The Dignity of Suffering

One of the dangers in families is that we tend to approach things with the glass half-empty. We often want our children to be MORE motivated or MORE focused, or for them to try HARDER. What could be more disheartening than somebody approaching you and constantly undervaluing what you are doing. Imagine if a friend was always seeing you in that light. We need to take a pause and not assume the worst with our children.

What I have learned about the human nervous system and the brain is that these subtle communications are very important.

For example, I was taking my son to camp who already had quite a busy summer, having been away twice on his own and been to various camps. He had said he was tired but we got up anyway, left the house, and we were on the subway together. He wasn't protesting nor asking to go home. I could just tell that he was tired. Then just before we got to the entrance, I turned to him and asked if he wanted to go home instead. All of a sudden, he perked up. There was an immediate shift in him. His whole demeanor changed and he started telling stories.

For a moment there, it felt like it was a burden having paid for the camp, packed all his snacks for the day, and gotten all the way there. But at some point, once it sat long enough with me, I knew that the higher value there had nothing to do with the wasted time packing his bag or that we had gone all the way to the camp. The highest value was for me to be able to come to my senses and listen to his subtle communications.

Today, I loosely focus on parenting. But more than that, I'd like us to zero in and look at the process of repair. There is a hierarchy in parenting that is very different from the horizontality that exists in adult loving relationships. In adult loving relationships, there's an equality there of taking care of each other. But when it comes to children, that shifts dramatically.

As parents, there are times when we feel disappointed if our children are not fitting the vision we have for them. There's this sense of disorientation when our child doesn't live up to how we have imagined them and what we have cultivated for many years. That's out of love, of course, all of our energies supporting our children's likes and dislikes and encouraging them to do things is because we want them to succeed. But we also need to allow the burgeoning of the child's personality and desires. If there isn't any discretion between the parents' frustration and disappointments versus the prerogative of the child, that's where things can get really messy.

Ultimately, we want to create that space for our children to become who they want to be, and not what we think they should be. We don't want our children to betray themselves in the service of others. Instead, we have to instill a soft, delicate, responsive, flexible relationship with the child's instincts.

Show Highlights:

• The concept of optimal frustration
• Donald Winnicott's notion of the false self
• The hierarchy in parenting and what the work of parenting really is
• Why the movie Inside Out is an oversimplification and why that's important
• Why we tend to act in more primitive ways
• What the phrase "somebody has your back" implies
• The concept of the "shit sandwich"
• What it means to be narcissistically attached to a child

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If you really enjoyed this episode, we've created a PDF that has all of the key information for you from the episode. Just go to the episode page at https://mitchellsmolkin.com/podcast to download it.

Supporting Resources:

https://mitchellsmolkin.com/

Mitchell Smolkin is a sought-after clinician, speaker, and author. For media and interview requests please contact his publicist Randy Phipps at [email protected]. For all other inquiries, please send mail to [email protected].

Episode Credits

If you like this podcast and are thinking of creating your own, consider talking to my producer, Danny Ozment.

He helps thought leaders, influencers, executives, HR professionals, recruiters, lawyers, realtors, bloggers, coaches, and authors create, launch, and produce podcasts that grow their business and impact the world.

Find out more at https://emeraldcitypro.com

I have the good fortune of speaking with my colleague and friend today, Dr. Erica Berman, who developed a specialty of working with couples who are going through infertility treatment.

Even if this isn't your reality, the subject applies to almost any relationship, as it really highlights the challenges couples can face. When dealing with something as involved as this process, it can affect all aspects of a couple's life, including schedule, finances, sex lives, communication, social life, physical health, family, and the list goes on.

The reason this can apply to all of our relationships is that it is an example of a perfect storm of demands on the attachment bandwidth. There are, of course, other factors involved in a human relationship. One of the gifts of my conversation with Erica is that she zeroes in on some of the specific challenges that couples need to consider when going through this process.

