#014: Psychologist: How to Handle Fear and Anxiety During a Crisis (Like the Coronavirus) | Dr. Julia Sadusky, PsyD
The Coronavirus is causing a lot of panic. There's so much fear, anxiety, and uncertainty going around. So, how do we deal with all of that during a crisis? Dr. Julia Sadusky shows us how.
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Coming Up: Episode #015: Navy SEAL: Calm is Contagious | Mike Sarraille
Thanks for listening! Our next episode features Navy SEAL Mike Sarraille on how to stay calm during chaotic situations.
TRANSCRIPT
Transcript produced by artificial intelligence. Please pardon any errors!
We decided to take a break from the normal content that we produce to speak about the coronavirus. And we're not gonna talk about the medical aspect. We're not gonna get into a lot of the theories out there about the virus itself, but we wanna talk about how do you deal with the fear. The uncertainty, the anxiety, the panic around this virus, what do you do in response to all that?
And so I asked my friend, Dr. Julia Sadusky to come on and give us some really practical tips about coping with all those things in a healthy way. And so you may think that, you know, everything going on is ridiculous. You may be really scared. Doesn't matter where you are in the spectrum. All these things are really good for us to hear.
And you personally may not be struggling with this, and if you're not, that's great. That's awesome. But someone, you know, probably is even if they're not showing it on the outside. And so share this episode with them and not gonna give you the full intro. That we usually do, but we're gonna go right to the conversation with Dr.
Julia Sadoski. I'll tell you more about her at the end of the show. I do just want you to know that Dr. Julia Sadoski has her doctor in psychology. She's actively counseling people. And so she's a really great person to look to in times of uncertainty like this. But, uh, thank you so much for listening.
Hope this is helpful. Dr. Julia, thank you so much for coming on the show again. Absolutely happy to be here with everything happening right now with the coronavirus. People are afraid. There's a lot of fear, a lot of panic, a lot of anxiety, and the media seems to be encouraging all of that, unfortunately.
And so I wanted to get your advice on how people can stay calm, how they can manage their anxiety, their fear, um, the uncertainty that's really looming over so many of us, right. During a chaotic situation like this, like the coronavirus. And so really happy to, to have you here and just wanna dive right in, uh, and start talking about fear.
Uh, why, why is it that fear often controls us? Cause if we look around on social media, look at the news, there's just a lot of fear right now. Why does that control us? Yeah. Great question. I mean, I think that's the question. We all ask ourselves at different moments in life. When we find ourselves flooded with it.
What's important to say, just right away is that fear is a necessary and an adaptive response. Just like all of our other emotions, you know, we need them, their data points. They're trying to communicate something to us. Um, and when we look at what fear is trying to communicate, uh, it's this response. That says there is a known threat that I needed to do something about.
So you would have fear anytime. There was something specific known out there that puts you at great risk. This is necessary on kind of a purely evolutionary level. We need fear. It tells us what to avoid and what to move towards now. Why does it control us? Right. If you think about moments historically, right?
Where we might need fear, say I'm walking in a dark alley and someone jumps out with a gun. I really don't have time in that moment to think gosh, I wonder how far away that person is. I wonder how, how good they are at shooting guns. I wonder if their gun is loaded. I mean, the part of our brain that does our thinking, our reasoning, um, called the frontal cortex.
That part shuts down. When we feel a fear response, it completely gets shut down so that we can react. So that the part of our nervous system that activates us. For fight or flight that helps us respond to stress effectively, that part takes over. So that parental cortex, the part that thinks that judges, that reasons through situations that helps us anticipate consequences, it's completely offline there.
And that's a really positive thing when there's a known threat. So the reason, fear controls us, quote unquote, is that it really. Drive meaningful action, purposeful action in those moments in a way that our brain won't get in the way of now, of course you can, you can appreciate in times, um, where, you know, we're not walking down an alley, but maybe we're kind of in a situation that we find ourselves in even now, uh, where we're anticipating real threats in our environment.
