I'd like to rid ourselves of what we should be thankful for and find what exists that we just haven't looked at yet.
we can have happiness without integrity, but without integrity, joy doesn't have that resonance that feels like deep, nourishing wholesome truth in our body and body mind.
We have sovereignty over our inner life, our invisible self, and self sovereignty is about reclaiming our personal power and taking full responsibility for our choices, especially the invisible ones, while simultaneously recognizing, yeah, some circumstances are not in our control, but how we relate to them and how we respond to them absolutely is.
You're listening to Solving for Joy. I'm your host, Dr. Chrissie Ott.
Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Solving for Joy Podcast. So great to have you here today. This episode is coming out two days before Thanksgiving, 2024. And while my main topic is actually going to be talking about foundational principles of the work inside Joy Point solutions, I want to start off with a timely conversation about a certain kind of approach to gratitude. This time of year, there are many resources in our cultural zeitgeist about connecting with gratitude.
And I'd like to carve out some space for a lesser known approach called Naikan Naikan is a gratitude practice that It emerges out of Pure Land Buddhism, it is a Japanese practice. It's spelled N A I K A N. And if you would like to learn more, I will direct you to the ToDo Institute in Moncton, Vermont, which is a nonprofit and educational resource headed up by Greg and Linda Kretsch, who are the folks who introduced me to Naikan many years ago. So the reason that I want to share a bit about Naikan and gratitude practice is because I think that we often use the awareness Um, or the, the aspiration towards gratitude as another way to shame ourselves for not being better. We use it as a should, and it kind of comes around backwards that way. So I'd like to invite us instead of like pushing ourselves toward a stance or experience of gratitude to invite an experience that is like a gravitational pull. Of gratitude. And this is a little bit about my experience with Naikan and why I think this practice works in that way.
In 2006, I had finished, uh, or was finishing residency. And I read an article in the Sun Magazine. Um, and it really spoke to me. It also spoke to my wife, Sue. And Sue was actually the first one who was compelled to go to the ToDo Institute in Moncton, Vermont for a seven day Naikan retreat, and it's a very special invitation. You're living in this Vermont, uh, farmhouse for the week and you spend most of your days solo, alone on a meditation cushion in the corner of your room behind a screen. And you are invited to contemplate the three primary questions of Naikan which are, what have I given? What have I received? And what troubles or difficulties have I caused?
Now, that is huge if you take it to a life sized, um, contemplation. So we take it in very small, bite sized pieces, in particular one relationship at a time and one segment of time. So we start with the ages, zero to eight years old, in relationship to our mother. And from there we take Three year increments up until current time, or the age of the passing of our mother. And that took a full day for most of us. Then you contemplate the same three questions in relationship to your father over those same periods of time. This is why it is so useful to take time out of time to do this, because what happens is you begin for the first time ever for most of us to actually watch the movie of your life play out in front of your mind's eye. And this time, instead of automatically looking for the ways that you were thwarted or disappointed or, um, You know, came up short, someone else missed the mark. You are focused instead on what you received. These are facts. It's not about how you received them. It's not about finding fault with how you received them or the coexistence of, of wrongs. Those do exist. It's about holding these simultaneous truths together and the complexity of those truths, which is a very, I think psychologically and psychospiritually mature endeavor.
We were asked to do the actual math of adding up what had been done on our behalf. Literally, how many loads of laundry do we think other people washed for us? How many meals were prepared for us? How many dishes were cleaned on our behalf? How many miles were driven for us? And how, you know, what volume of clothing or books or, you know, name the item, right? So you begin to think, what was the cost of my room and board for the first 18 years of my life, or however long you stayed under your parents roof. And I want to say quickly, this does not negate any neglect or abuse that was simultaneously happening, it is not, um, intended to overrule those other truths that may be quite difficult to hold gratitude with, but really again, just to say, okay, there, there was this difficulty and at the same time I was provided for in this way. That's what I received, right? And what did I provide? What did I give? Um, and when you're little, there's not a whole lot that we can point to of material gifts, right? But as we get older, we can point to more and more things. Um, And it's useful. It's useful to just do the reckoning of that math.
