Make Your Demons Work for You: Transforming Failure into Strength with Dr. Perpetua Neo

Krati: With all of the information that is now available around mental health, around emotional development and the importance of both subjects. Do you think things have changed in how people are handling professional stress and in how they are responding in moments of crisis?

Perpetua: I think definitely things have changed because when we compare to pre pandemic and post pandemic levels, so let’s say 2020 versus 2024, there’s so much more awareness about mental health and mental health language has basically become established part of our day to day vernacular. And then, of course, we have Gen Zs becoming more prominent as they enter the workforce. And then we also got the algorithm bringing mental health speak as well. So we’ve come to a situation in the world where you cannot help but be aware of mental health and how that impacts us. So even on a very perfunctory level in organizations, we will see mental health awareness For instance, down to a stress and anxiety or people having well being days, people talking about mental health dates.

So, in terms of how we can actually cope with crisis, people are aware of words like anxiety, people are aware of words like stress, and trauma. Words like nervous system regulation, co regulation, have crept into our day to day language. So, whether or not some of this are actually applied correctly or maybe twisted a little bit too much, that’s another matter altogether.

But I would say that we are a lot more aware and respectful of mental health in terms of how we cope with crisis.

Krati: Okay. I hope that’s true because apart from like seeing clients in coaching, anytime outside of coaching that I interact with someone, I feel like we’re repeating patterns. Burnout is such a problem, but when it’s about getting a promotion, People will push themselves however hard they have to.

They just don’t stop, they don’t. Then, in those moments, they don’t consider that, hello! this is gonna cost you. And the same goes for, like, if things are happening at home and somebody’s relying on you. So then, I think, in those moments, when you really need to apply all of this information and knowledge to protect yourself, people are very quick to push their concerns aside and hope for the best and do what is needed in that moment of crisis.

I think that is something that we need to learn more about, how to maintain perspective in that moment or that period of crisis and perform better without jeopardising your mental and emotional health.

Perpetua: So I think like we’ve got a long way to go still. So what’s happened pre and then post pandemic is that we have ceeded the foundation. So what’s going on in mental health, however, is still. very much the Wild West, cowboy world, in which there’s a lot of misinformation and sometimes even abuse of the use of mental health.

And then of course there’s a lot of chase um, like there’s a lot of like the pursuit of perfectionist protocols, which I know we talked about in the previous time, right? About paralysis coming from perfectionism. So there’s a lot of perfectionism and, you know, people are hungry for prescription on like, tell me what I need to do.

Tell me what’s the self care thing I need. Without necessarily thinking about how does this fit me, right? So, you can be chasing the perfect protocols, but that doesn’t mean that you will actually have mental health much less mental fitness, right? So, we’re thinking about crisis, we’re thinking about performance, we’re thinking about promotion.

It’s okay to think in terms of seasons, where during some seasons, we’re going to have to work harder. And then as long as we build in small bits of rest in between and then we make sure we build in that big rest. So it’s all planned recovery, right? And then, you know, during these times we are aware the mental game is strong, knowing that this time is not going to last forever.

Having that distinction in your head is super important. And also, you know, for instance, taking the right supplements, especially your B vitamins, your magnesium, your zinc, to help your body to be in shape, you know, make sure you’re walking as much as you can, hydrating yourself, feeding yourself better. So those are things that, you know, we can do to augment the high periods of stress, right?

But that doesn’t mean that busy seasons or stressful seasons are bad because we always have seasons in a year. I mean, look at the moon. The moon goes from from full to nothing right and then it gets reborn again So in the same way that it’s okay but the thing is that you know, we have to think next step when it comes to this big awareness and talk of mental health is one, what is genuine mental health?

That is really about building this mental fitness while still having a life while still having performance and two, being able to discern what works for us. So, for instance, you know, it’s not just about, oh, rest versus, you know, work, right? It’s about deciding where on the sliders you need for yourself, or saying no versus saying yes.

You know, what’s a soft no? What’s a soft yes? So, you know, I think about it in terms of like, you know, sliders between polar opposites and where do we choose? How do we choose? So, the next step really is about discernment, about being able to understand what we need and what we want. And that comes from, unfortunately, hard work.

Hard work meaning courageous work, where you actually look into, who am I? What do I want? What do I stand for? And in which ways am I just in survival mode? So I’m making the wrong choices. And we actually, when we get aware of this, then we can choose what we want to be and how we want to show up. And in that way, we build mental health as in mentally great health, mentally good health, that will last us through busy seasons and crisis in life.

But if we don’t do that, then mental health just becomes a burden. Oh, mental health, it goes back to have diagnosis, depression, anxiety, and all the associated challenges that we may face as part of being human. But the thing is, we got to remember that you didn’t get to a diagnosis level overnight. So in the same way, you have to really build yourself up towards having the bandwidth to be able to be able to run the mental health marathon or otherwise marathon of being human.

Krati: Yeah, so true. We went deep into some aspects of this conversation in a previous episode with you. So, I would link to that in the episode description. That was a really awesome conversation. One of the most downloaded conversations for the show.

Clearly, people need this information. Now, tell me if you disagree with me, but I really believe that, as you said this, this is hard work but work that has long term benefits for you for as long as you’re alive, in fact. But this is hard work. This is work that you have to do. You have to have clarity about what your values are, what your priorities are, what you want to stand for, all of those things. But I think when it is someone who is facing failure, I think their self esteem Takes a hit and in the wake of something like that, I think a lot of us don’t quite believe that we deserve that sort of consideration from ourselves. I have always believed that a large part of mental health work is actually believing that you deserve it, that you’re worthy of being your best self, being your healthiest self, because there’s so many people who just blatantly ignore even the most basic stuff.

Like not stuffing yourself full of sugar that’s so basic and yet so many people do it all the time and then there are also people who treat their body like a temple, so i think it has a lot to do with self respect, self regard, the level of self care you’re willing to give yourself but this is so much more negatively amplified in the wake of a failure.

So tell me how a person’s psyche shifts, the sort of mental impact it has when you have failed or when you’re in crisis mode and how do you come out of that place and make your way to something healthy.

Perpetua: So first-off, we have to think about crisis as not necessarily end of the world. As in, you know, like what someone would define end of the world versus someone else would define end of the world. Crisis can actually be a mistake that you made, but to you, it’s so big. So here, your perception is the filter. We’re not saying a perception is right or wrong.

What we’re saying here is just because somebody defines this mistake or this misstep, or this unfortunate thing that happened as not a failure or not a crisis doesn’t mean it’s not a crisis to you. So let’s get that clear first and foremost. And so when crisis happens, basically very, very often our world of assumptions in our brain that we take for granted shatters.

So there’s this book that’s called, Shattered Assumptions. Basically what it says is that humans are unconsciously run by these beliefs. The world’s a fair place. Good things happen to me, or benign things happen to me, and the future is good, or at least okay. But the thing is that, when crisis hits, our world of assumption shatters.

And, unconsciously, without us knowing, it starts being run by the thoughts like the world is a dangerous place, bad things happen to me, the future is scary. That’s because something bad has happened to you once so you actually have evidence and the brain doesn’t care about you thriving the brain only cares about you surviving even if it’s surviving like crap.

So basically what happens is when your brain has evidence something bad has happened and it’s run by these negative assumptions, right? To protect you, it goes into self preservation mode, without being aware of how that’s rigged against your happiness, your recovery, your well being, then you tend to go around the world, interacting the world that way.

And when you interact with the world that way, you’re going to get self-fulfilling prophecies. So for instance, if I’m in a really down mood and I see my friend. And I wave to my friend and my friend does not wave to me because my friend is preoccupied right, immediately my brain, my social brain, because i’m a social mammal, thinks, shit! they don’t like me. They don’t friend me. They don’t care about me, and my brain literally will experience that as physical pain, and so there’s one like kick a man when he’s down…kick a woman when she’s down. So your brain thinks that okay, there’s one more thing against me. And then it becomes more and more withdrawn from the world.

Withdraw yourself from the world for one day to rest, that’s okay, five days, maybe that’s okay. But for so long, what happens is, Newton’s first law applies, right? An object in motion stays in motion, object in rest stays at rest. So it becomes harder and harder to enter back into what we call the real world, you know, where you have connections, where you feel like, you know, that  you can get up after you fall. When you feel that you can connect to people, the longer you stay apart from the real world, then basically it’s harder to enter back because you get scared, you get helpless, you know. You get this sense of like i’m not used to it, right?

