Navigating the Labyrinth of Perception: Wisdom, Language, and Post-Trauma Growth

00:00 Adam 

Hello and welcome to This Anthro Life, the podcast that explores the fascinating intersection between anthropology, culture, and the human experience. I'm your host Adam Gamwell . Now today we have a thought and heart-provoking episode that delves into what happens when we're confronted with overwhelming experiences, and how we can activate our ability to process grief and experience growth. We're going to be touching on the power of language to name and express what's happening, the complexity of our emotions, and ground all of this conversation in the unspoken grief of the ongoing pandemic. Now, when I say the word sad, you have an idea in your head and probably your body of what it feels like to be sad. But did you know that the Latin root for the word sadness actually means an overflowing of emotions? Now, how fascinating is it that a word that we use all the time to describe everyday life, hopefully we're not sad every day, but we may use when we're feeling sad, also has deep connotations that go beyond what we tend to think of as what sadness is. So let me paint a picture for you. You know, we've all been through tough times. You know, you're sitting alone, trying to find words to describe an overwhelming experience or an emotion, but every word that you think of seems to kind of fall short and nothing really captures how you actually feel. You know, this can leave you feeling frustrated and misunderstood even. But have you ever stopped to wonder why language fails us in capturing these profound and touching moments? And then how are we supposed to actually process all these feelings? So in this episode, we're going to get to the heart of these questions. And I've got a brilliant guest to share with you today to help us make sense of these under-processed and yet profoundly impactful experiences in our lives. I'm very excited to introduce to you Amrita Subramanian. And for more than 22 years, Amrita has dedicated her career to helping organizations thrive in the midst of crisis. She's also a trailblazer in the field of post-disruptive growth as a faculty member of the University of Pennsylvania and as a guest lecturer at the Wharton School of Business. As an author, speaker, and executive coach, Amrita is on a mission to help reach the masses with her message of intentional growth and hope. Now throughout our conversation, Amrita is going to challenge us to question whether the limitations of language hinder our ability to fully process, and understand the ongoing pandemic. She raises the vital question of whether the lack of shared language and sufficient time for reflection contribute to the ongoing under-processing of this global crisis, and particularly in disadvantaged communities. Here's a sneak peek of what we'll be talking about in today's episode. The first is an internal GPS. Amrita is going to introduce to us a fascinating metaphorical triangle that represents our assumptions about ourselves, about others, and about the world. We're going to explore how the pandemic has shattered these assumptions, forcing us to grieve the incomprehensible and ultimately to question the very fabric of our reality. Second, we're going to look at lived experience and beyond. Amrita is going to break down the concept of lived experience into five distinct components and challenge us to reframe our understanding of trauma, embracing both its woundedness and potential for growth. And third, we're going to dive into the wisdom of elders. One of the challenges about the pandemic is the loss of wisdom amongst our elder community. And really we're going to highlight and jump into the importance of fostering intergenerational relationships and evaluating insights of different generations. Now as we head into this episode, don't forget to subscribe to The Santhro Life, leave us a review, and share the podcast with your friends and family. Your support helps us continue bringing you engaging and enlightening conversations. So without further ado, let's embark on this intellectual journey with Amrita Subramanian and discover the transformative power of language across the unspoken grief of our times. I just want to say that Amrita, I'm really, really excited to have you on the podcast today. It's been a long time coming and so I'm excited that we're able to connect today and kind of dive on in to, I think there's so many interesting areas that we will be able to kind of talk through in terms of growing beyond pain and thinking about healing and questions of trauma and collective areas of growth. So I think there's such a rich spot that I'm going to not jump in quite yet. I want to first say thank you so much for joining me on the program and really wonderful to have you here.

04:03 Amrita  

Well, Adam, thank you so much. I've been a long-term and a long-standing member of one of your many listeners and many admirers. What is wonderful about the way you framed it is that it is the time that we have to make sense, intelligent sense, of who we are, how we are, and how our experiences have been over the last few years, because we are meaning-making beings. It has to make sense to us. So I'm very, very excited, and I'm thrilled as to how this conversation and this richness would open up.

04:33 Adam

That's so, so, so, so heartwarming. So thank you. So I think, you know, to kind of bring us into the conversation, the, one of the ways that we kind of got in contact was through this, the study that you're conducting now, which I think is, is, is super fascinating that it is the first of its kind of study. you know, called Growing Beyond Pain. And it's a pilot study that's helping us think as, you know, we've endured this collective trauma for the first time, kind of as a species, which is something that we've never done before. And we're talking about COVID-19 here, you know, in this in the current era, we might say, I mean, some folks might say, well, we had World War One or World War Two, some of us weren't alive then. So we could talk about epigenetics, I suppose, and like how there could be passed down trauma. But for now, for those of us that are that are that are alive in this moment, and that were born after World War Two, I think this is a really interesting moment that we're talking about kind of a collective trauma at a global scale. So I'd love to both get input in this sense of how you came up with this and maybe we can do that by way of getting a sense of a little bit about your background and your story and like how that filtered into a bit of what we're going to be talking about today.

05:34 Amrita  

Well, it's magnificent the way you framed it and it almost felt as if, you know, you were watching how the story evolved. So, growing beyond pain has been pretty much the metaphor of my life. I'm a very young person and as a child who grew up in the convent and was always a stranger on the outside, let's put it that way. And I've lived and loved and worked in 23 countries. I've relied on kindness of strangers and I've I've had my corporate world, and I've risen through the ranks. And right now, I am in the place where a lot of what I know today is coming back to the world. So whether it is in my teaching, whether it's in my consulting, whether it's in the speaker session. And what is important about this conversation with you, you know, in one of your podcasts a while back, you mentioned that, you know, how do we know what we experience is true? And it was one of the things that you were speaking with one of your fascinating guests. And something that I really want to draw in, and I will speak in fundamentals. The first is, reality is experienced through our body. It's the truest empirical data. That is why we refer to lived experience. But we all call it lived experience. What does it mean to live an experience, for instance? I'm a phenomenologist, and I have massive respect for sociology and anthropology. So if I were to break it down, for instance, into five things, just for the sake because there are many, I'm going to put in five. First is lived time. How does time feel? Because there's an internal time and there's an external time. And all of us have gone through wacky timeline through the COVID period. So, you know, how did time feel? How did my body feel? My body is a billion year old technology. You know, there's so much talk about AI. This instrument that we have, the bioengineering of this is an It's a space of infinite wisdom and wonder. What happened to our bodies with the impositions that happened in our time? What happens to our emotions? That's a massive set of data because emotional intelligence activates every other intelligence or mutes every other intelligence. The fourth, what happens to my relationship? Now, we're locked in a home, driving either each other mad or attaining nirvana. We don't know where, but somewhere in the spectrum of the two, we've explored our internal madness and we've met ourselves over and over again within the same space. And the last one, for instance, are the many worlds we have. We have a work, we have a life, we have a friend, we are a partner, we are a mate, multiple realities. So when we look at trauma, it's important to reframe the singular understanding of it. The most popular one is woundedness or a raw rawness. It alerts us. It makes us vigilant and we are distant from it. But you know, that's the popular meaning. That's not the whole meaning. In German, for those of us who are fluent with the language and familiar with it, Traum means a dream. So for instance, falling in love is a positive trauma, absolutely. Yes, completely. Having a baby can be traumatizing in so many ways. You know, moving into a new home, finding the job, going after your dreams. We suffer for these aspirations, but we don't call them trauma. But if you read the root word, these are significant dreams that we are struggling and living through. So can trauma be negative as well? And when is it negative? It is negative. Example, what you said, which was brilliant, is COVID was one experience that unified 100-year-old to a zero-year-old. It's a connecting language. It's a connecting generation. And so in that, when our assumptions of reality, the same reality, which is our unit of experience, is shattered. That is when it becomes negative. And what makes it negative or positive? I'm sure we're going to explore it further, but I want to reframe the term can be positive and negative, which is the root of growing beyond pain. You see, this is an ancient idea that we are on a hero's journey and bliss is on the path that we follow, but it is now becoming scientific that growth is not a hope. It's a fact.

