because it's one thing when you feel sad about something or
upset about something. It's another thing when your
body's in fight or flight mode and it's telling you that
something is dangerous when it's not.
And I think by calming those systems, we can look at things a
little bit more logically. This actually makes me think of
one of my least favorite phrases out there is always trust your
gut. Everyone always says always
trust your gut, no matter what your gut knows.
But the truth is that your gut instinct was formed as much
around trauma as it was around truth.
So for example, if you were bit by a dog as a kid, your gut
instinct around all dogs might be that they're dangerous, but
they're not all dangerous. So it's our responsibility to be
emotionally fit in a way that we know, our gut instincts pointing
us toward what we want in life. Or are they just trying to avoid
danger in a way that might not actually be serving us?
What is the like a difference between emotional intelligence
and emotional fitness? And what your thoughts are
there? Are they synonymous or people
that are emotionally intelligent also really emotionally fit?
Are these skills you work on separately?
Can you explain the two? So I think there is a difference
in the sense that emotional fitness is the ongoing proactive
practice of becoming more emotionally intelligent, OK, You
know, So emotional fitness is a practice, Emotional intelligence
is a state that you have. And the other thing about
emotional intelligence is there's difference between
knowing and being able to do something about without knowing.
So you can be really emotionally intelligent and say, oh, I know
exactly what I need to change in my life.
That's different than actually being able to change it.
I work with plenty of people who are like, I did the thing again,
even though I know I shouldn't do it and I recognized it right
in front of my eyes, but here I am doing it.
So you can be super emotionally intelligent, but not necessarily
feel like you have the emotional fitness to make change in your
life. So it's an ongoing, it's a
driver practice. I don't know anyone who doesn't
have more work to do. Yeah, you talked about how
therapy is a very important practice for people to dig into,
struggling to receive feedback, intense emotional responses, all
these areas that are like emotional fitness adjacent.
I'm curious what your thoughts are on when people can
independently work on their emotional fitness.
They can almost improve these blind spots, work on these
skills versus this would be helpful to work on in therapy.
I need a professional to support me in this progress.
And obviously you can do both, right?
You can be in therapy and also independently work on these
other areas of emotional fitness.
But for people who are listening and they're like, I'm really not
sure what the line is. Obviously it'll be different for
everyone. What is your advice there?
I almost compare therapy in this sense to having a trainer.
Yeah, you can totally work out without a trainer.
Tons of people can. You can go your whole life
without a trainer no problem. But it's almost undeniable that
if you have a trainer, your practice is probably going to
become better as a result, not only with that trainer, but also
when you're not even with them. Because now you've learned a new
way to work out. You have a better sense of your
form, of the things you didn't realize you need to work on,
that kind of thing. So my feeling is that anyone who
has the option to be in therapy, go do it.
Just go do it because you're going to learn things about
yourself that you never realized.
But if therapy isn't an option for you, there are still so many
ways to work on your emotional fitness.
Probably the ideal thing is to be doing both at the.
Same. Yeah.
A lot of people, like you said, know what to do, but they don't
do it. This is especially true for
physical health and fitness. It's like everyone, if you could
solve how to get people to go to the gym, you would make billions
of dollars. Yeah.
How does this show up for mental health?
Do you find that it is less intensive, it's easier for
people to go to the mental gym versus the physical gym?
Or are we applying the same principles of like having an
accountability buddy? Are we scheduling it?
Are we making it fun and reinforcing building a habit?
What are your thoughts there about having that resilience
when it comes to going to the mental gym, having that
motivation similar to kind of our physical health?
Yeah, so I'll often say most people don't go to therapy
because they don't know what to do.
Most people go to therapy because they do know what to do,
but need help understanding why they're not doing it.
So just like with physical health, I know I need to
exercise, I know I need to eat well, but I'm not.
Why am I not? Why am I getting in my own way?
And that's what I find a lot with mental health is most
people know what they need to do.
But how do you do it? In what ways are you sabotaging
yourself? And how can you get out of your
own way? You know, I have people who say,
oh, I'm in these unhealthy relationships over and over
again. I know that I shouldn't be, but
how and why do I feel pulled toward these unhealthy
relationships? That's the complicated work.
And that's where I think therapy can be really helpful is if you
know what you need to do, but you don't seem to be doing it,
there's probably a really complicated and beautiful and
interesting reason why. And as you learn what that
reason is, you're going to have more power to change it.
