How to Practice Gratitude During Stressful Times

Welcome And Show Purpose

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to the Yoga Nation, the Spread of Gratitude podcast on the OneTechration platform. Hello, friends. My name is Yogesh Patel, and this podcast explores the themes of bullying, self-awareness, and the power of our inner spirit, including the silent battles we all face. Join me every week as I invite high-profile guests as we explore how adversity shapes us, how gratitude lifts us, and how we can all uncover the inner strength that we all have within ourselves. Join the conversation. I appreciate you listening in.

SPEAKER_02 0:36

What if gratitude isn't a feeling but a skill? One of the most recognizable psychiatrists in the country, my next guest is Dr. Ish Major, who understands this clinically. Known for his work with shows like Marriage, Bootcamp, Family Bootcamp on Wii TV, and Council Culture with Nikana on Amazon Prime, he's a best-selling author and a genuine media personality. Dr. Ish has worked with celebrities, athletes, couples, families, and people trying to understand not just what they feel, but why they feel it. Today you'll get a chance to hear his perspective on how that kind of gratitude that can help change how we see ourselves, how we judge others, and how we deploy our energy into the world. And anyone that has sat in a therapist chair in search for answers, and I've certainly kept the seat warm myself on a few occasions, join the conversation that this episode may help you. And with gratitude, welcome to the podcast, Dr.

Why Gratitude Must Be Learned

SPEAKER_02 1:31

Ish.

SPEAKER_00 1:31

Yep. Yep. Thank you so much for having me, Yogesh, man. Very honored to be here.

SPEAKER_02 1:35

Oh, I think uh the honor and pleasure are mine, sir, along with the citizens of Yog Nation, who I call the listeners. Well, sir, you had mentioned when we first spoke that gratitude is in your wheelhouse. How exactly do you mean by that?

SPEAKER_00 1:49

Well, uh, gratitude is in my wheelhouse because it's something I use in my own personal life every single day. Um, and I had to learn how to get there. I wasn't, I wasn't born with it, uh, I wasn't taught it, but through necessity and battling my own life anxieties and kind of climbing my own mountain, it was a way, it was a, it was a it was a natural landing spot for me. Um, and so I use it, not only do I use it when I'm working with my patients and I give them, you know, access, the keys to that castle, but I use it for my life personally, man. And I gotta tell you, it's one of those things that uh it is deeply grounding and it never not works, Yokesh. Never not works.

A Simple Daily Gratitude Routine

SPEAKER_02 2:33

And this this goes beyond journaling, correct? That's something that you advise your clients?

SPEAKER_00 2:38

Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, we've got to be intentional about these things, right? If you think about the fast-paced life we're living now, right? Where we have six months worth of things happen every two weeks. That's just like there's the constant barrage of it's almost like trying to get a sip of water from a fire hydrant and the water's just gushing out, and we can only get a little piece. You really gotta find those moments where you can be intentional about it. So for me, what I use personally every single day at least twice per day. If I'm doing good, Yogesh, if I'm having a good day three times per day, I'll find a place to work it in the middle of the day. First thing I do before I get out of bed, first thing I do is think about three things I'm grateful for. Could we make it about your life, right? If we think about those three things, what are those three areas where we all struggle with that we never get all the way quite right? Well, it's our physical health, it's our romantic state, or some money, right? Am I healthy? Does somebody loving me today? No, am I broke or not? Do I have some money or not? Right. And most of us, if we're being honest, we can juggle, we can keep two of those plates spinning pretty well. But then one of those other plates is really going to start to wobble, right? If we got the money right and the love right, we probably don't have the time to stay physically fit all the time, right? But if we've got, if we're right, if we got our single person body going, right? And we got our money going, then the one piece we need to make it whole is the love. So think about one of those three areas and think about something you're just deeply grateful for in that area. Doesn't have to be romantic love. Uh, right? Did I talk to my mom this weekend? Man, that's I'm so grateful for that relationship. Uh brothers and sisters, right? Think about who you are in relation to other people. It's not just about your romantic partner, but what about are you a little brother? Are you an uncle? Are you a best friend, right? Are you grateful for that relationship? Right. And just and just spend five seconds, just let that image flash across your mind. Now what next? Okay, well, if if I woke up in a bed, that bed is probably in a house or an apartment, which means I've got someplace safe to sleep. That's something to be grateful for,

Using Gratitude During Panic

SPEAKER_00 4:47

right?