09:56 Adam

I love that. Wow. So thought bomb dropped already here. I think it's such an important piece for us to open up with and just kind of, even as we frame this conversation, the power of language, right? To get us to actually think about how are we describing experiences, right? And this reminded me, as you're really wonderfully saying that, a couple of things came to mind. you know, when we, on one level, understand the root of terms and words, it actually gives us a new kind of, again, a capacity to reframe what it is that we're experiencing. And it also, you know, in a similar vein, I remember learning that Latin and Greek roots for sadness also actually just mean overflowing of emotion in a similar kind of way, which doesn't necessarily mean bad equals sad or sad equals bad, right? But it's like there's an outpouring of emotion so much that it literally has to come out your eyes, maybe your nose sometimes. But it changes really what sadness might mean when I feel this moment. And when you kind of just opened up that same kind of box when it comes to trauma and thinking about this as suffering for something that we feel ambitious towards, I think is really powerful and lets us re-recognize what it means to process something. The other thought that came to mind is thinking about from the phenomenological perspective that one of my anthro heroes, Michael Jackson, not the pop star, but he's also kind of a pop star, I suppose. But doing existential and phenomenological anthropology, and Robert Desjardins also came to mind, is these scholars that kind of help us talk about limit experiences. What happens when we get to the edge of something that we think we can describe? And you mentioned a great example there of the birth of a child. as a moment, or the death of a loved one, where we can't quite say what we're feeling, right? But there's something so powerful about it that at one level moves us beyond words and that it feels like something like a pure experience almost. But then of course later, and Michael Jackson writes about this in The Politics of Storytelling, it makes me think about this idea of our capacity to narrate an experience afterwards can be one way of reclaiming our sense of self and what happened in that moment. So just to echo what you're saying there, I think there's really powerful ways that language can both show what we can do and also the limits of that. Like, how can we experience something and when does language kind of pop in? So I'd love to… I guess linger on this with you for a moment. And because one of the big pieces that your work also points us towards is that the pandemic is still so largely under-processed, right? Especially we can think about on some level for more disadvantaged communities, communities of color, were hit particularly hard. But then also, for most everybody, there is just this kind of you know, collective moment of what just happens to me, to us, to my family. And so I'd love to kind of get your thought about this. And maybe this gets to your point of like, how do we think about what makes trauma good or bad? But since we're under processed, you know, is it on one level a lack of having shared language to talk about it? Is it a moment that we haven't given ourselves time to adequately process and think about it? You know, how do we come to terms with the fact that actually the pandemic really is under process still?

13:03 Amrita  Wow. You know, I am quite following the threads that you're weaving in. And it's a rich and complex zone to look at. Many, many scholars have often said, and as we might have said, put it into words. Language is being. Language is time. And without language, I cannot think. Try having a thought without the language. You might see visions. You have art here, what we see. What you mentioned about experience and the limits of experience, I want to honor what you said. You see, as adults, we make use of 32 kinds of intelligences, many intelligences. We may not use them all the time. I may have a favorite one that I like to, you know, like a right-hand preference or a left-hand preference. So we might prefer a certain intelligence to make sense of the world, but really all our intelligences are out there for us to use. It's like eating a two-course menu when a 32-course menu is there. You know, how rich is the experience? Language is one of the many, and it's a critical one, because it allows me to travel into your world. It allows me to see your world, sense your world, live your world. And so in language, that's the medium through which we also explore, like you said, the limits. Every level of understanding has a built-in limit. And unless we reach that limit, we are not able to go on like a video game to the next level. So when we look at this experience of our lived experience through the pandemic, I think a wonderful way would be to consider an internal GPS, and it's linked to the medium of language. You see, the internal GPS, it's a very abstract one, and pretty much it has three points. So if you were to draw a triangle in front of your eyes, for those of you who are listening, one, the top end of the triangle, let's call it self. The left end of the triangle, let's call it others, all I love and live with. And the third end of the triangle, let's call it the world. Now you see when we are born, this triangle has three assumptions. The first is, I'm safe, I'm well, I'm loved. The second, the world is meaningful and fair. And third, good things will happen to me. These are our most abstract levels of truth. So it gives us a frame, if you see, of invincibility. We're quite the Avengers when we are born, you know, sort of the superheroes. And then life happens. And then what happens to the GPS? The GPS has to upgrade. But quite like the way we see it goes through that round bubble thing while it's loading and it's uploading, we are caught in that. We are still figuring it out, how to make sense of it. Now during this time, this period, and I would love to give it some language as you said, our shattered assumptions of reality forces us to grieve that which is incomprehensible. I haven't comprehended it. And why do I call it grieving? The reason is, wisdom denied is wisdom grieved. You see, none of us want to say, I like to stay mad about a situation. Because there's a lot of anger. There's a lot of unexpressed unknown pocket of grief that we haven't looked at for all the lost moments of celebration, of grieving, of sharing. Because in isolation, here's what I know, that I was locked up with a death-threatening disease. And above all else, whatever it meant to be alive was denied to me for a while. So I'm going to stop there. Without the language to the internal GPS, we don't even know if we are alive. So to be put in a suspension and then not to be able to narratively piece the pieces in a way that upgrades the GPS in a way that serves me, then I would either have a positive growth or a growth that is absent.