And sometimes people leave the real world, as in the world of connections with themselves and other people for a longer, extended period of time. And then it becomes rigged against them. It becomes part of the identity and slowly bit by bit then what happens is crisis or the person that the beliefs that foment during your crisis state become part of your OS (Operating System).

They run who you are, and sometimes you even say that out loud, and then you start feeling helpless, you start feeling hopeless, and then it just tumbles down. So, what you need to know then, is that during times like that, you know, your job isn’t to thrive and be super awesome every day. Success during this time, during crisis is actually giving yourself grace, knowing that the only thing you need to do to make the day successful is don’t make one bad day 10 bad days. Don’t just, because you wake up not feeling very happy, not feeling very good, feeling a bit numb, doesn’t mean the day is over.

So there’s an old story that I read maybe 10 years ago by this writer called Alexander Franson and it’s called, Today is not over yet. So apparently she didn’t have a really good day. She woke up really late that day. But then instead of the usual thing, she decided the day is not over yet. So what did she do? She went for an evening yoga class, she got together with some friends, and she decided the day is not over. So, for anybody going through crisis, the most important thing is remember, no matter what time you wake up, the day is not over.

Even if you decide not to get out of bed, you can still touch your phone and go and read something good. Don’t doom scroll. Go and learn something. Go and connect with a friend. Go and talk to someone or just maybe look at pictures that make you happy, you know, like totems that make you happy.

Totems that ground you. And by totems, I can mean like, you know, for instance, a picture of your late grandmother who is a source of comfort for you. A picture of your cat, who is a source of comfort for you. Whatever it is, your job during crisis and the recovery coming out of a crisis is to actually help yourself get there step by step, breath by breath.

Krati: So if somebody is in crisis mode who has faced failure, the first thing is they’re likely to be in survival mode and they’re not looking to thrive. So probably mental health care is not on the top of their list that they are in very like in a very basic sense trying to take care of themselves.

Perpetua: They’re probably not even taking care of themselves. Knowing like how and especially we’re talking about people who are good at sabotaging themselves. People are harsh to themselves. We’re talking about high performance type-A people. People who have lived their whole life on fear or being motivated by stick rather than carrot. Nope, not taking care of themselves.

They think that beating themselves up, being harsh to themselves, is the way to get themselves forward. Shaming themselves is the way to pull them forward in life. And I know this very intimately because this is exactly the way that my culture brings me up, right? So, and this is the way that a type A brain functions.

So, you know, when you’re aware that this is what’s happening naturally as the way the human brain is rigged or the way your wiring is rigged against you, then all the more you have to be aware and fight that.

Krati: As you were talking about the how the brain is treating you during this period, I have to ask, do you think that, like, I think you said this in some way that if you stay in that survival mode, if you keep crapping on yourself because of what you believe is happening in your world, do you think the way the brain processes that input, it can actually alter your personality or disposition?

Perpetua: Yep. Absolutely! So for instance, let’s let’s talk about isolation. Some people when they are in crisis mode, when they feel they’ve failed, they get so ashamed and then they start to isolate themselves from people. Now, naturally, when we feel depressed, we tend to withdraw as an evolutionary response to help us recoup our losses.

And basically rethink our strategy, but sometimes what happens is we overdo it. And when that happens, sometimes, you know, we feel the urge to isolate from other people because People will laugh at me. I’m so embarrassed. I’m so ashamed. People will find out or I don’t deserve to have friends. I don’t deserve to have people rooting for me, having my back or consoling me.

It’s a whole cocktail of different factors, right? And so when we decide to isolate, you know, like it’s very easy to isolate ourselves. I say, you know, some people take it to the extreme, right? They don’t show up to work. They don’t show up and see their friends, blah, blah, blah. Then in this extreme case, what happens is your brain starts to change and you start interpreting neutral benign facial expressions as threatening.

And when you start doing that, imagine when you see somebody’s very neutral face is threatening, you’re not going to want to talk to people, right? So it becomes worse and worse. So, you know, we’re talking about a downward spiral in the wrong direction.

Krati: Well, that is big. That is big. That is information that everybody needs to keep in mind. There is this one question that I had as we were talking about this, about neuroplasticity. I think it has been talked about quite a bit, but I still believe that based on how people behave again in moments of difficulty, when they’re feeling pushed, I think people forget just how plastic your brain is. One of the reasons why I think there is an absence of growth mindedness in some people is because they don’t understand about neuroplasticity. It’s a concept that they don’t quite completely grasp, which is why I think they keep placing limitations on themselves.

So I would love, before we go deeper into this, I would love to also talk about just how plastic your brain is and what sort of implications that has for you in terms of your emotional wellbeing. And especially when you have taken like a hit in your life and you are like doubting your ability to succeed.

Perpetua: Okay. So before we even talk neuroplasticity, let’s talk about compound interest. So, you know, you think about compound interest as two ways, right? So first, if you borrow money from loan sharks, this compounds at an alarming astronomical rate in which you can never ever pay off a small amount of money, because if you were that desperate to borrow that small money in the first place, then you don’t have money to pay them back, right?

So that’s the astronomical debt. Right, then you’ve got the other kind of compound interest that compounds really slowly over time, you know, like your unsexy index funds. But actually they’re actually the best because they’re stable, right and they are going to grow and beat inflation But most people think they’re unsexy, they’re boring, Too good to be true.

So we’re not going to care about that. So now we see compound interest going in two directions, right? Then, now that we know what that is, then we’re going to think about neuroplasticity, which is your brain’s ability to change itself. And you know, one of my colleagues and I, we always call compound interest, the 8th world wonder and neuroplasticity, the 9th world wonder.

So your brain is not formed and done by the time you reach adulthood. Not at all. This was the old view about personality. Everything is just shaped and full stop, right? But the thing is that every day different things happen that basically rewire our brain. So, neurons that wire together, fire together, is this really old adage, and you know, for instance, if I feel a certain way when I’m doing something, the neurons associated are going to wire together and get tightened, right?

As in, the connections get tightened. If I rehearse something over and over again, you know, whether it’s a good thing or a bad thing, the different neurons associated with, say, the sound, the sight, smell, or the information, wired together, even tighter, right? And every day when we sleep, things get pruned from our neurons, so memories get discarded, and that’s a way in which our brain, kind of like you think about it as like your phone defragging itself, your computer defragging itself.

So, your brain is always changing, right? And when we think about what’s happening in crisis mode, because everything just happens so quickly, it’s a shock to the system, then, you know, your personalities can change so quickly, your habits can change so quickly. So, for instance, some people might pick up drinking or any kind of substance abuse as a way to run away and numb themselves. And then that can lead to a whole spiral of different things. And that’s what I call by your bad habits, doing the bad kind of compound interest, the loan shark debt sort of thing. It balloons astronomically super quickly, right? And then when you think about your good habits that compound, they’re really slow.

They are like your index funds doing it really, really slowly. And so sometimes we lose patience. But the thing is that small steps matter because small steps happen, and then they become automatic and then we review them, we become stronger but the thing is that a lot of us, we want the fast fix.

We want the sexy stocks that go up and down. You know, we want to sculpt our body in eight weeks. And well, you know, all this sounds amazing, especially for my ADHD brain, like, Ooh, I love it. Right. The thing is that in reality, you have to look at the long game. And so when it comes to neuroplasticity, one of the quotes that scares me a lot is whatever you’re not changing, you are choosing. So, let’s say I keep at a bad habit, right? Let’s say I eat ice cream every night. Like, not just two spoons I’m eating, say, one tub of ice cream every night. Okay? Whatever, so it’s not just a habit of eating ice cream every night. It’s like the fact that I’m choosing to put my blood sugar levels at risk because nobody should be eating one tub of ice cream every night, right?

Okay? In exchange for eating the ice cream, maybe I’m binging and you know, I’m watching bad stuff, right? Because my brain is not making good decisions. It’s not in a clear place. There’s a lot of sugar fog and don’t get me wrong I love ice cream. Okay, and no, maybe I am not taking an evening walk because I’m so used to this habit. So this habit will have effects on my brain accuracy the way I see myself, my ability to say yes and no.