SPEAKER_02 4:47

And then you build from that because when we think about it, I guess in the moments or when people are stressed, and I think you mentioned you can't have two competing thoughts enter your mind at the same time. And I guess this question is for those that perhaps are struggling at this current time, right? How do you bring that skill of gratitude to help them not perhaps be so negative to themselves or to the world?

SPEAKER_00 5:12

Well, it's a hack. It's uh easier said than done. Easy for me to sit here and tell you what to do, even for us to talk about it on a podcast. Um really, really difficult when you think you're dying because you're having a panic attack. Right? It's hard. It's hard to stop and say, okay, you mean to tell me 90% of what I'm feeling right now is a projection of my own thoughts into my world, even my heart. Well, no, my heart's literally beating a thousand miles an hour. Yeah, that's real. And it's because of probably 90% of the thoughts you're having. So, in that moment, in that moment, practice it. Hack into the system. I'm having, oh my God, I'm freaking out. This thing happened. I'm not really sure why, but now I'm breathing very, very shallow. And now my heart's starting to beat 100 miles an hour. And there go the sweaty palms. This is it. This is gonna be a bad one. Oh my god, wait, that bomb guy, doctor, said something about gratefulness. What am I grateful for? What am I grateful for? What am I grateful for? What am I grateful for? Oh my god, well, that'd be grateful for Wi-Fi. Yeah, I guess I could be grateful for Wi-Fi. I mean, after the panic attack, I'm gonna watch something. I'm gonna watch something on YouTube. I can be grateful for that. Well, you know what? You know what? My mom always, always cooks me my favorite thing after I've had a rough day. And I'm so grateful for that. And I wonder if she's I wonder, you know, I should text her right now just to tell her that I'm having a panic attack, but then after so she can be ready. And by the time you think of two or three things that you are grateful for, it could be your dog, it could be your cat, it could be your best friend, it could be your favorite stuffed animal, your favorite pillow, that favorite creature comfort. By the time you work through two or three of those things, you notice something that is deeply, deeply important for anybody who's ever had a panic attack, which is I'm not dead yet. Oh wow, great. I had it, it didn't kill me. I'm st I'm still here, and holy cow, well, for the last 20 seconds, I wasn't thinking about the panic attack.

Momentum And The Self-Criticism Trap

SPEAKER_02 7:05

It looks like there's a degree of a compound interest involved as well. Right? It's like one positive thought or mind awareness thought, I should say. It doesn't have to be all positive. One awareness thought leads to the next, it leads to the next. And you know, I'm sure you're you can understand the biochemistry changes that happen in your body as a result.

SPEAKER_00 7:27

Well, we don't, you know, in medicine we'll call it a we call it a chemical cascade. When we start the one neurotransmitter, then it kind of kicks into that stream. In Eastern philosophy, they say much begets more, right? And so if we've got one thought, then we need to the next thought, and then the next thought, and then we start the train rolling. But it's like, I just call it momentum, right? Life is about momentum. And can you catch the wave and ride it? Are you gonna fight it? Right. But if you can ride it and it leaves, because as soon as you that's the thing you just mentioned, what a lot of my patients and a lot of my clients will mention, which is hey, you know what? I kind of practiced that thing, and you know what happened? What's that? Well, I kind of got pretty good at it pretty quick. Because as soon as you have the one thing that you're grateful for, you can think about the next thing. Oh, yeah, well, there was that other time last week. Oh, yeah, and then there's oh yeah, and that's everything, right? But again, you just gotta be intentional about hacking into that part of the system. Because Joe Guess, if I asked you right now, tell me 10 things you don't like about yourself.

SPEAKER_02 8:25

I can name 20.

SPEAKER_00 8:27

Right, exactly. Exactly. And most of us can. We can name 10, we can name 20. But if I ask you, Jogas, tell me three things you absolutely positively love about yourself. Now, you may be one of the rare folks who can name those three things, but most folks would struggle with that. They would really have to sit and think about it because it's one of those things we don't naturally think about. But if you get intentional about it, in another week or two or a month, maybe you can rattle all five things.

SPEAKER_02 8:53

So is it beyond just saying things perhaps out loud or in your mind, or is it the practice of journaling? Because I here have this gratitude journal, right? That uh I don't call it a gratitude journal, I call it a gratitude journal.

Mantras Plus Feeling The Outcome

SPEAKER_02 9:11

So again, the question is is beyond just you know saying things out loud or keeping that momentum going or journaling, is there anything else you advise your clients in terms of the art and skill of practicing gratitude?