16:56 Adam Wow. Okay. That's also such a powerful piece. And I did not know, didn't recognize that there are so many types of intelligence and that language is but one. That's a mind-blowing idea by itself as we just even think about how we're engaging in a podcast, right? We're using one of those. you know, drawing on some other ones, I think, as we pull through. But that's a really interesting framework that I'm doing a little processing here, what we're talking to is like, what does it mean to be able to upgrade that GPS? Then I think, you know, as we are in this moment, you know, in the way that you said that, where there's this need to be able to change that GPS as we go through time, as we experience things, because we were kind of forced to grieve something that we don't totally understand that was so much bigger than us, so much bigger than our families, and our politics, and the kinds of issues that were just shaping it every day. I was getting mad because my Amazon Prime order was more than two days, or whatever it is. The simplest of things can kind of throw that compass out, the GPS out, and how do we upgrade that? Something else that you've noted with that, too, is that we're not denying that this pain has taken place. I think this is important. We may talk about the psychology of dabda, where we're trying to deny that something bad or trauma took place, but we recognize that something did take place, it seems, in the collective sense. So I guess, how can we kind of think about then, if we're building the next stage, you said something that really stuck with me there too, it's that growth can be absent. It can help us move forward. We can kind of get stuck. Are there ways to help us recognize if we're doing that? Can we find out, am I stuck? Am I growing? Am I regressing almost? How can we kind of tune into our GPS, I guess, to kind of see where we are?

18:45 Amrita  

Wow. You know, between you and I, Adam, and all our listeners, you know, we might throw all the therapists out of work if we answered that well. All done. You're doing a wealth. Right. You know, how do I access it? It's all done. And it's happened here on the show. So what would be lovely is to consider the metaphor of internal GPF. And the first thing is to ask yourself, do I trust my GPF? Yes? Do I trust the software? Is this the one? Have I been honest with myself? So it's that voice inside mostly. So say it's the GPS and I'm kind of holding up a triangle in front of my eyes. So the self, others, and the world. Ask very simple questions. For instance, am I processing the pandemic, which improves my relationship with myself? Do I respect myself better? Do I give myself the space, the dignity, the humanity that I deserve, that I am? I don't have to do anything to be worthy of dignity. I am, and therefore am. So that is example. Relationship with others. Are those I coexist with, whether it's work, whether it's my community work, whether it's in my family, do I love them better? Am I more fulfilled in my relationship, in the role of a sibling, a mate, a partner, a friend, a colleague, a leader, any role in the society, are you more fulfilled? Or do you have more energy in that relations? Because irrespective of the usual that I hear, extroverted or introverted, none of that matters. The point is, do you have the energy and do you energize your relationship? Are you making sense in such a way? And the third is the world. When you wake up in the morning, Are you aware that life is just extraordinarily filled with opportunities and potential to be alive? Yes? Or do you look for, now I'm going to the other end, the darker end of it? When I wake up in the world, I have no reason to wake up. Or am I interpreting the world in a way that I'm punishing myself, that I'm self-sabotaging myself, that I'm creating negative self-fulfilling prophecy? When it comes to others, do I create a negative contagion of the mind? And this is important. Why? Because just, you're very familiar with the word contagion. We have mirror neurons, and there is this concept of limbic resonance. When I bring my toxicity, my negativity, my unresolved bucket of things that I may be angry about or overflowing about, sad about, but I have not honored them, so I've disenfranchised. I have put that part of me in exile from myself. It leads to a toxic overturn and a spiral that affects everyone else. So is my GPS something that upgrades and enhances the quality of life, no matter which vantage point I look at, or does it degrade? Now here's the caveat that I must put in. Growth is messy. figuring out growth is messy. So there is no picture-perfect Instagram photoshopped image of it. The idea is to understand that the path to becoming better versions of ourselves includes taking a very honest, soft, gentle, full look at everything that we must see. not all at once, not in this moment, not when you're driving, so even though it can come when you're driving, but just to give ourselves this space, because you see, and what you've been doing is, and I was learning this as I was listening to you, is you connect knowledge, you connect scholars, you look at method, but you see, knowledge is not a product of method. Knowledge is an outcome of method. The methods lead us to a space where we welcome knowledge, where it becomes accessible, it becomes possible. So listening to a podcast, you open up the space. The method is the way you're questioning, the method is where you're opening it up, but it is also that you're creating the space for us to metabolize. GPSes need time to metabolize. And that time, we have to be okay to hold ourselves gently as we go through the effort of digesting, ingesting very sensitively who we were and what happened to us during the pandemic.

23:16 Adam

That this idea of gently holding oneself is, again, also just, you know, I'm sounding like a broken record. It's a very powerful piece that I'm sitting with because even as I'm thinking through these ideas of attending different, this is going to be a side story, but you know, attending chakra workshops or, you know, energy meditation healing courses, you know, and one could pick their examples of how this might look, you know, in their own life. It's interesting because so often for myself, I would find trying to say, thinking about, oh, what's the method, the pathway? How do I get to X, Y, Z? And they're like, there's nowhere to get. And it's not about what you know, it's about what you feel. And so this is resonating in a similar way where when it comes to both honoring ourselves and holding that space for ourselves and giving our GPS's the time to metabolize, I love that idea. You know, it requires, again, this kind of gentle holding that is not so much about reflecting from the knowledge standpoint so much as providing that space. Am I understanding that correctly in that way?

24:17 Amrita  

Well, you know, Adam, I think you said it beautifully because what happens, the danger of not thinking and the knowing and feeling, the knowing-doing, the gap is that we become tourists, intellectual tourists. to what happened, but that is watching a screensaver of Hawaii and thinking, I have understood Hawaii. That is not Hawaii. The map is not the terrain. The picture is not the experience. And that is what you, I think, beautifully explained that I have to live with what I have lived and create space for that intelligence and wisdom to come up. And no matter the method. unless I am disciplined enough to be very gentle with myself, the parts of me will not trust me with that wisdom. Because if at the mildest thing I explode, well, my brain, the first job my brain has as a neurobiological entity is to keep me safe. The second thing is to get coffee, and the third thing is to be on a podcast. But the first thing is to keep me safe. So safety, am I making myself safe enough to hear what I have to hear? It's a good question to ask.

25:29 Adam 

That's wonderfully put. I think having the courage to ask yourself that question too, because the answer might be no, right? The answer might be, I have not given myself that space and that time to actually feel safe about what it is that I need to see. And so I want to connect this to the, you know, you noted up top too, from this phenomenological perspective, that the ways that we live in the world, like the way we have our lived experiences, we have things, we have bodies, we have senses of time, we have emotions, relationships, the many kinds of worlds that we inhabit. Thinking that the GPS kind of points us to some of these arenas. And so in this case, I'm kind of curious, as we think through this, are there some kind of phenomenological markers we can think about? Like, for example, if I get really nervous, I might have a tight gut, right? And that may cue me that something is not quite right, or that I'm stressed, and I realize I'm sitting like this, hunched over. And when I finally relax, oh, I feel a lot better. I guess, are there cues or things like this that we could think with? to remind ourselves, even if we're listening or watching this right now, to say, oh yeah, let me just pause for a second and like, how's my gut feeling? How are my shoulders? Is that tuning me into something?

