May 12, 2024 • 44 mins
Join us on #AnswersNetwork for an enlightening discussion with therapist #SallyBaker as she unveils the transformative power of resilience in her latest book, "THE GETTING OF RESILIENCE FROM THE INSIDE OUT".
Drawing from her extensive experience working with clients, Sally offers gentle yet perceptive insights and practical tools to help listeners navigate life's challenges with strength and confidence. In this episode, Sally delves into the meaning of resilience and its profound impact on various aspects of our lives. From personal growth to overcoming adversity, she explores how resilience can shape our responses to life's trials and offers actionable strategies to empower listeners on their journey towards resilience. Through real-life case studies and expert guidance, Sally provides invaluable insights into breaking negative patterns, connecting with intuition, and fostering resilience from within.
Whether you're facing relationship challenges, navigating career transitions, or coping with unexpected setbacks, Sally's wisdom will inspire you to cultivate inner strength and resilience. Don't miss this opportunity to gain valuable insights and practical tools for building a more resilient life.
Drawing from her extensive experience working with clients, Sally offers gentle yet perceptive insights and practical tools to help listeners navigate life's challenges with strength and confidence. In this episode, Sally delves into the meaning of resilience and its profound impact on various aspects of our lives. From personal growth to overcoming adversity, she explores how resilience can shape our responses to life's trials and offers actionable strategies to empower listeners on their journey towards resilience. Through real-life case studies and expert guidance, Sally provides invaluable insights into breaking negative patterns, connecting with intuition, and fostering resilience from within.
Whether you're facing relationship challenges, navigating career transitions, or coping with unexpected setbacks, Sally's wisdom will inspire you to cultivate inner strength and resilience. Don't miss this opportunity to gain valuable insights and practical tools for building a more resilient life.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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(00:06):
I'm your host, Alan Cardoza,And if you're watching or you're listening,
however it is that you're choosing todo it, we are Answers Network,
and we are here for you.Now. Our topic today is resilience.
And I'm going to start with astory because I read a story about someone
who was confused and frustrated that herchild's experience at camp, with all the
(00:27):
remarkable activities, gorgeous settings and kindpeople, could indeed be so negative their
child just wanted to go home.Well, this past summer, I heard
many similar reports from parents. Manyof their kids came home from camp early
or seriously considered it, and theystruggled with anxiety, relational difficulties, and
(00:51):
other emotional issues. I checked inwith the director of a popular summer camp,
and she confirmed that at her campmany other camps, more kids last
summer left or talked about leaving thanshe'd seen in her decades as a camp
director. When asked why she thoughtthis was happening, she replied one sentence,
(01:15):
a lack of resilience. Well,research has shown that many children they
wanted to leave because they felt tooanxious, that they were annoyed, they
felt excluded they felt emotionally bullied orsome said they just felt sad, which
I know that we used to callthat homesick, but the children described an
(01:40):
overall difficulty in getting along with cabinmates, navigating social situations, adjusting to
other people's wants and needs, andfiguring out things without their parents' help.
Well, today we're speaking with therapistSally Baker about her empowering new book,
The Getting of Resilien from the InsideOut Now. Based on extensive experience in
(02:04):
case studies from Sally's own therapeutic practice, this book provides gentle perceptive insight,
along with tried and tested self helptherapeutic tools, three additional online resources,
and the guidance needed to take thereader through the stages of negativity to self
empowerment now. Sally began her therapeutictraining in physical therapies working with women survivors
(02:30):
of sexual abuse and domestic violence.She trained in EFT, which I'm going
to ask her about a little lateron, and became an advanced level practitioner,
followed by clinical hypnotherapy certification and trainingin English modality, percussive suggestion techniques,
(02:53):
and so much more. She wasawarded the PSTEC Master Practitioner status into
THOUB fourteen. She is the coauthor with Liz Hogan, of Seven Simple
Steps to Stop Emotional Leading and Howto Feel Differently about Food. Her words
are often featured in publications such asGrazia, GQ, The Independent, and
(03:15):
The Telegram and so many more.Sally, welcome to Answers Network. Thank
you, Alan, that was quiteremusful. Thank you. Well. You
know, I for those that haven'tlistened before and don't know, you know,
my background is is I'm an internationaldetective. So research is my thing.
(03:38):
So for everybody out there, that'swhat I came up with when I
did the research, which is probablyexactly why my producer wanted to get you
on the show. Lovely, thankyou. So let's start with the simplest
question of all. What exactly isresilience. It's not even a very simple
(03:58):
question. I was joking. Iwas joking when I said that, I
know it's not simple at all.Resilience. I mean, people talk about
it being bounced back, some bountsforward, some talk about it being an
inner strength. I mean for me, it feels like it's around self esteem,
self worth, self belief and havingthe trust in yourself that you can
(04:24):
have an impact in your own life, and that starts in childhood, in
a really well rounded childhood. Yeah, So all those kids that are unhappy
at camp, I'm wondering what's happeningin the eleven months of the year when
they're not at camp. What's happeningin the dynamic at home? You know,
are they being tested, are theybeing pushed, are they being allowed
(04:45):
to make mistakes? Are they beingsupported to, you know, go out
and broaden their horizons? Because ifa child is helicopter parented at home,
micro managed at home, and thenhe's suddenly thrown into camp, it's going
to be huge challenging. Well,I think that's a great point and it's
one that I also believe in.Do you think that part of this could
(05:09):
also be that we're we're now conductingthis type of research or the research that
I was finding some which was otherpeople's research, is coming right after COVID.
COVID has had a tremendous effect onour young people especially, and it's
almost as if we're now as ageneration being gas lit by all our governments
(05:32):
because no one's talking about it anymore. We have huge amounts of children refusing
to go to school or only managingto go in half of the week because
of heightened anxiety. Politicians here aresaying that young people, the millennials,
are using mental health mental ill health, as an excuse not to work,
which I find completely unbelievable because everygeneration of young person has always pushed themselves
(05:58):
to the front, to new frontiers, to leave home, to set themselves
up, to establish themselves. Andthis generation has been really undermined by the
pandemic and what we've all gone through, and we haven't had the support to
help be glad. Yeah, Iwas going to say, it's interesting that
the way in which the politicians havephrased that, you know, in the
(06:23):
sense that you know, one ofthe things that we're supposed to be teaching
our young people is to take responsibility, and yet you have politicians that are
doing the exact opposite, and they'resaying, no, now, this is
this is the young people's fault.Well, let's take some responsibility about the
situation you put them in. Let'spunch down and not lift up. That's
(06:45):
what that's what seems to be happening. Politicians are punching down and blaming people
who are mentally unwell, hyper anxious, socially anxious, depressed. No one
wants to be in that state.That's a really unhappy state to be in.
Yep, it's very wrong. Yeah, and actually I'm going to take
that. I like that punching downversus raising up. Yeah, they should
(07:08):
be elevating us. They should begiving the young people the support they need.
And in England when everyone went backoff, when the kids went back
to schools after the pandemic, thegovernment said, give them more maths lessons,
they need to get catch up ontheir maths. But actually they needed,
you know, room to explore whatthey've been through. They need to
just tell stories. They needed towrite, to draw, to create and
(07:29):
to play, and none of thatwas given to them. Not good well,
which again is why I think yourbook is so perfectly timed, you
know, in the sense because oneof the things that I liked is I
was going through it was that,you know. The book again for everybody
out there, is called The Gettingof Resilience. It teaches readers about how
resilience affects various life situations, butit includes like relationships with families, you
(07:56):
know, learn strategies, breaking ofcycles, connecting to our intuition, cultivating
rituals, and so much more.So, can you give us, give
us an example of, you know, maybe some of the types of advice
that is found in the family chapter, that is, maybe some of your
favorites. Okay, So looking atfamily structure, family structures that are all
(08:22):
wide and various, but dysfunctional familieshave very many things in common too.
So children build resilience ideally in familieswhere they're loved, honored and adored,
where they're heard, where they feelnot nurtured and loved. And it's possible,
even in really high functioning families notto be able to give that to
(08:43):
their children because the parents might bedoing something like putting huge expectations on the
children to achieve academically or to achievein sport or in music or whatever the
niches. And when that happens andthe child fails, the parents their disapproval,
and it's that disapproval to a growingchild. It can be really damning
(09:05):
and can be really undermining. Soit's what we should be offering these unconditional
positive regard to our kids as longas they're doing the best they can and
we encourage them to do the bestthey can. If they fail or they
fall short, we have to stillexpress to them that we love them and
accept them. You know, theycan't all be geniuses, they can't all
(09:26):
be Olympic athletes. But as longas we're encouraging our children to do their
best, to explore their potential andto love them and to pick them up
again if they fail, then we'redoing good bye them. That's what we
need to be doing. I lovethat. And again, as you said,
you know, raise them up,you know, raise them up because
no one else can like the parentscan, and no one can demolish a
(09:50):
child like a parent can. AndI've seen parents be able to do that
with a raised eyebrow. This isnot about beating your children to submission.