It's not gonna be as adaptive to feel fear on an ongoing basis that those stress hormones that are being released when we feel a threat close. The nature of them is that they eventually subside. Mm. And so if they don't subside, if we're constantly activated that part of our brain's called the amygdala, that's really firing fear.
If that keeps firing over and over again, we're not gonna have moments where we come down from that. We're not gonna have moments where we can think clearly and critically about what we need to do right now. And that's the way where, where it really ends up getting. The better of us, that makes so much sense.
So it's a good thing. In, in the right context, it can help save our lives. Fear can help save our lives. Our response fear can help save our lives, but if it's taken too far, if it's overblown, then it can control us. And even it can paralyze us. Can it, it can cripple us. Absolutely. Yeah. If you think of the common responses that we have, when we feel fear, it's fight it's flight or it's freeze.
and when we feel that paralysis, when we feel like we can't do anything, that's the freeze response. And so that's exactly what you're talking about. That's the paralysis. Many people will fear, um, that can often, for many of us lead us to feel really ineffective in our environment. And even that can lead to a greater sense of helplessness.
One of the things that a lot of people are afraid of. You know, the virus itself is scary and I know we're learning more and more every day about it, but I think so many people are concerned about other people's reaction because, you know, in times of uncertainty in times of fear in times of panic, um, we don't let, like you're saying we don't always use the part of our brain that is, uh, that helps us make good decisions.
And so I think a lot of people are concerned, like what are other people gonna be doing? And, uh, and so that's interesting, you said fight flight or freeze. Uh, can we talk a little bit about the fight or. Responses. I, I know you've touched on the freeze one. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. So the fight is that kind of adrenaline rush that we get to motivate us towards an action where we counter, where we look outside of us, we see a threat and we try to.
Attack it really, um, I mean, I think a simplified version of this is, is the people running into the grocery stores and just grabbing and hoarding as much as they can. I mean, they're trying to fight these, the virus head on, um, there's people who are running into their homes, fleeing and saying, I'm not letting people over.
I'm not letting people in. And, and in the extreme, those can be pretty destructive right. In, in the balance. Uh, those can be pretty important. I mean, part of fighting is potentially taking medication for something. Part of fleeing is the social distancing that we're talking about. Um, that seems to be the most effective approach right now.
And, and so everything in moderation, right. And the way we moderate our responses is exactly by activating that central cortex. Um, and that's what anything we do to deal with our fear is supposed to be able to do that. That's the part of our brain that sets us apart from animals that prefrontal cortex actually lets us make better decisions, modulate our behavior in a way that makes sense.
Now part of the fear and part of, I think, uh, even distinguishing fear from anxiety, the anxiety we feel is the recognition that we are powerless over other people. Decisions. Um, so when people in our communities, people in our social groups, people in our families are making decisions that we wouldn't make that can lead to a lot of fear, certainly a lot of anxiety, um, apprehension and.
And leave us feeling stuck in a, in a pretty helpless situation. Yeah. I, I can totally see that playing out and given what you just said, how can someone manage their fear instead of letting it control them? Yeah. Um, well I think the piece of that really, and you, I touched on it briefly, but it's the idea of what are the things that I can do to number one name?
My fear know it's there not, not feel like I have to run from. But also to be able to engage in activities that are not ruled by fear, and those activities ought to be the type of things that would activate that pretzel cortex. What do I mean by that? I mean that the part of our brain that does thinking judging, anticipating consequences, we need to actually mindfully engage that part when we feel fear.
And so. This could be something, you know, as simple as I'm gonna start doing crossword puzzles, I'm gonna use distraction. I'm gonna use crossword puzzles because those engage that part of my brain that does the thinking, and it's gonna move me away from what's in front of me while also acknowledging, okay.
You know, I I'm really caught up in what's on the news media. And then I think another thing that people can do is some pretty classic stress management skills. The way, this works, you know, this is not just kind hokey. This is, this is scientific. This is how do we engage the part of our nervous system that calms us the most effective form of doing so is deep breathing.
