Yeah.

And the cool thing about being a kid in that sort of experience is I got to see that.

Like, we- when I was born, he was fine, but, like, there were some struggles now that I look back and now that I'm an adult that he's shared with me.

They did a really good job of not placing that upon my sister and I. I just thought we, like, you know, moved, you know, to this other place because we wanted to.

I didn't realize it was because, you know, we had to sell our house, and then we had to, like, rent somewhere, you know? [laughs] I just remember it had blue carpet.

Mm-hmm.

And I think the part where people get sort of tripped up and the scary part is for people that actually really need the affirmation, so the people that are actually really struggling, saying a blanket statement affirmation that is opposite to how they truly feel or like the core belief they've come up with from so many years of, of experiences, like someone that doesn't feel like they're lovable and that has had a slew of relationships that have been like really awful, and they just don't believe that they deserve love.

To then have them look in front of a mirror and say, "I am lovable."

Can you tell us a bit more about the research in this space and s- more specifically, the Seligman studies?

Yeah.

So one of the most influential discoveries in psychology came from Martin Seligman's research on something that he called learned helplessness.

And in the original experiments, dogs were exposed to these mild electric shocks that they couldn't control or escape, and over time, many of the dogs actually stopped trying to avoid the shocks altogether.

Even when the researchers later opened a path to safety, some of the dogs just simply stayed there, like, where they were.

But the really fascinating part that often gets left out is that not all of the dogs gave up.

Roughly a third of the dogs immediately took advantage of that opportunity to escape, and that one observation led Seligman to spend decades studying what separates people who become sort of helpless from those who remain hopeful and more resilient.

Yes

I have to know, is there a personal connection or some of your own work that led to this professional niche?

niche?So interestingly enough, um, I, I realize that I've, I've gotten to what I'm doing now in probably the most nonlinear fashion possible.

Hmm.

I, um, share this in, in the book.

I've always been a human, like even as, as a child, I've always been someone that was deeply drawn to other people and their storytelling and emotions.

I've always been very moved by, I think, just, just people in general.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Mm.

And what was surprising to me in the research and coming from it from, you know, more of a behavioral science point of view, an optimist is so grounded in reality.

And what we have, like, thought of as optimism is actually very different than what the science and the literature says.

And the way that I define a real optimist is someone who is really grounded in reality and someone who is deeply and mindfully aware of the roadblocks and the setbacks and the less than ideal situations that, spoiler alert, we all face.

None of us are immune to struggle.

But the caveat is they see these setbacks as something that is temporary and something that they have the ability to overcome, even if they don't know how or when, but it's really based in personal historical resiliency.

So all the tough days they've already overcome.

You, you don't get to plan the end.

And I wanted to talk about sometimes the harms that toxic positivity can cause.

Absolutely, and I always like to start the conversation of toxic positivity with, I truly believe that when we are acting in the realm of toxic positivity, whether it's speaking to ourselves or people around us, it usually most likely always comes from a good intention.

It's just the way in which we're doing it, we start with this good intention.

It actually at best doesn't work, but at worst can be very detrimental to either ourselves or the other people around us.

And the reason I say that is for a couple different reasons, but when someone comes to you and they are offering an openness of going through a struggle or being upset in some way, experiencing a negative emotion, it's human nature for us to sit across from them to either, A, wanna fix it for them.

We don't wanna see them in pain.

That is something that's uncomfortable for us, and we want to as quickly as possible bring them out of it because we truly want them to feel better, or B, we also want them to truly get out of this as quick as possible because it's uncomfortable if we experience discomfort in presence of their discomfort, 'cause then it starts to open up, "Wait, where are these avenues in my life that are similar to this? And I don't wanna experience this." And so it, it really comes down a lot of time to, again, good intention, but us being able to sit with the feelings of discomfort.

Yeah.

Okay.

Exactly.

And so I felt like, whoa, wait a second here.

I'm really passionate about this idea of understanding what people are predicting even about like small mundane things in their lives, but then taking it a step further and saying, "Can we actually change that?" And so that became my passion, my niche.

In that time, I felt like w- the things I was curious about and studying were a little too woo woo for like the science community that I was in, and way too science-y for the self sort of growth community at that time.