SPEAKER_00 9:26

Yeah, so it's uh so you're right. Uh the mantras, we know mantras are the entree, right? It's the emouge bouche. It kind of warms up the palate and we get our brain, we kind of train our brain to thinking, okay, it sounds weird, you know, I'm lovable, I'm lovable, I'm lovable. I said it 10 times. I know if I really buy it or not, but I'll keep saying it, right? It kind of gets our brain warmed up to the idea of accepting it. And then what you got to do, your guest, is you've got to train yourself to live in the feeling, right? Think about, think about the thing you want. Like anybody, what's the thing you want? Is it the car next? Is it the nice house? Is it the partner who loves you and cherishes you? Is it the next new job? And so you can get that next new check. And what are those things, right? When we think about, is it the clothes, is it the shoes, is it the watch, is it whatever it is, when we think about the thing, right? What's the thing we want? Yeah, great. But the reason we want the thing isn't because of the thing itself, it's because of how we think the thing is going to help us feel. So if I can get you to tap into the feeling of it, right? What did you dream about? You're grateful because oh, your relationship with your mom. My goodness, that's amazing. Okay, how does that help you feel?

SPEAKER_02 10:38

What if the feeling is not so good, not so happy?

Decisions From Worth Not Wounds

SPEAKER_02 10:42

And what I mean by that, let me preface by saying this, Doctor, and that is on council culture with Nick Cannon. And I think you mentioned on one of the episodes you make decisions from your worth, not from your wounds, right? And this theme we're talking about of feelings, how does that relate?

SPEAKER_00 10:59

Yeah. Well, if you think about it, 90% of our personality develops in the defense of the wound we had. Think about that. 90%. 90% of our personality develops in defense of the wound we had that occurred at some point before we left high school, usually in middle school, but certainly before we leave high school. There was a deep, humongous shaming thing that shaped who you felt like you were in the world. I don't know what that thing was. Was it me not being good enough for my dad to come watch me grow up? Was it because I'm maybe I was a bad person, and that's why that bully kept picking on me? I don't know, right? Maybe, maybe I'm really not worth much more than what people can see. And so that's why people kept touching me in ways I didn't really want them to. I don't know, right? What if those are the beliefs that kind of shape who we think we are, and those beliefs shape how we get to show up in the world. So we mostly make decisions from our wounds, which is what if how do I get through the world in as easy as possible way today without being hurt today, without being embarrassed today, without being shamed today, without being reminded of the bad thing that happened today? Most of us make those decisions from this place of protection because we're defending against the thing that hurt us, because it sucks to be hurt. Sucks, right? Um, and so most of us are making those decisions based on that. If we're talking about our relationships, if we're talking about our parenting, if we're talking about how we relate to our boss, right? How can I get through this with as little pain as possible and then just get back to my life and kind of get this day done? But if you can start to make some decisions from your worth, right? The thing that's possible, what else could I be? And one of those, one of those, one of those, I'm all about the mental hacks, yo, Jeff, yo guess. So one of those mental hacks is are you the kind of person who can imagine another version of yourself living a life right now where that thing that you're worried about never happened to you? Can you imagine that? Can you can you can you tap into your three-year-old self? Let's play a game of imagination. Can you imagine that there's a version of you right now who did have your dad every single day? He bounced you on his lap, he threw you up on his shoulder, he played catch with, he did all those things. What would that version of you feel like? I wonder. I don't know what that version of you. And now, in that moment, because you didn't answer immediately, that tells me your brain is trying to wrap its head around that. I wonder what that would have felt like.

SPEAKER_02 13:31

And then that's exactly what I'm thinking about right now. Um, you know, for me, it's perhaps, yes, I can envision myself, but you're scared. You're scared to know what that new version of yourself looks like. You wouldn't, you know you want to be better, right? But in order for that, you have to be vulnerable, you have to tear down those walls and overcome that childhood trauma to move forward. And that's scary. Well, it's terrifying, it's beyond scary.