If we can reinstate a practice of mindfulness, where am I? What am I doing? Who am I with? Describing my surroundings in my brain and engaging in active breathing, we can actually regulate fear in a way that is just as effective as anti-anxiety medication. Now, why do people use those medications? I mean, they work, they work pretty effectively for some people, and also they work more quickly than deep breathing.
We don't have to do as much for that. Um, but if, if people can just hear that actually. Managing our breath is a foundation for be being able to manage other things like fear, anxiety, terror. Existential dread all the things that are being kinda poked at right now, something as simple as that can actually be one of the most effective skills.
Those are great tips when it comes to deep breathing. What do you usually say to someone who doesn't really know how to do that? How, how do they do that? Yeah. Great question. Um, you know, you breathe in through your nose for about four seconds. Hold it for. And then breathe out for four seconds. That's kind of the basic you can do longer as you start to practice it.
Um, you can do eight seconds in hold for one out for eight seconds into your nose, out through your mouth. You wanna imagine your stomach filling up almost like a balloon, expanding and then deflating. As you start deep breathing, you know, you're gonna initially notice your breath is pretty shallow. It's gonna feel forced.
And then you'd be surprised how much over time that becomes regulated. And again, it's the mindful counting. Anytime we count that activates that frontal cortex in our brain. It's the counting in your head, breathing in holding and then release. And people can build on that. You know, there's tons of apps for that.
There's calm.com, uh, there's head space, other great options for how to practice mindful breathing and other adaptive ways of managing anxiety and fear. And you can, you can tap in with other things. I mean, some people people's faith might use a calming word to breathe in and then breathing out stress and anxiety.
And really imagining yourself breathing in peace and breathing out stress and anxiety and, and doing those types of practices, not only when you're fearful, but also when you're finding yourself feeling calm is a way to really tap into it both when you absolutely need it. And also practice it when the stakes aren't as.
That's great. I love it's so practical and we'll link to all those resources in the show notes. So you guys can just click on 'em. You don't need to remember them. One of the things you said was crossword puzzles and that that's great. Uh, what are some other things people can do? One of the things that came to mind for me was, um, trivia or something like that.
But do you have any other ideas that. People can use to, uh, engage that part of their brain. Yeah. I mean, reading, uh, reading about things that are interesting captivating to you that have nothing to do with what's on the media right now. Um, another thing is, is playing games, watching funny videos, uh, listening to music that is the opposite.
Emotion. Um, so this is an idea called opposite action, where we engage in an activity that is opposite of what we would be inclined to if we were ruled by our emotion. So if my emotion is sadness, I'm gonna listen to music that is really. Upbeat and, and positive. Um, and if I'm feeling really activated and my heart's racing and my Palm are sweaty, then I'm gonna listen to maybe classical music.
And even, uh, and this one is, is interesting that some people find helpful is scheduling time to actually worry. Um, so maybe it's when you're in a calm space going on and looking at the news and, and reading for about 10 minutes, but scheduling at time and saying after 10 minutes, I'm stopping worrying about this and I'm go and distract, do something.
So you can see there that we're managing our emotions. We're containing them in a way that feels safe. Something that we can do something with, without feeling like it's bleeding into every aspect of our day. And when that 10 minutes ends and you, you put away the phone and start doing something else, and those thoughts start to flow in.
We can say to ourselves, Hey, I'm gonna get back to that later. Um, it's not the time for that. I'm gonna worry about that later and really watching your brain be able to begin to contain and compartmentalize things that just are not gonna be helpful to. Be consumed by all the time. That's really good. And even something as far as, you know, not watching the news or not watching it as much, I think can be, can be helpful because every Julia, every news headline I'm reading right now is just like completely fear based.
And I, I mean, the media is known for that, cuz that gets clicks. You know, that part of our brain, that's like, oh gosh, what do I have to worry about? How do I, I defend myself, protect myself. Right. So, so they're, they're good at using that, but. I know a lot of people I look up to and trust, they're saying, you know, okay, distance yourself from the news for a bit, at least.