So let’s say, you know, I want to work, do some writing after my dinner, but because of the ice cream, sugar rush is making me sleepy and the Netflix binging is making me sleepy, I’m not doing my work that I went and set out for myself to do. And then I’m going to feel like my self-efficacy, the ability to do things, my trust in myself, it’s going to go down and down and down, and if I’m forgoing the walk, I’m forgoing the run, I’m forgoing the socializing with my friends, then what happens is, not only am I not exercising my brain and my body, I’m also not building the social connections, getting my social vitamins in, right? So basically you can see how this is all moving in the wrong direction.

So if I’m choosing that type of ice cream every night, then I am basically by not changing the things that I’m doing, then I’m choosing the long-term bad health outcomes and the way I see myself. And then over time, you know, this becomes my identity and my personality and hence the neuroplasticity because the habits become so much so that every 7 p.m I’m starting to crave the ice cream.

Krati: That is amazing. And there is so much information there. Everything that you’ve said, I don’t know if, you know, if to anybody who’s paying attention, would also realise that this is exactly what also fuels procrastination and why despite our understanding of how critical something is, we continue to procrastinate and it becomes a habit that applies to 10 different areas of our life.

It explains so much of our bad behavior, or at least, you know, whatever we label as bad, but we continue to do. And every time we do it for a certain amount of time, we are always asking ourselves, Why did I do that? I know I’m not supposed to be doing this. And we have that conversation with ourselves. Why do I keep doing this to myself every single day?

It makes so much. So if somebody relates to that, and I think everybody would relate to everything you’ve shared at this point, how do you disrupt that cycle? Like what would be the first step?

Perpetua: So I think one important thing is like, you know, to ask myself, why am I doing this? Okay? And second, what is that one factor in place that is making me go down that loop? So for instance, you know, like give you a different um, besides the ice cream, right? So, you know, like I have people, my clients will come to me and say, you know, like, I always never sleep on time because by the time I get home, I’m doing that.

And then by the time I actually sleep, it’s like, This time and so we will actually do the very boring breakdown of different steps and we find that one thing that triggers them So do not trigger here is not trauma All right trigger is just like a trigger for an action right or trigger for reaction so that that one trigger point that Leads down this loop.

So for instance, someone might say okay if I come home and sit down on the sofa And then I start watching TV, I fall asleep, and then I wake up at 3am, and then it’s too late to sleep early. Okay, that’s one, that, that, then that’s a trigger point. And then maybe a trigger point in someone who finds it hard to exercise after work is If I come home in the door and actually sit down, I never get out of the house.

So here, how do we disrupt that getting into the house is we hang their shoes and everything at the door. Or better still, make them bring the shoes and the clothes to work with them. Okay, and then you know like then for some people like you know the ice cream thing could be okay I don’t have ice cream in my fridge.

My rule is yes ice cream at home is cheaper But I shouldn’t really be eating one tub every day So maybe eating ice cream is a once a week treat that i’ll let myself do outside Even if it’s more expensive because it’s actually more expensive to lose the weight Okay, or it’s more expensive to get mental clarity So you want to make sure that you know the trigger point and how you’re going to disrupt the trigger point.

So in other words, you know, like what the Stoics would say, or Marcus Aurelius would say, the obstacle is the way.

Krati: right, right and it is usually like the trigger as you said is usually something that simple like for me if I if I when I start my workday, I bring in my cup of coffee with some snack into my workspace and then if I start my workday at the desk, everything’s going to be fine. I’m going to be As productive as I need to be if I sit down on my bed And I lounge back enjoy my coffee while maybe i’m working I know for a fact it’s a few hours of focus and that’s it.

That’s all i’m gonna get out of myself today It’s it is usually that Simple, but yes, this is a I know a work This, there is work to be done here.

Perpetua: So it’s like, you know, for sometimes people want to work, um, like during certain hours of the day or night, right? Not necessarily every day, but again, you know, busy seasons, extra side projects we need to commit to or whatever else. So then, you know, sometimes the trigger point here would be having a carb, a white carb heavy meal.

Yeah. Right, so we’re not saying don’t eat pasta or pizza or fried rice, whatever. What we’re saying is that on these days, don’t eat the pasta, fried rice, or pizza.

Krati: That makes sense. Something else that you said uh, was about how this behavior becomes your identity. Then if you keep doing it, your brain is altering. Your brain is, it’s changing you. It’s starting to become your identity. It’s starting to become how you see yourself, which means it’s going to impact your self image.

Now, coming back to what we were talking about, failure. I am guessing when that happens and we stay in survival mode for way too long, something you cautioned against, I think that would impact our self image again. So then talk to me about the process that we could use, using all the information that you’ve just shared, adding to that, anything you can tell us about how we can make sure that a failure doesn’t sink so deep into us that it completely alters us and how do we recover effectively

Perpetua: So, I think that’s a fabulous question because all of us are going to face failure, whether it’s a failure defined by somebody else or by ourselves. So, and most of the time, failure recovery is like that, right? Or it goes down. And what we want to do is we want to do this. We want to make the past pay dividends for us.

So in this sense first, you know, you have to do a brave post mortem of the failure. You know, contain that failure. Because our brains are going to be very dramatic and associate one failure with who we are personally and professionally. And especially if you’re over accountable, over responsible, you come from, you might, females are more at risk of this because females are conditioned to over give.

Um, You just take too much responsibility for everything. So it conflates and permeates your entire self image or your entire professional self image. And that is not healthy at all. So first step, we’ve got to contain that failure and see, you know, to what extent this is really about me. About my work Or about something else.

And also, you know, like, to ask ourselves, then, what am I feeling about this? And feelings are never straightforward, which actually confuses the crap out of people. So, you know, like, we’ll be a bit relieved, even a bit happy, and then sad, and then they feel guilty that there’s this happy inside, right? So, you know, humans are incredibly complex creatures.

That’s what makes you amazing. So, be able to distinguish that in, in, like the different bits of the cocktail, right? Even though it’s a Molotov cocktail, it’s going to spark into flames, you know. But the thing is that you are complex, there are going to be many different emotions, some of them conflict with each other, some of them become bigger at different times during different triggers, and that is perfectly okay.

You know, and also during failure, especially if, you know, no matter how resilient a lot of people are, you know, sometimes we see this as small t traumas, so we store them in our brains as trauma. And our bodies as trauma. So really important thing is to keep resetting your brain, regulating your brain.

um, as it is your amygdala, your fear centre hijacks your prefrontal cortex and the higher parts of your brain, your decision making and ability to delay gratification, many, many times a day. And if you don’t fly a plane, if you don’t sit in a plane willfully, knowing that’s a hijacker, you shouldn’t be flying your brain, knowing that it’s being hijacked.

So brain regulation, which is three deep breaths done properly. Okay. Over and over again. Throughout the day, it’s going to be really important because not only does that bring your higher brain back online, so you stop making more mistakes and creating more messes, what you’re also doing is you are helping your timekeeper in your brain to wind itself.

Because when something is stored as a traumatic memory, it is not just about what happened in the past, what happened to you. It’s how that’s playing over and over again. In your body right now with compound interest. So let’s say John Experienced a traumatic event five days ago, right and five days later.

He’s and the trauma is playing and reactivating So not only is he say having nightmares and flashbacks like he’s still there. It’s happening for five days. So day one is It’s lighter than day five because day five he’s already feeling tired. Imagine if John is carried this for day 50 or day or year five, that’s going to be more tiring, right?

So trauma is what happens to you over, over again. And that’s because the timekeeper in your brain to keep it simply things that then is now. So by deep breathing, not only are you regulate down regulating your fear center, you’re also training your chrono keeper, your timekeeper in your brain that then is not now.

I am safe right now. I am doing my best to keep myself safe right now. And then as you help your body to soothe itself, because a lot of traumatic memories are stored in our body, then what happens is we are also teaching our brain to create a coherent narrative about how then leads to now, or whatever factor led to this issue.

So that basically when we have a story, our brains release oxytocin, right? And when it happens, we can have closure. And in some ways you have to think about, like, memories becoming resolved, traumatic memories becoming resolved, as imagine if they were stored, very fragmented bits, like a linen closet that cannot close, in your amygdala, then they slowly get filed nicely and neatly, like a beautiful linen cupboard, into your hippocampus.