26:35 Amrita

Well, I think, Adam, you've framed it wonderfully. What I loved about it is, you know, the embodiment of our experiences. And for some of us, it's our back. Some of us, it's our neck. Some of us, it's our gut. But a great question to ask is, do I know which part of my body holds what intelligence? You know, what does it mean when I see I'm Rita and my neck So what is my relationship with Amrita? But every time I see Adam, I feel this spurt of energy. And even if I'm low, just looking at Adam, I feel high. All of these are signals. The point is this. You see, Adam, it's like saying, watch your right eye watching you. It's hard to do that, but it's important to ask ourselves this one question. Most of the time, and I'm kind of giving a tribute to Adam's frame in front of my eyes, which has Buddha behind, one of the things is We are never allowed to see our thoughts as emotions, as data. And that's the one thing I keep saying. Everything is data. You are not your thought. You are not your emotion. But these are pieces of information informing you, guiding you, giving you direction. You don't have to act on them. You don't have to act it out. But there can be some space, which we've heard over and over again, between what they are forcing me to react and how I respond. That's the moment of choice. Now, this study that is unfolding has people from 12, 13 countries. They speak 13 languages. Their age range is from 29 to 69. They have six faiths between them, and I'm talking about the participants. And here is something. The culture shapes the way our stress is embodied. The culture we're in, what our sociocultural background, and you said, you know, right up top, how the pandemic has been disproportionately loud and harmful and wounding to a certain segment of our world. We give them names. We call them marginalized. We classify them. We look at them academically and as statistics. But the truth is, the culture, whether it's in here, it's Kazakhstan, it's in China, it's in Japan, it's in India, it's in Netherlands, each one of us respond and react to our bodies and bodily information differently. The question to ask is, maybe in some cultures, it is not appropriate to speak your feelings. You have to process them in a different way. In some cultures, it's just appropriate, like in the Western world, for you and I to really very honestly look at our fear. What is true for cultures is also true for homes, and it necessarily need not be in different countries. It could be one home stuck to the other home. Very different microcosm. So one of the great ways to ask for markers, the first is, pose the question of psychological safety. First is, are you the safest listener to yourself? And I think a great way to begin is, can I observe myself without feeling the need to justify or defend? The highest form of intelligence is to observe without judgment. Can I not judge myself? Just as I'm metabolizing my inner GPS, what happens to me? What happens to my relationship? What happens to my world? Because you see growth. And this is why this becomes very, very practical. Because a lot of internal data can be, oh, I need a glass of wine, maybe the whole bottle of single malt. I don't know. But a great way, a practical way, for instance, could be to keep five pounds in mind. So let's say this. Am I processing life in a way that makes me appreciate life? Am I processing life in a way that makes new possibilities, even if uncomfortable, pushing me out of the boundary? New possibilities. Third is, what about my sense of spirit, the connection with the cosmos, my place in the universe? Doesn't matter whether you follow a faith or you're atheist or agnostic, does not matter. How we relate to our place in the star-stuck cosmos. And the fourth is personal strength. Do I feel I'm adequate? Do I feel I'm stronger? Do I feel I can tackle situation better than who I was before pandemic? And this is a place where perhaps somewhere in this conversation or after the conversation, we can also look at the difference between resilience and growth. And the last one would be relating to others because others create the space in which we make sense. Making meaning is a social act. I can think for myself, that's the individual part of it, but what I experience as an individual gains legitimacy, validity, when I am with other individuals who are not similar thinkers, who are divergent thinkers, because then I get a more rounded view of the world as it is. But I'll pause here before we get into resilience and growth. Does this answer or begin to answer this phenomenally profound question you asked, how do I understand what I went through?

31:39 Adam

Yeah, no, that that's a beautiful answer. And so helpful to help us think through the kinds of questions that we might ask. And I really appreciate the very intense and intentional cultural sensitivity that like how we can express ourselves as different and different cultural groups. And that is, of course, affected by our social worlds, cultural norms, you know, behaviors that that we can typically do somewhere. And and, you know, what our sense of Yeah, cosmos and whether it's religion, spirituality, atheism, whatever it is, nihilism even, right? Just what does it feel like it's appropriate for me to do and to be in these spaces? And I think what's really powerful about what you said too is that all goes in service of you being able to ask yourself, am I in a position of psychological safety? Do I trust myself to be the watcher of the GPS as well as the holder of the GPS? And I think that's really important for us to recognize because oftentimes so much of therapy works is because it's often a mirror held back at us, right? And sometimes it's someone else that says, I'm going to hold the space for you to reflect on yourself. I'm going to ask you some directed questions to help us get to where you need to be. But you have to get there. You have to do it by looking inside, right? And so it's interesting to think about this idea, too, that oftentimes, because there's also been such a rise of mental health crises, especially amongst younger generations. I mean, now COVID helped spread that across all age groups. Granted, I'm not going to diminish the amount of different challenges that are faced in the world right now. But we hear a lot also from Gen Z in terms of the kind of havoc that social media has wrought. up on a lot of mindsets. And with that too, there's consequently been, in the United States at least, this rise of the need to understand mental health as a national health issue. And it's something that is legitimate that we can talk about. So we've kind of watched the maturing of or in the process of the maturing of the kind of US or American conversation about how do we talk about mental health. That's something that we need to both take seriously and that there are mechanisms put in place to deal with it. One of them is that we see more kinds of therapy covered by insurance, for example. That sounds very mundane and boring compared to, I think, the bigger, beautiful pictures that we're talking about. But it's important to recognize also we're seeing, you know, we have the higher level than we have these kind of what are the other factors and forces that say it's legitimate to talk about this. So like when I feel safer that more, for example, men may feel comfortable talking about, they need to go to therapy or they do go to therapy too. Oftentimes, because we can see the legacy of gender colonialism that men don't have feelings and they shouldn't be going to therapy and all these kinds of issues. So I'm stirring a big pot here, but to kind of come back to your point that all of this can get mixed up in the way that you said that oftentimes we have emotions that we feel, we have different things that come to us and they are data, but we don't always think about them that way. We kind of feel them and then either feel stuck or kind of say, let me process and move past that. I think you wonderfully said that these are data points. And so the other side of this that you're kind of helping us see here, too, is that how those data come to us are going to be also filtered in our cultural context. And then also will and how and to what extent do they feel legitimate is also in that social realm. So I love it. I think that's a really wonderful piece. So I'm definitely going to pull those questions out as things for us to think with. Yeah. So let's pull that into this idea of resilience versus growth, which I think is interesting because as we're seeing here, I guess we're kind of illustrating how messy it is to even navigate the field of how do I feel, what feels legitimate, what doesn't and why, and do I feel safe asking these questions of myself?