Children very early ought to learn,are very early to learn when that disapproved
of, when they've let their parentsdown, and it goes right to their
soul. It does, it reallydoes. Yeah, you know, I
(10:11):
want I want to kind of touchon you know, when I talked a
little bit about your background, andagain, as I was researching and I
didn't know that you know that youhad had worked with women who had survived
horrible abuses. Yeah, and reallyhorrendous situations. And what it made me
think of is one of the areasthat I at one time and I can
(10:35):
say specialized in, but I dida lot of work in. It had
to do with rescuing primarily women outof human trafficking. And one of the
most horrific statistics was that if youdidn't retrain them in something that that they
(10:58):
felt good about. Other words,they had to get retrained into doing something
that made them feel good about themselves. And if you didn't do that,
there was a ridiculously high percentage thatwent right back into what they'd just been
rescued out of. And it mademe think of the missing component was resilience.
(11:24):
So share a little bit about youryears at that time and how did
this help you understand the importance ofresilience as being the key factor for their
survival. Well, I'm an adultsurvivor of childhood sexual abuse myself from when
I was seven and eight, anda rape survivor. But that's why I
had skin in the game, andthat's why I wanted to work with women
(11:46):
who had suffered. And I didthis through massage. I trained as a
Swedish massus. What was my firstmodality, and the women that came to
me would say things like they've neverever be in touch with kindness. So
I was vaschaging women in their fiftiesand sixties who had just had a complete
(12:07):
life of abuse and violence perpetrated againstthem, and then they would break down
understandably, and then I felt thatI couldn't at those early stages of my
career in this work. I wasn'table to hold a safe space for them
that bear witness and stay with them. So that's why I learned my first
modality, which was EFT emotional freedomtechnique, which translates very well to physical
(12:31):
work because it's this kind of tapping. It's an American modality and it's been
around for about thirty five forty yearsnow. So I would ask the women
if it was okay if I couldtap on them and we could just voice
the feelings that they were feeling,and then all the sorrow would and their
anguish would just come from them andthey'd have some you know, a release
(12:54):
from that. We hold it inour body, We hold all those things
in our everything that happens to us. So yeah, but it's interesting about
women who have been trafficked returning toold ways because that's all they knew.
And I use a music box inmy work, and lots of people have
(13:15):
had music boxes when they were kids, and I talk about how you get
wound up. You know, youget wound up, something happens to you.
It already starts leaking the noise.And when you get wound up,
the music box gets wound up.It can only play one tune, and
it can only do one dance.And I say, you know, what
tune are you playing? What habitsare you on repeat? And what's your
(13:43):
dance look like? And then wedo the and she finds it hard to
stop sometimes not doing that. Sopeople on repeat pattern people who get triggered
up and go straight into repeating patternsof behavior. And a lot of my
work is around noticing those patterns ofbehavior and then breaking them. But again,
(14:07):
it's not enough to break. Youhave to replace with another action.
And that's and that's the part thatI love, is the fact of taking
it that next step. Because again, you know, as I was,
you know, learning more about youand your book, and I was realizing
that that seemed to be one ofthe biggest components and where maybe things had
(14:28):
failed in some of the you know, some of the past situations that I'd
been involved in. Was that replacingand again, I mean replacing with love,
replacing with and again I think resilience, replacing it with something that allows
them to, you know, tomove forward. And I just think it's
beautiful, have a sense of purpose. People need a sense of purpose,
(14:52):
and so they have to find somethingthat will give them that or they will
stink back. Yeah, now,what have you seen that seems to be
some of the biggest blocks to peopleacquiring resilience. So again, I always
as I'm thinking about the show,and I'm thinking that there's people out there,
(15:13):
and in some cases, I'm thinking, there's somebody who's really resonating with
what it is we're talking about.And if you can mention some of the
things that you found that were thebiggest blocks that by getting past that,
they were able to get to wherethey needed to be. What are some
(15:35):
of those So somebody out there,if we touch just one person and they
go that's what I'm doing, Okay, let's definitely try and do that.
So when I'm talking to my clients, I always tell them that no amount
of therapy will stop bad things happening. But what is more critical are the
judgments we make about ourselves about thething, the bad thing that's happened to
(15:56):
us. And the judgments that wemake seem to be more injury than the
event that we've survived. No,So I talk about people having the sense
of self worth is determined. Psychologistshave worked out by how you think and
feel about yourself over the preceding fourteendays. So if someone stops you in
(16:18):
the street and said, oh,hi, Hi, Alan, how are
you doing, and you go,wow, you know, I've had a
bit of a tough time or I'mhaving a great time, You're probably taking
a snapshot of the last two weeks. You're not going all the way back
to your childhood. You're not going, you know, all the way back
through decades. You're just thinking asnapshot of the last two weeks. So
I asked my clients to imagine thattwo weeks ago, I sent them through
(16:41):
the mail this glass fishbowl, andit has a whole bunch of marbles in
it, and the marbles are goldmarbles, and they are blue marbles.
So I asked them to think aboutevery time they've had a life affirming thought
about themselves, where they've treated themselveswith kindness, where they've thought of themselves
(17:06):
positively, they drop in a goldmarble. And then every time they have
a negati they've made a negative judgmentabout themselves, every time they've had something
self deprecating, they've put themselves down, or they've been unkind to themselves,
they drop in a blue marble.And then we get them to look at
their bowl in their in their mind'sie if I don't, if I don't
(17:29):
have the bowl in front of them, and to assess on a hundred marbles,
what will be the present percentage ofgold marbles to blue marbles. And
I've worked with women, a womanwho was head of an international bank.
She had ninety eight percent blue marblesand two gold. So it's not about
(17:49):
wealth, it's not about how theworld sees you. It's really about how
you see and judge yourself. Soany idea allan where you would be,
you'll probably be pretty good. ButI work at that so and I would
like to think that I'm probably youknow, more like you know a sixty
(18:14):
forty seventy thirty to the past sixtythirty seventy forty there's still work to be
done. Yes, if someone hereis very high on the on the blue
marbles, very high on negative thoughts, it doesn't take much from the world
to tip you over into real depressionand anxiety. So it's really important to
you know, counter to personally findout what the marble balance is and then
(18:40):
start working on it, actively workingon it to improve. The gold marbles
and a lot of the blue marblescome from our childhood. The blue marbles
often aren't even The critical voice isn'teven our voice. It's someone else's voice.
So when I get them to thinkabout the blue marbles, who is
criticizing you? What idiom, whatslang, what accent do they use?
(19:03):
Who does it remind you of?And it's often a parent. It could
be a father, it could bea mother, could be a grandparent,
or could be a teacher. Butthat's identifying and learning that actually the negative
voice that's inside your head isn't evenyour own voice, it's a voice that
you've adopted to put yourself down.Is the beginning of starting to separate yourself
(19:25):
out from these unconscious toxic drip dripinto your mind to be able to make
some changes. Most of it happensbelow our conscious awareness. So bringing it
into conscious awareness means that every timeyou notice that you're saying to yourself that
same familiar oh my god, I'llnever amount to anything. I'll always be
(19:48):
rubbish, or whatever you're saying that'snegative, you can interrupt it. And
I teach people a whole different rayof techniques to interrupt the voice. One
of my favorites and there they loveit is the game show Noise. Whenever
you notice a BS sort coming intoyour head, it's rubbish. It's a
rubbish, uh, just saying toyourself. You can say it inside your
(20:11):
head or you can say it outloud, but it's a BS sort and
you can interrupt it and intervene withthe negative thinking. And well, I
would think that when you were workingwith some of the abuse or domestic violence
survivors that this was probably something thatyou know, you mentioned how we get
(20:33):
this from parents, teachers, andthings like that, but I would have
mentioned I would assume that many ofthe people that are in a verbally or
physically abusive situation, they probably havea whole bucket full of blue marbles.
They do, they do, butthe blue marbles are around not about being
the recipient of that of that anger, that violence that they experienceperience, but
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they will be making judgments about themselvesall the time, like why did I
stay or why did I go?Or why did I you know, why
did I get with this person?And they'll people will be using that to
beat themselves up, which will beharder blows than they probably ever experienced.