So you’re doing a lot of different things at the same time just by helping yourself, but of course, you know, like you don’t just get over crisis straight away, right? Sometimes, you know, like especially when failure is something that’s bigger than you Um, or or a mistake is bigger than you and maybe it’s not even your mistake.

It’s something that’s happened to Your loved one your company your team and it could be due to something bigger like Something you cannot preempt at all Something that nobody can preempt, right? And so in this situation, you can’t just tell yourself, buck up, cheer up, everything’s okay. But you, what you can do, however, is do your best to not make one bad day 10.

Do your best to get through that one day and build something different while you are going through coming out of this. So, you know, maybe have a little side project where you can actually invest yourself, your time, your efforts, and your resources into. That’s healthy, that’s something that you can feel proud of yourself for, that keeps you sane and in one piece, you know.

So, you know, for instance, I would tell people like, you know, maybe it’s a language, maybe it’s learning something, maybe it’s taking care of your body, sculpting your body, whatever it is, you know, something that makes you know, that when you know, crisis ends or when you come out of the crisis, you have something that you’re actually proud of because sometimes, you know, like we think that going through a crisis, I used to, I’m as a part of me, you know, being born Catholic, raised Catholic, right, believes that at the end of a crisis, I need to be martyred, need to be completely broken and collapsed, right?

And you know, it’s something that I have to regularly remind myself that no, I cannot be that way because that’s like, first. Insane and to not walking my talk as psychologist. Okay, no matter what my programming Right, so it was like so many different conflicting things, but you gotta be aware of what intuition tells you, right?

So have that thing that you can devote your resources to maybe is your partner. Maybe is your friend Maybe it’s a charitable cause maybe it’s a pet whatever it is. Okay, like any excess energy that you might be channeling otherwise to Medicating or numbing yourself, doomscrolling, you know,

like oh, just binge eating things that you don’t even want to eat, that you wouldn’t even eat on a normal day, right, or enjoyable day. Um, So you can basically channel that energy over there. And then also ask yourself realistically, right, like, what do I need to know or what markers do I need to see to know that this crisis or most of it’s over and I can rest easy. I think that’s really, really important, especially when it comes to prices that is nothing to do with you, but still affects you.

Krati: Yeah. This is what, you know, makes me wonder about, like, I make fun of myself. All the time like I am never not making fun of myself, but that’s just how my sense of humor is I do it in a funny way. I’m usually laughing making fun of myself, you know, it’s just better I just have like i’m good at that But I would much rather make fun of myself than of someone else who might then get hurt but there are people who actually do that to fuel themselves like in a very brutal way.

They would Talk smack about themselves in their own head to then, you know, get themselves to work harder, but that feels very dark and very heavy. I really wonder how, you know, you, you, you don’t just end up breaking your brain, doing something like that, because that seems crazy. I know a lot of athletes do it and that are like elite performers.

Perpetua: So I think first off, like, as somebody who is admittedly very, very dark, I  think I was born quite dark to begin very existential to begin with, right? It’s okay to know that you have dark thoughts. Not necessarily dark doesn’t mean, you know, I want to kill myself, or, you know, like, I want to, like, destroy the world, you know, that’s not necessarily, like, what we mean by dark thoughts.

Dark thoughts are just like, you know, sometimes you’re a bit morbid, a bit somber, a bit existential. And you know, well, let’s say that was not suitable for a four year old kid Or even a 10 year old kid, you know, like that’s a bit late to say that now, right? Um, But the thing is that you know, whatever you’re seeing whatever you’re feeling is one is be able to Not hide from it.

It’s like, okay, I have some dark thoughts. Okay, like, you know, I’m allowed I don’t have to be a nice person and not let myself think. Oh, I cannot stand this person It’s okay to not stand someone so it’s okay to have some dark thoughts As long as you don’t hurt somebody or you don’t hurt yourself. It’s more like acknowledging that you know what i’m a human being that is Okay But then you know like obviously there’s a line right because you know when you accept acknowledge something Then you can actually you take your power back, right?

You’re in control but the thing is that if you have dark thoughts Or you get really angry with yourself and you pretend you’re not angry with yourself. This is when we get into trouble. Okay, it’s like denying all emotions, right? And then we wonder, oh, you know, I had an outburst and oh, my emotions made me do it.

Therefore, I cannot trust my emotions. No, it’s because you are feeling something and you are not acknowledging it and energy has to go somewhere. So the faster you acknowledge that whatever you’re feeling or whatever mixture you’re feeling, the healthier it becomes. And then another thing would be to be aware of the evidence, right?

Like, so one of the biggest, um, evidences that you can read, like Kristin Neff, self compassion um, is that people who treat themselves kindly, high performers treat themselves kindly, actually do a lot better than high performers who are really nasty to themselves. And as somebody led by, you know, bred to be led by stick, not carrot.

I was like, are you sure? Are you sure? Um, But then, you know, it makes sense, right? because if our threat system is always being activated, the moment we are mean to ourselves, then we are going to waste a lot of resources from a mental energy or physical energy level. And that means that if I’m a bit tired, I’m not focused well.

I mean, like think about when I have a headache. Sometimes it takes effort to walk, right? So all this energy is being chewed up, right? So it makes sense from an energy perspective to not be so mean to myself and maybe even sleep better as a result So, you know, it takes practice to show yourself grace I think for a lot of high performers a lot of type a people a lot of elite athletes, c-suite people entrepreneurs senior leaders or people on track to being that Actually citing the evidence is really important to get their brains on board first and foremost before they decide.

Yeah, you know what? Maybe it’s time for me to practice giving myself some grace because I’ve already attained like this level so far there’s no harm in giving myself a little bit of grace and you know, your work ethic your discipline is something that Took many many years to develop. So just because you give yourself one day of grace Just because you let yourself sleep for one day doesn’t mean that your discipline will just disappear overnight

Krati: Yeah, that is so true. Everything you’ve just said that makes so much sense, and especially like the bit about the dark thoughts, because even if someone’s beating themselves up for having failed, maybe a performer, like a player, maybe they didn’t do so well, but if you are showing up the next day, Believing that I sucked in the last game, but the moment you are stepping back into the field or in the court or whatever, I think that is a great expression of self worth because believing what you believe you’ve shown up.

Perpetua: you decide to show up anyway and have a do over, right? Because, you know, like, if, let’s say, you know, you’re failing 4 out of 10 times, and then if you do make it, like, 6 out of 20 times, your odds are, For success actually increase so another thing that you can help yourself with is visualizing So you know one thing that I love to do is basically tell my clients and I do it for myself as well Like at night is something the day didn’t go as well And i’ll write a post mortem on that trying my best to be as objective as possible right and then i’ll do a little like Do over my head because my brain has no idea the difference between me thinking i’m there Or me actually being there So do that over and understand how that feeling feels like to succeed, to, you know, be a good person, to have made the right move, to have thought clearly.

And this builds those brain pathways so that the next time I show up in real life after doing this extensive visualization, it’s a very different version of me. And, you know, obviously, you know, to let myself have the grace to fall or the grace to think I’ve fallen.

Krati: yeah, this is amazing. I think it’s better to be someone who gets hit deep When they fail, then be someone who doesn’t the hit doesn’t quite sink in because I think that person may not because the emotional gravity is missing in that person. They may not be able to really focus their energies versus someone who is very sensitive and may have taken a deeper hit.

I mean, usually we would interpret that as the more dangerous. Sort of behavior, but I think that would actually be something great. And I think it’s one of the reasons why you, when you hear all of these athletes and scientists talk about their work, you see that sensitivity shining through, like they are emotionally sensitive people.

And I think it’s safe to say if you failed and you’ve shown up the next day, you’re officially a badass.

Perpetua: Yeah, it takes so much courage to show up again and again for yourself. And no, the thing is that if you want to try something, you want to get good at something, you’ve got to fail many, many, many times. You’ve got to be willing to look like an idiot to yourself. Are there any other

Krati: actionable habits or mindsets that uh, work in favor of elite performers versus like an average person who may have a less pressure job?