The infertility treatment process is something really hard for others to understand so it's important to talk about it and to walk around in the complexity of it, and bring to light the normal and understandable ways that this confounds relationships that can often bring up a lot of fear and confusion. These challenges that creep up in our lives put our models of relationship and self to the test. Not only should we expect them, but we should also treat them as part and parcel of the maturational process.

I wanted to do this podcast to continue my goal of bringing us together in our human experience. My hope, though, is that by stretching ourselves to inhabit the complexity of experience of others and challenges in life that rip us from our comfort zones, that we will be better equipped to love and be loved, and less prone to turn on ourselves if life hits a bumpy road.

I didn't expect Erica's intensity at times, particularly around the lack of understanding that men have for this invasive, and often exhausting process in women. I got worried that some of my male listeners may feel put into a box. But I think it's important to hold the tension and realize that the truth is like most truths – complex and multifaceted.

Hopefully, Erica's insight, experience and truth will wash over us because it feels important. And sometimes, things need to be uncomfortable to affect change. There's growing to do so we can be more sensitive to each other, and get over our own limitations and understanding.

Show Highlights:

• How Erica got into the infertility space
• Why there's conflict between couples going through infertility
• The common challenges related to infertility
• Why Erica tries to normalize the process when talking to couples
• The #1 reason couples go see fertility clinics
• The stigma around male infertility issues
• Expanding your mindset of what family really means
• Why fertility treatment is a very draining and emotional process
• How to effectively communicate with your partner and show empathy
• The need to detach from traditional ideas such as gender roles

Subscribe and Review

Have you subscribed to our podcast? We'd love for you to subscribe if you haven't yet.

We'd love it even more if you could drop a review or 5-star rating over on Apple Podcasts. Simply select "Ratings and Reviews" and "Write a Review" then a quick line with your favorite part of the episode. It only takes a second and it helps spread the word about the podcast.

If you really enjoyed this episode, we've created a PDF that has all of the key information for you from the episode. Just go to the episode page at https://mitchellsmolkin.com/podcast to download it.

Supporting Resources:

http://www.ericaberman.ca

http://www.ericaberman.ca

https://mitchellsmolkin.com/

Mitchell Smolkin is a sought-after clinician, speaker, and author. For media and interview requests please contact his publicist Randy Phipps at [email protected]. For all other inquiries, please send mail to [email protected].

Episode Credits

If you like this podcast and are thinking of creating your own, consider talking to my producer, Danny Ozment.

He helps thought leaders, influencers, executives, HR professionals, recruiters, lawyers, realtors, bloggers, coaches, and authors create, launch, and produce podcasts that grow their business and impact the world.

Find out more at https://emeraldcitypro.com

I wanted to focus today on a subject dear to my heart, which is perhaps not that well understood. To a large extent, it has to do with parenting but, more broadly speaking, affects and is involved in all of our relationships.

The core of this idea is the capacity to symbolize. People often ask me what exactly this means. For many of you who work in the field of psychology, this may be a bit rudimentary, but nonetheless a foundational distinction that makes us human and allows us to relate in very specific and important ways with our environment.

One of the fundamental mistakes that takes place in parenting involves reactivity. For instance, the parent may have a strong emotional response to something the child says or does. Some of the most common examples of this are when the child is aggressive to the parent and/or says something provocative.

What parenting isn't, is reacting to the aggression with aggression or taking provocative statements literally. At that point, the parent is no longer a parent but just another human being flapping in the wind. Now, of course, there are times where one needs to react. We can't always be in a state of observation. But my point is more substantially related to the function of the parent and how imagining and reflecting on the child and their emotional lives is so important to their successful emotional development.