35:13 Amrita  

Well, asking these questions of myself to mirrors that are kind and mirrors that are invested in my growth, if I ask a mirror that is toxic and negative, not a helpful mirror. So one is the ability to discern what method works for me. And we spoke of it a while ago, that any method you follow, this is the path of equifinality, any destination will lead you to your truth. You have to find a path. A path by itself becomes the goal. And everything else is like a train route. You see scenes all across. The scenic site, the one you take a picture of and say, oh, this is heaven, may not have been your goal, but it was along the path. And so the first thing, I think, when you spoke of the mirrors and how do I understand it and the practical part, of it. You see, all our life, as a society, we have four levels of experience, broadly speaking. And then, of course, 10,000 academic, logistical, alums, and intelligences of it. But if we keep it to basic or fundamental, it's an individual level of experience. Then it's an interpersonal level of experience, where I experience relationality. Then it's a group level. Who am I within my community, within my work, within my family? And at the fourth level, the system. So something as practical as therapy being accommodated within the group of this nation, this society, is a practical one that has a longstanding impact. But what I'm also willing to pause and notice is the relic of industrial age, the relics of the wars, the relics of the famine. There is one book that no one should read. I know usually people come and say, oh, we should read. No, I definitely don't read. It's the handbook of epidemics. And it's an encyclopedia. It's a downer. I cried all my way through. I cannot believe I have to read this. But we have a fantastic ability to survive death at a huge scale. But we have a rather un-fantastic ability to understand the vicarious price we pay. So trauma as a literature has very deep annals, but it is also very narrow and restricted in terms of the praxis. And one of the reasons is the socio-cultural or the programming of our mind, no, no, no, no, I have no trauma. I'm fine. I'm fine. I'm fine. As true for all genders as it is for men. And one of the reasons is because trauma is understood to be something bad. And we have never looked at life in its fullness. We look at Lion King or any feel-good movie. There is always a rite of passage. You always go through darkness. And then you make sense of it. There are those who go through darkness but do not grow, which is the most important. Pain is inevitable. It is inevitable. It's just like joy. You know, we might be, uh, pleasure junkies living in the contemporary world today, but pain, it, it, you know, it doesn't have an Instagram attitude. It will come whether you like it or not, it's going to come. When pain comes and what is pain? Anything that is undesirable that puts us off. Whatever our sense of, oh, this is how my GPS should say, I'm going to Chicago. Oh no, I'm going to somewhere else. So when pain happens. there are two possible things that come to us. The first is we will either reject, deny or disenfranchise. No, it hasn't happened. The second is we might say, okay, this is happening with me and now what do I need to do? At this stage, most of the time, what people do not understand is that trauma by itself has a continuum. In that continuum, you can have both things. You can feel as much sadness, the overflowing emotion, as much pain, as much grief. You might feel stuck. And while you're feeling stuck, there are parts of your unconscious, subconscious intelligence that are also creating growth. In other words, we all suffer. but we don't all grow. And those who grow are the ones who are willing to look at their suffering intelligently, and wisely, whether we choose the method of therapy, whether we choose the method of having mentoring from an elder sibling, a fellow colleague, someone I trust, being in the family, whatever be my method, nature, man, distraction, whatever be the method. The question is very simple, one and one. I am suffering. This is true. I'm suffering. This is true. Now, as a consequence of this suffering, am I growing? Ask my GPS. And what is growth? Growth is not an illusion. Growth is when someone says, you know, you truly have evolved. They might have different ways of saying it. They might have different ways of showing it. Even a simple thing such as silence. Are you comfortable in your own silence? Can you sit comfortably in your own silence? What happens when silence happens? You see, most of us are terrified that if we looked in our silence, we will have some, you know, Game of Thrones happening. Well, that's not true all the time. Sometimes it is just your intelligence waiting to say, ah, you're here, let's have a cup of tea. Yes, let's sit down and have a conversation. So I'm going to pause here because it's important to remember we'll all suffer, but we don't always grow. And those of us who grow, who are willing to understand the intelligence of the pain that life gifted us because we are supposed to grow up.

40:50 Adam 

And part of that, I suppose that then part of that growing up is accepting that that is a fundamental reality. It's one of our natures of physics, I guess, or laws of physics, I suppose, right? That, I mean, we can point to Buddha here that life is suffering, right? That's something that is part of existence.

41:06 Amrita  

Right, right, quite. And you know, so when we say resilience, resilience fundamentally means bouncing back. That's where it comes from. I bounce back. And what is post-traumatic growth and what's the difference? You see, say I was at a certain level of GPS, I don't know, version 15, yes? I was at version 15 before the shattering of my reality happened. Resilience is when, okay, I can just put one step before the other. I can just put one step before the other. That's resilience. Growth is I have, while I was going one step before the other, using my resilience, I have now upgraded my GPS to 25th version. So resilience is the way to growth. But resilience by itself is not growth because you see, what is a short-term resilience? Good method. Long-term could become a very bad habit. Right? Oh, you know, I just, yeah, I solved this. I just had a glass of wine and looked at the sunset. And then I started having a glass of wine every reason, not just sunset, even at sunrise, at 10 o'clock, at 11 o'clock. And so what is a coping method may not always be helpful long-term. So resilience and post-traumatic growth is, I truly have overhauled my worldview as a consequence of processing what has happened. I have become a better, different person to myself. and to those I love and live with, as opposed to, oh, you know, I'm coping. Because I've heard everyone, Adam, say, I'm coping, no complaints, this is the best I can do. And in the study, as I'm listening to human beings who are from such separate cultures, and it's very, very illuminating, I'm noticing humility. in almost everyone. There's almost a demotion of our arrogance as human species suddenly brought to the knees. And you spoke of, you know, one of the scholars talking of reaching the limit of our story. And I think we reach the limit of our illusion that the world is just, you know, Amazon Prime. You know, I need to be satisfied all the time. And suddenly, life teaches us Well, no, my child satisfaction is a myth. There is an effort in life. And this is not to glorify masochism, but this is to become pragmatic and real. Life has trade-off, and it will come with both. The question is, what kind of wisdom are you drawing out of it? And this idea is known to us for ancient. This is not a new idea, but this is a very new field that is actually quantifying and liberally understanding that there are liberating structures within our own thinking and being that can bring about the possibilities of growth to any traumatic events. Of course, some require long-term treatment and care, but the day-to-day and something like a pandemic, which is a collective trauma for which all of us have unique narratives, require a language, metaphors, require intelligence, but above all else, require the space to feel safe to process

44:15 Adam

I love the fact that you noted that humility is one of the pieces that's extending out of the study itself. I think it's really fascinating. for lack of a better term, nice thing to hear, because it was on one level facetious, but also not, right? My mention of Amazon Prime before, because it's like when we see the, I love this, the way that you said this too, where it's kind of the, we reached the limit of that illusion that this is the most important thing. And we see this in reflections in terms of the quote unquote, great resignation. or folks are leaving their jobs because they realize there's no meaning or purpose, that they don't feel enough of a sense of meaning or purpose in their current work environment. When there's something that's like, death is right there, it could be right there, or I've already lost somebody, or that when my world shrank down to a very small single household, I realized that I don't feel safe because I don't have a community that I feel like I can lean on. And so it does show us that when it comes down to the wire, as it were, We have this capacity, as you noted this too, to recognize what actually matters to us. And then some of us, if we're in the position of privilege, to be able to make changes of that. One, we can make them internally. Everybody can make a change internally, but of course other people can afford to change a job, for example, move to a different area. I think there's a lot of spectrum that we could think about with this space, but just this notion too that we… get to the fundamentals of what matters and why, and being forced to reckon with that. One of the pieces I'm kind of taking away as we're talking about this is that as we're thinking about the broad way that we can apply this format of thinking, I really appreciate that you keep hammering to me that it's not about the method. We can get there no matter what the method is. That's not the point. The point is actually, are we asking the right kinds of questions? And then are we growing as a result of the questions that we're asking? Are we safe to ask those questions? And so this is, I think it's important too, because so much of. Self-help is method, right? Like here, watch this, listen to this. And so one thing I'd add that I appreciate too that you noted that is that a short-term strategy that helps for resilience can be great in this moment, but then it can lead to something more destructive or just a bad habit down the road that won't lead to growth. So even recognizing too that as we upgrade our systems, they're always going to change, right? The methods will always change and we have to be okay with that too. And the same that will change. I remember when I first learned that Every seven years, our cells renew or they kind of change. So we're literally not the same being.