Our own negative judgments do us thegreatest damage. And being able to re
(21:21):
explore those and to really let themgo, to release them, because we
were only ever doing the best wecan do. It's not our fault,
Sally, How would you eye resilienceinto things like depression? You know,
when when somebody comes to you andsays, I'm depressed. You know,
that's that's why I'm coming to you. You know, how do you look
(21:45):
at that and at what point doyou realize that maybe a lot of this
comes from a lack of resilience.One of things I would do very early
on in our sessions is to timelineone's life. So we started from birth
and we take it all the wayup to the day when we meet.
And I explained that, you know, not really going to have any memories
(22:07):
of birth. But we're going tohave family stories, family legends, apocryphal
tales of what kind of baby youwere, sickly baby, an angry baby,
a sleepy baby, and families havestories all the time. So we've
got that on the timeline, orabout what kind of baby you were,
and then we do it milestone bymilestone, might be when you went to
nursery, or when you moved house, or when you went to college,
(22:30):
all of those things, and welook at how you were feeling. Were
you depressed then? Were you inbalance? How are you feeling about yourself?
What was happening in your life?What weight were you? What were
you drinking? Were you exercising?Were you in any choirs or you know,
hobbies, what were you doing?What your activities and often? And
(22:51):
then other unique things that get addedto the timeline. Sometimes it's trauma events
would be added to the timeline.How did that impact on one's sense of
well being and on depression? Sowe can see what we've done the timeline.
It takes about a whole session,about ninety minutes. We can see
when they felt that their life wasin balance and they were handling things very
(23:12):
well, and when they felt thattheir life was out of balance and they
weren't on top of things, andthey felt overwhelmed. And often it's tied
to events, but it's also tiedto many more subtle things as well.
For instance, often people were feelingbetter about themselves when they were going to
(23:32):
a weekly gym or dance class,or joining a choir and singing regularly with
other people, or running or seeingtheir friends, and then they moved away
and they can think, oh,actually, my depression correlates with me feeling
much more isolated, or when Igave up, or when my kids left
home, or when I got divorced, or when I got remarried, you
(23:52):
know, all of that stuff.These mental health is often a reflection of
all the external pressures or under andif we can see how it fits in,
we can put things back to rights. No, and yes, I
completely agree, and I was justnot. We're getting a message that's coming
in, and again I want tothank those that take the time to send
(24:17):
us in messages. Oftentimes I'll getmessages from people that send them in ahead
of time and say, you know, I'm going to be working in so
I won't be able to listen untillater. But we have one coming in
now that says what is your opinionas to how AI will affect resilience in
the future, And this is fromMark in New York. Hi, Mark,
(24:37):
The absolute solid gold standard of resilienceis human connection, and AI isn't
going to promote human connection for anyof us. And the fact that more
and more services are going to bepicked up by AI because of cost savings,
So you know you needs to beable to ring helplines and get a
(24:59):
human being. Now you're going toget an AI pretending to be a human
being is yet another step of separation. And I think it's going to help
us at all. I really don't. It's worrying. It's so interesting that
you chose an example of one ofmy more frustrating things is the concept of
help that when we're asking for help, it is something that you want a
(25:22):
human being for. And I findmyself, you know, whatever it may
be. But these lines where youcall in and you're getting a recording and
it's you know, what would youlike this, and I just I press
zero or whatever we're saying, andI go, they go, please say
what you want? I go,human being? Human being? Yeah,
representative, what word do you wantthat gets me a human being. But
(25:48):
it's terrifying to think that AI hasa role already in answering or at least
triaging people when they make contact abouttheir mental well being, right, and
they're desperate for human connection, right. And you bring up a great point
is it's taking us in the wrongdirection completely. You know, we're getting
less of this. So if ifwe have studies that are showing that,
(26:15):
you know that this next generation orwhatever is going to be even more removed
from human connection. And by theway, we're also going to put this
in to make it worse. Doesn'tmake sense? Yeah, yeah, And
also you see young people, it'sacross all the generations now on the subway,
on the underground in London. Youknow, they've got their headphones on.
(26:38):
They're not taking in anything around themin their environment. They've got headphones
on or the noise canceling headphones,even if they're not listen into music.
And then they're looking at their phones. So no one is part of reality
anymore frequently not part of reality.And then add in all the other AI
stuff, it's not going to begood for our mental well being. Well.
(27:00):
One of the things that I broughtup, and I think I brought
it up in the introduction because thefeeling that I got was, was a
book that's providing advice in a gentleyet perceptive manner. Share with us the
difference between that, which is whatI see as your way of doing things,
(27:21):
and what, at least when Iwas growing up and maybe also being
a male, was tough love,because you know, I grew up in
a you know, the whole idea, you're going to be a man,
you need tough love, and thisis the way to do it. It
was very aggressive. And what thefeeling I got from your book was if
(27:41):
you really want to make some positivegrowth in this area, try a gentle
yet perceptive manner. And that's thefeeling I got from the book, and
I really appreciate that. Thank you. And also the book has actionable steps
that you can take it to build. But what happens with tough Life is
that especially men, they learned tokeep quiet, they learned to keep strong,
(28:04):
and that's why we have such highsuicide rates and self harming rates that
we're amongst huge ways of the population, but particularly with men hiding me in
alcohol, hiding in class A drugs, you know, burying themselves with food.
There are ways of hiding down,putting down, swallowing down all of
their emotions. Men haven't been allowedto express their emotions, and it's worked
(28:26):
against women as well. But weneed our men to be empathetic, vulnerable,
in touch with their emotions, andthey've been denied it for generation of
generation. It's harmed all of us. Yeah, I couldn't agree more.
And one of the other things Ihad mentioned about, you know, as
far as you know, I feltthat the book really addressed people of all
(28:48):
ages. But in most situations atleast, My belief is, you know,
is that if you can catch themwhile you're young, you teach them
as young as possible. What Europeanis sort of the optimal stage where it's
easiest to learn or teach resilience techniquesfrom day one, really from babyhood onwards
(29:11):
ideally, but also I mean intherapeutic terms, I don't work with anyone
under the age of eleven. It'sjust very difficult to find that eleven year
old or younger than eleven have theemotional insights to be able to kind of
deal with the work. But it'saround eleven that the crisis point often happens
(29:33):
with children, and then it canget worse and they can get more oppositional
and more challenging around twelve, thirteenand fourteen. But you'll see the early
signs of it at eleven, andthat's when you need to bring them closer
to yourself as a family. Bringthem, bring them in, bring them
closer, don't push them away.But also I have not yet found any
(29:53):
benefit of having tech in households,you know, access to telephones, access
to iPads, computers for kids.It's not benign. It is not benign,
and it has its own agenda.So I've often gone into families and
being the bad cop who said thingslike you know what you're not going to
take. You're not going to bea lad to take your phone to bed
(30:15):
into your bedroom anymore. You're notgoing to have the smart TV in your
bedroom anymore. These are like talkingto a nine, ten, eleven year
old. It's like I'm going tobe Look, the parents want to be
their friend, and they won't putthe line in place, they won't hold
the boundary, so I go.I'm often brought in to be the bad
cop who will hold the boundary.Say actually, this isn't acceptable behavior anymore.
(30:37):
And then I spent a lot oftime getting the parents to be the
fixed point, be the adult inthe room. They're not your friends,
these are your children. These they'renot your friends. They need you to
be the adult in the room andto be the fixed point, not the
vague oh yeah, okay, youcan have it whatever. To be the
fixed point and saying no quite often, and it's unpopular, but that's what
(31:00):
we need. I am synergizing withyou so much. And I think I
may have even shared this on theair, but in speaking with one parent
some years ago, and as theywere explaining to me all of the reasons
why they couldn't do any of thethings that either I or or whoever they
(31:25):
were seeing, whatever professionals that theywere getting advice from, they were trying
to justify all of the reasons why. And then at one point in time
and they said, but you know, if they do that, they're not
going to like me and everything else. And I said stop, and they
went why, And I said,your child does not need a forty five
year old best friend. It needsa parent that knows how to parent.
(31:45):
And they were stunned because nobody hadever spoken to them like that. Yeah,
yeah, absolutely, I completely agreewith that. And when the parent
becomes a fixed point and holds theboundaries, the kids relax because they're no
longer under pressure. They haven't gotpeople snapped. The kids at school start
(32:05):
chatting them at eleven o'clock at nightbecause the phone isn't in their room anymore
and they can't respond. So thechildren can relax, the children can sleep.