So I think that could be a good thing. And some of the tips that you said too, can be useful for, uh, parents who are stuck at home with kids because so many of the schools are closing now. So, uh, I think this is a lot of really practical advice. So, so thank you for that. I was gonna ask too. How about writing things out?
You mentioned naming, uh, you know, naming your fears. I've found writing things out and the people that I work with have found that that's really helpful too. What would you add to that? Yeah, I mean, I think it is a little bit of a trial and error approach with that. There are people who, you know, especially people they're prone to panic.
If you end up writing out all the things you're worried about. and all of your journaling is focused on that. It might actually end up being more activating right. Than, than calming for some people. Yeah. For other people. What it lets you do is it lets you externalize all of those thoughts, get perspective on them, reread the journal entry and you can start to see, okay, the world's not ending.
We've been through things like this before a year from now. We'll have seen this through. Um, and you can take more perspective on it for some people when you journal. Um, one of the keys, I think with journaling about anxiety provoking topics, um, is you might want to do a counter list. So you might wanna write about the things you're grateful for.
Um, you might wanna write a letter to somebody that you want to encourage as an, as another opposite action to do in the midst of writing down the things that are really troubling you. And in so far as you write those things down, the things that are troubling, anxiety provoking, a great thing to do is to put 'em in a drawer somewhere, or put 'em in a box that you label your anxiety box or your fears box.
And that is a really visible, tangible way to contain. Anxiety and fear as opposed to feeling the need to carry it with us. Um, and so there's some kind of mental trick that happens there where we remind our brain, Hey, I'm containing that. I'm putting that away for now. And I can always come back to it later.
So, so it's a little bit of tweaking there with just as far as what works for people. But you're right. Journaling is great that anything that we can do, art is another great thing. Um, for people who are musicians and writing music around some of the things you're feeling, anything that we can do to externalize what we're feeling in a way that helps us see, we're not defined by it.
That's really crucial here. Love that. And thank you for clarifying that about journaling. It's it's a great point. And that, that makes sense. And even thinking back on my own life, when I've been, you know, going through bouts of anxiety, Uh, that can certainly make it worse if you're just stuck inside your own head and kind of replaying the things that are making you worry.
Sometimes you just need a break from breather and escape, you know, where that may not be helpful in the long term. If you always do that in the short term, it is necessary. Absolutely. And I think that's to your point, you know, about. Exposure to media sources. You know, I think it's important to maybe pick one or two media sources.
You trust only go to those websites by actually typing them in and do it in very specified controlled times of day, uh, where you already feel calm. I don't think we realize with our iPhones how much. We have instant access to information that is troubling for us, many of it not being true . And so we, we wanna be good stewards of the, the gift we have with technology by managing it, distancing ourselves from it in a way that I think we would start to see some more balance in our mood and our ability to be present to life as it is today, as opposed to the terror that comes.
What could be and getting caught in an imaginative process around that? Sure. One of the things that helped me years ago, I went through, you know, some pretty intense anxiety periods of anxiety. And one of the things that helped me, I don't know how clinical this is, but, uh, was just actually touching things around me, like a table, a chair.
Mm-hmm something like that. It, yes, for some, in some way it helped ground me in the present moment. Instead of letting my mind just run off into. You know, whatever I was worried about. Absolutely. Yes. What you're speaking about is they're called grounding exercises. Whoever made up that name, nice. Uh, pretty creative, but, but yeah, just the idea, you know, one of the ways you do grounding is just what you described, you know, touching things, especially things that activate your senses.
So maybe it's touching soft things and then hard things. Uh, there's a, a quick tip of called five senses where we just describe what are five things that I. What are four things that I hear? What are three things I can touch? What are two things I can taste? And one thing I can smell. Hmm. And what you can do is you can, you know, grab different things to help with that.
You can light a sense of candle or smell. You can rub some lotion on, you can taste something sweet or something tart or sour. Um, there's lots of different ways to do that. Even splashing cold water on our face. I mean, anything that we can do to get us tapped into the present moment is gonna be really, really effective.