And then what troubles and difficulties did I cause? I must say that until Naikan in 2006, I probably hadn't ever visited that question with relationship to my parents, much less the next people that we were asked to contemplate. So it could be siblings, could be a grandparent, could be close friend. In my case, I was finishing medical training. And so I did hours and hours of Naikan on my medical training, which I was quite burned out from at the time. I felt quite cynical. I felt quite, you know, just averse to the institutions that had trained me. I was very angry. I experienced a lot of disillusionment and disappointment in that period of my life, as I'm sure many of us can relate to. And when I did Naikan on that, I remember being moved to tears about what I received in that time, the access to patients and experts and, uh, world experts in the field, to the technology to the medications, all of this that I received, um, and I hadn't really been able to connect with that truth at that time.
So that is a bit about Naikan and this pulling towards gratitude practice that I offer you, um, as a journaling practice or a contemplative practice during the season where we talk so much about, um, being thankful, um, I'd like to rid ourselves of what we should be thankful for and find what exists that we just haven't looked at yet. So much more we could say about Naikan and perhaps on a different episode at some point, we can return to that with someone who is an expert in the field.
But I also want to acknowledge that during this holiday week in the United States, many of us will be sitting with friends and family this year again, where we feel disoriented, disconnected, disillusioned by our political differences. And we may be thinking about trying to stay connected in relationship and tolerance, and I feel like tolerance is a very useful aspirational ideal when we are trying to stay connected, right? As we've said in past episodes, being related is a cycle of connection, disconnection and repair. And having political disconnection is a particularly, um, tricky kind of disconnection to do repair from because there's not an agreed upon sense of the need for repair. And that's why it may be a disconnection that feels more permanent for some of us or just very difficult to tolerate. When we are aspiring toward tolerance of difference, I invite us all to just consider like at what point is tolerance complicity? When we are trying to tolerate the intolerable, when we are trying to tolerate that which harms other people and our tolerance is at odds with our pull towards being an upstander to speaking up for the disempowered.
Um, my heart is already broken for the people who will be leaving, you know, productive lives of joy and contribution because they came illegally. They came illegally because of threats to their life and safety. And now they are facing, you know, potentially dehumanizing deportation. And we may disagree about the rigorousness of enforcing some of those laws, but my, my humanity calls out for those people. And I feel strongly about the pains that will be perpetrated on them. So I don't have the answer. I have questions for you. Where is tolerance complicity? Where is the right place for upstanding? Where does compassion cross with our, obligation to security? Because I just reject the notion that it's all one thing or the other. Thank you for tolerating my digression.
Um, my intent today was to talk about, some founding principles inside Joy Point Solutions, and I'm I'm motivated to do that today because we are turning toward an exciting new chapter at Joy Point Solutions, where I'm inviting physicians into this, um, reparative and energizing space in a program called ROAR. It started with an acronym of Recover, Optimize, Activate, and Reignite. I want to say that that relates to solving for joy, because I believe that the work of coaching is holding space for self inquiry and challenging limiting beliefs. In other words, challenging those things that we thought were constants that turn out to be variables, those constants that we can change with the simple flip of a mental switch, a new thought, new neurons wiring together, practicing new neurons wiring together, um, and reinforcing that with a witness who is there to hold space, uh, and bring tools for deep thinking and inquiry.
So, coaching is further solving for joy for me, because serving my fellow physicians in this way is one of the most powerful ways to amplify this work. Physicians and others in healthcare or folks in positions of cultural influence and power, have the capacity to influence so many people around them when they awaken their minds, when they shift their mindset, when they master thinking on purpose and noticing from. A metacognitive observer state, what their internal states are doing. Last night, I heard, uh, a, a person I follow, um, say, Leaders bring the weather. And I think that that is so true. Physicians bring the weather. Leaders bring the weather, and if we can manage our own weather systems, then we are influencing the weather systems of countless other people.