So give yourself a little break. I think self compassion is one
of the most important ingredients in emotional
fitness. Anything that makes a person who
they are, even things that make people annoying and frustrating
and infuriating, those things served them well at some point
or they wouldn't be that way. And as we accept that about
ourselves and other people, we free up space to change.
Yeah. I'm curious as far as building
momentum, that's something that's really helpful for people
that are investing in their physical health.
They see progress, they feel better, and then you can just
continue that, like reinforcement cycle.
Is there an area of emotional fitness that is helpful to start
with where you would see that positive result?
You feel the shift and how you're interacting with your
surroundings and it's easier to stay motivated.
Continue putting the reps in and showing up at the mental gym.
Now that's a great question, because I think mental health is
a little different than physical health in that it's a little bit
less measurable and concrete, and some of the most beautiful
signs of good mental and emotional health can't really be
measured. It's just a feeling.
I remember when I was going to therapy for years, I was like,
So what am I doing all this for? But then I just kind of woke up
one day and I was like, oh shit, all my relationships are better
than they were before. I'm, I just feel more satisfied
with my life. I seem to be making better
choices, healthier people just seem to be appearing around me.
I'm not really sure when this happened.
So there is this element of trust you have to have.
But I would say when it comes to emotional fitness, the reason
mindfulness is first is that anything you're going to do is
going to be uncomfortable. So getting better at tolerating
discomfort is really important. And that is kind of measurable.
So I'd tell someone, think of something that makes you a
little uncomfortable, like saying no having a good boundary
with someone. Or maybe something that makes
you uncomfortable is not being on your phone all the time.
Or maybe you're uncomfortable apologizing, whatever it is.
And practice leaning toward that discomfort and practice it over
and over again until it doesn't make you as uncomfortable.
And that's pretty profound if when you can see, oh, I used to
have so much trouble saying no and now I still don't love it.
But I just said no to something. That's a sign that you're
becoming more emotionally fit. And the better you are at that,
the easier all of the rest of the traits will be to work on.
Yeah. Another question about the
process of doing our emotional push ups, investing in these
different areas of fitness. We talked about saying no,
setting a boundary, giving feedback, getting feedback.
These are more behavioral things.
I know like for me, a big mental health behavior that helps my
emotional fitness is getting enough sleep.
It's like not necessarily 100% emotional, but it has a direct
impact on my emotional vulnerability.
And so I'm curious when we talk about emotional fitness, how
much of this is truly internal of like, how am I feeling?
How am I thinking about this versus engaging in these
behaviors that in turn impact our thoughts and our emotions?
Well, first of all, mind, body connection is so real.
I'm glad that you mentioned that.
I'll have people come in and say I'm really struggling, I'm
depressed, I'm sad, and then I'll find out that they only
sleep 4 hours a night, that they eat junk food, and that they
don't move their body. It's like, right?
I know it's hard to exercise when you feel down, but these
things really affect each other and working on your physical
health will improve your mental health and vice versa.
So I think that's really important, but it sounds like
you're asking is there a non behavioral aspect to emotional
health? Yeah, like for people who are
like, OK, I'm going to the mental gym, I'm doing my mental
push ups, I'm working on my emotional fitness.
I'm curious. Like when I initially think
about that, I'm like, you're just thinking through it.
Like you're telling yourself, OK, how can I be more mindful?
How much distress am I experiencing?
And I think the behaviors are also very aligned with improving
your emotional fitness. And so it can be hard to kind of
synthesize those two and be like these behaviors that maybe are
more related to like my relationships or my career or my
academics also are impacting our emotional fitness.
And conversely, really sitting with those thoughts and really
paying attention to those emotional experiences, like
there's just a lot of different facets to what emotional fitness
means for each person. For sure, I think you're right.
It's the actions, behaviors, and it's also just the intangible
things. It's being able to sit still
with yourself. It's, you know, being as kind to
yourself as you are to your best friend.
You know, if you're treating anyone in your life better than
you're treating yourself, you have work to do.
You know, like you, as much as anyone else, are worthy of your
own love and kindness. So I agree with you, there's
plenty of behaviors to do, but at the end of the day, sometimes
it's just looking inward and feeling proud of how far you've
come and, you know, recognizing your gains and trusting that
you're going to keep moving toward where you want to.
Go, yeah. And I think for a lot of people,
if you don't have that internal peace in check, the behaviors
are impossible to do totally. Like it's just you can't get
yourself to do those things. If you don't think you're worthy
of getting better, you're going to fight against yourself to get
better, so that's really important.
I would love to talk about almost mentally training too
hard we can burnout. Physically, we can injure
ourselves. Is there too much like
investment in our emotional fitness?
