Holding Expectations Loosely w/BJ Miller & Dani Chammas
Our podcast is hosted on Spotify and Anchor.
It’s difficult, but important, to hold expectations loosely. How can we allow ourselves to be concerned, but not consumed? How can we live life between the scans and results? In this discussion, Palliative Care MDs BJ Miller and Dani Chammas share their view on navigating uncertainty and being compassionate with yourself.
We discuss:
0:00 Introductions
3:44 Naming the “In-Between” space of not knowing, especially when living with an illness (purgatory, no-man’s land, the space in-between)
5:28 There is no world of the “sick” and world of the “well”, it is a shared reality
5:54 Living with a level of uncertainty when seriously ill, exposing vulnerability
7:00 Uncertainty can feel worse than anything else
7:28 Uncertainty is a part of being human, there is a myth of control that we all live with
12:39 Holding two seemingly opposing things as true at the same time
13:50 Dialectic: two things that are seen to be on opposite sides, but need the other thing to exist - like hopes and fears.
16:22 Adaptive Coping and ways to cope - there is no one right way to cope with something
17:32 Humor as a coping technique while being truthful, can be helpful to lean into silliness
18:30 Keeping an eye out for being grateful, but also being honest. It requires the sense of really feeling gratitude - and being authentic about it and where it shows up
20:32 Working with faith and doubt
20:50 Cultivating both meaning AND meaninglessness
24:13 How can mindfulness be helpful during uncertainty?
25:22 The passengers on the bus metaphor
31:10 Thinking about our emotional diet: what fills us vs. depletes us? Where do we spend our time?
33:32 The number one muscle we all need to work on is self-compassion, easy to do for others, hard to do for ourselves
37:20 When people want you to cope better, or differently? When is coping adaptive vs. mal-adaptive?
40:58 What to do when you can’t stop the feelings of not doing or being enough? How can we be “good enough”?
45:50 How can you keep from sitting in doom when a crisis happens at unknown moments, but repeatedly?
48:58 How illness can create a new identity, and how others can try to pull you back to your old self
52:58 How to feel and express anger without letting it take over?
56:30 As a clinician, how can you help set expectations for the emotional and spiritual aspects of living with an illness?
1:02:50 The importance of fostering a sense of being open to whatever comes up, as the beginning of a dialogue that knows things will happen and we can be in the place of not knowing, which opens the door of possibility
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