SPEAKER_00 14:02

And you know, I had a I had a psychoanalyst teacher back when I back in the olden days with the dinosaurs when I was first getting started in school, who said, you know, he's like, ish, you know, the the place you've really got to get people to in order to help them move forward is you've got to get them to a place where they're courageous enough to admit to themselves about what the thing that happened did to them. What did what did it do to me? Because it did something to me. It changed me. Changed me when that person smacked me upside my head at the locker and everybody laughed at me. That changed me. You know, when I slipped and fell in the cafeteria and nobody helped me up, and I had spaghetti all over me. And that changed me when my folks got divorced. That changed me. Whatever that big thing was, right? Our life gets to be so much about getting past the one big thing. So what if we could reframe that? What if we could? What if we can imagine a different feeling? Because if you've got a second or two where you can imagine a different feeling, then that's your way in. That's a crack, right? In the pain and the hurt. And we can, and through that crack, the light can get in.

SPEAKER_02 15:12

I'm envisioning a crack in the skin and light entering that wound in order for you to heal, as opposed to the surface pain that you feel initially.

SPEAKER_00 15:23

That's right. That's right. And and examine the pain, right? And realize um it's not permanent, right? We don't live in a world where anything is permanent, right? Uh, there's this Buddhist principle. What is it uh except for taxes, but that's a that's another permanent well the death and taxes. We know those two

Impermanence And Thoughts As Clouds

SPEAKER_00 15:46

things are coming for sure, right? But everything else really kind of goes by, right? Imagine, I'm not asking you, but imagine what was the last big thing that needed that you needed to do, and you had no idea how you're gonna do it. So I don't know how this part, I don't know how this is gonna work. I don't know. And now here you sit today, and it worked out just fine, you know, because the problem was in a permanent thing. The pain is in a permanent thing. We live in a life, uh, a notch, a notchy, I need to double check that. Well, your perception was wrong, right? Or and we think that just because it's painful today, it's always gonna be painful, right? These things pass. We live in an impermanent universe. So one of the other techniques I use for folks is how do we how do we latch on to that idea that whatever's happening right now is not gonna always be happening? The person you are today isn't the person you're gonna be tomorrow. I had a patient once, she came in, man. Uh, she was, she started treatment when she was at 14 years old, and she would come and go, come and go. And the last time I saw her sophomore in college, 19 years old, right? She was kind of doing the thing, went through mom struggle with substance use, exposed her to horrible situations with strange people, and we can all imagine some of the horrible things that happened from that, right? Uh, the violations and all of these things and the deep insecurities and self-harm to try to feel something in this world where she's trying to numb herself up against all the pain. And she said something one day. It was brilliant. She came in. I was like, hey, you know, it's been a few months since I've seen you. Let's check in. How are things going? She's like, Well, school is going good. I'm making some new friends now. And she was like, Man, you know, being out of that house is just, it's amazing the things that you're able to kind of look forward to when you don't have some of those old reminders. I was like, Yeah, I'll tell you, let me hear some more about that. And she was like, Well, you know, I was just doing some homework one day and something happened. I think I'd text somebody and they didn't text me back, and I was starting to freak out about it and, you know, do the whole abandonment thing. And then she remembered, she said, but then I remembered I'm not the same person today that I was back then. So I don't have to do the thing that I did back then when people wouldn't text me back.

SPEAKER_02 18:01

Ah, okay.

SPEAKER_00 18:03

Yes. Brilliant. Brilliant. Because who you were wrapped up in that pain isn't permanent. It's not. It's not a permanent thing. So one of a neat trick. Folks out there, listen, take this home with you, use it, try it. It sounds super silly, sounds super elemental, but if you try it, it will change your life. Think about every thought you have, right? It's possible. So we talk about life. Think, feel, do. Think, feel, do. We have a thought. It triggers this feeling inside of us. And that feeling shapes our behavior. We do something about it. And if we do that behavior enough, it kind of begins to be the pattern of our life, right? We're creatures of habit. So think, feel, do. So one of the things I try to teach my anxious patients, my depressed patients is it's okay to have the thought. You can have a dark thought about suicide. It can be a thought about anxiety, it can be a thought about the trauma. Have the thought. Do you believe it's possible to have a thought but not have to participate in it? And then the light bulb starts to go off. Right? You can have thought about panicking and not participating. Okay, well, how do I do that? Here's how. Here's how. Have you ever seen Yogesh? Have you ever seen a cloud in the sky? Many times. Many times, many times. Now, when you look at the clouds on Monday, were they the exact same place on Tuesday? Of course not. So now what you're gonna do is you're gonna take that thought about panic, you're gonna stick it in a cloud out there. And you're just gonna notice it like you're watching the clouds in the sky. Oh, that's a thought about panic. Oh, oh, that's the thought about the time my parents were arguing, don't like that one. That's a thought about the person who didn't say yes on asking to the prom. That sucked. That sucked a lot. However, those clouds are gonna keep on passing, right? They're just gonna, and you're just gonna notice that thought just like you notice that cloud. That one looks like a bunny rabbit. Uh okay, that one's gone now.