It's there under immense pressure all ofthe time from these external factors,
and someone has to draw a safeboundary around them and say, actually,
we're not going to play. We'renot going to play. We're not going
to put you through this all typeresponsibility. And I'm saying no, yeah,
(32:30):
yeah. It actually reminds me ofa story of something very similar that
I did. We were providing likea behavioral consulting type of service for the
parents. It was a situation inwhich the professionals involved thought that although the
child should go to a specialized program, they also had abandonment issues, so
(32:52):
they wanted them to be worked withbut still kept in the home. And
one of the things that I hadsaid was, Okay, you know,
here's the the rules as it relatesto the computer. And like you said,
it you know, it doesn't gowith them in the room it is.
It stays in a common area andit's used. It's used, you
(33:13):
know, for homework or whatever.Because now we have schools that are sending
homework in by computer. So youcan't tell them, well, like you
can't use the computer, they haveto log into a site to be able
to do it. So but asI went through all of this and and
when it was violated by the bythe teenager, I just you know,
(33:34):
I showed up at the house andwe had tracking in the sense that we
knew exactly when people had logged on, and it had been logged on in
the middle of the night and actuallyhad had gone to a porn site.
And so I showed up and askedthe young person. I said, you
know, I've got this information.Here is this you? I said,
(33:54):
well, yeah, but you knowit's okay or whatever. And so I
just unplugged it up, took itand took it in my car, and
the child was stunned, you know. And it was a divorce family.
So the mother, the mother wastrying to stop me, and I said,
this was the rule you signed theagreement. They signed the agreement.
(34:16):
I'm taking this. And I gota call about twenty four hours later from
the father that said the mother boughthim another computer. Wow, And and
so I went back. I tookthe computer, I handed it. I
spoke to the father and I spoketo the mother and I said, I'm
(34:37):
just I'm letting you know, here'smy final bill. We're done. And
they went, well, no,you can't do that. And I said,
there's nothing that I can do.I said, if you're going to
continue to sabotage what it is we'retrying to do, we're not doing anybody
any good here. I said,all you're reinforcing to the child is is
that they don't have to do whateverit is that they say they're going to
(34:59):
do because you're not going to followthrough. And anyway, and we left.
That was it. It's like,and I said, you know where,
there's plenty of people that want ourhelp that are actually going to follow
through. And anyway, So mysynergy with you when you were saying that
was it brought back all of thesethoughts. Yes, and also, if
(35:21):
the child is too young to workwith or not doesn't want to work with
me, or whatever. You know, they don't have to. I get
to meet them and they can atleast get to decide whether they think we
can do productive work together, andthey go to commit to it. Then
I'll often work with the parents instead, because actually, if I can bring
clarity to the parents and to helpthe parents become the fixed point and to
(35:43):
have faith in their parenting and buildtheir intuition because you know, often parents
don't aren't intuitive either and the kidsdefinitely aren't. So build their intuition so
that they know what they need todo for the best will of the child.
Then that can be the benefits ofthat go into generationally then, So
(36:04):
that's another way to approach it withfamilies. Can't always work with the kids.
Yeah, yeah, And that makesperfect sense to me. And while
we're on this subject of these influencesnow, we're talking kind of about the
electronic influences. And when I dida little research and I checked with the
Pew Institute, which is one ofthe ones that I believe is not slanted
(36:27):
by political issues anyway. But anyway, a recent Pew Institute study showed that
sixty four percent of Americans believe thatthe media is affecting us in a negative
way by focusing on negativity and divisiveness. What do you think mainstream media and
social media's role in overall negativity hasaffected resilience in our society. It's undermined
(36:57):
resilience and it's also we had itin England this week with Princess Catherine and
the faked photograph. So we're alwayswe're always told to be have an awareness
of you know, are they areyou being scammed online? Or these are
the checks that you've got to make. You don't actually expect it to come
from Backingham Palace. So that whythat went under everyone's radar for a while
(37:19):
till the news agencies pulled the photograph, did a kill on the photograph that
someone adopted. I don't believe fora moment it was Catherine, but someone
adopted. Resilience needs reality based towork with, and when we're faced with
fantasy all of the time, orscams or lies or treachery, so that
(37:42):
it feels like shifting sand, it'sreally hard to get a firm foothold in
what you trust and don't trust.So it's very limiting access to stuff online
that their kids don't need other thanfor school is a really good Get them
outdoors, get them making vitamin Dyou, get them playing with others,
with their peers, get you know, be there, keep them safe and
(38:05):
all the rest of it. We'vehad this helicopter parenting and this closeted couple
of generations now where they've barely goneout, never been on public transport on
their own, and it's making themreally hyper anxious and not not at all
resilient. Yeah. I mentioned aboutSally your mission. What would you say
(38:29):
is your mission in writing this bookand what are the most important points that
you'd like that you'd like people tolearn from this. I think the takeaway
that I want people to have andto understand is that if your childhood wasn't
the ideal childhood that you would havewished for yourself, you can repair some
(38:52):
of that, some of the thingsthat you didn't have that you weren't able
to develop as an adult's and you'renot stuck. You're not stuck with self
sabotage and behavior, you're not stuckwith self doubt, you're not stuck with
having no working intuition. You canbuild and take actionable steps to change how
(39:12):
you think and feel about yourself andto start checking in with yourself and building
incrementally self belief and self trust.And it's revolutionary. I mean, ideally
we would have all of these thingsin childhood that we would face adulthood fully
equipped. And I know those peopleare out there. They're not my client
base. They don't come to me. Those people who had really great parenting
(39:37):
or had the bit of the verypositive voice in their head because of their
great parenting, they're out there livingtheir lives, living it large and having
a great time. They don't knockon my door. The people who knock
on my door had narcissistic parents,or absent parents through alcohol or drug use,
not through working parents, but justthrough emotional absence as well, or
(40:00):
helicopter parenting, or parents that reallyundermined their ability to stand on their own
two feet. So all of thosethings can be repaired, and there are
actionable steps that they can take todo that and make a difference for the
rest of their lives. For thoseFor those people that also kind of work
in in a similar industry or asimilar capacity, how do you keep that
(40:28):
from taking you down the rabbit hole? Because I think that that there's a
there's a risk that when when allwe see in our work is you know,
the times in which it's not working, how do you stay positive and
how do you keep your jar yourbowl full of the gold marbles when you
(40:52):
know when most of what you seebusiness wise are the people that are bringing
you the ones that are full ofblue marbles. Sure well, like all
therapists, I have supervision, butalso within session we laugh more than we
cry. That's absolute truth, becausethe work once we've done the narrative,
(41:13):
once we've done things like explore thetimeline. I often work with metaphors so
people don't have to disclose horrible thingsthat have happened to them unless they want
to, unless they feel that it'sa lot of their healing process. They
can use a metaphor like the bluedress or the wet Wednesday. Because people
already know what's happened to them.They absolutely remember it in the finest,
(41:34):
most accurate of detail. So oftenretelling it and some of the modalities out
there where you have to retell yourstory in forensic levels of detail can feel
re traumatizing. So the way Iwork is content free quite often, so
they don't have to go back throughtheir story unless they say, you know
what, I've never told my story. I really wanted to have someone on
(41:57):
the earth who knows exactly what happenedto me, and then I'll be that
person. They can tell me.The person that was the oldest that disclosed
her sexual abuse for the first timein her life. She was sixty eight.
She kept its secret for sixty eightyears, and she told her story,
and she and I listened and Ibore witness to her story. But
you know, everyone's needs are different, and it's an organic, customized kind
(42:22):
of program, like your work iswhat it's to work with where people are
at and to give them what theyneed. And often the techniques are taught.
The idea isn't to tie them intoa therapist. I'll teach them ways
of thinking, to teach them waysof testing their thoughts so that they can
stand independently be their own Ally,that's the thing. Well, Sally,
(42:46):
first, I just want to thankyou for all of the good work that
you've done. You've been making apositive impluence in the world. And I
think what a lot of people needto realize is is that you know,
for someone like Sally, you you'reworking in an office, and I think
that you realize that you're making apositive difference one at a time. She's
(43:06):
now taken the time to put abook out because I see it as someone
who wants to make a positive differenceon a much bigger scale. I think
you're doing that. Sally. Thankyou so much, Thank you very much
for having me. Thank you,and for anybody if they want to get
in touch with you. I knowthe book can be gotten it most anywhere,
(43:27):
but you know, what is thebest way of somebody now, Either
they're listening, they have some questions, or they just want to get in
touch with you, either for anappointment or maybe a better way to get
the book. Yeah. So mywebsite is called Working on the Body dot
com. So wwwworking on the Bodydot com. And I'm there all right,
(43:51):
yes. In fact, then theemail is Sally at working Onthebody dot
com. So I'm in London,but I work the world over, yes,
And that's actually the beauty. Buta lot of people don't realize the
beauty of therapy today, you know, is that you know with you know
zoom stream yard that we're on rightnow, or any of these things.