Perpetua: two things will be really important. The first one is you always have to plan recovery. So this is something that elite athletes taught me that if you don’t plan recovery or active recovery, then you’re going to be forced into recovery. So let’s say, you know, um, give you an example, right? Ever since I started working out, like probably three years ago, my main aim has to be avoid injury instead of, you know, just go straight in and push it for that, you know, that quick gain or that quick, like weight loss or the quick muscle scalp or whatever, you know, the whole thing is I’ve got to keep myself safe.

So that I can play the long game because the moment I’m injured, that’s a forced recovery, right? So you think about it in the same sense as plan versus so my plan recovery is to go slow on some days Especially when my body is hurting or I’m tired or you know, I just had like more mentally exhausting days.

So Then basically I’ll put myself into a kind of planned recovery where you know I may walk instead of run like five times a week. I mean I may walk like four days a week and run twice a week is still better than zero. That’s all we care about. Right. And then, so, but if I hurt myself, Then my body is going to force myself into forced recovery, right?

And then I also don’t know what kind of weird, like, injuries I’m going to get that’s going to interfere with my performance in the long run. So think about it from the body perspective. We’re all intimate with how we might hurt ourselves, sprain ourselves, injure, da da da da da. So think in that sense, right?

So whenever you’re recovering from any crisis, you know, give yourself that grace to recover. So on some days you might have to sleep a bit more. Okay, on some days, you might have to say no to some things because it’s more exhausting, it takes effort, right? On some days, you know, you might have to stretch yourself a little bit more instead of exert your body, whatever it is that you’re doing.

Give yourself that grace because you have to look long game, long legs. Just because everybody’s talking about the quick, fast, sexy gains doesn’t mean that it’s all real. There’s a lot of lies out there, yeah, so be very aware of that. And the second thing is to be very aware of how much vitamins you need, okay?

So I don’t just talk about it from the supplements point of view, like having chromium, like magnesium, zinc, and your B vitamins or, you know, fish oil, krill oil for your brain, right? I’m also talking about this. from the angles of your social vitamins, your learning vitamins, and even your moving vitamins, right?

So everybody needs to know how much, how well they need to move, and how much there is, right? And then like, everybody needs social stimulation because we cannot isolate ourselves from people. In fact, like, you know, like, let’s say I don’t talk to my friends for like a long time, it’s harder for me to go like, hey, let’s connect again, because you just feel a bit awkward and weird, right?

So, you know, in a sense, but you have to be aware on what levels of vitamins are optimum. And again, nobody can prescribe that to you. You know, maybe you’re introvert and you only can do certain kinds of gatherings X amount of times a week, right? Or X amount of times a month. Maybe you’re extrovert and you need more of that, you know?

And so it’s like, and you have to think about different factors. So ask yourself like, what level is optimum? What level is too little? What level is OD? Because you can, anything that’s too much of a good thing can become bad.

Krati: So true. Okay. Now something else I want to talk about is how do we take all of the bad in our life? And turn that into something that works for us because I’m guessing like, like I’m 33 years old. I’ve had many bad days up, up to this point. I’ve had a lot of failures. I have had some emotional trauma, even though, you know, I will always say that I’ve, I’ve had a very privileged life, but still there’s a lot of, there’s been periods of humiliation.

There have been a lot of mistakes that still haunt me. There’s a lot of bad shit that I’ve done. All of that, you know, it can, it stays with you. You, it just, you can do the work, you can do the therapy. It still doesn’t quite go away. How do we, considering everything we’ve talked about so far and how, you know, sensitive your brain is, how it’s picking every cue that you put out there.

How do we make sure that all of those past demons don’t clutter our way that we can actually, in fact, use them as strengths?

Perpetua: So thank you so much for sharing this, Krati, because you know, it takes a lot of guts to tell people that you’ve gone through a lot, even if your life isn’t privileged, right? Like, we love to preface that and you know, I think because we always do.

Krati: kind of feel like, have to say that, I, I, unless like you have lived on the streets or unless like something horrible, truly criminal happened to you. It just, I think we all say it, like it’s not even about the money in your bank account or who your parents are, if you have parents or not, we all feel kind of compelled to say it.

I don’t know if it’s a good thing, bad thing, neutral thing, I don’t know, but I feel compelled to say it at this point.

Perpetua: Yeah. It’s almost like we had to preface that. So, you know, the thing is that, you know, whatever it is, it’s, it takes a lot of guts to be able to say that because a lot of us would rather pretend it doesn’t exist. Even though it haunts us, especially during our okay days and our not okay dates And so one is to make sure that we don’t compare with other people Because otherwise it becomes a race to the bottom.

I mean I think about the last time you talked to this Irritating person probably not a friend probably a frenemy an ambivalent friend and um And you were just saying something like oh, you know I have a headache and they have to compete with you about whose headache is worse who suffers the most right?

There are always people that I call like the race to the bottom. It’s not just a form of connection and empathy, but it’s a competition. So, like, this is a lesson that we all have to learn, right? Like, I also have learned really hard not to preface too much, you know? So, sometimes I call it very privileged possible problems, uh, because I’m aware that sometimes I sound like a brat, but then at the same time, it’s like, why do I have to keep saying that?

Maybe it’s because I’m a woman, you know? And I feel like it’s, if I say something else, it’s very prideful. Um, As women, we are socialized not to be prideful. So, it’s one thing to be able to acknowledge that, and I think that’s something that the more we can show up for ourselves and model that other people, the easier it becomes for women, especially the younger ones, afterwards, the younger ones watching this and listening to this.

So that’s one thing. Um, Another thing is to know that to fail is to be human because if you’re not failing, you’re not living well enough. And sometimes, you know, failure isn’t even failure. Failure is what we think it is. And I remember, I think it’s Seth Godin, if I’m not wrong, who actually said that the best fail fast and exit fast.

So we’re going to try, you know, so basically, you know, like, you know, maybe you have a goal. And after some time you decide this is still a goal that aligns with who you are Maybe the method didn’t work as well because of some it doesn’t align with you or you know, just wrong Like cultural climate wrong economic climate, whatever it is, you know, like so your method is not aligned big deal That’s not a failure.

But to some of us it is a failure. So, you know be aware and again contain how we We postmortem that and label that as a failure, whether, you know, we see that as a personal flaw that extends through different parts of us because our brains can be incredibly traumatic.

And then after that, you know, it’s like what I like to call failure forensics, you know, break down your different kinds of failures and, you know, see what the patterns are in them. What kind of things are actually like our kryptonite. Okay, so like for instance, I realized, you know, recently, like speaking to people, I’m really close and people I trust, like one of my biggest kryptonites when it comes to maybe even what I call a social failure, since we’re in a subject of failure, is that sometimes I pity people, I feel sorry for them.

And then I let them into my life. Then it gets me in some trouble, right? And so then I asked myself, then I run the forensics. I’m like, ah, okay. It’s because like, they’re actually not my friend. I just, they might be a friend of a friend. And then I feel cause something happened to them. So I feel sorry for them, but that’s it.

So even though, you know, I, once I find that something’s a bit dodgy and there’s enough patterns, I’m like, okay, go away, right? I’m able to cut. So that’s what I’m successful in. But then like now, like in terms of my detection, I’m going to be very aware that, okay, are you actually my friend?

Are we actually aligned? Nope. Then no, you’re not, you’re not going to be part of this because actually I do have enough friends and I want to focus my energy on people that I actually care about rather than feel pressure to. Be a bit more accommodating just because you are going through something in your life because you do have your own friends as well, right?

Um, And so also basically it’s not to say like I’m a good person or a bad person or not like I pity people or whatever, right? But I mean like, but this is how I, you know, sometimes I make wrong social choices in the vast color of my life. You know, like, so I have a lot of, I have some people I trust a lot.

It’s like, you know, generally very, very solid people. And sometimes, you know, like one or two people kind of get a bit dodgy and those people would never be considered my close circle, but I am getting aware of how I accidentally let them in. So being like being able to admit that is it’s a big deal for myself, you know, what does it suggest that?

Okay, maybe i’m not very good at people detecting Maybe i’m not very good at saying no and what does it mean as a psychologist as a coach who talks about boundaries and all that But then what does that mean as a human? I’m learning. I am growing and I wasn’t born with the answers nor did I go to school where they taught me all this stuff.