In today's interview, you will hear Maria and I discuss the notion of engendering hope in the child. The worst thing a parent can do is shame a child for having innate emotional responses to the world or punish them for expressing feelings of loneliness and isolation. A common example of this is a child who feels isolated at school, stops paying attention, perhaps gets into trouble, and then is continually reprimanded at home for failing to live up to expectations. This is a clear example of a failure to symbolize. The parent has either lost or never had the capacity to imagine the child's pain. Maybe some of you will have had the experience of not remembering whole parts of your childhood or know someone who has told you that.

Children will push all the buttons through no fault of their own, which is why comments such as, "You are a difficult child" are so utterly damaging. It is an evacuation on the parents' part of their pain and one of the building blocks of intergenerational trauma.

These experiences, though, can be repaired. Maria and I dive into the weeds in this regard today. Engendering curiosity about ourselves only opens up the door to more space for children to be seen, loved, and experienced for who they are and not what we want them to be. I hope you enjoy my conversation.

Show Highlights:

• Maria's background in psychotherapy and her early work experience.
• How trauma stays in our physical and psychological DNA.
• What articulating the trauma we've been through does to us.
• The unique spirit that is in every child.
• Why a child doing something wrong is actually a good thing.
• The self reflection every parent needs to do.
• Why we should aim to be good enough parents, not perfect parents.
• The importance of being personally rooted as a parent.
• Why we need to be able to go back to our children after making mistakes.
• The split in thought regarding mental health in the UK.

Subscribe and Review

We'd appreciate you subscribing to this podcast and leaving an Apple Podcasts review. Reviews help others discover and learn what The Dignity of Suffering is all about. It only takes a second and helps us out a lot!

If you enjoyed this episode, we've also created a PDF that has all of the key information for you from it. Just go to the episode page at https://mitchellsmolkin.com/ to download it.

Supporting Resources:

https://mitchellsmolkin.com/

Mitchell Smolkin is a sought-after clinician, speaker, and author. For media and interview requests please contact his publicist Randy Phipps at [email protected]. For all other inquiries, please send mail to [email protected].

***

Episode Credits

If you like this podcast and are thinking of creating your own, consider talking to my producer, Danny Ozment.

He helps thought leaders, influencers, executives, HR professionals, recruiters, lawyers, realtors, bloggers, coaches, and authors create, launch, and produce podcasts that grow their business and impact the world.

Find out more at https://emeraldcitypro.com

What a special episode I have for you today. In it, I have a conversation with one of the most renowned choreographers in the world, Debra Brown, who was with Cirque du Soleil for three decades. Not only is she a creative force but she has become a good friend over the years as well. I jumped at the opportunity to bring her on the show and talk about the creative process and, in particular, to ask her about risk-taking and how to keep the flame going in our lives.

One of the central challenges in life involves taking risks: leaving jobs, moving countries, starting new educational opportunities, or, in Debra's case, working with the world's top circus artists and dancers and helping create spectacles that dazzle the human heart and mind. The notion of dying in the creative process--leaving our old selves behind and relinquishing control--has always been close to my heart. It doesn't simply occur in creativity, though. It is an essential metaphor and reality in our lives. We must practice dying over and over again to prepare ourselves for the real thing.

What a treat then for Debra to open up about how this has functioned in her own creative process. To know Debra is to be in the presence of someone who floats. As you'll hear in today's interview, she has a grace about her when it comes to human development, friendship, and risk-taking that is soft, direct, and useful. Many of us need someone in our lives to say yes and to champion us when we are on the edge of something that makes us vulnerable where we cannot see where it will lead us. And as you'll hear today, Debra has been that guiding angel for thousands of artists around the world, never mind the friends and colleagues that have crossed her path. You'll also hear that Debra has rescued hundreds of animals from around the globe and brought them to safety on her beautiful farm in Ontario, Canada so her love knows no bounds.

I don't know that I've ever met anyone like Debra, someone that has an ease with which she shares a kind of joy and experience where people feel safe to be in their bodies and in the moment with her. This comes through in our conversation today so tune in to enjoy it.