SPEAKER_02 19:55

Are you diagnosing me by any chance?

SPEAKER_00 19:59

That one looks like a race car. That one's oh, okay. Wind change, that one's gone now. And so the thoughts about what you're feeling are the exact same way. You can notice that thought in the sky and just not participate. It's interesting. Get curious about it. Get curious about it. I'm interested. All right, I'm very curious about why I had that pantheon. I wonder what just happened to trigger that cloud. Interesting. Oh, well, it's gone now. So, okay, let's see where the next thing comes because there's a next one coming with a new thought. If you can start, it sounds super silly. But if you can play that game and just write it out as a cloud in the sky and it's passing, and then there's the next thought. Oh, this one's about what's on Netflix tonight. Let's see, that looks interesting. We can keep it rolling. If you can do that, you give yourself this thing we call cognitive dissonance, right? You get a little distance, a little separation from the feeling and then the behavior. And if you can get that three, five second separation, boy, it can make a world of difference in how you get to show up for yourself.

SPEAKER_02 20:58

And I think this is what I understand when you mentioned earlier in our pre-planning call that gratitude is a gateway to a greater and creative intelligence. I think this example of the clouds speaks to that.

SPEAKER_00 21:09

Yep, absolutely. Absolutely. You know, however, however, you imagine that universal creative intelligence to be, you know, sometimes it's geography and where we're born and what you know most of the folks around us believe. Sometimes it's familial, sometimes it's uh it's a journey we've been on on our own. But if you can imagine, well, however you imagine that creative intelligence, you know, it's always been with you. You're never not guided, you're never not held.

SPEAKER_02 21:37

Is the first step awareness,

Readiness, Support, And Real Empathy

SPEAKER_02 21:39

or is it something that predates it? Because if I'm just thinking out loud here, uh indulge me. That is, you know, I get a person or I'm talking to a friend, a colleague, whomever, that you know, I talk about my day and how grateful I am, the gratitude, and perhaps they see it as perhaps jealousy or yeah, but. Right. And I think this there has to be something, a trigger that is not awareness, but something that gets them to be aware in that moment. Where, again, as I mentioned, you know, we agreed that we can't have two competing thoughts at the same time. But how do you uh how do you unclock uncloak from anger to jealousy to you know whatever to being you know vulnerable?

SPEAKER_00 22:26

Yeah, yeah. Short answer, you uncloak it when they're ready. Better answer, they uncloak it when they're ready.

SPEAKER_02 22:32

How do they know that they're ready though?

SPEAKER_00 22:34

Well, I you know, I had a patient today. Uh 13-year-old kid came in angry. Not even, nope, and not even gonna, I'm not gonna make eye contact with you today, doc. I don't want to hear anything my parents are saying today because they get it all wrong, and I don't want to be here, and I'm tired of it, tired of all of it, you know? And so the mom says, Well, she's like, I don't know, man, what can what can we do? You're a parent. You want your kid to feel better, right? And you want to do it now, you want to fix this thing now, so we all get to feel good. I get to feel good about how I showed as a parent. They get to have the life that I'm trying to provide for them. And I said, Mom, you know, actually, there's not much you need to do right now because at some point, he's just gonna get tired of feeling that way.

SPEAKER_02 23:13

He just is well, people are people suffer in silence, right? And that duration could stand for a year, five years, ten years. They may live in this perpetual state of suffering and silence.

SPEAKER_00 23:25

Yeah. And you're gonna have a point of time where and where we're suffering in silence, you guess that's emotional labor. That that costs, that's heavy lifting. Yeah, you know, and it's exhausting. It's exhausting. So at some point, you're gonna have to press pause. You're gonna take a nap, you're gonna get off the treadmill, you're gonna feel like I just I can't do it today.

SPEAKER_02 23:48

I would actually add more to that then, Dr. Itch. It's the circle that you have around you that are trying to help. I mean, people don't live in a bubble, right? Uh, there is that circle of friends and family that are there to support you, uh, whether you may not see it or not. And for them, for you to be accepting of their help, I think that perhaps could predate their own self-awareness to know that if my dad, you know, if if I'm in this perpetual state of sadness or whatever, I just have to be open to perhaps a teacher that really wants to help me, or a school resource officer, or even as an adult, right? You know, perhaps a colleague or you know, someone that can help you get out of a toxic relationship.