So, being able to basically understand your failure forensics in any part of your life where there are certain patterns because the whole idea is to think that I’m growing and I think it’s Alain de Botton that says that If you’re not laughing at your younger version of yourself, you’re not embarrassed by them, then you’re not growing.

So, yeah, so I’m a bit embarrassed by myself, but that’s okay.

Krati: This is something that’s important to me because t this was something so primary in my recovery, in everything good in my life and my personality was built out of stories, out of identity, out of my, finally me saying that this is how I see myself and this is the most authentic version.

Fuck whatever anybody else says. This is who I am and you don’t get to tell me otherwise. I think that was huge. I’m not saying there weren’t setbacks. But I think that was it for me at least. And I have seen that play out similarly for a lot of people. Your story, your identity, what the narrative you assigned to yourself is very, very vital in how your life plays out.

So now I want to talk about that. I want to talk about role of identity, especially in recovery from failures. Especially when life is hitting bottom, how much of an impact does your self perception, your identity have in help, not just helping you recover, but actually going back to a place where you’ve taken back control and now you’re building something new.

Perpetua: So important because we are run by stories and often this is unconscious, so in cognitive behavioural therapy, we call this core beliefs. And if you think about the different thoughts as an iceberg, then your core beliefs are right at the bottom. Things that we don’t even know much about, or we don’t even know at all.

So if your identity is centered as somebody who cannot solve problems, who is useless, who is weak, who needs to be helped, and I’m not saying, you know, don’t get support, I’m saying, you know, but who just needs like band aids as help, right? Not, not real help, right? Then basically that is going to hinder your recovery and hinder your progress or shining.

Because it’s almost like you’re communicating to yourself that you’re not worthy of doing well in life. And you know, like some people we see them, it’s almost like their lives are trainwrecks. They cannot catch a break. Even if they’re kind people, or some people they’re not very kind, some people kind of sabotage themselves a lot, right?

But then there are also people who are kind, decent people, but for some reason it’s like they cannot catch a break, and it’s always like one issue after another issue. So, you know, part of the thing is like, okay, so what’s going on in terms of your ideas about yourself, your core beliefs about yourself, your narratives about yourself, or do you believe that one crisis, one failure is universal, and affects who you are forever.

So not being able to courageously examine this is important without getting into analysis paralysis where all you do is talk and talk about the failure of the prices or why you can’t get up. Right? And conversely, if you see yourself as somebody, for instance, like I am resourceful. So what this means is that you can look for help, right?

And very importantly, I’m resourceful, meaning that I can actually ask for help. I know which help to actually seek because not all forms of help are helpful. We’re not just talking about intention or alignment of you know, how the help can help you right. Sometimes some people may offer you something but it might actually backfire, and some people pretend to help you but actually they’re trying to hurt you, right?

So, you know, there’s so many different layers over here but you know, even then it’s like so how resourceful i’ve been – able to ask for help, accept help and choose the help that I need so, for instance, there’s no right or wrong in terms of, like, when we’re going through a crisis, some people like to tell the whole world, you know, and work it out publicly.

Some people keep it really, really quiet until most of it has been resolved, and then they start to talk about it, right? Whatever it is, again, you know, it’s just your personal way of framing it and dealing with it. No problem with that. No judgment on that but basically it’s like no matter which way you deal, it’s really like how much how resourceful do you feel like you are in solving problems, how much can you actually be able to make wise decisions as much as you can. So, what I mean by making wise decisions is that when our brains are cluttered, when our, because everything’s so chaotic, when our fear centers are just pinging and triggered the whole time, then it’s very easy to make impulsive, irrational decisions from a place of anxiety, a place of overthinking, right?

So, you know, like, when I always tell people, like, when you find yourself justifying too much and being over rational, that’s actually when you’re being over emotional. Because rationality actually works so quickly. So your brain is actually working with the rest of your body. You’re not just stuck up here.

You’re making good, whole body centred decisions. And when you’re making decisions from an over emotional slash over rational place where you just have to keep, you know, justifying to yourself, like, you know, why this person is actually not a bad person that’s a very lengthy exercise, right?

That why do I need to spend so much time justifying you’re not a bad person. You know, like that’s actually a red flag, right? So if you think along those lines, right, you know, if you’re resourceful and you can learn to make wise decisions by regulating your brain a lot, you know, the brain reset exercise or something about, about, you know, sometimes being able to step back, sometimes knowing that on some days you don’t have to jump into making decisions straight away or learning how to recover, learning to give yourself grace, you know, learning to seek help, the right kind of help.

Then if you believe that you’re resourceful, if you believe that you’re going to make it through, if you believe that this too will pass because I am collaborating with reality, this has happened, I cannot change what happened, but I’m going to be able to change the outcome instead of, you know, like from an outcome where if I give up and everything goes to hell versus if I collaborate with reality and say, yes, I’m here now, what am I going to do to rig the odds in my favour? And then after that, you know, I’m going to learn like, Hey, so, you know, I’m not going to be grateful for this bad thing. That’s not what anyone should ever say, but I’m going to be grateful for my ability to come through for the fact that I have foundations of discipline , enough resources When the storm, you Murakami quote when the storm settles and you know You realize that everything gets cleared and then you are there, but actually you realize that you are the storm, right? And so very aware that also that after this has happened and after you’re processed it or even in the process of processing it, you’re going to be a different person, and you’re not the same person again. And, you know, it’s not even a matter of bitter versus better, right? It’s the fact that maybe you’re mellowed out.

Maybe you have compassion for the people who used to go through the same thing, that in the past they were just like, oh, just buck up, you know?

Yeah, maybe it’s compassion for your younger self, understanding what got you into that mess in the first place. Or what got you unable to see that this was going to be an issue, you know, whatever it is, you are not going to be the same person.

When we’re going through the crisis, sometimes it feels like an interim self has stepped in. And part of us are just like the natural default is to act according to survival mode and then the wiser part of us or another part of us that has been gifted support, it is going to work very hard to live right, to do more than just react and survive and the cells will kind of be kind of at odds or playing with each other at the same time and so when you come out of that, basically it’s almost like your interim self disappears because you’re no longer in survival mode.

And you’ve got this self that has been working very hard to grow, to learn, to have grace, right? And then you’ve got your old self that sort of disappeared somewhere else. You want to take that bit of your old self back with the things you’ve learned and then become this new self and be able to integrate that into, this is who I am today.

And when you can do that, then voila, you’ve grown from your crisis, have made your past pay dividends for you. And no, on the subject of your demons, right? You have made your demons work for you because that I wouldn’t say no shame, but there is minimal shame. And when shame comes up, especially in a group context, because sometimes you will feel less than, sometimes people will trigger you.

Sometimes people will shame you, right? So when all those things happen, you may be affected. But you can stand up and every time you stand up, you get stronger and stronger and stronger like Hydra in Greek mythology. Cut off one head, she grows three heads.

Krati: This is such a huge thing, what you’ve shared. And I think transformations are beautiful always, but I think we don’t really get to, unless someone is in therapy, is in focused recovery, you don’t really get to watch your transformation happen as it happens because you just, every day is changing you a little bit.

But I think, what you’re saying is very true. Your events in life, no matter how ugly, how bad, how difficult, they should change you. You should be different, but you want to take like the best pieces and hold on to them as you integrate the new pieces. I love that idea.

Perpetua: There’s parts of you that become softer because you’re aware that this is life. Because when you’re young, you kind of like, you feel like you’re invincible or like bad things only happen to other people, not you, you know, it’s just bad luck, da da da da da, or bad judgment. And then you become softer in that sense.

You have this sense of compassion. And then you also become a harder advocate for yourself, for your strength or for people who are going through that same thing. So it’s about balancing, you know, like, you know, there’s a lot of talk about, you know, like two diametric poles, right? So it’s like balancing the soft parts and the hard parts, knowing when each has to shine and, you know, just being really aware of it and not being scared of it.

Krati: I think people would be very surprised if someone were to video record their entire life and they could watch it. They’ll be surprised by just how much strength they’ve displayed at different points in their lives and this is one of the reasons why it’s so shocking to me when I meet an older adult and I see no humility.

I see like no humility whatsoever. I see an arrogant sort of confidence in them. You know how there are some people, it’s like they know everything. And they’re never wrong. And they are annoying people, but they’re also very surprising people because how can you be 40 years old or 50 years old and have developed no humility? What sort of life did you live, pal?