Show Highlights:

• How Debra got involved with Cirque du Soleil.
• Whether she knew it would become the biggest circus company in the world.
• How art and performing are tied in with emotions.
• Debra's relationship to the body and language.
• Why she has never been afraid to risk being on the edge.
• Why we need allies to take risks.
• How our childhood trains and chisels us.
• How Debra takes artists to places they've never been.
• The particular challenge COVID-19 presented for artists.
• How to reinvest in your creative life during this pandemic.
• What Debra loves about working with people and their bodies.
• When and why she started rescuing animals.

Subscribe and Review

We'd appreciate you subscribing to this podcast and leaving an Apple Podcasts review. Reviews help others discover and learn what The Dignity of Suffering is all about. It only takes a second and helps us out a lot!

If you enjoyed this episode, we've also created a PDF that has all of the key information for you from it. Just go to the episode page at https://mitchellsmolkin.com/dos010 to download it.

Supporting Resources:

The Paper Canoe: A Guide to Theatre Anthropology: https://www.amazon.com/Paper-Canoe-Guide-Theatre-Anthropology/dp/0415116740

https://mitchellsmolkin.com/

Mitchell Smolkin is a sought-after clinician, speaker, and author. For media and interview requests please contact his publicist Randy Phipps at [email protected]. For all other inquiries, please send mail to [email protected].

***

Episode Credits

If you like this podcast and are thinking of creating your own, consider talking to my producer, Danny Ozment.

He helps thought leaders, influencers, executives, HR professionals, recruiters, lawyers, realtors, bloggers, coaches, and authors create, launch, and produce podcasts that grow their business and impact the world.

Find out more at https://emeraldcitypro.com

It's quite a special week. There was a confluence of timing in my interview with Gabor Maté last week and the release of his film The Wisdom of Trauma. If you haven't seen the film, it is well worth watching. I sat on the couch with my wife last night and we held each other as we watched this incredibly touching and important movie that chronicles the life and the work of Gabor Maté.

There is a throughline involving inmates working through their emotional pain. It is quite impactful and there are a number of powerful sequences as these inmates are asked to step forward every time that they recognize within themselves some measure of adverse childhood experience. The adverse childhood experience study or ACES was a large-scale longitudinal study that was done in California and it looked at the correlation between early adverse experiences in children, such as physical or emotional abuse, poverty, isolation, and hardships, and challenges later in life. The compassion throughout the film is at times overwhelming, especially when you have men (and in this case it was men) talking about having committed murder and opening up about the horrors that they experienced as children.

I wanted to take today's podcast and zero in on what I believe to be at the heart of a paradigmatic shift that has taken place not only in psychology but in the ways that we view ourselves and our actions in society in general. I will be slowing down and collecting my thoughts about my recent interview with Maté and sharing with you some of my observations about how to sit with our pain and remain emotionally and psychologically flexible.

I wanted to talk about this today because, if there's one thing that is clear (and this is true even when we think about the kinds of help that we can now get), historically, especially when psychotherapy first came into being, it was harsher; it was more masculine. Approaches to psychotherapy have kept in line with other changes in society, especially the deepening respect for our emotional lives. These have led to a more benevolent understanding of suffering, more of a focus on the automatic nature of our defenses, and I think an awakening that nothing will come from further punishing the human being for the ways that they have had to learn to survive.

Show Highlights:

• How our sensitivity towards our emotional lives and those of others has developed.
• How psychotherapy has kept in line with the changes in society.
• Why we need to be considerate of the complexities of others' physical bodies.
• Why we develop a paradigm to face the world when we're young.
• Why your kids get angry with you.
• The kind of shift we've experienced in society.
• Reflections on Maté's interview with Sia.
• What I mean when I say, "You're okay."
• The work we need to do when our early ways of confronting life start to crack.
• What compassionate scrutiny means.
• How to examine your anxiety and its sources without resisting it.
• Why our trauma is never in the past.
• Two questions to ask yourself as a basic test of where you're at with your relationship to your own pain and that of others.