(44:12):
There's so many of them now thatthere's so many things we can do by
we can work with people anywhere inthe world, and I think it's it's
really opened things up in a verypositive way for us. All Right,
Well again, thank you so much, Thanks Sally so for everybody out there,
be good human beings and be withus again next week on Answers Network.
I'm your host, Alan Cardoza,And if you're watching or you're listening,
however it is that you're choosing todo it, we are Answers Network,
and we are here for you.Now. Our topic today is resilience.
And I'm going to start with astory because I read a story about someone
who was confused and frustrated that herchild's experience at camp, with all the
(00:27):
remarkable activities, gorgeous settings and kindpeople, could indeed be so negative their
child just wanted to go home.Well, this past summer, I heard
many similar reports from parents. Manyof their kids came home from camp early
or seriously considered it, and theystruggled with anxiety, relational difficulties, and
(00:51):
other emotional issues. I checked inwith the director of a popular summer camp,
and she confirmed that at her campmany other camps, more kids last
summer left or talked about leaving thanshe'd seen in her decades as a camp
director. When asked why she thoughtthis was happening, she replied one sentence,
(01:15):
a lack of resilience. Well,research has shown that many children they
wanted to leave because they felt tooanxious, that they were annoyed, they
felt excluded they felt emotionally bullied orsome said they just felt sad, which
I know that we used to callthat homesick, but the children described an
(01:40):
overall difficulty in getting along with cabinmates, navigating social situations, adjusting to
other people's wants and needs, andfiguring out things without their parents' help.
Well, today we're speaking with therapistSally Baker about her empowering new book,
The Getting of Resilien from the InsideOut Now. Based on extensive experience in
(02:04):
case studies from Sally's own therapeutic practice, this book provides gentle perceptive insight,
along with tried and tested self helptherapeutic tools, three additional online resources,
and the guidance needed to take thereader through the stages of negativity to self
empowerment now. Sally began her therapeutictraining in physical therapies working with women survivors
(02:30):
of sexual abuse and domestic violence.She trained in EFT, which I'm going
to ask her about a little lateron, and became an advanced level practitioner,
followed by clinical hypnotherapy certification and trainingin English modality, percussive suggestion techniques,
(02:53):
and so much more. She wasawarded the PSTEC Master Practitioner status into
THOUB fourteen. She is the coauthor with Liz Hogan, of Seven Simple
Steps to Stop Emotional Leading and Howto Feel Differently about Food. Her words
are often featured in publications such asGrazia, GQ, The Independent, and
(03:15):
The Telegram and so many more.Sally, welcome to Answers Network. Thank
you, Alan, that was quiteremusful. Thank you. Well. You
know, I for those that haven'tlistened before and don't know, you know,
my background is is I'm an internationaldetective. So research is my thing.
(03:38):
So for everybody out there, that'swhat I came up with when I
did the research, which is probablyexactly why my producer wanted to get you
on the show. Lovely, thankyou. So let's start with the simplest
question of all. What exactly isresilience. It's not even a very simple
(03:58):
question. I was joking. Iwas joking when I said that, I
know it's not simple at all.Resilience. I mean, people talk about
it being bounced back, some bountsforward, some talk about it being an
inner strength. I mean for me, it feels like it's around self esteem,
self worth, self belief and havingthe trust in yourself that you can
(04:24):
have an impact in your own life, and that starts in childhood, in
a really well rounded childhood. Yeah, So all those kids that are unhappy
at camp, I'm wondering what's happeningin the eleven months of the year when
they're not at camp. What's happeningin the dynamic at home? You know,
are they being tested, are theybeing pushed, are they being allowed
(04:45):
to make mistakes? Are they beingsupported to, you know, go out
and broaden their horizons? Because ifa child is helicopter parented at home,
micro managed at home, and thenhe's suddenly thrown into camp, it's going
to be huge challenging. Well,I think that's a great point and it's
one that I also believe in.Do you think that part of this could
(05:09):
also be that we're we're now conductingthis type of research or the research that
I was finding some which was otherpeople's research, is coming right after COVID.
COVID has had a tremendous effect onour young people especially, and it's
almost as if we're now as ageneration being gas lit by all our governments
(05:32):
because no one's talking about it anymore. We have huge amounts of children refusing
to go to school or only managingto go in half of the week because
of heightened anxiety. Politicians here aresaying that young people, the millennials,
are using mental health mental ill health, as an excuse not to work,
which I find completely unbelievable because everygeneration of young person has always pushed themselves
(05:58):
to the front, to new frontiers, to leave home, to set themselves
up, to establish themselves. Andthis generation has been really undermined by the
pandemic and what we've all gone through, and we haven't had the support to
help be glad. Yeah, Iwas going to say, it's interesting that
the way in which the politicians havephrased that, you know, in the
(06:23):
sense that you know, one ofthe things that we're supposed to be teaching
our young people is to take responsibility, and yet you have politicians that are
doing the exact opposite, and they'resaying, no, now, this is
this is the young people's fault.Well, let's take some responsibility about the
situation you put them in. Let'spunch down and not lift up. That's
(06:45):
what that's what seems to be happening. Politicians are punching down and blaming people
who are mentally unwell, hyper anxious, socially anxious, depressed. No one
wants to be in that state.That's a really unhappy state to be in.
Yep, it's very wrong. Yeah, and actually I'm going to take
that. I like that punching downversus raising up. Yeah, they should
(07:08):
be elevating us. They should begiving the young people the support they need.
And in England when everyone went backoff, when the kids went back
to schools after the pandemic, thegovernment said, give them more maths lessons,
they need to get catch up ontheir maths. But actually they needed,
you know, room to explore whatthey've been through. They need to
just tell stories. They needed towrite, to draw, to create and
(07:29):
to play, and none of thatwas given to them. Not good well,
which again is why I think yourbook is so perfectly timed, you
know, in the sense because oneof the things that I liked is I
was going through it was that,you know. The book again for everybody
out there, is called The Gettingof Resilience. It teaches readers about how
resilience affects various life situations, butit includes like relationships with families, you
(07:56):
know, learn strategies, breaking ofcycles, connecting to our intuition, cultivating
rituals, and so much more.So, can you give us, give
us an example of, you know, maybe some of the types of advice
that is found in the family chapter, that is, maybe some of your
favorites. Okay, So looking atfamily structure, family structures that are all
(08:22):
wide and various, but dysfunctional familieshave very many things in common too.
So children build resilience ideally in familieswhere they're loved, honored and adored,
where they're heard, where they feelnot nurtured and loved. And it's possible,
even in really high functioning families notto be able to give that to
(08:43):
their children because the parents might bedoing something like putting huge expectations on the
children to achieve academically or to achievein sport or in music or whatever the
niches. And when that happens andthe child fails, the parents their disapproval,
and it's that disapproval to a growingchild. It can be really damning
(09:05):
and can be really undermining. Soit's what we should be offering these unconditional
positive regard to our kids as longas they're doing the best they can and
we encourage them to do the bestthey can. If they fail or they
fall short, we have to stillexpress to them that we love them and
accept them. You know, theycan't all be geniuses, they can't all
(09:26):
be Olympic athletes. But as longas we're encouraging our children to do their
best, to explore their potential andto love them and to pick them up
again if they fail, then we'redoing good bye them. That's what we
need to be doing. I lovethat. And again, as you said,
you know, raise them up,you know, raise them up because
no one else can like the parentscan, and no one can demolish a
(09:50):
child like a parent can. AndI've seen parents be able to do that
with a raised eyebrow. This isnot about beating your children to submission.
