When East Meets West
When East Meets West
S4E13 Embracing Life's Roadblocks: Building Resilience Amidst Life’s Chaos
Imagine navigating the bustling streets of New York, only to find your path blocked by unexpected construction. That's how life often feels, doesn't it? Join us as we tackle these metaphorical roadblocks and share how they mirror life's surprises—like an OCD flare-up during treatment or a missed job promotion. Together, we shine a light on the importance of flexibility and adaptability in overcoming such hurdles. Our brains crave order and predictability, but life's detours teach us to embrace uncertainty with understanding and acceptance. Through personal stories and revelations, we'll guide you on shifting mindsets to better handle the unpredictable nature of life's journey.
In our next chapter of conversation, we explore how adversity and painful experiences, though challenging, serve as profound catalysts for personal growth. Reflecting on our own struggles, we express gratitude for the resilience and insight gained from these trials, while acknowledging that not everyone learns these lessons early in life. However, there are remarkable young individuals who do grasp these insights with surprising maturity. As we wrap up, we highlight the humor in life’s endless roadblocks and appreciate the engagement and support of our audience. Tune in for an enlightening and heartening discussion that encourages embracing life's twists and turns with a flexible approach.
so, pete, we're gonna talk about roadblocks today, not not necessarily literal roadblocks. I'm in la, you know there's always caltrans is always doing some kind of work, but, like you know, this comes up a lot with people like roadblocks, things that get in the way. So, hello, how are you?
Speaker 2:hey, I am great. Yes, things do often get in the way and uh, it's funny because there's lots of uh, there's always construction here in the New York area. It's like it feels like it never ends.
Speaker 1:It never ends. It never ends. And so I mean, I guess, as we're starting off this episode, I'm thinking I guess we could be talking about literal roadblocks. This will apply to while we're in our cars. So I guess I'll start by. You know, there's a great quote that I'm very excited to share with our listeners in a moment here to talk about this. But I guess I'll start by asking you you know, how do you navigate the concepts of roadblocks and treatment? Because this is something that does come up right Like it's not like. Treatment is a neat straight line, you know.
Speaker 2:It certainly is not. Yeah, so I mean I think of course I took it literally because that's just what my brain does and so it's just fun to do that, but no yeah. I mean in life there's roadblocks, and the one thing I think with ACT and acceptance and commitment therapy like, or any kind of value-based behavioral intervention, you're always saying like there's many ways you can get to wherever you're going.
Speaker 2:you know, and so just because there's a roadblock doesn't mean you just stop and, like you know, stamp your feet like a little child having a tantrum, but like what could you? What could you do? You know?
Speaker 1:totally well and look, certainly people can get in that mode of wanting to like stomp their feet like a tantrum, and you know, I'm sure we've all had that experience at some point in our lives, right. But I think actually it could literally be in treatment, right, like maybe their OCD treatment has been going really well and then they have, you know, what they view as a setback or like a flare up of symptoms or something like that. Maybe, I don't know, it could be with anything. You know you're on your way to a promotion and then you get passed up for it. I think a lot of times people then think like well, this wasn't in my plan, I don't actually know what, like where else I could go, like that's what I experienced.
Speaker 2:More more commonly, yeah, well, and so what I hear in that is like the rigidity you know, because there's the vision that they had was just that vision, and when it's not that then you're like, well, now what you know. And I think that's where the you know Eastern stuff comes in, because you never want to think that anything is planned. Actually you know, because everything's always, everything's always changing.
Speaker 1:For example. I don't know if this is being recorded, but Pete's equipment right now is making some noises, right.
Speaker 2:It's actually kind of amazing that's happening in our roadblock episode't you, you are welcome.
Speaker 1:You are welcome everybody so we're gonna navigate that roadblock in real time. So it's like, to that point, it's literally as long as the universe throws us a bone. You know, uh, as you were saying, we don't know what the plan is gonna be, we don't know what's gonna happen, like we certainly didn't know that that little sound was going to show up. It's like, okay, so how do you respond? How do you navigate that? How do you continue on? But you're right, it is about rigidity and you know, I think this is where it's important for listeners to understand like that is. You know, it says a lot on this podcast, but that is how human brains are designed. Yeah, right, like we are designed for more linear, rigid thinking.