Subscribe and Review

We'd appreciate you subscribing to this podcast and leaving an Apple Podcasts review. Reviews help others discover and learn what The Dignity of Suffering is all about. It only takes a second and helps us out a lot!

If you enjoyed this episode, we've also created a PDF that has all of the key information for you from it. Just go to the episode page at https://mitchellsmolkin.com/ to download it.

Supporting Resources:

https://mitchellsmolkin.com/

Mitchell Smolkin is a sought-after clinician, speaker, and author. For media and interview requests please contact his publicist Randy Phipps at [email protected]. For all other inquiries, please send mail to [email protected].

***

Episode Credits

If you like this podcast and are thinking of creating your own, consider talking to my producer, Danny Ozment.

He helps thought leaders, influencers, executives, HR professionals, recruiters, lawyers, realtors, bloggers, coaches, and authors create, launch, and produce podcasts that grow their business and impact the world.

Find out more at https://emeraldcitypro.com

Today's guest is one of the most influential thinkers alive. Our conversation which I am sharing today comes from a live interview I held with him on June 3rd, 2021.

Dr. Gabor Maté has tried for decades to tell the truth about the connection between traumatic experiences and the damaging effects they can have on our lives. He has done so with unique candor, never separating himself from the arduous journey of self-exploration that he advocates for. Time and time again he has afforded a particular dignity to the process, making him a perfect fit to bring onto this podcast.

Gabor spent many years as a physician, as a general practitioner who then specialized in addiction medicine. Slowly but surely things began to click and he wrote a number of important books focusing on the myriad ways chronic emotional neglect affects a person's life, focusing on addiction, attention deficit disorder, asthma, and the fundamental connection between physical disease and trauma. He has a new book coming out soon and a movie which just premiered last week entitled "The Wisdom of Trauma." His work is deeply moving, possibly life-changing, and I recommend you to look into it if you haven't already engaged with his contributions.

In our interview, we discuss a recent concern of mine around shame and how to ensure it does not go underground. Men are being called out for aggressive and violent behaviors and I was curious how we can address the pain that's being exposed and not further relegate it to the shadows, which breeds more division in our communities. Gabor helped clarify my disparate thoughts and I immensely appreciated the opportunity to bounce my ideas off of him. He also did a deep dive into just how traumatized our leaders are and by extension how numb we are as a society to dismissive and aggressive actions towards children.

If anything cuts to the heart of his message, it's a call to action to be aware of how impactful our behavior is to each other and in particular to our young ones. At one point, he distills it down to this statement: if you treat human beings well, they'll be okay; if you don't treat them well, especially when they're children, they're not going to be okay. Gabor is somebody who cuts through all the noise, stands up to everyone, and calls it like it is. He's been doing that for a long time and we're all better for it so tune into our interview to receive the benefits for yourself.

Show Highlights:

• What the experience of being one of the first people to write about trauma was like for Gabor.
• His own childhood and the tension between his intellect and the lack of emotional expression.
• How politics is heavily infused with trauma.
• How trauma-uninformed we are in the West.
• How damaging it is to be mistreated and made to feel unsafe as a child.
• The trauma we absorb as therapists.
• Why psychedelics are such a powerful and effective tool in healing from trauma.
• What it has been like for Gabor to work with his son on his book.

Subscribe and Review

We'd appreciate you subscribing to this podcast and leaving an Apple Podcasts review. Reviews help others discover and learn what The Dignity of Suffering is all about. It only takes a second and helps us out a lot!

If you enjoyed this episode, we've also created a PDF that has all of the key information for you from it. Just go to the episode page at https://mitchellsmolkin.com/ to download it.

Supporting Resources:

https://mitchellsmolkin.com/

Mitchell Smolkin is a sought-after clinician, speaker, and author. For media and interview requests please contact his publicist Randy Phipps at [email protected]. For all other inquiries, please send mail to [email protected].

