Tag: Slight Change of Plans Podcast

When I was in my mid-40’s, I used to tell my friends that I was in the white water rapids of life without a paddle when my plate was too full. Life was coming at me fast and furious and I could barely catch my breath, let alone juggle it all.

It seemed, without fail, that after three or four months of pushing through, burning the candle at both ends, making endless sacrifices without discernment, I’d get sick or there would be one monumental family crisis that would grind the fast pace to a halt. At that moment, it would feel like my attempts to “shoot the rapids” left me stranded on the rocks, teetering precariously.

This pattern became so apparent that I’d find myself bracing for it. I could feel the tension mounting every 3 or four months and could feel it in my bones that we were heading for something cataclysmic. Looking back, I can see that bracing for it was also a lifelong pattern of mine. I could feel the ground trembling metaphorically and the only preventative action I took was to steel myself against the inevitable. I would harden up, silently willingly myself to take it — whatever “it” was.

If things were really out of control, I would embellish my story about the white water rapids of life — I would lament to my friends that this time I was in the white water rapids of life without a paddle AND life jackets. Clearly this was the graphic imagery that I used to declare to myself and others that I was in over my head.

This pattern dominated a few years in my mid-40’s – that time when we find ourselves doing some of the hardest life work ever. We are gaining traction in our careers, or deciding we want to change careers in the mid-stream of life. Our parenting has often moved into the more challenging waters of adolescence (maybe that is where I felt I had no life-jackets). Financially we find ourselves looking both backwards and forwards – what’s the balance on the mortgage and how we will fund college educations? No wonder I felt like I was in the white water rapids of life. There was in fact a lot of changes underfoot, all swirling around unseen obstacles as we headed into unchartered water.

When my book club friends and I share stories from that time in our lives, we discover that this is exactly how most of us were feeling during that stage of our lives. We all might describe it a little differently but the patterns bear much similarity.

We’d have these peaks and valleys that could literally be put onto a graph that resembled stock prices or an EKG. The troughs in those graphs were the times where we cried uncle and had no choice but to stop and catch our breath.

Those troughs were the brief respites we were forced to take due to illness, or the acknowledgement that we can’t control a lot that happens in life. They were times where we were so sick, we were mandated to stay in bed for a few days to regain our physical health. Or the times when we had to sit alone in the dark and reflect on what really mattered. Brene Brown aptly named this period of time in our lives as “the great unraveling”.

I recently revisited what Brene wrote in her 2018 blog post about this midlife unraveling and found myself holding my breath as I took in the magnitude and wisdom of her words:

Midlife is when the universe gently places her hands upon your shoulder, pulls you close and whispers in your ear: “I am not screwing around. All of this pretending and performing — these coping mechanisms that you’ve developed to protect yourself from feeling inadequate and getting hurt – has to go. Your armor is preventing you from growing into your gifts. I understand that you needed these protections when you were small. I understand that you believed your armor could help you secure all the things you needed to feel worthy and lovable, but you’re still searching and you’re more lost than ever. Time is growing short. There are unexplored adventures ahead of you. You can’t spend the rest of your life worrying about what other people think. You were born worthy of love and belonging. Courage and daring are coursing through your veins. You were made to live and love with your whole heart. It’s time to show up and be seen.” — Brene Brown (see link to her blog at the end of this post.)

I often wonder if I had read a wisdom so profound in my mid-40’s how it might have landed on me. I’ll be honest, it’s highly doubtful that it would have resonated in the compelling way that it does today. When I close my eyes and sit with the feelings that emerge from reading it, I can transport myself back to what my own “white waters of life” were so earnestly trying to tell me.

Back then, I did not possess the knowledge and education that now underpins all that Brene imparted. In fact, when she gave us this pivotal message in 2018, we had not yet mainstreamed all that we were learning. Here we are 5 years later and that landscape has changed dramatically. Today it almost feel like a firehose has been turned on — and we are drenched in digestible neuroscience, engaging educational content as well as charismatic, dynamic leaders and teachers and endless resources. We are now fluent in emotional armor, childhood attachment styles and adaptive behavioral patterns. Emotional health has taken its rightful place at the top of the quality of life pyramid.

I couldn’t be happier that so many people of all ages are now absorbing this game-changing knowledge much earlier in their lives. Perhaps the mid-40’s and 50’s will no longer be the great “unraveling” but rather the “great transformation”. Imagine being able to shift gears in the mile markers of our life with vastly improved self-awareness and relationship skills. To be treating adolescence as the apprenticeship it truly is – and preparing our young people to go into the white water rapids of life with all the right tools, skills and burning desire to grow into their natural born gifts.

It is not longer just my wild imagination that envisions this phenomenal pivot, but the reality that we are already farther along on this transformational path than ever before.

There is rarely a day that I have a chat with someone where Dr. Andrew Huberman and his neuroscience podcast, the Huberman Lab are not mentioned. From neighbors to my dentist to seat mates on planes, Andrew Huberman has become a household name. Looking at the arc of his podcast popularity and the emerging topics he now discusses, we can create yet another graph that makes it clear that our trajectory for learning and the breakthroughs that are occurring are soaring.