Children very early ought to learn,are very early to learn when that disapproved
of, when they've let their parentsdown, and it goes right to their
soul. It does, it reallydoes. Yeah, you know, I
(10:11):
want I want to kind of touchon you know, when I talked a
little bit about your background, andagain, as I was researching and I
didn't know that you know that youhad had worked with women who had survived
horrible abuses. Yeah, and reallyhorrendous situations. And what it made me
think of is one of the areasthat I at one time and I can
(10:35):
say specialized in, but I dida lot of work in. It had
to do with rescuing primarily women outof human trafficking. And one of the
most horrific statistics was that if youdidn't retrain them in something that that they
(10:58):
felt good about. Other words,they had to get retrained into doing something
that made them feel good about themselves. And if you didn't do that,
there was a ridiculously high percentage thatwent right back into what they'd just been
rescued out of. And it mademe think of the missing component was resilience.
(11:24):
So share a little bit about youryears at that time and how did
this help you understand the importance ofresilience as being the key factor for their
survival. Well, I'm an adultsurvivor of childhood sexual abuse myself from when
I was seven and eight, anda rape survivor. But that's why I
had skin in the game, andthat's why I wanted to work with women
(11:46):
who had suffered. And I didthis through massage. I trained as a
Swedish massus. What was my firstmodality, and the women that came to
me would say things like they've neverever be in touch with kindness. So
I was vaschaging women in their fiftiesand sixties who had just had a complete
(12:07):
life of abuse and violence perpetrated againstthem, and then they would break down
understandably, and then I felt thatI couldn't at those early stages of my
career in this work. I wasn'table to hold a safe space for them
that bear witness and stay with them. So that's why I learned my first
modality, which was EFT emotional freedomtechnique, which translates very well to physical
(12:31):
work because it's this kind of tapping. It's an American modality and it's been
around for about thirty five forty yearsnow. So I would ask the women
if it was okay if I couldtap on them and we could just voice
the feelings that they were feeling,and then all the sorrow would and their
anguish would just come from them andthey'd have some you know, a release
(12:54):
from that. We hold it inour body, We hold all those things
in our everything that happens to us. So yeah, but it's interesting about
women who have been trafficked returning toold ways because that's all they knew.
And I use a music box inmy work, and lots of people have
(13:15):
had music boxes when they were kids, and I talk about how you get
wound up. You know, youget wound up, something happens to you.
It already starts leaking the noise.And when you get wound up,
the music box gets wound up.It can only play one tune, and
it can only do one dance.And I say, you know, what
tune are you playing? What habitsare you on repeat? And what's your
(13:43):
dance look like? And then wedo the and she finds it hard to
stop sometimes not doing that. Sopeople on repeat pattern people who get triggered
up and go straight into repeating patternsof behavior. And a lot of my
work is around noticing those patterns ofbehavior and then breaking them. But again,
(14:07):
it's not enough to break. Youhave to replace with another action.
And that's and that's the part thatI love, is the fact of taking
it that next step. Because again, you know, as I was,
you know, learning more about youand your book, and I was realizing
that that seemed to be one ofthe biggest components and where maybe things had
(14:28):
failed in some of the you know, some of the past situations that I'd
been involved in. Was that replacingand again, I mean replacing with love,
replacing with and again I think resilience, replacing it with something that allows
them to, you know, tomove forward. And I just think it's
beautiful, have a sense of purpose. People need a sense of purpose,
(14:52):
and so they have to find somethingthat will give them that or they will
stink back. Yeah, now,what have you seen that seems to be
some of the biggest blocks to peopleacquiring resilience. So again, I always
as I'm thinking about the show,and I'm thinking that there's people out there,
(15:13):
and in some cases, I'm thinking, there's somebody who's really resonating with
what it is we're talking about.And if you can mention some of the
things that you found that were thebiggest blocks that by getting past that,
they were able to get to wherethey needed to be. What are some
(15:35):
of those So somebody out there,if we touch just one person and they
go that's what I'm doing, Okay, let's definitely try and do that.
So when I'm talking to my clients, I always tell them that no amount
of therapy will stop bad things happening. But what is more critical are the
judgments we make about ourselves about thething, the bad thing that's happened to
(15:56):
us. And the judgments that wemake seem to be more injury than the
event that we've survived. No,So I talk about people having the sense
of self worth is determined. Psychologistshave worked out by how you think and
feel about yourself over the preceding fourteendays. So if someone stops you in
(16:18):
the street and said, oh,hi, Hi, Alan, how are
you doing, and you go,wow, you know, I've had a
bit of a tough time or I'mhaving a great time, You're probably taking
a snapshot of the last two weeks. You're not going all the way back
to your childhood. You're not going, you know, all the way back
through decades. You're just thinking asnapshot of the last two weeks. So
I asked my clients to imagine thattwo weeks ago, I sent them through
(16:41):
the mail this glass fishbowl, andit has a whole bunch of marbles in
it, and the marbles are goldmarbles, and they are blue marbles.
So I asked them to think aboutevery time they've had a life affirming thought
about themselves, where they've treated themselveswith kindness, where they've thought of themselves
(17:06):
positively, they drop in a goldmarble. And then every time they have
a negati they've made a negative judgmentabout themselves, every time they've had something
self deprecating, they've put themselves down, or they've been unkind to themselves,
they drop in a blue marble.And then we get them to look at
their bowl in their in their mind'sie if I don't, if I don't
(17:29):
have the bowl in front of them, and to assess on a hundred marbles,
what will be the present percentage ofgold marbles to blue marbles. And
I've worked with women, a womanwho was head of an international bank.
She had ninety eight percent blue marblesand two gold. So it's not about
(17:49):
wealth, it's not about how theworld sees you. It's really about how
you see and judge yourself. Soany idea allan where you would be,
you'll probably be pretty good. ButI work at that so and I would
like to think that I'm probably youknow, more like you know a sixty
(18:14):
forty seventy thirty to the past sixtythirty seventy forty there's still work to be
done. Yes, if someone hereis very high on the on the blue
marbles, very high on negative thoughts, it doesn't take much from the world
to tip you over into real depressionand anxiety. So it's really important to
you know, counter to personally findout what the marble balance is and then
(18:40):
start working on it, actively workingon it to improve. The gold marbles
and a lot of the blue marblescome from our childhood. The blue marbles
often aren't even The critical voice isn'teven our voice. It's someone else's voice.
So when I get them to thinkabout the blue marbles, who is
criticizing you? What idiom, whatslang, what accent do they use?
(19:03):
Who does it remind you of?And it's often a parent. It could
be a father, it could bea mother, could be a grandparent,
or could be a teacher. Butthat's identifying and learning that actually the negative
voice that's inside your head isn't evenyour own voice, it's a voice that
you've adopted to put yourself down.Is the beginning of starting to separate yourself
(19:25):
out from these unconscious toxic drip dripinto your mind to be able to make
some changes. Most of it happensbelow our conscious awareness. So bringing it
into conscious awareness means that every timeyou notice that you're saying to yourself that
same familiar oh my god, I'llnever amount to anything. I'll always be
(19:48):
rubbish, or whatever you're saying that'snegative, you can interrupt it. And
I teach people a whole different rayof techniques to interrupt the voice. One
of my favorites and there they loveit is the game show Noise. Whenever
you notice a BS sort coming intoyour head, it's rubbish. It's a
rubbish, uh, just saying toyourself. You can say it inside your
(20:11):
head or you can say it outloud, but it's a BS sort and
you can interrupt it and intervene withthe negative thinking. And well, I
would think that when you were workingwith some of the abuse or domestic violence
survivors that this was probably something thatyou know, you mentioned how we get
(20:33):
this from parents, teachers, andthings like that, but I would have
mentioned I would assume that many ofthe people that are in a verbally or
physically abusive situation, they probably havea whole bucket full of blue marbles.
They do, they do, butthe blue marbles are around not about being
the recipient of that of that anger, that violence that they experienceperience, but
(21:00):
they will be making judgments about themselvesall the time, like why did I
stay or why did I go?Or why did I you know, why
did I get with this person?And they'll people will be using that to
beat themselves up, which will beharder blows than they probably ever experienced.
Our own negative judgments do us thegreatest damage. And being able to re
(21:21):
explore those and to really let themgo, to release them, because we
were only ever doing the best wecan do. It's not our fault,
Sally, How would you eye resilienceinto things like depression? You know,
when when somebody comes to you andsays, I'm depressed. You know,
that's that's why I'm coming to you. You know, how do you look
(21:45):
at that and at what point doyou realize that maybe a lot of this
comes from a lack of resilience.One of things I would do very early
on in our sessions is to timelineone's life. So we started from birth
and we take it all the wayup to the day when we meet.