***

Episode Credits

If you like this podcast and are thinking of creating your own, consider talking to my producer, Danny Ozment.

He helps thought leaders, influencers, executives, HR professionals, recruiters, lawyers, realtors, bloggers, coaches, and authors create, launch, and produce podcasts that grow their business and impact the world.

Find out more at https://emeraldcitypro.com

I am so intrigued by the human being's ability to survive. One of the strongest examples of this in my life is that of my grandfather. He emerged from the Holocaust with his entire family gone and still went on to pursue his dreams. He became a dentist and eventually moved to Canada in 1962.

However, when he arrived in Canada, he had to recertify as a dentist. He attempted to do so by enrolling in the University of Toronto in their dentistry school. At this point, he had already survived World War 2, worked in the mines in Russia, and spent several years apart from his wife and child while he finished his original dentistry school. So when he didn't pass the technical exam at the University of Toronto, he broke. This permeated the rest of his life.

The Polyvagal Theory zeroes in on what happens to individuals when they are overwhelmed and beaten down like my grandfather was. The founder, Stephen Porges, describes a core idea called interoception which is the perception of our inner world and the ability to be aware of and put language to what's happening to us on an interior emotional and physical level. This is crucial to having close, deep relationships and fostering interpersonal understanding.

In this episode, Justin Senseri takes us on a tour of Porges' theories. He gives us a fine explanation of some of the states our autonomic nervous system is capable of taking us, especially under threat. I was impressed with Justin's candor about his process, his tenderness when working with teenagers, and his openness about what led him to this work. Awareness of our capacities to dissociate is crucial, especially to normalize them, as they relate directly to how we deal with difficult situations. Please enjoy our conversation on The Polyvagal Theory.

Show Highlights:

• How Justin works with the Polyvagal theory.
• What The Polyvagal Theory is.
• The developmental stage teenagers are in.
• What the shut-down system is.
• What leads us to freeze.
• Why all of our systems have the potential to be social.
• When fear actually becomes an issue.
• Why Justin is so passionate about the Polyvagal Theory and the work he does.

Subscribe and Review

We'd appreciate you subscribing to this podcast and leaving an Apple Podcasts review. Reviews help others discover and learn what The Dignity of Suffering is all about. It only takes a second and helps us out a lot!

If you enjoyed this episode, we've also created a PDF that has all of the key information for you from it. Just go to the episode page at http://www.mitchellsmolkin.com to download it.

Supporting Resources:

https://www.justinlmft.com/podcast

https://traumahealing.org

http://mitchellsmolkin.com/

Mitchell Smolkin is a sought-after clinician, speaker, and author. For media and interview requests please contact his publicist Randy Phipps at [email protected]. For all other inquiries, please send mail to [email protected].

***

Episode Credits

If you like this podcast and are thinking of creating your own, consider talking to my producer, Danny Ozment.

He helps thought leaders, influencers, executives, HR professionals, recruiters, lawyers, realtors, bloggers, coaches, and authors create, launch, and produce podcasts that grow their business and impact the world.

Find out more at https://emeraldcitypro.com

Today, I wanted to take some time to focus and bring down the volume. After doing a number of in-depth interviews, I thought it would be nice to have a solo podcast focusing on an incredibly important concept.

Today's topic is not only one that distills so much of the work I do but also sets us up nicely for next week's podcast where we will be discussing the Polyvagal Theory, an important idea when it comes to how the nervous system responds to stress and threat. The concept I'm discussing today is something I refer to as the front of the system.