SPEAKER_00 24:35

Yeah, ex acceptance for sure, but acceptance of what?

SPEAKER_02 24:40

Well of the person you're trying to be a better version of yourself, which would require what? Self-awareness.

SPEAKER_00 24:50

I'm asking you to read my mind. Which is right, it requires you to believe that who you are is worth feeling better. Right. That's that's that's the requirement. One more time. If I'm gonna accept that this person's helping me and they're trying to get me to feel better, in order for me to accept that, I gotta believe that who I am is worth feeling better.

SPEAKER_02 25:13

Ah, okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:15

Because if I don't believe that, you you can send the army, you can send the National Guard to help me. I'm not I'm gonna reject it every single time, right?

SPEAKER_02 25:23

And I guess for me, it's uh you know, kind of kind of more mundane is that closed mouths don't get fed. You got it.

SPEAKER_00 25:30

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:31

So you have to have the courage to open up and express your feelings.

SPEAKER_00 25:35

Well, and why would why would you open why would you open that mouth to get fed? Because you've got the expectation that there's some food out there.

SPEAKER_02 25:43

But the fear of being judged, though, right? I mean, and it's cultural too, right? I mean, I'm Asian, well, uh Indian, right? Um I like to think of myself as a coconut, you know, for the audience that's listening this far, you know, brown on the outside, white on the inside, but that's okay. But you know, again, there's there's a certain shame in in opening up. So how do you tell a patient not it's okay, right? But help me, you know, walk me through what that that is, because again, a lot of this podcast, and I'm grateful for you know the folks, the demographic audience that are in the 30s and 40s and 50s that listen to this and you know find ways that perhaps they can help themselves or you know, have this be a tool for their own parenting needs. So how would you address that? And so the question is the question is is um how do you get that person to realize for themselves that there is help and not go through the stigma of being judged so much. The perception, I guess, of being judged.

SPEAKER_00 26:55

Yeah, yeah. Well, you can't get them there, right? Uh that's the hard part about loving somebody. You can't change them and you can't pull them out of that place they are. But what you can do is be along for the ride so that when they're ready to reach out, then you just remind them of the expectation. You remind them of how good they are, how cool they are. You remind them that, hey, I've been I've been waiting for you to ask me that question. Let me show you what we got now. You know what I mean? I've watched you walk on the street past my store all day long. And it says on the sign, good stuff inside, you never walked in. I'm glad you finally stepped inside. Let me show you what we have. Let me show you some of the good things we have. So it's really just about being there uh and being ready for them. My uh, my folks back in the day, my parents were together for 56 years. And so, you know, we grew up in this really small town, maybe 500 people, half of those were all animals. Um, it was my, you know, my mom and my dad, and five sisters and eight aunts, and we were all kind of like close around. And so when something bad would happen, well, somebody would pass away, somebody would get sick, uh, the old folks back then, my mom and those included, would say, you know what, I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go down the road, I'm just gonna go sit with them. And I remember it always, and I was like, Well, what are you gonna do? What are you gonna talk about? She was like, No, nothing. We're not gonna talk about anything. I'm just gonna sit. Just gonna sit and be. Right? And let them know, hey, because now that's talking about true empathy, right? This is a this I this sucks that this thing happened. And I hate this is where we are, but I can just be here with you until we get through it. Right now I'm feeling the thing with you. I'm on the ride with you, right? And that's how we let folks know that who they are is worth that, right? This person took time out of their day to just kind of come be with me in my darkness. And they didn't try to move me off of it. A lot of times, Joe Gesh, we see somebody we love who's who's in pain, right? They're hurting. We like hate that for them. We want to move them, we want them to feel better right now. I want to get not for me. I want, I love you, and I I hate that this is how you're feeling. Let me tell you something or do something. I saw this really cool podcast and they said, try this thing. Let me give it to you right now so you can try it. But sometimes, sometimes the best part of empathy means, hey, I can just sit in this dark room with you and I don't feel compelled to turn the lights on. It sucks. I've been here too, and I'm gonna sit here with you until you're ready. And when you're ready to turn those lights on, I'm gonna be right here. You know what I mean? And then we can have some talk conversations in the light. But for right now, we're just gonna sit in the dark, and that could be all that takes for them to know hey, okay, that's might be okay. And I'm not alone in this thing.