Perpetua: Well, I mean, like if you’ve lived that way, It’s so protective to suddenly examine your life when you’ve been protecting yourself with this shroud of illusion.

Krati: Yeah, there are a lot of people who sometimes in sessions, sometimes in emails would say to me, I wish I wasn’t this affected by what happened. I wish I wasn’t this easily affected. I really believe in this, but you know what you said really highlighted that it is better to be someone who gets easily affected than be someone who is unchanged by life’s events.

Perpetua: Or numb. I think this is really important like, you know, I tell people, like, I rather have you live slightly motivated by your middle finger, especially when somebody’s hurt you, especially if you’ve been in the wake of someone toxic or someone’s wronged you, right?

Because at least your middle finger is that fuel. If you cannot feel, you’re depressed. You know, you cannot do anything. Now that’s not to say that your middle finger is going to be the only thing that runs you. Okay. But if that’s the thing that gets you out, okay. That gets you doing the thing that gets you to take heart out of your grave, then you know what, like your motivations will change one day.

I don’t care as long as you’ll let you take whatever fuel. So even if you’re sad, even if you feel anxious, whatever you’re able to feel still, you know, anxiety is basically this thing that maybe is this evolutionary, like signal that we got to rethink something. Okay. We got to rethink our entire strategy because something is not quite right.

So listen to that signal, but don’t let the signal run you.

Krati: Would this advice differ for men versus women?

Perpetua: I think it’s the same, like, you know, men also feel things, right. And it’s just that they’re taught not to feel much. So they tend to externalise

So, you know, like it doesn’t make you weak. Actually, it makes you stronger because you’re able to integrate your heart and your head. And this gives you a big source of wisdom, like, you know, it’s not so, so, you know, maybe in, in like English language, we think about the heart as feelings and we think about feelings as feelings, feelings, feelings, you know, I don’t want to analyse my feelings.

I agree with that as psychologists, I do not want to analyze my feelings forever. Okay. But feelings are data and in different cultures, like for instance, in Chinese culture, you feel, and you think of your heart. So your heart has a site, has wisdom. So, you know, it’s not just about…how, you know, like I sometimes I feel like therapising things has given feelings a bad name.

And I promise you that, you know, not everybody wants you to just go just be separated by emotions. My emotions make me do this. No, my emotions are data. If I’m angry, it means a sense of injustice. If I’m sad, it might mean I need to withdraw, to, you know, reflect and heal myself a little bit because I’m a bit wounded.

And I think that’s great information. If I’m numb, maybe what that means is I need to rest and get my feelings, my, my sensations back again, because maybe I’m overstimulated. I’m frozen. So I got to find that, you know, like get my nervous system working again, you know?

Krati: There is a lot of war happening in the world. And I think about the Children who are very young in these places and considering how completely torn apart their countries are now, if you’re someone in Ukraine or if you’re someone in Palestine, even in Israel, I think it’s like rehabilitation is going to take a long time.

So if someone’s life is littered with that kind of pain, is there any different advice that you would give to them? Because I can’t even imagine how long the recovery would take for some someone like that.

Perpetua: I mean, this is so big. This is so painful. No one can ever pretend to know what it feels like. It’s going to be a lie. It’s going to be a sense of disrespect to pretend I even understand what that is, right? So I can’t tell you to think positive. I can’t tell you that tomorrow is going to be better.

You can only hope that tomorrow is better. Can only create that sense of whatever you need to for the sake of your future self or for the sake of the people you want to survive, for the legacy you want to leave behind, but it’s hard. So in times like that, like, the only thing I can think about is the book, Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl.

So Dr. Frankl, basically, I think he was a psychiatrist, a physician, and he was in Auswitchz. And he wrote that, you know, like he basically went through one of the worst conditions that anyone can go through, right? In times like that, you’ve got to find meaning in your life. Because that’s the only thing that might bring you forward.

So for some people, meaning is knowing that they can help somebody, they’re connected to something bigger than them. For some people, it’s prayer or spirituality. For some people, it’s helping. Whatever it is. You know, I cannot tell a person in such situation what they can do, um, to stay positive or stay happy because that’s ridiculous or to cheer up.

The only thing I can say is, you gotta find, if you want to stay alive, you gotta find the strength to be alive because you got a long road ahead of you and maybe you know like a lot of people have been through crisis, severe crisis, and they’ve come out of it. Sometimes what they want to do is they want to pay it back in kind. That life, you know a life doesn’t mean breathing. A life means being alive, able to taste life, you know, able to live another day.

So sometimes what you want to pay forward is to support causes that ensure that people never go through that same situation again, or people do, how can they get out of that faster, deeper, better? Or maybe, you know, research, or put money into research to help stop such situations or to help accelerate people’s recovery.

So whatever it is, you know, sometimes the only, when you’re in the darkest throes, I’m not saying like people in war torn countries, right now, but you’re in the darkest throes of crisis. Sometimes it’s your future self and people, maybe your descendants, the people it’s going to impact, that’s the only thing that brings you forward. And if there’s something you want to bring you forward, don’t lose that glimmer, connect as much as you can to it.

Krati: That’s beautiful advice. Now, I want to flip this around, I don’t know if this question even makes sense but to someone, like going the opposite route now ,if someone has had a very pleasant life. Something goes badly wrong someday.

And if you’ve had like a really good life, whatever that means, you know, that would have different meanings to different people, but if you had a really good life then how do you under such pleasant conditions, and everybody’s free to imagine their own idea of pleasant conditions, but in the absence of adversity, how do you build up resilience? Can that be done?

Perpetua: So we’re saying that this person has had a good life and nothing bad has ever happened and nothing bad is happening to them now. That’s what you’re saying.

Krati: Anybody who has been listening to the podcast consistently would know that I’ve been in that mode where I’m like really very aware of the fact that there are wars going on, that there are threats everywhere. And I’m like, the world is burning down. But I always wonder how I would react in a moment of crisis. And then someone I would think about some people I know and I joke that this person is going to be the first one to fall apart.

And we’re going to literally have to carry this person. But anyways, I don’t know if this is a valid question or if it is going to help any listeners, but I still wanted to know if, if there’s a way we can be more prepared for crisis.

Perpetua: I think, like, even if a person has had a relatively sheltered life, so I’ll give you, like, maybe the easiest approximation of example would be, you know, somebody who is in their late 30s or 40s and has never experienced a death of anyone close to them in their family before. Okay, I think this will be the closest way I can approximate that.

And so, how can we help them? Because it’s gonna hit, right? And if it hits, it might hit, like, dominos. So, whereas, you know, like, for instance, I think I saw my first dead body at two years old, so, you know, being aware of corpses, I mean, not, not like, you know, I saw it in a coffin, right? That being aware of death at a very young age means I have very different experience.

And while I know, like, I’ve seen deaths of many people I’ve loved over the years.

Krati: Wait, did you say two ?

Perpetua: Yeah, I have memories spreading a very long time ago. So when I see it, I remember it. Yeah, some relative, you know, there’s a coffin and you know, you just see the body and I just like, oh, okay, you know, that’s death, right? So I’ve had a very like, intimate knowledge of death, let’s say since I was two years old versus say somebody who’s 40 years old and death is abstract, limited to stories I’ve heard or TV shows I’ve watched, right Not even a pet, so what does that mean?

So for them, it’s going to be very very abstract and almost like the longer you protect yourself from that the harder it is going to face. So sometimes, you know, like, there might be a session where you know, they might speak about it not that they don’t come to me just for dealing with death or hypothetical death, right?

But it’s more like oh, you know this thing is going to be impending because someone is really ill so how i’m going to deal with that so in a sense, you know, like you think about losses, right? because we all go through losses. So maybe this person has had a relatively sheltered life and I would urge them never to feel bad for having a sheltered life. I actually feel happy because maybe someone worked really hard to give you that life…just because somebody else may shoot you down for being sheltered or having resources.