So for this reason and others, I am absolutely compelled to talk about this work and bring it into further existence to amplify that potential. So the energy creating this is born from, um, some foundational principles and they do inform all that I do in this space. So I invite your thoughts, your honest responses to these, how do these principles already show up in your life? Do they move you too? And which ones are most calling to you right now? So the first of these foundational principles is radical self honesty, radical truth telling. And I'm I'm, uh, remembering the moment in, in our last podcast episode with Becca Clarren, we were talking about integrity, um, being a really important part of creating joy, like we can have happiness without integrity, but without integrity, joy doesn't have that resonance that feels like deep uh, nourishing wholesome truth in our body and body mind. So I really think that freedom begins with truth telling. It calls for a deep and clear eyed and unflinching reflection. Some courage is required to confront the less preferred, less idealized aspects of ourselves that we often avoid. And this is a virtue, I think, that emphasizes how our ability to usher real change in the world in any aspect where it's in our, our family, with our parenting style, with our habits of consumption, with our physical self care is about being honest about our current beliefs, desires, and actions, even when it's uncomfortable. And, you know, we can, we can slide off this razor thin edge, I think, in either direction. We can call it truth telling when we're being unnecessarily harsh with ourselves. That's what I like to call our inner fascist or our perfectionist. Uh, and it's not a sustainable way to motivate. It's not a kind way to motivate. It's not what we would do to most other people on purpose. And we can also slide off that razor's edge in the other way where we let ourselves off the hook and we use emotional reasoning to say, well, I deserve that, or I'm entitled to that, um, you know, difficulty or that level of um, disintegrity or lack of fidelity to a principle that I actually do hold important. So if you have an area that you're thinking, I really haven't been honest with myself right now, I invite you to explore that with some radical self honesty, some radical truth telling and do it with a hand on your chest so that you also feel like I'm telling a dear friend, a hard truth, instead of I'm shaming myself with a finger wagging.
Second principle I want to talk to you about is self sovereignty. In case anyone listening has forgotten, you are the authority in your own life. Self sovereignty is one of the only promises that we have here. And even if we are in some condition where we feel like that's not true, that someone else has sovereignty over our body, we have sovereignty over our inner life, our invisible self, and self sovereignty is about reclaiming our personal power and taking full responsibility for our choices, especially the invisible ones, while simultaneously recognizing, yeah, some circumstances are not in our control, but how we relate to them and how we respond to them absolutely is. At some point, we'll talk more, you'll hear me talk more about Harold and the purple crayon. But I like to imagine that we all have this magic purple crayon. And even when we are in the stuckest of stuck places, we can draw a door, we can draw a hole in the ground, we can figure out what the next thing is to do and we might need some support to do it. We might need to phone a friend. We might need to poll the audience. We might need some external support, but honestly, we can manage our sovereignty of self. And when we have that awareness, things are better. We have less learned helplessness, less narratives about, um, disempowerment or victimhood. And more narratives about, yeah, I can do this. I'm going to do something different and I will figure it out until that changes. I will, I'm dedicated to figuring out a way.
The third principle is, um, unwavering integrity. And I want to say that, you know, while integrity is one of my core values, and many of us aim always to be in integrity, no one can embody it perfectly at all times. So I also want to bring honest imperfection into this space simultaneously. Unwavering integrity calls up our our inner truth telling again, and when we show up with as much integrity as we can, constantly evaluating how aligned we are with the principles we hold to be important, how aligned we are with kindness, how aligned we are with respect, um, whatever your core values are, we can allow room for mistakes and for forgiving our mistakes, for extracting the lessons out of those mistakes, and also for, um, forgiving ourselves and others when we fall short, when we miss the mark, right? So to me, having integrity means that there is internal consistency, as my friend and teacher James-Olivia Chu Hillman says, congruence with what's inside and outside. That is honesty, that is integrity.
Next, I want to share a little bit about courageous curiosity. So when we ask what else could be true or huh, I wonder about what else is behind that action for ourselves or others. Each time we ask those questions, there is an invitation to expand. This encourages the exploration of our beliefs, our biases and our ideas, cultural, subcultural, without as much attachment to being right, wrong, righteous. There is a sense of power when we feel right. There is a dopamine hit when we feel right. Talk about that all the time. And that deserves to be questioned. Some have asked, would you rather be right or related? And for many people, especially in an unexamined path, the answer appears to be, I'd rather be right than related. But when we listen to our higher angels, our better angels, I think that being related is also very important. You know, that we can, we can bring that courageous curiosity to approach learning and growth from our life experiences and from others with an open mind, uh, allowing space for complexity and nuance and the potential for transformation that comes with it.