Um, and again, what, what you wanna do with that is not just do it, but actually. Immerse yourself in it, through describing what you're thinking about, what you're feeling in that moment. So if I'm feeling something soft, I'm gonna in my head, describe the texture, describe the color. Um, and all of that, again, is what's activating that prefrontal cortex, which is so important to bring us back to the moment that we're actually in good stuff.
Is there anything you'd add to this for parents who, you know, are gonna be dealing with a lot, having the kids home, perhaps, um, or. You know, just managing their own emotions while taking care of kids, anything in addition, cuz the, the tips you already gave are awesome. And I think parents can use those.
They can use them themselves. They can use 'em with their kids. But is there anything specific to parents that, that you would say, yeah, I do. I do think, you know, I wanna distinguish fear from anxiety here for parents because fear is that really adaptive sense that there's a known threat anxiety is what happens when we start to imagine a possible.
An imprecise threat when we don't really know much about. And the way that you as parents talk about what's happening right now is gonna either quells some of the fear or it's gonna stoke the anxiety of your children. Many children don't know all the ins and outs of what we're talking about with the coronavirus.
They don't understand it. You know, the three year old I live with just picked up on the people are dying, right. And when you're a three year old and you hear people are dying, There's gonna be a real apprehension there, a real anxiety there, which is much more crippling than fear because anxiety is just this really vague sense of apprehension and tied with a sense of powerlessness over our circumstances.
So for children, it's gonna be really important to be careful about how we talk about what's happening. To not instill some undo panic in kids who otherwise could really have a pretty enjoyable day , um, and, and really helping them with what's called radical acceptance. Um, that's just the idea that we, we take ownership over our circumstances as they are, and we work towards purposeful action things that are gonna make our.
More meaningful today in the midst of whatever we're going through. So a kid says, you know, are people dying? And it's like, yep. Everybody dies. And, and that can be really scary sometimes. And in the midst of that, we're gonna really work to enjoy this time and, and, and, um, draw closer as a family. Right. So kind of holding and containing all the feelings you're gonna be having as an adult, modulating them so that children don't feel like they have to be a sponge.
Emotions that we naturally can pick up on in others. That's really good. Yeah. And I think it's gonna help a lot of parents, especially those who are more on edge with everything going on. And I love what you said about taking ownership. I think that's so key. It's if, if I'm hearing you right, it's focusing on what we can do and what we can control instead of just focusing.
Kind of what's lurking in the shadows, what what's kind of in the unknown? Absolutely. Absolutely. Because if we spend our, our space and mental energy in what we can't do, what we can't know, it breeds a sense of ineffectiveness in our world. It breeds depression, it breeds hopelessness, helplessness, and, and kind of an existential dread.
Um, and the truth is, is that something like our mortality, we can't control. So moments like this in history really put us in touch with the reality of our mortality. It also puts us in touch with the reality of how much of our life is out of our control. Now that's bad news. If we feel like our joy and peace comes from that.
But for those of us who recognize that as a reality that we accept, we can move past that and say, okay, what can I be effective in? What do I have a choice about today? And how am I gonna do things that I look back on a year from now and say, wow, I'm really glad I spent my Tuesday doing that as opposed to being ruled by the present anxiety in a way that makes us look back and say, wow, I wasted two weeks of my life reading articles.
Right? um, we can certainly do. But it's important to recognize there's a choice there, and there's a choice in, in what action we do when we feel fear. And there's also a choice in what things we don't do. Um, and so we always have the power in those moments to make decisions that we can be proud of and look back on and also.
Decisions that our children want to model. What other tips would you give to people who are really dealing with anxiety right now? I, I would assume some of the tips that you talked about already would apply, but is there anything else you would add? Yeah, I mean, I think, uh, something to know with anxiety is that it's much.