And so somewhere along the way, I think like a little before COVID, um, people really sort of caught up with this idea of blending sort of the two and this idea of like w- optimism and hope theory and, um, just how important that was.

The optimism doctor part really came organically.

Yeah.

Hmm.

So I'm a big, you know, believer of, I do not try to help people, uh, or encourage them to think that they can manifest a life without worry.

Worry is part of our human existence.

When you care deeply about something, you are opening up many different aspects of what that means, too, and one of those aspects are worry.

When you care deeply about something, you are opening up worry as part of the portal to come in, and that is normal.

Of course, when worry or things like stress, stress is also a normal human emotion.

It is a response to daily living, so that means we're all, as long as we're living, we are going to experience stress.

W-where do you fall with this?

Uh, is that natural? You know, are we innately one way or the other?

So there's been a lot of research on this a- and there's been a little bit of varying, but the most that I've ever seen, um, related to a genetic component, a heritability aspect, is twenty-five percent.

So we have the ability to learn it.

And so that to me, is very optimistic and great news.

And so I, I do believe that optimism is a muscle, and we just have to work it out.

And so I believe that everyone can raise their optimism factor.

And, you know, way back when, from an evolutionary standpoint, we are more predisposed to be pessimistic.

Sensory-based visualization can help direct your attention to desirable outcomes and expand your belief in what is possible.

They worry about what's going to happen, and that, you know, y- y- you are what you think about all day long, and if you worry all the time about the worst that's gonna happen, that becomes who you are.

Yeah, and that is why...

And that's very true.

And I also would say that we are not immune to worry, and when we care about something deeply, we worry.

And so I never want anyone to feel that we are trying to come up with a life without worry.

And in fact, this sounds really counterintuitive, but I literally have people, myself included, schedule worry time into their day.

So hear me out, 'cause yes, I am telling you to worry, but I'm telling you to put it in a container.

Have you ever seen anybody who's... worked with anybody who's really fairly pessimistic and, and turned it around?

Yeah

And a lot of times what I'm passionate about in all of, in the arc of all of this is helping people come up with their own unique sort of tools And I know what mine are now, and some of them are quick ones that really help me feel safe.

Some of them take longer, but I will share that for me, using breath, and I know that's a no-brainer, most people are like, "Yeah, obviously," but a specific one for me, the four-seven-eight breath is like if I need something in a moment to help me feel more safe and regulated, I also love it, it's...

And I love when these are simple and doable and practical, and anyone can do them from anywhere.

That is important, and that's why they're simple.

But they're really powerful I oftentimes, you know, I worked a lot in severe anxiety, and I also spent a lot of time as a psycho-oncologist, so working with people that have cancer diagnoses and their families And that's what I did during my fellowship and internship before that, and a lot of my clinical work at UCLA And so something I really liked using that I saw was so powerful, especially when people were ruminating or in a negative loop or, you know, just in an anxious state that they couldn't get out of, and this can also be for anticipatory anxiety, like for myself before getting iron infusion [laughs]

[laughs]

Or, you know, I use this a lot for people like pre-surgery.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So it is actually one of my favorite topics.

And I realized at that time, it is a topic that a lot of people are interested in and they have opinions and feelings about.

And I stick to the research and the science and the data behind it.

But The point of that is that, yes, affirmations can be really powerful and useful if done correctly, like so many other things.

But unfortunately, like so many things, we've kind of diluted and lost some of these specifics and how to use something like an affirmation.

Can you share about how you navigated all of this through your own experience, you know, with your son's health and how you work through that?

Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

So, you know, I'd ask the person in front of me to sort of like visualize, you know, what it is that they really wanted, and this particular patient of mine at the time was super stu- super stuck, had a very, very rigid core belief about himself.

And when I...

And he really wanted to be in a loving, respectful relationship, and when I had asked him to imagine that, I was not expecting this, but I asked him, "Let's, why don't you imagine what it's like to be, you know, in this relationship?" And he just looked at me, and he laughed.

And he just was like, literally could not stop laughing.

And I was like...

He's like, "W- how could you ever expect me to imagine that? That is so unlikely." And he just could not, like, he couldn't go there cognitively yet.

Mm.