And I explained that, you know, not really going to have any memories
(22:07):
of birth. But we're going tohave family stories, family legends, apocryphal
tales of what kind of baby youwere, sickly baby, an angry baby,
a sleepy baby, and families havestories all the time. So we've
got that on the timeline, orabout what kind of baby you were,
and then we do it milestone bymilestone, might be when you went to
nursery, or when you moved house, or when you went to college,
(22:30):
all of those things, and welook at how you were feeling. Were
you depressed then? Were you inbalance? How are you feeling about yourself?
What was happening in your life?What weight were you? What were
you drinking? Were you exercising?Were you in any choirs or you know,
hobbies, what were you doing?What your activities and often? And
(22:51):
then other unique things that get addedto the timeline. Sometimes it's trauma events
would be added to the timeline.How did that impact on one's sense of
well being and on depression? Sowe can see what we've done the timeline.
It takes about a whole session,about ninety minutes. We can see
when they felt that their life wasin balance and they were handling things very
(23:12):
well, and when they felt thattheir life was out of balance and they
weren't on top of things, andthey felt overwhelmed. And often it's tied
to events, but it's also tiedto many more subtle things as well.
For instance, often people were feelingbetter about themselves when they were going to
(23:32):
a weekly gym or dance class,or joining a choir and singing regularly with
other people, or running or seeingtheir friends, and then they moved away
and they can think, oh,actually, my depression correlates with me feeling
much more isolated, or when Igave up, or when my kids left
home, or when I got divorced, or when I got remarried, you
(23:52):
know, all of that stuff.These mental health is often a reflection of
all the external pressures or under andif we can see how it fits in,
we can put things back to rights. No, and yes, I
completely agree, and I was justnot. We're getting a message that's coming
in, and again I want tothank those that take the time to send
(24:17):
us in messages. Oftentimes I'll getmessages from people that send them in ahead
of time and say, you know, I'm going to be working in so
I won't be able to listen untillater. But we have one coming in
now that says what is your opinionas to how AI will affect resilience in
the future, And this is fromMark in New York. Hi, Mark,
(24:37):
The absolute solid gold standard of resilienceis human connection, and AI isn't
going to promote human connection for anyof us. And the fact that more
and more services are going to bepicked up by AI because of cost savings,
So you know you needs to beable to ring helplines and get a
(24:59):
human being. Now you're going toget an AI pretending to be a human
being is yet another step of separation. And I think it's going to help
us at all. I really don't. It's worrying. It's so interesting that
you chose an example of one ofmy more frustrating things is the concept of
help that when we're asking for help, it is something that you want a
(25:22):
human being for. And I findmyself, you know, whatever it may
be. But these lines where youcall in and you're getting a recording and
it's you know, what would youlike this, and I just I press
zero or whatever we're saying, andI go, they go, please say
what you want? I go,human being? Human being? Yeah,
representative, what word do you wantthat gets me a human being. But
(25:48):
it's terrifying to think that AI hasa role already in answering or at least
triaging people when they make contact abouttheir mental well being, right, and
they're desperate for human connection, right. And you bring up a great point
is it's taking us in the wrongdirection completely. You know, we're getting
less of this. So if ifwe have studies that are showing that,
(26:15):
you know that this next generation orwhatever is going to be even more removed
from human connection. And by theway, we're also going to put this
in to make it worse. Doesn'tmake sense? Yeah, yeah, And
also you see young people, it'sacross all the generations now on the subway,
on the underground in London. Youknow, they've got their headphones on.
(26:38):
They're not taking in anything around themin their environment. They've got headphones
on or the noise canceling headphones,even if they're not listen into music.
And then they're looking at their phones. So no one is part of reality
anymore frequently not part of reality.And then add in all the other AI
stuff, it's not going to begood for our mental well being. Well.
(27:00):
One of the things that I broughtup, and I think I brought
it up in the introduction because thefeeling that I got was, was a
book that's providing advice in a gentleyet perceptive manner. Share with us the
difference between that, which is whatI see as your way of doing things,
(27:21):
and what, at least when Iwas growing up and maybe also being
a male, was tough love,because you know, I grew up in
a you know, the whole idea, you're going to be a man,
you need tough love, and thisis the way to do it. It
was very aggressive. And what thefeeling I got from your book was if
(27:41):
you really want to make some positivegrowth in this area, try a gentle
yet perceptive manner. And that's thefeeling I got from the book, and
I really appreciate that. Thank you. And also the book has actionable steps
that you can take it to build. But what happens with tough Life is
that especially men, they learned tokeep quiet, they learned to keep strong,
(28:04):
and that's why we have such highsuicide rates and self harming rates that
we're amongst huge ways of the population, but particularly with men hiding me in
alcohol, hiding in class A drugs, you know, burying themselves with food.
There are ways of hiding down,putting down, swallowing down all of
their emotions. Men haven't been allowedto express their emotions, and it's worked
(28:26):
against women as well. But weneed our men to be empathetic, vulnerable,
in touch with their emotions, andthey've been denied it for generation of
generation. It's harmed all of us. Yeah, I couldn't agree more.
And one of the other things Ihad mentioned about, you know, as
far as you know, I feltthat the book really addressed people of all
(28:48):
ages. But in most situations atleast, My belief is, you know,
is that if you can catch themwhile you're young, you teach them
as young as possible. What Europeanis sort of the optimal stage where it's
easiest to learn or teach resilience techniquesfrom day one, really from babyhood onwards
(29:11):
ideally, but also I mean intherapeutic terms, I don't work with anyone
under the age of eleven. It'sjust very difficult to find that eleven year
old or younger than eleven have theemotional insights to be able to kind of
deal with the work. But it'saround eleven that the crisis point often happens
(29:33):
with children, and then it canget worse and they can get more oppositional
and more challenging around twelve, thirteenand fourteen. But you'll see the early
signs of it at eleven, andthat's when you need to bring them closer
to yourself as a family. Bringthem, bring them in, bring them
closer, don't push them away.But also I have not yet found any
(29:53):
benefit of having tech in households,you know, access to telephones, access
to iPads, computers for kids.It's not benign. It is not benign,
and it has its own agenda.So I've often gone into families and
being the bad cop who said thingslike you know what you're not going to
take. You're not going to bea lad to take your phone to bed
(30:15):
into your bedroom anymore. You're notgoing to have the smart TV in your
bedroom anymore. These are like talkingto a nine, ten, eleven year
old. It's like I'm going tobe Look, the parents want to be
their friend, and they won't putthe line in place, they won't hold
the boundary, so I go.I'm often brought in to be the bad
cop who will hold the boundary.Say actually, this isn't acceptable behavior anymore.
(30:37):
And then I spent a lot oftime getting the parents to be the
fixed point, be the adult inthe room. They're not your friends,
these are your children. These they'renot your friends. They need you to
be the adult in the room andto be the fixed point, not the
vague oh yeah, okay, youcan have it whatever. To be the
fixed point and saying no quite often, and it's unpopular, but that's what
(31:00):
we need. I am synergizing withyou so much. And I think I
may have even shared this on theair, but in speaking with one parent
some years ago, and as theywere explaining to me all of the reasons
why they couldn't do any of thethings that either I or or whoever they
(31:25):
were seeing, whatever professionals that theywere getting advice from, they were trying
to justify all of the reasons why. And then at one point in time
and they said, but you know, if they do that, they're not
going to like me and everything else. And I said stop, and they
went why, And I said,your child does not need a forty five
year old best friend. It needsa parent that knows how to parent.
(31:45):
And they were stunned because nobody hadever spoken to them like that. Yeah,
yeah, absolutely, I completely agreewith that. And when the parent
becomes a fixed point and holds theboundaries, the kids relax because they're no
longer under pressure. They haven't gotpeople snapped. The kids at school start
(32:05):
chatting them at eleven o'clock at nightbecause the phone isn't in their room anymore
and they can't respond. So thechildren can relax, the children can sleep.
It's there under immense pressure all ofthe time from these external factors,
and someone has to draw a safeboundary around them and say, actually,
we're not going to play. We'renot going to play. We're not going
to put you through this all typeresponsibility. And I'm saying no, yeah,
(32:30):
yeah. It actually reminds me ofa story of something very similar that
I did. We were providing likea behavioral consulting type of service for the
parents. It was a situation inwhich the professionals involved thought that although the
child should go to a specialized program, they also had abandonment issues, so
(32:52):
they wanted them to be worked withbut still kept in the home. And
one of the things that I hadsaid was, Okay, you know,
here's the the rules as it relatesto the computer. And like you said,
it you know, it doesn't gowith them in the room it is.