Speaker 1:Um, because, frankly, it's simpler right, yeah it's a lot easier to kind of like say, like this is how it's gonna go, um, and that there's, it's like and there's some utility in that. Right, like we, we use language. That's really where this comes from. Right, we use language to like come up with a plan and it helps us organize our experience of the world. You know, like that's a benefit of a human brain, but the downside is that you know things often don't go according to that plan and that's where. That's where people get stuck.
Speaker 2:I kind of feel like things never go as they're planned. I don know, is that and that's not? That's not even pessimistic, but what do you do? Is that sound pessimistic to you when I say that?
Speaker 1:no, it doesn't sound pessimistic, it doesn't sound accurate to me.
Speaker 1:I guess is what I would say, because sometimes they do like you know, kind of very simply like if you're like, say you're like, I don't know you're supposed to drive to an appointment, you make a plan to like leave at a certain time and take a certain route you know you may get there just on time, like things may go according to plan totally, and actually I think that's why we often have such a difficult time when things don't go to go according to plan, because our brain's like but it works sometimes, sometimes I plan it out and and things happen exactly the way that that I expect them to you know. So you know, things do go according to plan. That's the issue here, right? Because then that becomes our our, our fantasy of how, how life is supposed to unfold.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're right. I mean, I guess, for some of the examples you gave her, like the job promotion or I feel, like those larger things really kind of play out in much different ways than we envision them. You know, and I, and for me, and so from the Eastern perspective, like that's how we build resilience, like that's how you build radical acceptance.
Speaker 2:That's how you you know almost kind of form calluses in your hands. You will, because you just have to learn how to face adversity. We've had the episode on grit and adversity, so that's what those things are, but of course these roadblocks. So I celebrate roadblocks in a way, because then it's like a moment to pivot and then pivot and reflect and say, okay, well, that wasn't exactly how I thought it was going to be. So now what?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, yes, I mean they can be. I think it's important to acknowledge, though they're not always moments to celebrate right Like sometimes they can you know?
Speaker 1:roadblocks are distressing, Like they're frustrating, you know. Maybe there's sadness or pain associated with them. That you're speaking to is that when we're able to accept that this is a part of being a person, that things are going to go awry, that we are going to get stuck and things are going to get off track or not, look the way that we imagine them to. We use this word a lot in this podcast as well. There is a freedom that cracks open to recognize that there are so many other paths that we can take, and sometimes we actually end up in a place that's even better than we could have imagined well, I'm gonna say all the time yeah, well, again, I'm like I got you, but this is like yeah, this, it's sort of like.
Speaker 2:It's like buying a house. You know, like you've everyone who's bought a house has lost a house along the way, and when you lost that house you're like, oh my god, this was the worst ever, like this was house was supposed to be mine, and then you end up with a better with a place.
Speaker 1:yeah, I mean, look, I think that, like it's. I think what you're speaking to is the trust in that, when you're, when you keep going and you keep following your values, you're, you keep going and you keep following your values, you're, you're going, you're going to get to where you want to go. That doesn't mean, though, that you're not going to keep hitting roadblocks, cause I get, I'm just like imagining somebody out there listening, like you know, going, like, oh, like Dr Pete saying, like it's, I'm just going to get a better house, but I haven't. I've lost four houses in a row, or?
Speaker 1:like maybe they've gone through like tragedy after tragedy after tragedy, right, and it's like, well, things aren't turning out the way that I want. It's like, yeah, that's what's very hard is that we, you know, there's quite a spectrum of like how many roadblocks we're going to encounter as a person, right. It's like how do we, how do we keep moving forward in?
Speaker 2:that? Yeah, did you read that quote? Did you read that?
Speaker 1:no, I was just I was always around the same wavelength, I was really gonna, literally gonna say let me read this quote so so there's a zen proverb um that I I came across in a book that I love, that says obstacles do not block the path, they are the path yeah, so obstacles do not block the path, they are the path they are the path yeah they are the path.
Speaker 1:They are the path. Yeah, they are the path. It reminds me of a like. There's like a. I don't know if there is a proverb specific to this, but I know there's like a Taoist image that's often used about. Like rocks in a river. It's like what does the river do with the rocks? Like it flows, it just flows around them, right, it's like it's a part of them. Like the rocks are in the riverbed. But you know very hard to accept obstacles. It's just, you know it's very hard.
Speaker 2:Well, life is meant to. It's like my mom, the amazing, insightful, psychologically minded, you know, zen person, said life sucks and then you die. You know, I grew up hearing that all the time, so that might answer. Maybe that explains why I landed.