Next, you want to talk a little bit about having compassionate boundaries. You know, boundaries when expressed skillfully don't sound so much like a snarl or snapping dog as they do just a peaceful statement of fact. I will not stay on this phone call if you continue to yell. I'm not able to attend that event or I choose not to. Um, These are ways we express boundaries in a compassionate way, and it's about creating limits that honor ourselves and others. I don't think of them as barriers, but more like relating from wholeness, honesty, and respect. And oftentimes our clue about boundaries, of course, is we're feeling resentful about something. And it often, I would dare say, in my life, maybe even usually begins with the realization that I've not honored my own boundary. Um, as Sasha Shillcut says in her book, "If you don't find your boundaries, somebody else will be more than happy to find them for you." So in expressing our boundaries, we're doing a kindness. And when I talk about boundaries in the 12 by 12 curriculum, I'm especially clear that when we express boundaries, it actually is implicit permission for other people who are learning from their experiences with us to express and hold their own boundaries, which I think is one of the most precious gifts that we can give. I can stay for two hours. And then that, you know, um, we express boundaries all the time with our children. When we're in a centered place, we do that clearly and with compassion. When we're not, it sounds more like, uh, a mama bear snapping at her cub. When I hear somebody else's boundary, even if I would prefer they said yes to me and the answer is no, there is a sense of groundedness that, oh, like I can really trust their yes when I hear it because I can trust their no, it feels, um, just feels good to know that somebody is holding their own boundary and it reminds me that I can hold mine.
Last but not least, I'm going to talk about authentic ownership, claiming our own beliefs, experience, path, and essence in an unapologetic way, without the continuous need for external validation. So many of us have been socialized to stay like a heat seeking missile towards the external validation of our culture, our subculture, families, friends, our institutions are gatekeepers, our profession. I am encouraging more and more people, please show up as you are fully. Let us embrace our unique voices and purpose. Let us not continually try to fit in. Trying to fit in actually erodes our sense of belonging. This is a Brene Brown wisdom. When we are fitting in, we're not actually belonging, we're camouflaging. And we're also depriving the world of what is the most special and unique about us. I am continually becoming and learning more about this part of these foundational principles myself. I have long felt like I had I had more to say than I was able to communicate in a office, visit space, or, um, you know, in any of my clinical roles. And maybe that, maybe that's true for you. Maybe you have a book inside, maybe you have a podcast, maybe you have a conversation that you're excited to join me in on this podcast. I welcome your ideas and especially your revelations about claiming yourself in your path, in your voice, in joyful, exuberant, unapologetic ways.
I hope that this brief conversation about gratitude, this Thanksgiving week and these foundational principles brings you to a place that is a little fresh, a little new, a little inspiring. And I would love to hear your thoughts. If you have time, if you are inspired, your reviews and ratings in the podcast apps are greatly appreciated. It really helps us get the word out. And I can't wait to see you again next week when we will be sharing time with Dr. Jessica Ching and exploring the work of authenticity in medicine. Thank you so much for listening today. I will see you next time.
Hello, beautiful listeners. Thank you for tuning in today. If you've been paying attention to the emails, you're already aware that we're pivoting in January. I want to let you know that starting in January, I'm going to focus on serving 25 mid career physicians in an exciting new program called ROAR. Recover, optimize, activate, and reignite. If you feel like you might be one of those 25 mid career physicians that belongs in that room, welcome to a revolution in reclaiming your power, your voice, and your place in medicine. To a refuge for physicians, ready to reconnect with their purpose and healing in a world that has demanded too much of them. Welcome to a community that will nourish your spirit and mind and the company of others who are committed to the same. Welcome to a calling to a movement that's reshaping what it means to care, to lead well, and to heal. This is a space for physicians who are done suffering in silence and confusion. It's a sanctuary for those who know the system needs changing and that that change necessarily starts within us. This is a space to reclaim your strength, your creative wisdom, connect with your why, and to rise with others as a force of integrity and resilience, resourced and inspired. Your capacity to resist what needs resisting and reclaim your sovereignty rises and falls with your ability to manage your mind and harness the immense neuroplasticity and creativity within you. This is the way to that. If you feel like you might be one of those 25 physicians that needs to be in this room, please reach out through the website. All the details are available at joypointsolutions. com.
I want to take a moment to acknowledge my incredible team. Our music today is by Denys Kyshchuk,, cover photography by the talented Shelby Brakken. This podcast is produced by the amazing Kelsey Vaughn. Post production and more are handled by Alyssa Wilkes and my executive assistant, Rachel Osborne. A special shout out to my steadfast friend and director of operations, Denise Crain, and to the one and only loyal champion number one fan, Suzanne Sanchez. Thanks again for tuning in. May we continue caring for ourselves and others, and may we continue solving for joy.