It stays in a common area andit's used. It's used, you
(33:13):
know, for homework or whatever.Because now we have schools that are sending
homework in by computer. So youcan't tell them, well, like you
can't use the computer, they haveto log into a site to be able
to do it. So but asI went through all of this and and
when it was violated by the bythe teenager, I just you know,
(33:34):
I showed up at the house andwe had tracking in the sense that we
knew exactly when people had logged on, and it had been logged on in
the middle of the night and actuallyhad had gone to a porn site.
And so I showed up and askedthe young person. I said, you
know, I've got this information.Here is this you? I said,
(33:54):
well, yeah, but you knowit's okay or whatever. And so I
just unplugged it up, took itand took it in my car, and
the child was stunned, you know. And it was a divorce family.
So the mother, the mother wastrying to stop me, and I said,
this was the rule you signed theagreement. They signed the agreement.
(34:16):
I'm taking this. And I gota call about twenty four hours later from
the father that said the mother boughthim another computer. Wow, And and
so I went back. I tookthe computer, I handed it. I
spoke to the father and I spoketo the mother and I said, I'm
(34:37):
just I'm letting you know, here'smy final bill. We're done. And
they went, well, no,you can't do that. And I said,
there's nothing that I can do.I said, if you're going to
continue to sabotage what it is we'retrying to do, we're not doing anybody
any good here. I said,all you're reinforcing to the child is is
that they don't have to do whateverit is that they say they're going to
(34:59):
do because you're not going to followthrough. And anyway, and we left.
That was it. It's like,and I said, you know where,
there's plenty of people that want ourhelp that are actually going to follow
through. And anyway, So mysynergy with you when you were saying that
was it brought back all of thesethoughts. Yes, and also, if
(35:21):
the child is too young to workwith or not doesn't want to work with
me, or whatever. You know, they don't have to. I get
to meet them and they can atleast get to decide whether they think we
can do productive work together, andthey go to commit to it. Then
I'll often work with the parents instead, because actually, if I can bring
clarity to the parents and to helpthe parents become the fixed point and to
(35:43):
have faith in their parenting and buildtheir intuition because you know, often parents
don't aren't intuitive either and the kidsdefinitely aren't. So build their intuition so
that they know what they need todo for the best will of the child.
Then that can be the benefits ofthat go into generationally then, So
(36:04):
that's another way to approach it withfamilies. Can't always work with the kids.
Yeah, yeah, And that makesperfect sense to me. And while
we're on this subject of these influencesnow, we're talking kind of about the
electronic influences. And when I dida little research and I checked with the
Pew Institute, which is one ofthe ones that I believe is not slanted
(36:27):
by political issues anyway. But anyway, a recent Pew Institute study showed that
sixty four percent of Americans believe thatthe media is affecting us in a negative
way by focusing on negativity and divisiveness. What do you think mainstream media and
social media's role in overall negativity hasaffected resilience in our society. It's undermined
(36:57):
resilience and it's also we had itin England this week with Princess Catherine and
the faked photograph. So we're alwayswe're always told to be have an awareness
of you know, are they areyou being scammed online? Or these are
the checks that you've got to make. You don't actually expect it to come
from Backingham Palace. So that whythat went under everyone's radar for a while
(37:19):
till the news agencies pulled the photograph, did a kill on the photograph that
someone adopted. I don't believe fora moment it was Catherine, but someone
adopted. Resilience needs reality based towork with, and when we're faced with
fantasy all of the time, orscams or lies or treachery, so that
(37:42):
it feels like shifting sand, it'sreally hard to get a firm foothold in
what you trust and don't trust.So it's very limiting access to stuff online
that their kids don't need other thanfor school is a really good Get them
outdoors, get them making vitamin Dyou, get them playing with others,
with their peers, get you know, be there, keep them safe and
(38:05):
all the rest of it. We'vehad this helicopter parenting and this closeted couple
of generations now where they've barely goneout, never been on public transport on
their own, and it's making themreally hyper anxious and not not at all
resilient. Yeah. I mentioned aboutSally your mission. What would you say
(38:29):
is your mission in writing this bookand what are the most important points that
you'd like that you'd like people tolearn from this. I think the takeaway
that I want people to have andto understand is that if your childhood wasn't
the ideal childhood that you would havewished for yourself, you can repair some
(38:52):
of that, some of the thingsthat you didn't have that you weren't able
to develop as an adult's and you'renot stuck. You're not stuck with self
sabotage and behavior, you're not stuckwith self doubt, you're not stuck with
having no working intuition. You canbuild and take actionable steps to change how
(39:12):
you think and feel about yourself andto start checking in with yourself and building
incrementally self belief and self trust.And it's revolutionary. I mean, ideally
we would have all of these thingsin childhood that we would face adulthood fully
equipped. And I know those peopleare out there. They're not my client
base. They don't come to me. Those people who had really great parenting
(39:37):
or had the bit of the verypositive voice in their head because of their
great parenting, they're out there livingtheir lives, living it large and having
a great time. They don't knockon my door. The people who knock
on my door had narcissistic parents,or absent parents through alcohol or drug use,
not through working parents, but justthrough emotional absence as well, or
(40:00):
helicopter parenting, or parents that reallyundermined their ability to stand on their own
two feet. So all of thosethings can be repaired, and there are
actionable steps that they can take todo that and make a difference for the
rest of their lives. For thoseFor those people that also kind of work
in in a similar industry or asimilar capacity, how do you keep that
(40:28):
from taking you down the rabbit hole? Because I think that that there's a
there's a risk that when when allwe see in our work is you know,
the times in which it's not working, how do you stay positive and
how do you keep your jar yourbowl full of the gold marbles when you
(40:52):
know when most of what you seebusiness wise are the people that are bringing
you the ones that are full ofblue marbles. Sure well, like all
therapists, I have supervision, butalso within session we laugh more than we
cry. That's absolute truth, becausethe work once we've done the narrative,
(41:13):
once we've done things like explore thetimeline. I often work with metaphors so
people don't have to disclose horrible thingsthat have happened to them unless they want
to, unless they feel that it'sa lot of their healing process. They
can use a metaphor like the bluedress or the wet Wednesday. Because people
already know what's happened to them.They absolutely remember it in the finest,
(41:34):
most accurate of detail. So oftenretelling it and some of the modalities out
there where you have to retell yourstory in forensic levels of detail can feel
re traumatizing. So the way Iwork is content free quite often, so
they don't have to go back throughtheir story unless they say, you know
what, I've never told my story. I really wanted to have someone on
(41:57):
the earth who knows exactly what happenedto me, and then I'll be that
person. They can tell me.The person that was the oldest that disclosed
her sexual abuse for the first timein her life. She was sixty eight.
She kept its secret for sixty eightyears, and she told her story,
and she and I listened and Ibore witness to her story. But
you know, everyone's needs are different, and it's an organic, customized kind
(42:22):
of program, like your work iswhat it's to work with where people are
at and to give them what theyneed. And often the techniques are taught.
The idea isn't to tie them intoa therapist. I'll teach them ways
of thinking, to teach them waysof testing their thoughts so that they can
stand independently be their own Ally,that's the thing. Well, Sally,
(42:46):
first, I just want to thankyou for all of the good work that
you've done. You've been making apositive impluence in the world. And I
think what a lot of people needto realize is is that you know,
for someone like Sally, you you'reworking in an office, and I think
that you realize that you're making apositive difference one at a time. She's
(43:06):
now taken the time to put abook out because I see it as someone
who wants to make a positive differenceon a much bigger scale. I think
you're doing that. Sally. Thankyou so much, Thank you very much
for having me. Thank you,and for anybody if they want to get
in touch with you. I knowthe book can be gotten it most anywhere,
(43:27):
but you know, what is thebest way of somebody now, Either
they're listening, they have some questions, or they just want to get in
touch with you, either for anappointment or maybe a better way to get
the book. Yeah. So mywebsite is called Working on the Body dot
com. So wwwworking on the Bodydot com. And I'm there all right,
(43:51):
yes. In fact, then theemail is Sally at working Onthebody dot
com. So I'm in London,but I work the world over, yes,
And that's actually the beauty. Buta lot of people don't realize the
beauty of therapy today, you know, is that you know with you know
zoom stream yard that we're on rightnow, or any of these things.
(44:12):
There's so many of them now thatthere's so many things we can do by
we can work with people anywhere inthe world, and I think it's it's
really opened things up in a verypositive way for us. All Right,
Well again, thank you so much, Thanks Sally so for everybody out there,
be good human beings and be withus again next week on Answers Network.
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