Speaker 1:Where I landed, you were drawn to Zen. Where you're drawn to Zen, yeah.
Speaker 2:We have a saying with one of the teams I work with, which is the journey is the outcome, and that's exactly what. It's a similar thing to the proverb that you just wrote. So, because everyone's rushing to where they're going, and so again, I think what I've been saying is, the roadblock is not mean, you know, okay, I said celebrate, but it just means that, like that's, that's what's there, it's just what is, and you know, it is the path, like the path, like yeah, it is the path, there's they're gonna keep coming up.
Speaker 1:It's like life would be so boring if it was smooth. That's well, it's true, that's what I say to people. I'm also like you know it's, it's, it's the old like how do we connect to like meaning of things, that and experience pleasure and all that if? If we don't know, you know other difficult experiences, not not to mention that difficult experiences, um, you know they. They cultivate a sense of solidness, you know. I mean, I've personally experienced this and it's funny it's been coming up a lot in some of my sessions recently with patients. But you know how we often feel the most grateful for very difficult things that we've gone through you know, or some of you know.
Speaker 1:So it'd be a roadblock but it could be something very, very hard Because it's it's how we evolve. We kind of their opportunities to really like level up right well, I, yeah, and I it's funny.
Speaker 2:Well, maybe it's something about I think there's something happening with the moons or something. Um, I mean, I feel like there's always something happening with the moons, I don't know I feel like I don't know.
Speaker 1:It's always like mercury is always seems to be in retrograde. I, I don't really know. I don't know much about astrology, nor do I.
Speaker 2:But I do believe in anything and everything. Well, that's not true. Okay, let me just come back. So what came to mind as you were talking because it came up in session recently for me was I shared this, actually, with a client.
Speaker 2:There was a moment in my life when I I was in college and, uh, my cousin was getting married and so we had to be traveled up to colorado for the wedding and in this week I, my grandmother, died um who I was like super, super close with um, I was like dumped um from like a two-year relationship um, and then, as I get back from the wedding and like feeling really kind of like low and then my like one of my best friends had was getting married too. Um, we had to put my childhood dog to sleep um way to put her down we don't say to sleep. Do we say that to sleep?
Speaker 1:no, you say that, yeah, okay, yeah, I can say both yeah, yeah, so, yeah, so you know and, and, and.
Speaker 2:In the moment you know, I remember being like what the heck you know? Yes, like life, what is this? And feeling really down like yeah, so as I look back on that today, though, like I'm thankful. I'm thankful now that sounds ridiculous again. I think that sounds like uh, like a pollyanna kind of um it doesn't though.
Speaker 1:it doesn't because it's because it's, you think, because there's a. I mean, you know, everybody's gone through very painful times. It's like my, in my own life same thing. It's like there's just a and again I don't know how this stuff works Right, but when we, it's like we kind of trite way of saying it, but like it's like we learn what we're made of, kind of you know, and we, we, we just get more solid, we. That that's why you's why you were tying it to grit.
Speaker 1:It's like that's part of it, we get more solid and we also get more sort of connect. Well, we can, I guess, get more connected to what's meaningful, what matters, you know. So I feel the same way about very painful times in my life, like I'm sad that I had to go through them, I don't wish that I had gone, I'm not happy that those things happened to me and I'm very grateful that I went through it because I'm a different person.
Speaker 2:Because of it, yeah Well, and you know, it's my 24 year old self didn't get that, you know, and I think that that's what they say. You can't.
Speaker 1:I will say look, it's interesting. I would say on average, most 24-year-olds don't get that right, Just like developmentally. No offense to any 24-year-olds listening to the podcast right.
Speaker 2:Your brains aren't ungrowing and that's totally cool, but please like subscribe and share with your 24-year-old friends.
Speaker 1:You guys are good at that, we appreciate that, but most people, I I think, don't really come to some of them until at least their late thirties. You know, and, however, I am sometimes just like super amazed and inspired by some of like the young patients that I work with and you know that go through hard stuff and they do have that depth of understanding of like things don't always go the way that we want them to, and you know, I'm okay, I'm going to level up, you know, through that and and grow because of it. Yeah Well, I can't believe we're coming to the end of our roadblock conversation here.
Speaker 2:Pete, they always it's, it's, it's.
Speaker 1:as if we have another roadblock ahead of us to get to the ending. So true, so true. So, for listeners, just see if you can begin to think about Roblox as not so much obstacles but as a part of the path that we're all on.