Can we burn out? Can we feel really stressed?
Do we have a bandwidth for how much we can try and improve our
emotional fitness in like a given period of time?
For sure, I, I think there is such a thing as hyper fixating
on your own self and mental health.
You know, if the only thing you ever read are self help books
and the only thing you're ever thinking about is how to get
better. And you know, you also have to
just get out there and live life and feel joy and let yourself
off the hook a little bit. For sure.
And then while self-awareness is really important and we have to
be thinking about who we are etcetera.
I also think some just trust in ourselves and, you know, all of
that is really important. One question I get a lot is
people will say, you know, I see that when your traits is
empathy, but is there such a thing as being too empathetic?
You know, I I empathize with everyone and and it's really
overwhelming. My response to that is most
people who think that they're too empathetic actually just
don't have enough boundaries. My job is literally to empathize
with people, but my job is also full of boundaries.
There's a reason why therapists aren't friends with their
patients and why the session starts on time and ends on time,
and that we meet in the same place all the time.
Those boundaries are in place so that I can be really deeply
empathetic with the person in that hour.
Similarly, if you find yourself feeling like you have too many
feelings for everyone else and not enough for yourself, instead
of trying to have less for everyone else, just build
boundaries around it so that that empathy is flowing to
yourself first. You know, classic airplane
theory. You have to put your own mask on
1st. Yeah.
The last thing that I want to ask you about is what probably a
lot of people are experiencing after listening to this
conversation is like, OK, I should be more emotionally fit.
I should have more emotional intelligence, should be going to
the mental gym. And you've talked about on your
social media, and I'm sure you talk about it in the book as
well, why we shouldn't be shooting ourselves, why we
shouldn't be putting all this pressure on all these things
that we we should do. And so I'm curious if you can
speak to that. I think after listening to this,
we have little self-awareness of like where our blind spots are,
where there's room for growth. And how do you not fall into
that trap? For sure.
So I often say it stop shitting all over yourself.
You know, when you say I should be better at my job, or I should
be prettier, or I should have worked last night instead of
watching TV, that mindset isn't super helpful because if you
feel like you should have done something already, then it feels
like you couldn't do it now. You have to leave space for the
idea that that change is still possible.
So I recommend that when you say should to yourself, try again
and replace should and should have with could and could have.
So instead of saying, oh, I should have a better job, say I
could have a better job if I took these kinds of actions and
really focused on it. Instead of saying I should have
worked last night instead of watching TV be you might say,
OK, well, I could have worked last night, but I decided to
watch TV because I needed rest today.
I'll work instead. And just this mindset shift puts
you in a place to say, all right, well, it hasn't happened
yet, but that doesn't mean it can't happen now.
Yeah, I love that. And I think it's also helpful
with comparison to others. I do that a lot where I'm like,
I wish I had the thing or I wish I was in that position or I wish
I had that opportunity. And then I think about the could
and what that person did to get there.
And I'm like, do I want to take 6000 math classes?
Like do I want to spend all this time in this?
Like, no, that would be my worst nightmare.
And in fact, it did probably won't happen.
It could happen, but it won't because I don't want to do that
thing and that wouldn't be enjoyable for me.
And that is really freeing to like, OK, there's that emotional
experience, but like, is that something that I really want?
I could do it if I really wanted to, but I just don't.
For sure. And the should will keep you
from doing it when you do. I want to like the example I
give is, you know, I, I started yoga not that long ago and I
remember this beautiful, incredible Yogi woman in front
of me just, you know, mastering every pose.
And I spent the whole class comparing myself to her and
feeling really crappy and being like, oh, I should be better at
this and I'm never going to be as good as her.
And afterwards, I realized I just completely cheated myself
out of an opportunity to get a little better, to take one step
closer to her. Because instead of focusing on
my practice in that class, I was comparing myself.
And so if you, you know, in the workplace, if you're comparing
yourself to everyone else, that's time you could spend
using them as motivation to move toward that place.
Yeah, yeah. Well, if people want to get your
book, follow along on social media.
All of the things, where can they do that?
Absolutely, I would love to connect with your community and
can I just say you are an absolutely lovely host and you
give me hope for the next generation.
So my book is called Flex Your feelings.
Train your brain to develop the seven traits of emotional
fitness. And you can get it anywhere that
you buy books, wherever that might be and on social media.
My handle is at Dr. Emily Anhalt DREMILYA NHALT.
I'd love to connect with people on any platform and thank you so
much for having me. You are a delight.
Of course, thank you and I'll put all those in the show notes.
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