SPEAKER_02 29:39

Yeah, and I think the key there though is finding your tribe that can help. Uh again, I'm not there are bad people, there are negative people. They will always be, maybe not always, but you know, in my mind, they'll continue their habits that you know have that not so happy energy about them. So, you know, you want to stay away from these people as best as you can. Um, again, easier said than done.

SPEAKER_00 30:11

Yeah, you're you're I like the I like the kind phraseology you use there for that, yes.

SPEAKER_02 30:18

I try to be diplomatic on the podcast.

SPEAKER_00 30:20

Well played, well done. I yeah.

SPEAKER_02 30:25

But sometimes I get again, as I mentioned, you have to have build that intuition to know, you know, who is gonna help you and who may want to keep you down.

Intuition, Trust, And Letting Life Work

SPEAKER_02 30:38

Um and how do you build up that intuition for people?

SPEAKER_00 30:42

Well, now that's my goodness, that's a tough question because we're all born with that intuition. Um, that internal navigation system that tells us, oh, yeah, well, I'm actually I'm gonna not take this route to work, I'm gonna take that route to work. You know, those types of things. Uh, but we learn to distrust it so easily because we only catalog the things that didn't go right when we did. Right. You got it. And so we never catalog the nine out of 10 things that went great as soon as we followed it. And every time we only catalog the one thing that didn't, because our brains are wired. That lizard part of our brain that's wired for survival only remembers the quicksand, the tar, the woolly mammoth, the tiger, right? All of these things that could threaten our existence. And so that's the one thing that's on our radar. And so it's it's the trust, right? We're talking about trust. The when you say, how do we trust our intuition? Well, the bigger part of that sentence is it's trust. How do we trust that it's gonna be okay? It's the same question people have in relationships. How do I trust them again? They hurt me. How do I trust? Right? They they lied, they cheated, they did this icky thing. I love them. I still want to be here, but I don't know how to get the trust back. And so, and we put, we think, 'cause, and now we're thinking trust is this thing out there that we got to find. It's somewhere, yo Gash. Where did I put it? Is it under the bed? Is it in the closet? Where did I put it? I know I left that trust somewhere. It was, it was just here. I just had it. So, and we think it's out here, it's out here. I gotta, there's some things you gotta do now that help me trust you. I need to know. Paturn on, share your location, text me back within within 10 minutes. All of these external things, and it's none of that. It's trusting in yourself. It's trusting that I have been hurt before, I have been disappointed before, I have been let down before. It sucked, but eventually it was okay. I will be hurt again, I will be let down again, I will be disappointed again, it will suck. But I remember from last time that eventually that actually too will be okay. And so you trust that no matter what happens, you're gonna be fine. You're gonna be okay. And you don't have to know how. Because again, you talked about plugging into that creative intelligence, right? There is, think about it, we live in a galaxy, man, it's got trillions of stars whizzing by every single, I mean, at a thousand miles an hour, every single night. And not one time do we see a report on the news about a star collision. Well, it had a big explosion, two stars colliding in Galaxy 208 tonight. Never hear that, do we? Because it never happens. Because there is a broader intelligence.

SPEAKER_02 33:28

Where the telescopes aren't directed to know where to find where to find two stars.

SPEAKER_00 33:32

You know what I mean? It's just like it doesn't happen. When you think about uh, you know, I always think about my time in med school and my time, I got to deliver seven babies. Over my time in OB guy. Now we do our two months in every rotation, internal medicine, OB, surgery, trauma, all these things. So it was a busy two months for me and OB. I got to deliver seven babies. And when you hear people talk about the miracle of childbirth, there are a gazillion things that could go wrong. A gazillion. And so when that baby pops out and you catch it and it starts kicking and crying, and you give mom the baby, it's truly a miracle that everything that had to happen that we have zero control over happened anyway, and it came out just fine. Can you trust that part of it? Trust that part. It's gonna be fine. You made it here. There were two million other versions of you the night you were conceived that were competing for your spot, and you beat all of those versions out. You you made it here.

SPEAKER_02 34:40

Look how special you are then, right? You know, the smile just keeps on growing wider and wider from ear to ear now, when you just said that, Dr. S. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:49

Think about that, right? There you were the one who made it. There's nothing else you need to do to earn anything. Think of how special that is. You already hit the jack. You won the lottery because you're here and you get to do the thing. Now you just got to tap back into that and trust that you had nothing to do with beating out those other two million versions of you. It just kind of happened. So now let life just kind of happen and trust that who you are is worth cool things happening to.