46:42 Amrita  Right. It's the ship of thesis. It's the ship of thesis. And what I want to kind of give a token homage to is you mentioned meaningfulness and resignation, the great resignation wave. And you also mentioned something very, very important, which is, of course, the method and the path. You see, all of us, whether we know it or not, have tacit wisdom. Is it tacit? Tacit. How do they say it in American?

47:10 Adam

Tacit. Tacit.

47:10 Amrita

 Tacit. Okay. All right. So we have that wisdom. It's the unknown known wisdom. It's the unknown known wisdom. Everything that we said leads to that. So imagine if you are a aficionado of hiking and nature. Imagine accessing the calmest, serene lake, top of the mountain. Because the zen you bring to the top of the mountain is the zen that you carry inside. So the idea is, are we practically, in day-to-day, creating interpretations of reality, accessing our reality in a way that improves my thoughts, my feelings, my Body, speech, mind. Body, speech, mind. These are the three things. You spoke of the body, you spoke of the speech, you're speaking of the mind. So very practically, if one were to eradicate everything we spoke, eradicate all the words, go within and ask, body, speech, mind. Where is it? Am I becoming better? And the reason for asking that is, if I do not ask these questions after having an experience, such as the pandemic or any experience during the day, if we don't process it, and I loved that it was a part of your game plan when we were talking before, there is a danger that our intelligence and wisdom may pass us by, and we'd be less for it, and so growth might be absent. Growth might become neutral. And you, someday, on some Tuesday afternoon, you are sitting and talking to a friend when you are 89 years old, and you say, I wish I had done it. And the idea is wisdom before that time where the only thing you can do is regret. Give yourself the facility, the permission, the capacity, and the method to create a scaffolding, a structure that allows you to process your experience. Some of us do it by writing. Again, the preferred intelligences. Some of us do it by talking, some of us do it by walking, some of us do it by exercise. But whatever you do, don't get caught up in the method. Ask yourself, so I journaled for an hour and so what? What do I know more that I did not know moments before? And the reason is primarily our sense of immortality. Death is the only inevitable, and taxes, and I say poetry to add that in. Why not? It's a potluck. I think it's a great way to understand that appreciation of life when death is this close and is inescapable in its presence, we cannot distract ourselves by 30 hours of binge watching. It's still there. So such is also, and I'm using a scary, I'm caricaturing it, but similarly are also the things that will set you free. Free from your own habits because they are unquestioned. Free from your own patterns of thinking because they're unquestioned. free from your own habits of emotional blackmail for yourself. Because we have this voice inside that sometimes can be very hard to hear. And we've never questioned that. So if you notice, the gist of growth is to truly ask and sit down and have a conversation with yourself so that all of you, all the many parts of you, can sit down and simply speak to you very practically in a very pragmatic way. Because there isn't a t-shirt that will fit all. There isn't a method that will work for all. And there is intelligence in knowing that my life is unique in its joy and its grief. Both are true. Both coexist. It's no longer zero one. And one of the reasons the younger generations who are coming up, and I find this adamant, and perhaps that's another conversation, is that they're wiser than who I was. They're much wiser. They're much more informed. They're much more savvy. I, you know, when I listen to them, I feel, Oh God, I can best describe myself as a spud. They're just so, so wise about it. And they're also very innocent. They're innocent about this game that we've played before. Growing up is painful. We call it growing, growing pain, but can be made easy. And social media is a wonderfully popular, cherished villain. I think there are other factors that is taking place. And so we have to look at it in a much more illuminated way, rather than say, oh, social media, let's all jump on the bandwagon and call it bad. It's one point of data. It has an impact, but there are other things. For instance, how is my family environment? You see, every environment, because behavior is the function of a person in an environment. So within the environment, if my child is learning, to feel safe, to express themselves, to dissent, to say they have a different idea than the figures of authority in the house, then the child will not feel so distressed. Whether it is cyberbullying, whether it is some other kind of negative experience, the child, the young person will come and express. You see, the moment we stop expressing is the moment that I would be very alert to as a parent when my child stops expressing. Why? Because younger people are fountains of observation. They're observing everything, completely random things. Two are annoying, much more, but they're observing. When I listen to my nephews and nieces, oh my God, they are like chatterboxes, nonstop observation. But they are not processing it. They're simply cycling the observation. It's only when they have a conversation with their aunt, with their parents, that suddenly they meet their wisdom. And they're like, oh, mind blown. And then, of course, they have to make a joke out of it. But it's important to understand that our younger generation perhaps have much to teach us. And we have much to give them. But the first thing we must give them is psychological gift. Social media wouldn't be a problem. AI wouldn't be a problem. The reason it is a problem, and mental health, is because we are not psychologically safe. And I think your cat agreed.