More difficult to deal with. If we see it as something that defines who we are. So I already mentioned externalizing it. Um, another way to do that is how we talk about our anxiety. So if I'm feeling panicked or I'm feeling anxious, a lot of us will say, I'm anxious. I'm an anxious person. I'm a panicked person and I'm a fearful person.
And you can talk about it that way. But what that does is it keeps it so close to you that it almost becomes an identity. And so I wanna challenge, uh, listeners to think through even how you talk about your anxiety impacts how you experience your anxiety. So if I say I'm anxious versus I say, I'm having a feeling of anxiety, there's some distance there in the second statement.
So the first I am anxious, that's who I am. The second I'm having a feeling of anxiety and having a feeling of fear, a feeling of panic. You'll notice, even as you talk about it in that way, when you're feeling those emotion. That can be regulating you're naming it without being defined by it. Um, and I think another piece of that is just knowing that if you're prone to anxiety now is a great time to get plugged into therapy.
If you're not already there, because your threshold for what we're experiencing right now is just gonna be lower. and it's gonna be stoking the fire of what's already there. So a person who might have panic attacks once a month could find themselves having them much more frequently when there's this looming social pressure to feel anxious.
And that's what a lot of it is, right? I mean, if, if we're feeling threatened, there's nothing worse than somebody not getting how panicked we feel. And we can almost overexaggerate things in a way until somebody starts to feel what we're feeling. Hmm. I just wanna invite people to really. Settle into the reality that, that this is a scary time for many people.
This is unsettling. We're not sure all these and outs of what's happening in our culture and in our world. And in the midst of that, what does it look like to become an expert on your own experience of anxiety and to learn what works and what doesn't to bring it down? Because the truth is you can find ways to bring down your anxiety.
You might benefit from some supports and help with that through therapy or other friends asking them what they do. Um, but you can become an expert on this experience and that's, that's where the hope comes in. That's really good. You mentioned people who may be prone to higher forms of anxiety. I think a lot of people who may be, aren't usually prone to anxiety and maybe feeling that now, but especially those people who do have anxiety have panic attacks.
What additional advice would you give to them in moments like this? Where, you know, there's a lot of chaos, a lot of panic going around. Yeah. When people feel anxious frequently or panic, you can become very comfortable with the reality and just come to believe that you don't have the necessary capacity to bring it down.
I want you to know that you do. I mean, you have the, it's called the parasympathetic nervous system. It's the part of us that's activated when we feel. It helps us rest. It helps us have energy storage, not depleting us of energy. You have that part of your brain and nervous system too. And so it's again, it's about how do I activate that part of me that can calm myself?
How do I soothe myself in this time? And ultimately remembering, especially with panic attacks that panic attacks are not let. They cannot kill us. And if we do deep breathing, if we do grounding exercises, if we do some other activation of our brain to calm us down, we will calm down and no emotion. We feel no feeling state can last forever.
It's meant to peak and valley. And so if you set a timer, it will stop if you do nothing, but it will stop sooner. If you do something about it. And I wanna invite you to, to use some of the skills to try some of the skills. We've talked about, ask your therapist. If you're seeing one for others. And through trial and error trust that you will find things that work, but none of these things are more powerful than, than your will to actually bring yourself down.
Really good. Thank you for speaking directly to people like that. I think it's important. I wanna shift gears a little bit. We've already talked about uncertainty. There's a lot of uncertainty going around and in times of uncertainty, it can be very unsettling. Like we're experiencing now. People want answers.
They wanna know what's going on. Um, they want stability. and so is there anything you would add in addition to what we've already talked about for people who, you know, the, the uncertainty of what's going on is really bothering them? What, what can they do? Yeah, I mean, I think, I think that's where the radical acceptance becomes most important.
It's it's acknowledging I want answers. I want stability. I want balance and I don't have that right now. And I don't know how long that'll be. But today I'm gonna choose to be peaceful. I'm gonna choose to be reaching out to other people and checking in with them. I'm gonna be action oriented in a time where I might be prone to paralyzation.