SPEAKER_02 35:18

I really hope that uh the listeners to this particular episode find so much meaning and so much value because you've certainly given us a lot to digest once every five minutes. And so, you know, I just really hope that the listeners do find value, do find the messaging that Dr. shares amazing, to say the very least. Um, Dr. Ish, again, incredible episode. Thank you for coming on.

SPEAKER_00 35:45

I appreciate you having me, man.

SPEAKER_02 35:46

I'm one final question. I'll give you the final word. Yep. Is there anything that I missed in terms of our conversation that you'd like to share to the audience?

SPEAKER_00 35:54

I think, you know, I love the questions and I love the kind of the way the conversation flowed. Um, I

Joy Lives In The Present

SPEAKER_00 36:00

think when we go back and circle back to gratefulness and why it's so important, um, when I think about what I see the most as a psychiatrist, uh, depression, anxiety, trauma, right? Bad things happen, we have a tough time moving forward, uh, and now I'm depressed about it, or now I'm anxious about it. Uncertainty is the word. And so if we think about the sadness, right? Depression is usually about the past and the things we can't go back and undo, and the things we can't change, and the things we lost, and now we feel less old. When we think about anxiety, it usually is pitching it forward to the future about the uncertainty. I don't know what's gonna happen tomorrow. Oh, I don't know what's gonna happen next month. Is it gonna be all right or not? I don't know. I don't know. I'm gonna try, but I don't know. So when we talk about being grateful, gratefulness, that the single if I asked you what was the single most hard human emotion to sustain, what would you say?

SPEAKER_02 36:51

Loving yourself.

SPEAKER_00 36:52

Yeah, close. Joy.

SPEAKER_02 36:54

Joy.

SPEAKER_00 36:54

You can't sustain it.

SPEAKER_02 36:56

We can't. One other fun fact. So I had two weeks ago a board certified anesthesiologist, Dr. Tiffany Moon. Her best-selling book is called Joy Prescriptions.

SPEAKER_00 37:07

Yeah, yeah, check that out. And we need give me, I will, I will take that as we say QID four times a day. I'll take one four times a day, doc. Give it to me because we can't sustain it. Because how we are wired as human beings, we're not 100% sure we're worth it, right? And so there's a hack. How do I hack into the joy? Well, the only joy that's available is here. Right now, me and you having this amazing conversation, right? I'm seeing the curiosity on your face, the smile on your face. We're nodding, we're connecting, we're here in the moment. And so gratefulness is a way to hack into this moment. I'm grateful for this time. And if I can stay in that group, I just got goosebumps thinking about it. If I can stay right here a little bit longer, that's a cool way for me to sustain some joy for the next few minutes because I'm here, present. The gratefulness keeps you present, and the presence is where the joy is found. And so that's why you gotta um how does how does a ship not get lost when you're tied up? Well, it's fine. Let the ship go out to sea as long as it returns to port. Gratefulness is how you return to port. Return to port three times a day, four times a day, five times a day. It's fine. Let the thoughts go where they go. It's a cloud in the sky, let it go, and then bring it back to now. And the way to bring it back to now is to hack into the present through that gratefulness. This is what I'm grateful for right now, man. I am. You know, your voice, you should. I feel like I should pay you for this session because your voice is so soothing. I'm so relaxed now. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_02 38:34

Soothing, but not sexy.

SPEAKER_00 38:36

Let's just put it back away. Yeah, but that's that's the key. Gratefulness is there's it's the hack, man.

SPEAKER_02 38:45

I think for me, as you mentioned, again, everyone expresses their emotions differently. Yours is goosebumps, mine is that fuzzy, sinking feeling of the heart. That's where I know I'm in the state of gratitude. Dr. Ish, thank you so much for joining this uh amazing conversation, participating. Again, I just can't wait for this episode to come out. Thank you. Good luck. And if there's anything that myself or the citizens of Yoge Nation can do, besides, you know, watching more of your TV shows and the wisdom that you share on other programs, do please let us know.

SPEAKER_00 39:19

Yogesh, thank you so much for having me. I am and I appreciate you, man. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_02 39:24

Appreciate you back.

SPEAKER_00 39:25

Thanks again. Bye bye.