When I was a lot younger I used to be tutoring very privileged kids, right? So should I tell myself, Oh, no, they’re just brats because they got a lot of money? No, I mean like if they all like today like my high net worth clients, Oh, you know your sweater sport. You don’t walk into zara the way I do your sweater sport. You walk to chanel Does it make them a threat? No, this is just their life. Somebody I know, one of my good friends, when they travel it’s always first class. Does it make her a brat? No, it’s just the life that she knows, right? So let’s be very clear. Let’s not, you know, make somebody feel bad for the material conditions in life because maybe they worked hard, maybe somebody else worked hard for that.

So again, you know, removing that guilt for things that they have or the protection or good stuff or privilege is very important because when we make somebody feel guilty or we make ourselves feel guilty, it weighs a lot and stops us from dealing with what’s at hand.

And then look at the losses you’ve actually gone through because you know, even if you’re very sheltered, you have gone through losses in your life, right? Maybe it’s a heartbreak that you might say, Oh, it’s not no big deal when he’s 16, right? But for your 16 year old self that might have been a big deal. I sometimes have clients who are young, who are really young like, so you can’t go to this Christmas party because you’re traveling and you feel bad about that and you feel like a brat, but you know what I think, you should be really glad that at 13 years old, this is the biggest thing you have to worry about. So take  it that way, you know.

People used to scold me that when I was like, I think I was 20 and I got a b plus in my spanish exam and some idiot. Okay, let’s call it out. Idiot. Okay, called me saying that. Oh, you know, in five years time, it’s not gonna mean a thing, but you know what? I’m actually glad at 20 years old that’s the biggest like nightmare for me. So don’t feel bad that that is your biggest thing, you know, so look at the different losses in your life, no matter how you play it down, how you disclaimer it or whatever how you practice it, right?

In these losses you have learned something by yourself. In these losses, you have felt heartbreak, you felt guilt and think about the way you’ve evolved. So in order to evolve, whether it’s to grow more complex or simpler, both versions qualify with evolution, parts of you have to die, parts of you have to be born again, right?

So think about these different deaths in life, the transitions you’ve had to make, chapters have had to die and that will help you to deal with the seasons of life.

Krati: It’s beautiful. So true! I think this is why journaling is so brilliant because if you have a record of everything, every difficult day and challenge you’ve gone through, you actually can look back and see actual proof of your resilience.

Perpetua: I like taking photos because I always say I’m yellow Asian so I like taking photos. But the truth is like it’s a photo diary because otherwise I can easily gaslight myself that I look a certain way. Someone didn’t do this. I didn’t do this. If you ask me are you in doing and I reply, oh nothing! and then I look at my diary like oh my god! so many things!

So sometimes having like a little photo journal is really important because it helps you to anchor that and have a concrete memory because memory essentially in your head is reconstructive. It’s basically, you know, not completely factual and you can always change it in your head, right?

Which is why we can visualise different scenarios, have do-overs in our head. So when you have something that’s concrete, like, you know, a little log of how you felt, a log of what you spent, like, in your credit card bills, in your bank account, how much you’ve saved, then it’s not something that’s tentative that you can go around and run your head.

It’s something you can actually place in your concrete records. I think a photo journal can actually be really useful because it can show you a lot of different things. Like, sometimes when an old Facebook memory pops up, or old Insta memory pops up, I look at my face there and, you know, it’s not just about, oh, no, my face was so, like, pimpled or, or like my face was so like chubby then, you know, it’s also like I remember the person I was maybe because I’ve an elephant memory and a diary, but I remember the person I was. I remember that like sometimes I see that like versions of me her eyes her expression and I know what was going on in her head and like, I’ve grown.

Krati: Yeah, look at what you’ve lived through. For my last question I have to ask, is there a way for us to take stock of our life, personalities, self perception, all the things that we have talked about today? Is there a way for us to, using all of that information, detect problems before they become crisis?

Perpetua: So I think like the most important way to actually detect problems before they become crisis is actually your foundation. So your foundations, one is your gut okay? Your gut, your instinct, intuition is something that science still cannot codify well, but we’ve all known, you know, when our gut tells us, Okay, someone is gonna be an issue and that’s not my paranoia. Don’t talk to this person who’s bad news, right? But then again, you know, chaotic brain, feeling bad feeling like I cannot be a bad person. Starts to over-rationalise, right? And so that is not good. So gut is one.

Learn how to listen to your gut. Learn how to strengthen your gut and you know often I find that when people are disconnected from their gut instinct or their intuition, then what happens is they actually have very weak guts. So, you know, like, so one thing I’ll say is feed your gut properly, you know, your probiotics, your prebiotics, your postbiotics. Stop drinking cold water, drink warm water, you know. Drink some spices, chai is great, or your spicy teas, I think that’s great.

Just repair your gut, give yourself time, massage your gut, and almost like there’s a, this strong mind body connection. Heal your gut, that’s super important. Okay, and second thing and then for failure detection is to actually have a life where you can actually think as clearly as possible So, you know, here’s where like this what I would say is the best book I’ve read in the past two years, it’s called, Clear Thinking by Shane Parrish.

And what he says is that we always think that it’s the big decisions in life that make or break us, right? Like who you marry, what job you take, dah, dah, dah, dah, what school you go to. But actually, that’s not necessarily the case because the small things you do every day, how you live your micro actions and micro habits, determine your outcome.

So, for instance, fight with your partner on a weekend. The whole weekend is going to be sour if you don’t repair that. Make a mistake at work and have bad relations with your colleagues, then your life is going to be pretty much hellish. You’re going to create more messes, you’re going to hate your work culture, da da da da da da da, right?

So, you know, um, so, and then like, Dr. P’s example would be eat ice cream every day and you’re not gonna like yourself too much after some time, right? So it’s actually in the small decisions in the way we live our everyday life. So, you know, it comes back to how my philosophy, my own personal philosophy is keep my life as lean as possible so that I have space to think, and as agile as possible so that I can respond once I can reflect about it and when you have the space and you’re not just reacting you’re not just thinking Okay, never mind, I’m just gonna throw a band aid because there’s so much problems anyway, whatever.

Krati: Okay. Listen to your gut, be reflective, pay attention to even the smaller details of life.

Perpetua: Yeah, it’s not like we’re not micromanaging our life or being obsessive compulsive, right? What we’re saying is, you know, have that bandwidth to be able to be thoughtful about your actions. So, for instance, you know, I don’t have to like double check every conversation I have but before I have an important conversation, maybe I’m gonna ask myself, how am I going to phrase this in a way that doesn’t make me reactive? How I’m gonna remind myself not to take things too personally or how I’m gonna script this differently, right? Or let’s say, you know, I’m going to breathe differently as well to keep my brain focused and sharp. Or, you know, like maybe I want to be healthy-ish which means that I’m not perfectionist about the way I’m going to eat and live. Because if I do that, then, you know, that means that I cut out all the things I love as well. Right?

So, you know, those are decisions you’ve got to be able to make. So what that means, means like, you know, maybe I have to commit to three healthy meals a week and when you have set a rule for the person you are for this time period, that helps you to live more thoughtfully instead of just like, okay, I realized it’s 10 p. m. I’m hungry. Let me just go grab some fast food. And so fast food is no longer enjoyment. At least to me, it’s enjoyment, right? But let’s say, you know, if I’m doing that at 10 p. m. every night because I’m hungry and I forgot to eat, then it’s not enjoyment. It’s just randomly stuffing things into my mouth.

If you’re able to be thoughtful about some things in your life, it’s enjoyment. Like, you know, decide what you want, what you don’t want, what you say yes to, and especially what you say no to, then your life doesn’t become so cluttered. Then you’re able to make better decisions.

Krati: Even the most practical advice you give, it always feels wrapped in ancient wisdom, sort of. I always love our conversations. Always so beautiful listening to you talk. Now, before we wrap up, any final words of wisdom or anything you want to share any resources you want to redirect my listeners to?

Perpetua: The main thing that, since we’re talking a lot about failure and crisis today, is that you may feel like you’re haunted by demons of shame, the demons of your past, and like everybody else has no such demons, especially in cultures where everybody is very pressured to act a certain way and keep appearances, but remember you are a human being, everybody falls. It’s actually how you grow. So instead of saying I don’t have any demons, which is complete nonsense, ask yourself, how can I make my demons work for me? I think that’s great and then maybe one thing that I can share would be actually a mind body green article I wrote last year on how I take care of my head.

Krati: Okay, I’m gonna add the link to the episode description.