When we are interacting with others and are possibly nervous, or sharing something important, there are many layers to what is happening within us. How we deliver any information we want to share in those moments changes dramatically depending on the specific environment we are in. We will deliver it differently when talking to ourselves, to a best friend, to our partner, giving a lecture, or performing, just to name a range of scenarios. Additionally, whether or not we are in homeostasis at the moment will make a large impact on our delivery. A great example of what this looks like is the show Hot Ones hosted by Christopher Schonberger. Christopher invites celebrities to do an interview while eating progressively hotter wings. As the body tries to compensate for the incredible demand that is placed on it by the fiery wings, you'll notice the guest lose their focus, become irritable, and also vulnerable as they cannot keep their composure. This is a great example of what happens to us when our body is consumed by some kind of threat and we are also trying to maintain connection.

This is where the front of the system comes in. This idea sums up how we can name our fears and increase our intimacy. Throughout the episode, I am going to apply it mainly to romantic relationships, but it is something that can permeate every relationship and environment in your life. Please join me so we can reflect and learn more together.

Show Highlights:

• Why the romantic relationship is so unique.
• Why we need to regulate before we communicate.
• What a map of emotion is.
• The distinct ability humans have to suppress their instincts.
• What the front of the system is.
• The power of naming our feelings.
• What the idea of repair is.
• How to apply this in our intimate relationships.

Subscribe and Review

We'd appreciate you subscribing to this podcast and leaving an Apple Podcasts review. Reviews help others discover and learn what The Dignity of Suffering is all about. It only takes a second and helps us out a lot!

If you enjoyed this episode, we've also created a PDF that has all of the key information for you from it. Just go to the episode page at http://www.mitchellsmolkin.com to download it.

Supporting Resources:

Descartes Error

stephenporges.com

http://mitchellsmolkin.com/

Mitchell Smolkin is a sought-after clinician, speaker, and author. For media and interview requests please contact his publicist Randy Phipps at [email protected]. For all other inquiries, please send mail to [email protected].

***

Episode Credits

If you like this podcast and are thinking of creating your own, consider talking to my producer, Danny Ozment.

He helps thought leaders, influencers, executives, HR professionals, recruiters, lawyers, realtors, bloggers, coaches, and authors create, launch, and produce podcasts that grow their business and impact the world.

Find out more at https://emeraldcitypro.com

Today's interview epitomizes the entire reason I started this podcast. In it, I have a conversation with an incredibly brave and courageous couple. As we talked and I heard their story, my ambivalence around whether it is possible to convey the magic of vulnerability through this medium faded away. What is central to this podcast is the power of letting others into our fears, and how counterintuitive it is that our weaker feeling states actually come across as incredible strength to others.

A few years ago, Julie began experiencing some strange symptoms. She felt extremely fatigued and she noticed that her eyelid would droop from time to time. She brought her concerns to her partner, Ian, who is a physician, and like most of us in our relationships, he didn't want to worry and suggested she focus on getting into shape and building her stamina.

However, Julie was eventually diagnosed with Myasthenia Gravis, a long-term neuromuscular disease. This was a turning point in their lives and brought a whole new set of challenges, both emotional and physical.

I was introduced to Ian and Julie when I posted an article on LinkedIn about the dynamic that often emerges in couples where one of them is dealing with a chronic or terminal illness. Julie, a therapist in her own right, responded, sharing the relief that she felt to see their experience mirrored in the words that I wrote. She particularly resonated with the idea that the "healthier" partner tries to put on a front and protect the partner who is sick, and how that can breed distance and come across as a lack of empathy. Once I heard from her, I knew I had to invite them onto the show.

In this episode, the three of us have a heartfelt conversation on how Julie's illness has affected their relationship. I fell in love with their playfulness and joy that you'll hear them express throughout the beginning of our interview. As we slow some things down, it translates into something deeper. We get into Ian's struggles with expressing his emotions and how he modeled himself after Star Trek's Dr. Spock growing up, dreaming of being a competent and caring physician. Julie opens up about what it is like to experience this distance at times and the impact of him letting her into his fears and worries. If you want to build bridges to your partner in your own relationship, you don't want to miss this conversation.