I recently learned that Andrew Huberman started his highly successful podcast in 2021 because he wanted the general population to have the knowledge and tools they needed to support their physical and cognitive health through the pandemic. He was aware that we were not getting this invaluable information from our leadership and he wanted to educate people about the proactive steps they could be taking that were free, do-able and would have noticeable positive impact.

Think about this — Andrew Huberman saw a need and he stepped up to the plate. He has more than 3.5 million subscribed followers for his podcast launched in the midst of a pandemic. That’s 3.5 million people that have most likely changed their habits – like making consistent sleep a top priority, taking breaks from screens every 45 minutes, getting morning sunlight, changing their relationship with caffeine and alcohol, committing to varied exercise programs and understanding the impacts of their emotional health on their physical and cognitive health.

All of this happened one podcast episode at a time. Knowledge coming at a time of great need and receptivity; a willingness to put in the work and make changes; witnessing the positive effects of those changes and being motivated by all of it to learn more.

Andrew Huberman is throwing his net wide and bringing more diverse guests onto his podcast and for good reason. He is integrating teachings and research from other disciplines because they are all inter-connected to this bigger picture of current evolution. Breakthroughs are occurring fast right now and just like striking a match, they are catching fire quickly with those folks who are hungry to learn more.

The coalescing of personal growth, self development, mental health, emotional health with all the sciences was amplified during the pandemic. It was a collective moment – a tsunami in the white water rapids of our shared experience. It was a great unraveling. Go back now and re-read Brene’s insights for a mid-life unraveling and see if you can spot a similar message for our collective, complicated issues.

As each of us begins to do our own work, taking better care of ourselves and our families, with all that we learn from Andrew Huberman and others just like him, we are contributing to the greater good for everyone. Trust me, people are taking notice. Younger generations are looking at older generations and seeing the effects of ignoring our physical, cognitive and emotional health. Motivated by their desire for longer, healthier, and more satisfying lives, they are charting a new course with the improved knowledge, resources and tools so readily accessible.

Is it any wonder that there is a groundswell of keen interest in all that Andrew Huberman and others like him are enthusiastically sharing with us? Think about what happens when each of those 3.5 million followers shares what they have learned with just one workout buddy, one colleague, or one family member — now that is a powerful ripple effect in the right direction.

We are piecing together how old parenting models that created our armor and ineffective coping strategies also embedded a lot of fixed mindset and limiting belief impediments that hold us back from achieving our full potential and using our natural gifts. As we dig a little deeper on these topics, we are discovering vastly improved ways to educate our children to have a growth mindset, to foster resilience and determination through setbacks, and become critical thinkers.

We are doing this work together and it’s contagious in the best possible way.

Pay attention to the new books being published and the overlapping themes that fit like puzzle pieces. You’ll notice this on the colorful displays in your local bookstore. Check out guests that your favorite podcasters invite for meaningful conversations. Notice how personal stories take up a greater percentage of the discussion now – because that’s how we best integrate all this new information.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t confess that this blog post was inspired by my current read, TomorrowMind by Gabrielle Rosen Kellerman and Martin Seligman (who is often affectionately referred to as the father of positive psychology.). I think you’ll find my “connect the dots” story about Martin Seligman delightfully fascinating.

I began my curiosity about psychology about the same time that Dr. Seligman published his book Flourish in 2012. The subtitle of his book was “A Visionary New Understanding of Happiness and Well-being.” It focused a lot on how positive psychology could help us “preload” so that post traumatic growth might be possible rather than recurring PTSD. At the time I was in a relationship that puzzled me to no end. I could not understand the inability to “bounce back” from even minor setbacks. I was at a loss on how I could help so I was on the hunt for tools and education.

His book and his research set me on a path of self discovery and personal growth that I may have never otherwise considered. And I have never looked back. It’s eleven years later and my friends tease me that I have possibly earned an advanced degree or two. My passion for this learning has grown into my purpose, which is sharing what I am learning with others.

I have observed how often the topics I first read about have gone through a few transformations of their own over the past two decades, with scientific evidence debunking myths, depeening our initial understandings and bringing clarifying proof through neuroscience. For those reasons, I was intrigued to see what Dr. Seligman now had to share – in April 2023 in this brand new book.

I could barely put it down.

Had you been here with me as I began to read this book, you would have heard the resounding laughter that came from me when I read his words that had once been my own — Dr. Seligman uses the metaphor of the white water world of work! He talks about shooting the rapids, and navigating currents, obstacles and change. If he were here, I would hug him. I get the analogy – and I am deeply grateful. I am not at all surprised that we are now embarking on taking the work that we have been doing individually out into the big wide world.

The gear and the skills we need to navigate the white water rapids of life – at home and in the workplace are found in personal growth, self development and attending to our emotional health.

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