The Relationship Between Joy & Resilience | Bill Hefferman | True Snacks

TRANSCRIPT

Roger:  Not too long ago, you were sharing with me this concept of the evolutionary advantage of joy. Obviously, there's an evolutionary advantage to fear, you know, when we were drinking at the water hole and something is wrestling around in the, in the bush or amygdala would fire off and we're running back to the middle of the herd.

But this idea of the evolutionary advantage of joy, Um, seems to be the flip side of that. Can you say a little bit more about that and how being more resilient helps you access joy?

Bill:  And it's funny. It's also works the other way. I think joy also helps us access resilience in positive psychology. The guy who talks to Fred Bryant, who talks about savory and I was thinking about joy and, and, um, and as it relates to the, the psychological tool, the positive psychological tool of, of, of savory.

And. Fred said something really interesting is that getting less. Unhappy doesn't necessarily make you more happy that those are separate phenomena. So, so when, if you think of the, the analogy, as you know, that I like to use in thinking about resilience as a horizontal line, and that if you're below the line, you're in that non resilient, non resourceful, not coping well with things, fight, flight, freeze kind of state.

And that when you're above the line, you're in this resilient, resourceful, joyful, et cetera. And. Those skills and tools that can help you go from those super negative. Unhappy, uh, not coping well states up to, you know, to, to, to get up towards that line, that midpoint, um, aren't the same skills that will elevate you into those upper reaches of being above the line.

And that's where. joy and gratitude and savoring and mindset and positivity and creativity and collaboration, all these things where that comes to four. And you can think of it in terms of, of, uh, psycho-emotional, um, buoyancy that when you. Um, experience these more elevated states of, of joy and happiness and connection.

It acts as a bit of a buffer to getting pulled down, uh, below the line. There's a way of thinking about joy in terms of it being a, Uh, not like this explosion of ecstasy, like, Oh my God, I went to this concert last night and it was just so inspiring. And I mean, there's that kind of joy, but then, but those aren't always accessible.

Every day, every moment we have available to us, these little micro moments of joy that in polyvagal theory, they might be. Uh, they call glimmers and, and a glimmer is like a little micro burst of connection of meaning of joy of beauty that you purposefully look for in your life. Now we normally experience these glimmers, um, in terms of, you know, the sunlight coming through the window in a particular way or, or, or a funny interaction among babies or kids or cats or cat videos or, you know, whatever these, these little, these little moments are.

And the more you habituate yourself. Towards looking for those glimmers, the more you see them as you develop the habit of looking for those little joyful moments in those little glimmers that you then habituate yourself to that.

Roger:  That makes me think that one of the reasons why you share so much about resilience is you see the impact and that gives you joy.

Bill:  Your premise at the beginning of this was that, you know, what's your, what's your fastball, what's your, what's your superpower. And for me, I'm, I'm really a short, what I liked in my 30 years as an organization development professional, my voice, at one point it hit on me that I'm a short haul carrier that I'm not that guy you're going to stick on a project for, for months on end.

But if you give me that short term mission of showing up for a conference, showing up for a group of people showing up for. Um, an experience that I've designed and that I'm then able to deliver that whole process of, of being given that mission, thinking about that group of people, designing a solution for them, and then delivering that.

There's such an incredible energy and connection that happened when I give people, have people break out into, you know, triads or, or pairs and, um, share stories about their own personal resilience role models or something like that. They just really light me up because I'm like, yes, this is where this is, this is real.

It's, this is helpful. Um, I'm having an impact on these people's lives. And if you think about in terms of like what kind of junky I am, it's like, it is, it's that's, that's really my, that's really my drug of choice is being able to orchestrate these kinds of human interactions and seeing them unfold.

Roger:  So Bill, what do you know to be true about resilience?

Bill:  So I've been at this for 22 plus years studying this topic. And the thing that I was really Only made mindful of in the last seven years or so. It's not a technique. It's not a gimmick. Um, it, it can be in some of those gimmicks and tricks can help ultimately is really. Um, your core beliefs and assumptions, your mindset about, about the nature of difficulty in the nature of life and the nature of challenge.

And the more that you can lean into that challenge mindset, the more that you can lean into that stress as enhancing mindset, um, the, the, the, the stronger your resilience will be. Um, this is another strong point around what I know to be true is that if we can. Leverage the power of the pause, the sacred pause.

And just when we're all spinning and ruminating in our heads and Filled with anxiety and worry getting pulled down the drain into the, you know, both way below the line Trying to fight your way out of that those depths of despair and rumination From that state of being is it's not very effective Einstein said something to the effect of our problems cannot be solved at the level with the same mindset At the level of which they were created or something like that.

You need to, you need to think differently. You need to be in do differently to, to change your state. And oftentimes what that takes is, um, This is another thing that I know to be true is that one of the fundamental core practices of resilience that serves us really well is simple mindfulness of being able to drop into a present state and take a step back and look at the big picture and look at things objectively and go, okay, I'm feeling pretty stressed and this.

Bad thing just happened and I'm feeling kind of anxious about that and that's okay. And I'm going to practice this sort of radical acceptance of just what is and not judge it and just be where I am right now. And from that state of, of presence and of here and now kind of accepting non judging presence, we don't have to fight so hard to, to get back.

Oftentimes we'll sort of. Um, you know, through Brownian motion, find ourselves, um, you know, getting back into a more neutral state. And then from there we'll have greater access to our, more of our, you know, tools and tricks of joy and gratitude and, and reframing, uh, about how we look and see things. And then one last thing that I should say that I, that I really know to be true in resilience is.

is that, um, that just, and it kind of comes back to mindset, but, but reframing how we're thinking about things, being able to, and that takes that pause, that mindfulness. And then from there being able to say, okay, so. What's the, what's the positive challenge here or what's the opportunity here?

Roger:  So what I love about what you just shared is, um, I, I, I was thinking about the old, uh, saying stop, stop, drop and roll.

Now that's when you're on fire, which may or may not be applicable in this situation, but having, you know, you, you said having that mindset, And, and I might've stepped on the punch line earlier where, um, you had previously shared this idea that a well lived life is not a stress free life. So, you know, the absence of stress, the absence of, um, of, of change and adversity, like one probably not, Going to happen any, you know, in, in, in any situation, but, you know, maybe that, as you said, the radical acceptance, that mindset, that there will be moments like this, then the, you know, when it is happening, that ability to be present, to get in the moment, because a lot of the things I think that are fueling the reactions are things that will happen outside of the moment that you will need to be deal with, that could be really, um, really, you know, Big impactful things.

But in the moment, those things are not happening. And so all you can do is control that moment. So being radically present

Bill:  and controlling the controllable, you can controlling the controllable and focusing on what can I actually do at in this moment.

Roger:  And then the third thing of, of again, sort of shifting it to like, what's the positive, what's the opportunity to flourish?

What's the opportunity to overcome? What's the, um, how can I look at this in a positive and grow from this experience and not just look at it as a negative or a threat, right? Right.

Bill:  And what's that bigger than self? What's my bigger than self goal here is another one that I, that another reframe that I really love of.

And then also you were talking about, you know, how can I grow from this? So having that growth mindset that says, okay, I'm, I, I'm not a master of this situation yet. Um, what do I need to learn here? Um, in, in dealing with it.