Show Highlights:

• The story of Julie's diagnosis.
• What it was like for Ian to realize that she was really sick.
• How Ian being a physician factored into the couple's situation.
• What Myasthenia Gravis is and how it affects Julie.
• Ian's dream to be like Dr. Spock, and how that has impacted his expression of emotions.
• How Ian feels when Julie asks for help.
• Why Ian doesn't want to burden Julie with his pain.
• What happens to Julie when he opens up to his fears and lets her in.
• How revealing our fears actually makes others feel relieved.
• What happens in our physical bodies when we're vulnerable.

Subscribe and Review

We'd appreciate you subscribing to this podcast and leaving an Apple Podcasts review. Reviews help others discover and learn what The Dignity of Suffering is all about. It only takes a second and helps us out a lot!

If you enjoyed this episode, we've also created a PDF that has all of the key information for you from it. Just go to the episode page at http://www.mitchellsmolkin.com to download it.

Supporting Resources:

http://mitchellsmolkin.com/

Mitchell Smolkin is a sought-after clinician, speaker, and author. For media and interview requests please contact his publicist Randy Phipps at [email protected]. For all other inquiries, please send mail to [email protected].

***

Episode Credits

If you like this podcast and are thinking of creating your own, consider talking to my producer, Danny Ozment.

He helps thought leaders, influencers, executives, HR professionals, recruiters, lawyers, realtors, bloggers, coaches, and authors create, launch, and produce podcasts that grow their business and impact the world.

Find out more at https://emeraldcitypro.com

Today's guest is one of my oldest friends, Nicholas Balaisis. I am sharing our conversation from my live Lunch With a Therapist event held on April 29th, 2021. The intent was to create a place where people could come in, ask questions, and be a fly on the wall of two old friends who have both had a passion for psychology for decades.

Nick and I delve into ideas around holding space and tensions throughout transitions in our lives.

We also discuss the challenges of therapy and, in particular, the strong hunger for answers that we all feel from time to time. Nick proposes a beautiful idea about how to complicate the ways that we see our experiences and the tendency to initially see them through a narrow lens. He suggests, instead, the development of the ability to refract our experiences, resist the tendency to narrativise them, and ask many questions to keep the flexibility of our perception alive.

Additionally, it is important to try and hold space around the pains we have experienced in life. We all carry wounds. They transform over time but they still remain within us. Whether they are buried deep below the surface or we are currently facing them, we all share a relationship to sensitive parts of our experience that only each of us as individuals can really touch within ourselves.

Nick is an incredibly bright thinker, a dear friend, and a talented psychotherapist. Tune in to hear our entire conversation and learn from Nick's admirable sensitivity and incredible wisdom.

Show Highlights:

• The crossroads Nick went through and how he navigated it.
• His attempt to understand the confusion in his life.
• The classical "mystification of the unconscious" model of psychotherapy.
• Why Nick believes our unconscious isn't simply suggesting one direction for our lives.
• The privileged place of absolute freedom in therapy.
• Whether or not psychological work can happen outside of therapy sessions.
• The psychotherapeutic process' relationship to the body.
• Why it's dangerous to become rigid in our interpretations.

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If you enjoyed this episode, we've also created a PDF that has all of the key information for you from it. Just go to the episode page at http://mitchellsmolkin.com/ to download it.

Supporting Resources:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/therapists/nicholas-jacob-balaisis-kitchener-on/720524

http://mitchellsmolkin.com/

Mitchell Smolkin is a sought-after clinician, speaker, and author. For media and interview requests please contact his publicist Randy Phipps at [email protected]. For all other inquiries, please send mail to [email protected].

***

Episode Credits

If you like this podcast and are thinking of creating your own, consider talking to my producer, Danny Ozment.

He helps thought leaders, influencers, executives, HR professionals, recruiters, lawyers, realtors, bloggers, coaches, and authors create, launch, and produce podcasts that grow their business and impact the world.

Find out more at https://emeraldcitypro.com