I'm gonna get up and I'm gonna put the phone as far away from me as possible because it's not helping me feel less. Uncertain, it's helping me feel more uncertain with every article that comes out. There's a conflict between that and the previous article, um, there's things that are said that absolutely contradict each other, which for those who are consuming that information, you're gonna feel like, oh my gosh, I thought I knew something and now I feel like I know nothing.
And we're starting back at square one. Mm-hmm I think a bit of this is the recognition that there is so much we can't know and don't know. And I'm gonna choose to acknowledge that reality today and not let that reality Rob me of a life that I can really thrive in today. I've noticed that I've noticed that there's all this information flying around.
And so something we've talked about before is in cases of, of uncertainty. People just kind of grasp for some explanation that gives them some level of control. That makes sense to them. You you've explained how in children, you see this a lot too, you know, we, we don't know how to make sense of complex things.
So we tend to simplify them in our minds and usually. That can lead to, uh, kind of unhealthy ways of, of looking at things. And so, uh, if you would just spend a little bit of time talking about how we kinda latch onto explanations, that if we're objective, don't make the most sense in, in cases of uncertainty.
Right. I mean, this is the example of kind of the classic I'm walking down an alley. Nobody's there. I'm imagining that somebody's gonna attack me. And somebody walks out of, out of the corner and I say to myself, I'm gonna die. I mean, that's, that's where our brain goes. I'm gonna die. This is the end. That is the simplest explanation of what's happening there.
It's unlikely that that's the most accurate explanation of what's happening there. And that's where we have to slow ourselves down. When we start to see our. Going to the simplest conclusion. Um, whether it, it is, you know, in this case, this is no big deal at all. There's nothing at all to be worried about.
This is just a conspiracy, um, to the other extreme of, of this is the end of the world as we know it. Yeah. Um, we wanna notice when we start to go into that black and white thinking, which again is adaptive in a threatening situation. It's what helps us get through it when we're in an actual. If we're not, if we're on the sidelines of a threat, it's not gonna service as well.
And so the question is how do I zoom out from my black and white thinking? How do I start to recognize that it's probably more balanced than where my brain goes right away? And how do I take in information? That's not sensationalizing. That's not every time I'm reading it, just making my anxiety spike.
Um, but how do I really start to seek balance? Talk about what I'm feeling and thinking with other people so they can give more objective information and really move away from information that tends to be very polarized and very black and white. That's where we see ourselves getting in trouble. I think most going back to radical acceptance.
I, it made me think of, uh, one of my role models, Jacko willing. He's a retired Navy seal commander. He writes books and gives talks and conferences on, on leadership. But. So much of what he teaches, just apply to, to anyone. And one of the things that he says is when you're in combat he's, he's seen a lot of combat he's led men in combat.
And he says, when you're in combat, one of the things that is out of your control is artillery. When the enemy's essentially dropping bombs on you, you can't really do anything about it, especially in the moment. You know, maybe you can figure out a way to get your guys to strike back, to get, you know, our, our pilots to strike back.
But in the moment, if you're on the ground, which is what Jocko would do as a, as a seal, um, you can't do anything about it. And so he, he even talked about, he would say, you kind of need to embrace artillery. He said, it's, it sounds odd. but you really need to embrace it and just understand that this is happening.
There's nothing I can do about that in itself in this exact moment, but I can right. Figure out what else I can do. There's other things that I can do to, to mitigate, to threat. I can get my guys to a safe position. I can, you know, again, call in on the radio, letting them know, okay, we think this is where it's coming from.
We need to take them out, whatever. So, but it's an interesting example of a really in kind of in an extreme environment of chaos and threat. Absolutely. I mean, and, and that is the reality, you know, for different people in different phases of life. And we survive those moments of terror and we don't survive those moments of terror and thrive in them.
If we are caught up in the imminent reality of our mortality as a. In a sense that becomes really debilitating. I mean, I think too of CS Lewis, he, he writes a really powerful reflection on what do we do with the atomic bomb? You know, he lived in the reality of that and I love what he says. He says, you know, as you would've lived in the 16th century, when there was a plague almost every year, um, or, you know, as you would live in an age of cancer, an age of paralysis, an age of air raids, an age of railway accidents, an age of car accident.
