It's More Complicated Than You Think

This episode's guest, Erin Riley, worked in the music industry for 40 years, choosing hit records for America’s #1 rock & roll radio station, WMMR-FM, serving as Executive Director for the GRAMMY organization, and hanging out with rock stars like Keith Richards, Steven Tyler, James Taylor, and Jon Bon Jovi. But her colorful, raucous, rock & roll life hid dark secrets. Growing up with an alcoholic father and fashion model mother, Erin was an emotionally neglected child. She had no experience with love and healthy relationships. The marriage she thought would be her happily-ever-after led to 20 years of confusion, heartbreak, anger, and betrayal, which she describes in a compelling book, A Dark Force: 20 Years with A Covert Narcissist. Erin never saw herself as vulnerable to an emotionally abusive partner. But the reality is there is no profile to the type of person who ends up in an emotional, verbal, and/or physically abusive relationship. We talked about how that can happen and how to avoid these relationships.

The Covid pandemic reminded us that, regardless of where in the world we come from, we are all human. We need air to breathe, and food and water to sustain us. And there's one other thing all human beings have in common: emotions. Unfortunately, we live in a society that minimizes mental health, so most people go through life driven by emotions they’re not even aware of. When you acknowledge your feelings, you can be proactive rather than reactive. This is how you make healthy decisions.

Wesley Jackson is a phenom of the human condition. At a relatively young age and without any formal training in psychology, Wesley Jackson has pinpointed the source and solutions for our individual and collective suffering. He is now channeling his knowledge into “Surviving Humanity: A Self-Help Podcast,” which he co-founded with Andrew Gillie. The podcast helps listeners overcome obstacles in their lives through what they call “authentic narrative.”

Quoting the podcast, “Humanity has never been more connected yet divided.” Exactly. Thanks to the internet and digital devices, we can educate and collaborate across the globe. However, digital devices also isolate and distract us, and unconsciously impair our mental health. In this episode, we talk about the power of connection, authenticity, and shared humanity. Wesley shares his personal story and how, through self-exploration, ancient philosophy and therapy, he began to heal.

Society tends to treat feelings as a nuisance or weakness – something to talk yourself out of or “overcome.” Rarely do people stop to think about where feelings come from. After all, we know there aren’t little people in our heads telling us what to do. In fact, how you perceive the world around you and how you respond is determined by chemicals, circuitry, and electrical impulses: that is, the brain. If you doubt this, I have a question: have you ever had a dream so vivid you woke up thinking, “Wow that felt so real?!” That’s bc you believe whatever your brain tells you. Feelings are more complicated than you think. Ignoring the neurobiology of feelings is like trying to teach a class of students who speak a foreign language you don’t know. You will misinterpret and mismanage them. The more we understand the science behind feelings, the more empowered we are to make good decisions, personally and culturally. Our guest, Dr. Mark Williams, is a cognitive neuroscientist with over 25 years of experience conducting behavioral and brain imaging research on emotions, learning and human interaction. He runs programs on the neuroscience of learning and emotions, how our brains create our reality, and the impact of digital devices on our brains. He has a book coming out in August, called “The Connected Species: How understanding the evolution of our brain can change the world.”

There is nothing more essential to human progress than mental health. How we function as a society is inextricably linked to how we think, feel, communicate, and problem-solve. But tragically, society stigmatizes mental health and dismisses its relevance. As a result, the country is depriving itself of vital information and guidance it needs to solve some of its most serious problems - information it can't get anywhere else. Elaine's guest, Phyllis Leavitt, explains it best: Americans are suffering the effects of national psychological dysfunction. The destructive actions of some of our most powerful institutions and leaders can be traced back to destructive family dynamics. Many of the answers of how to restore us to peace and safety are already known and used effectively in the field of psychotherapy. If society would welcome what therapists know about healing, most of it contradicts the beliefs and interactions dominating our country and continuing the cycle of abuse, discrimination, violence and war. Phyllis Levitt is author of a, “Light in the Darkness” and “Into the Fire,” available on Amazon.com. She has a third book coming out called, “America in Therapy." Ms. Levitt has been a psychotherapist for 30 years. She was Co-Director of a sexual abuse treatment program before entering private practice helping children, adults, couples and families. In this episode, we discuss why the country is in turmoil. We will have Ms. Leavitt back for a second episode to provide solutions.

In our last episode, we covered key examples where mistakes that we make as a human often get highlighted and made out to be huge. The end result, of course, is a growing fear of taking risks and actually embracing humanity as a whole.

When we're scared to step out and try new things for fear of what other people will think if we fail, we rip out a large chunk of what even makes us human.

This episode talks about solutions to this endemic problem and also asks some rhetorical questions of the listeners. We hope you enjoy this episode!

It seems every few months (or even every few weeks) someone is thrust into the limelight because of something they said or did that society took the wrong way. Something that, yes, could have been said or done differently in retrospect.

What often happens though is a disproportionate response of vitriol. For weeks on end, this person is put "on blast" on the news and on social media.

But really, what's actually going on is people are not being tolerant of mistakes. Mistakes are part of the human condition--we all make them. And yet, when we know what might happen if a mistake comes to light, we end up being fearful.

We become fearful... of being human.

Join me in this two-part series where we talk about what it means to  Embrace Your Humanity, as we identify key examples where this isn't being done.

In this final part of the three-part series, we cover the "Dont's" of parenting. Behaviors and actions that might seem helpful in the short term, but can leave long term lasting issues. 

Key takeaways from this episode: 

Don’t

This series of three podcast episodes provides a LOT of content that's needed in the parenting world today. We hope you got a lot out of it!

We're not done yet though, be sure to listen to Episode 7 coming soon!

While it may seem like our democracy has been eroding for a short time, it's actually been a process spanning decades. A slow march toward not having a voice, not having a choice, seems to be the ultimate destination. But is it? 

It's not. But, as you no doubt have guessed based on the name of the podcast, the way to preserve democracy is more complicated that you think. Join me, your host, Elaine Belson, and Michael Fritzius as we work to unpack this topic in a way that will change your perception of democracy as you know it--and how to bring it back from the brink of destruction. 

Fritz and I talked about the importance of how mental awareness is really the key to why we have the issue today in this COVID world about working from home. It's not really about getting what you want out of your work, it's more about a deep longing to fulfill roles in your life that you know you're not spending enough time on. Working from home when your employment is in a corporate environment is freeing, mentally healthy and scientifically proven to be good for us. So why the pushback? We'll dig into this on this pilot episode of It's More Complicated Than You Think