53:28 Adam

Yes, she came to get some psychological safety here too. I think pets are a good part of that too, I think. But I really appreciate that. And that's so important too, because yes, I mean, even, I mean, I, you know, kind of both fell prey to that and do that same thing too, where we, we like try to villainize one thing like social media, right. And then we, or we lionize, I get the flip side of problems, we lionize like the, the single entrepreneur capitalists that like, they're only successful because they're up building wealth on the back of everybody else. And so this idea of like, do our kids feel safe? Younger generations feel safe? Asking these questions of, I don't know if I agree with that methodology. And it's true. I spent a number of years teaching back and forth in different design anthropology programs. And I kind of felt this too, as I got older and the students stayed the same age, to make a weird quote from Dazed and Confused, right? This interesting notion, I was like, wow, it seems like everybody is getting more savvy and I'm both either getting older and dumber or they're more aware of climate change at the age of six. When I was getting a t-shirt that said, let's save the rainforest. And it's interesting to kind of think about that because then I think there's also an interesting correlation of the bigger I'm thinking, especially at a younger age, then I'm also having to deal with a lot of these larger earth We're asking them to process trauma in a way that they don't even understand. And I think you also brilliantly said there too, that oftentimes as the original anthropologist, kids are just observing and kind of spinning back what they're seeing and not necessarily processing that. And so when we also then say, do that also, but on television, think about climate change, watch how angry mom and dad are, or dad and dad or mom and daughter about politics or whatever it is, watch us yell at the neighbors, watch us never talk to our neighbors. All these things that we just unreflexively do, As adults, kids observe that, they internalize it, and then on one level, we also then don't necessarily celebrate. Let's talk about dissension in a positive light, right? in asking those kinds of questions. And so it's been great to then both see the younger generation come up with the capacity to be working on that, but then also I see why there's also the additive challenges of doing that, because we also haven't provided the structures as the generation is setting the things up to say, well, let's deal with this together. And I think that's really powerful. And I hope a reminder to all of us, whether you're a parent or a teacher or you work with younger generations of some kind, and I hope we, I mean, intergenerational aspects are such an important piece too. I want to actually also ask you about the wisdom of elders also as part of this that we can think with is because that's actually one of the other pieces that certainly in the Western part of the world and certainly in the United States too that we I think have an atrophy of is actually intergenerational learning community. that is such an important part that I think gives us a sense of meaning as humans. Because as you noted too before, that one of the senses of self is also the sense of self with other. And if our others are always the same as us, then we're missing a huge spectrum of wisdom and what life can be. So that's also, I'm just throwing a lot of ideas out there also in the space, but I'd love to think about this idea too with you in terms of how do we Intergenerational aspects are so important too. And obviously COVID also raised that flag because folks that were older would have higher likelihoods of health incidences related to COVID and immune responses in general. So there's a huge loss of this. And this is something that stood out to me. I did some of my field work in Southern Peru working with indigenous communities. This was 2015, 2016, so well before the pandemic. But a lot of my colleagues that were doing fieldwork during the pandemic, there's been such a tragic loss of wisdom from elder community members because they just passed away. And if we're talking about largely oral cultures, that's how we pass a lot of our wisdom down. That just goes away. And so to me, it's just a stark reminder that as much as we record everything on computers now, for a lot of us in this part of the world, that's not how it happens everywhere. And on top of that, this doesn't mean this is going to go anywhere either. So it's like we have to recognize what does it actually mean to build relationships with folks of different generations. So anyway, I'm curious your thoughts on that. How can we build on these ideas as well?

57:27 Amrita  

Well, what you speak of is profoundly important. Transmission of knowledge and wisdom and how to make it digestible for the younger generations. You see, what we might be aware of at 99, I may not be able to digest at 19. And so when there is an interpretation, giving it a new language, if you will, or making it easy to metabolize, One of the, let's again talk about fundamentals, we've spoken, you know, at a fundamental level things remain practical and knowledge you can immediately apply. So the first thing to understand is that we are in unique time within the life of the world, Homo sapiens, a few million years ago that we came, where our elders are living the longest now. they have the highest. And so, you know, this is also called the age of ageless worker because a typical age of retirement was 60, but now the person is absolutely intelligent with all the benefits of technology to continue to be contributive in a meaningful way up until the age of 75 or 80. Now, that means we may not have understood our elders and honoured them as well, both in the Western and the Eastern world. You see, all of us are going through flux, whether it's in Indigenous communities or here. Progress is not always positive when we discard those who have gone through the path before us. And so a fundamental shift that we may have to make is to look at our elders with two insights. First, their Wikipedia is far more interesting and the way they tell their Wikipedia. So they could be interesting, one person Wikipedia, but a Wikipedia. Second, To have multiple points of view in generational, what you said was brilliant because you said, everyone within my others looks like me, which means I'm in an in-group. I haven't created a group that is diverse. What happens when I have a multicultural, multilingual, multi-ethnic group and I belong to different ages and times? You see, our life moves forward from one person's point of view. I'm only going from one day to tomorrow, but it's forward. But I'm at the age that I am. I'm like 19, 29, 39, 49, 50. But you see, when I am 19 and I talk to someone who is 19, 39, 49, 59, 69, looks in a different way, talks in a different way, belongs to different experiences, suddenly I have the whole Netflix and all the movies that are going on in the world. in a tale, in an anecdote, in a story. And so that kind of wisdom, it's like Neo downloading jujitsu in two seconds. You have just downloaded the wisdom. And I think a great way to understand is that, you know, our technology records, reflects, but these are all images. There is a difference between an image and a replica. A replica of the moment is not, it's an invitation of memory. But as we know, memory fades. But to live it is a different thing. So we have to ask ourselves, am I living in the moment, or I'm spending my moment in creating a replica of the moment? Because really, I never go back and look at it. I have 10,000 photographs in my phone. How often do I do that? So a great way to understand this question that you asked about the elders and about creating groups that are very large. And in fact, the study, Adam, also shows that people created new memberships with friends, and not just family, and not just my old kind of friends, but it's almost as if they understood that the new model of life, those who have shown very strong post-traumatic growth, have shown that the new model of life might require people who contribute to their own growth and myself. So it's a very different move. Rather than all I, me, myself, or just I, me, my family, there is this widespread compassion and an embodied way of sharing that wisdom amongst communities. And people have created their own groups, which are far remote from me and my cliques. So I'm going to pause here and offer that the question you brought up about intergenerational and those who are our elders, they are going to be around much longer. than our previous generations had the joy, the relic of industrial ages, whatever is not productive, discard. What could be our legacy is that we respect those who are willing to congregate. And I think we have the platform, we have the voices, we have the intelligence, we have the intention. And I think it's up to us as a technology to treat our elders and invite them into this space. We have neglected them too long, but it's up to us.

01:02:21 Adam

I think that's an important part to remember too, and so wonderfully said that it's up to us, right? We are thrown into a situation when we're born into the world, right? And there's certain circumstances that we are raised in, and then we learn what those boundaries are, as we've been talking about. That's part of what growing up is, right? And that's part of getting our GPS changed. But I think the other piece of this too is that Growth coming out of trauma is also this recognition that I have some capacity to also change those circumstances. I can change what comes next, too. It's not a given, and I don't need to be the victim of a circumstance in the sense that I have no power to change anything. It's a more empowered stance, I think. And the reminder of that is, I think, this really brilliant finding, too, that we're seeing the new kinds of connections community that people are building. a new willingness to do that. I think I'd love to get a couple of cents. So as the study itself, so it's ongoing right now. How are you thinking about, are you kind of collecting findings and pulling out insights as it's moving along? Do you have an end date in mind? Is it kind of like, how are we packaging it? I guess is the way to think about that.