And he goes on to say, you know, let's not exaggerate the novelty of our situation in a sense, this mortality was always here. Um, and he, and he ends by saying they may break our bodies. A microbe can do that, but they need not dominate our minds. And I think that's where we, we rest in. How do we lean back into the things that make us human again?
How do we pray work? Um, teach read, as he says, listen to music, uh, take care of our children and, and keep going, um, and make a decision to not let these things consume us in a way that really robs us with joy. I love that. I read that excerpt the other day and it's, it's so good. And so we'll guys will post that for you on the ReSTOR blog.
So you can can read through that and we'll be sending it out, uh, you know, through email, through social media. So you guys have access to that, but Dr. Julia, anything else that, that you would add any final advice you would give for us during. Really any crisis. I know some people are saying this isn't a crisis.
Some people are saying it is a crisis, but, uh, if we're honest, there are different crisis that we face in life. Whether it's, uh, an earthquake, whether it's a natural, some sort of natural disaster, like a hurricane, a tornado. These sort of things do happen in life. And so, uh, any final words that you would give to, to anyone dealing with this right now?
Yeah, one of the most understated ways of coping with suffering in life is reaching out to others. Getting outside of ourselves, we can become so nav ging in our anxiety and pain. And so I wanna encourage you as listeners to really go out of yourself in this time, reach out to a neighbor, reach out to a friend, find ways, you know, maybe, maybe it's writing.
Cards making cards and bringing them to hospitals where people are, maybe it's checking in on the person next door. Do they have enough groceries? Anything we can do to get outside of ourselves in this time is gonna be connecting. It's gonna build a sense of community. Um, because hardship can go one of two ways.
It can lead to isolation and angst and it can lead to community in the sense of solidarity. Um, I wanna vote for solidarity out of this one and I. The more we lean into our relationships. The more we seek the people who are suffering, uh, in ways that we might not be, uh, the more we're gonna find a real lasting sense of purpose in the midst of this time.
So. Good. Thank you so much for all of your advice, all the practical tips that people can really start using right now today, if, uh, if someone wants to connect with you, how can they do that? Yeah. Um, I'm sure you'll put in the show notes, but they can email me at Dr. Eski Gmail. Awesome. Yeah, we'll definitely throw that in the show notes for you guys, Dr.
Julia, thank you so much for, for coming on and for speaking into, uh, this very real problem that so many people are dealing with. I think, uh, what you said is gonna give people hope it's gonna help them to, to cope and deal with a lot of the fear, the anxiety, the uncertainty out there. So thank you so much.
Absolutely. Thanks for having me. Lots of good advice, practical advice that we all can start using today. And so if this, again is something that you don't struggle with, you don't deal with anxiety, fear, stuff like that. That's great, but there's probably someone, you know, that does. And so share this episode.
With them, if you're not familiar with ReSTOR, we exist to help teenagers and young adults to COE and grow after the trauma of their parents' divorce or separation. So they can feel whole again. And we do that through our podcast, our blog speaking engagements and so on. And so we're, again, going away from our normal content to, to talk about this, a topic that's truly relevant for everyone in the world right now.
And so I hope what we've talked about has been helpful and you can use. To get through this crisis a little bit about Dr. Julia Sadoski. I'll give you her kind of quick bio she's a clinical psychologist. She has her doctorate in psychology, and she currently works at ed care and eating disorder clinic in Denver.
She's opening a private practice called Lux counseling and consulting. She'll be offering individual therapy around. Denver and offer training and consulting around sexuality and gender identity. That's really her focus. She's kind of a rare breed of people who are helping others who suffer from real sexual and gender identity issues.
The show notes we mentioned can be found@restoredministry.com slash 14. That's a number 14. Again, that's restored ministry. Ministry is a singular.com/fourteen. Thank you so much for listening. Hope this has been helpful for you. And please pass this episode along.