01:03:28

Amrita  Well, it's a very prescient question and it's a perfect question because I'm going to end the study by end of this month, August. So good timing. Yes. And what I'm doing is I've already started galvanizing the data and the insights and I'm, you know, right before our conversation, I was talking to my mentor about this and we're looking at themes I am beginning to put the word out, and so I'm getting invited as a speaker. My book might take a few months before it's out, but what the study is looking at is to provide four parts of it. And if people are interested, they could go to growbeyondpain.com and connect with me. The first is that we all have the capacity to evolve, not just ourselves, but our families, our communities, and our organizations. We have so many leaders amongst us. The second is the choice we make, which is the point of empowerment in upgrading our internal GPS. If we don't upgrade that, no amount of pills, therapies, movies, distractions, hikes, travel, spending money will help. Because this is internally driven. This is not externally driven. Very important to understand. Third is expression trauma. Trauma has been stigmatized and created by the Darth Vader of our times. Oh, trauma, it's all in the mind. Well, it's true, but we know that now that the body keeps the scroll, that neurobiologically there's a lot of intelligence coming through. So it's important to equip, it is our responsibility to equip this generation and the next few generations with the language that honors the pain that comes from any shattered assumption. Whether it's an assumption of love, whether it's betrayal, whether it's an accident, man, machine, economy, nature, no matter what. Disappointment. must be honored for what they teach us. Because you see, it's a terrible thing to waste a good crisis. And in crisis, we become teachable. Why? Because we suddenly are no longer arrogant about, oh, I know reality. And suddenly, reality humbles us. And that's the thing, that's the fourth point, is that reality is always experienced through our body. We are in the best time of health. We are in the best time of technology, best time of community, best time of awareness. At this time, the world is so much more aware than it ever was. And so what do we do with this awareness? The most practical thing, because asking it at a meta can be overwhelming, but at a very practical level, what am I doing for myself? What am I doing for others? What am I doing for the world I experience every day? And if we keep it very practical but true to our inner GPS, I think we'd be in a great place and probably, Adam, you and I would be having a very different conversation.

01:06:16 Adam

I mean, once the study is done and your book comes out, I think we will have another extended conversation that's going to take us… Because I'm so excited to hear that too, because I'm coming away from this conversation feeling both more empowered to ask myself these kinds of questions and then also recognize when do I feel unsafe asking those. And I encourage listeners and viewers to also think about that as well. Again, we'll put the questions that we've been talking through in the show notes. And again, as you noted too, growbeyondpain.com post can check it out. And the study is, I guess, still open for a little while now. And so that's exciting, but I would absolutely love to continue this conversation when it's wrapped up and then wherever you are in the book process, happy to talk in that area as well. Because I think there's such important pieces here that I feel like we have scratched the surface. It's such an interesting itch to start scratching. It's what we need to scratch, right? It's an itch that's always there, and when you do it, it's like, that feels good to scratch that.

01:07:09 Amrita  

Right. And I love the way you framed it, and you're very, very gracious and kind. It's a psychological itch. It's an emotional itch. It's an itch of our being, if you will, because every day is eternity, so we don't have to wait for tomorrow to start listening to ourselves. And there are times that it's not a good time to listen to ourselves. I think there is wisdom in accepting both. I think the first thing to come together is that the good and bad are separate. I think the good and bad, the dark and light, the pain and the joy, the playful and the serious, all of them are coexisting together. And those are parts of us. And to bring the parts together that we may have said, no, you are going to go to exile, bring them back. Sit down and have a conversation, and above all else, create an environment where you constantly feel safe. Not in a restricted way, but in a way that opens you up to new possibilities. I cannot feel safe by locking the world out. I can feel safe by making myself safe so that the world becomes safe, no matter the experience. Because experiences are the only pieces that make us feel alive.

01:08:19 Adam I mean, that's what it is right there. I love it. I just want to say a huge thank you for hopping on the conversation with me. This has been such a joy. And I mean, I'd love to continue the conversation down the road whenever you like. And so I will share the study and whatever else we can help to get folks thinking about this along with show notes and pass them your way as well. But is there anything that's on your mind still? I mean, there's a thousand things we could have still talked about, but is there anything in your mind that you'd love for us to have a moment on that we can linger on here or are we feeling well-capped, well-complete? How can I help you feel this well-rounded space here at the end?

01:08:57 Amrita

Well, Adam, you're so kind to ask that. I would love for our viewers and listeners, after this conversation, they might be taking a walk right now or they might be at a place where they're preoccupied in a different way. I would invite people to have an exploration with a silence with themselves in a way that is enjoyable. I think for a very long time we have distracted ourselves through anything, for anything, with anything. And one of the ways such a podcast can be instrumental in creating shift is to use it as a tuning fork. There is so much, Adam, that you ask, and I could share this because you prompted that within the space that you created. And I think since we all won't have an Adam inside us, what might be a good idea is to create an Adam or a metaphor where there is a listener and there is a processor. Of course, I invite everyone to connect with me. There are many, many people who connect with me, not just as a speaker appointment or more research, but people just want to connect because they are so generous with their experiences and they say, I've gone through this, but until I listened or read your work, I did not have words for it, which is me circling back to your language. This podcast, for me, the most important part. was putting into language what are some of the most fundamental essential awarenesses about this, which means that you might listen to this podcast five times over or go for a long walk in between. Irrespective of our way of metabolizing this, it's important to give ourselves a space and to create that space with a lot of softness and kindness. And I'm being very intentional about this. Unless we are very gentle with ourselves, our minds will not release old habits because all habits, good or bad, serve us loyally. So if you want to create a shift in the loyalty of the way your mind protects you, it has to be if your mind understands that you're going to be very gentle and very kind towards yourself. So self-care, very important.

01:11:14 Adam

I will say, yeah, thank you so much. And listeners, viewers, a kind and gentle thank you for listening and joining us today. So I'm going to go take a silent walk now after this to do some reflection too. This has been great. But Amrita, such wisdom, such a joy to talk with you. I really appreciate you taking the time to share with me and our listeners, viewers too. So thank you so much and I will 100% be passing people over your way also. I'm excited to see the conversation build. So once again, thank you very much.

01:11:41 Amrita  

Thank you so much, Adam. It's been a real joy. I have a wonderful afternoon gift that I'm going to cherish for myself for a while. Thank you.

01:11:48 Adam

And that brings us to the end of another thought-provoking episode of This Anthro Life. I want to extend a heartfelt thank you to our guest, Amrita Subramanian, for joining me today and showing her insights on language grief and the power of our experiences. Throughout our conversation, we've explored the concept of an internal GPS, the importance of reflecting and processing, and the role of wisdom in our lives. And so as we head out, I encourage you to take a moment to reflect on the impact of language and how it influences your own perception of the world. Has this episode sparked any challenges to your previous understanding? We'd love to hear your thoughts and experiences, so feel free to share them on social media, on our platforms, or over on our website. Your engagement and enthusiasm inspires me and all of us at TAL to keep exploring the fascinating intersections of anthropology in everyday life. And if you'd like a deeper dive of the topics discussed today, I highly recommend you checking out our Anthro Curious Substack blog, where we will share additional resources and insights related to our episodes. It's a great way to continue expanding your understanding and connect with a community of like-minded individuals. And speaking of communities, I invite you to join us on our various social media platforms, where you can engage with fellow listeners, share your thoughts, and stay updated on future episodes and content ideas. We're on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, you name it, and we'd love to connect with you there. And also remember you can support this show by sharing this episode with a friend, family member, or colleague, someone that you know would love it. We believe that the content we produce has the potential to enrich lives and spark meaningful conversations, and by sharing it with others, you contribute to a growing community engaged in thought-provoking dialogue. Thank you once again for tuning in. Let's be open-minded and keep exploring the world through the lens of anthropology. Until next time, I'm Adam Gamwell, and this is This Anthro Life.