Challenging the Narrative of Service Before Self with Guest Dimple Dhabalia | HR 73

Susan Ney: 00:00:02

I welcome to the podcast HR inside out. I'm your

Susan Ney: 00:00:05

host, Susan A. And I would like to extend a warm welcome to

Susan Ney: 00:00:09

today's guest dimple dibala. Welcome to anvil.

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:00:13

Thank you so much for having me. It's a

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:00:15

pleasure to be here.

Susan Ney: 00:00:17

Well, I'm thrilled that you said yes. And if I may,

Susan Ney: 00:00:20

I'd first like to just provide a bit of your background and some

Susan Ney: 00:00:23

of the incredible work that you're doing before we get into

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questions and delving deeper. Sure. So let me just take a

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moment. So dimple is the founder of roots and the clouds and a

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human centered leadership with over 20 years of government and

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public sector experience. She partners with leaders across

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mission driven sectors to address root issues, and to

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design inclusive, human centered workplace cultures where

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emerging and seasoned leaders can learn how to preserve their

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own humanity as they work to preserve it for others. Say

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after two decades working on the frontlines of the government and

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humanitarian sectors, dimpled, experienced the carrier's

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trauma, compassion, fatigue, moral injury, burnout and

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anxiety. Like so many others. She worked in an organization

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that celebrated the resilience of the human spirit in the

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refugees and the displaced persons they served. While

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failing to extend that same ethos to those working within

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their own organizations, determined to educate and

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support heart centered leaders, she developed and launched the

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daring leaders project. The first mindful mindfulness based

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leadership development program is kind within the agency. Now

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that vision and leadership earned her directors awards for

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the Innovator of the Year and the pillar of leadership.

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Congratulations. In 2021, dimple launched roots in the clouds

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with a personal mission of putting the human back into

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humanitarian and making service sustainable across mission

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driven sectors. Today, dimples cutting edge work explores the

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intersection of generational trauma and moral injury, and

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supports a holistic approach to addressing individual and

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organizational trauma using principles of mindful

Susan Ney: 00:02:18

performance, positive psychology, and human centered

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leadership. Her new book, we'll be talking a lot about this

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beautiful book, tell me my story challenging the narrative of

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service before self with Ambika media, was recently excerpt in

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the Stanford Social Innovation Review and her work has also

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been featured in Fast Company CEO World Magazine, and Federal

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News Network. Demco recently debuted a limited series

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companion podcast to tell me my story called service without

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sacrifice, and is also creator and co host of the popular

Susan Ney: 00:02:55

podcast. What would Ted lasso do lots of fun, I've listened. You

Susan Ney: 00:03:01

can find dimple dip story across all social media platforms and

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dear human human it terrarium on substack. And I'll make sure

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that those contacts and that information is in the show notes

Susan Ney: 00:03:13

to the podcast for our listeners. Wow. Um, what an

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incredible and exciting background and career you've

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had. And I just love what you're you're doing with with that

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experience. you've woven both your own story and that of

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others that you've known and worked with over your years,

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through the insights and the truths in your book. And we're

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gonna dive deeper into those you tell of absolutely horrific

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stories faced by many refugees and those seeking asylum,

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stories of persecution, but also of courage and perseverance, is

Susan Ney: 00:03:53

I dove into the pages, I was struck that these stories often

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remain hidden behind the faces of those that we work with,

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unless we take the time to trust to build trust, to want to know

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deeper, and to see our colleagues beyond those work

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relationships and those positions. And yet, as other

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podcast guests have shared with me, this is not often people's

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experiences, new Canadians, and we really need to change this.

Susan Ney: 00:04:22

So I love how your book actually helps us understand those

Susan Ney: 00:04:26

experiences for many of those individuals.

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:04:30

Yeah, I mean, yeah, there's definitely the

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:04:33

experiences of the people that I was serving. You know, and I

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:04:38

think that those are often documented in a lot of different

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places. But for me, I just it's so important for me to recognize

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:04:48

the sacrifices and the the work being done by the people who are

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:04:52

working in service of other human beings. And I do think we

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:04:56

need to change this because it's such a great room. I wonder that

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:05:00

we make so many assumptions throughout our day. But the fact

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:05:05

is that we often don't know what others are going through in a

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:05:07

given moment. And, you know, so especially in the workplace, I

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:05:11

think it's so important that we're all operating with

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:05:14

curiosity and empathy as often as possible. And that's what I

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:05:17

love about human centered workplaces is because there's a

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:05:20

lot I mean, it's what it's grounded in, right is that

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:05:23

connection, the curiosity, the compassion, the empathy, because

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:05:27

at the end of the day, we are all human, like human beings,

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:05:30

and not just these robots coming to work. And so it's about

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:05:34

reconnecting to our humanity again.

Susan Ney: 00:05:38

And that certainly warms my heart with the work

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that you're doing. And that's the focus that we're going to

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spend on our time together today is is that latter piece about

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the impact that it's having on the people that are providing

Susan Ney: 00:05:52

the service. I found interesting than that, although a lot of

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your work involves working with refugees and asylum seekers. You

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share that those of us who have chosen service focused jobs in

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sectors, we who choose to serve because and I'll take a quote

Susan Ney: 00:06:12

from your book, caring for others is inherent to who we

Susan Ney: 00:06:15

are, and to do anything different, will leave us feeling

Susan Ney: 00:06:18

unfulfilled and restless. That we face the same kinds of

Susan Ney: 00:06:22

challenges in the work that we're doing as those who are

Susan Ney: 00:06:26

working, doing humanitarian work do which I found quite

Susan Ney: 00:06:30

fascinating. You and I'm going to take another another quote

Susan Ney: 00:06:34

from your incredible book. But these factors are like wounds to

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the heart of the organization that they need to be recognized

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and dealt with as they're contributing to sickness and to

Susan Ney: 00:06:44

toxic work environments. You also talk about how they these

Susan Ney: 00:06:48

factors eventually result in burnout. And you define that as

Susan Ney: 00:06:51

prolonged physical and psychological exhaustion related

Susan Ney: 00:06:56

to the person's work. And one example that you use, and then I

Susan Ney: 00:07:02

want you to talk about all of this the emphasis on meeting

Susan Ney: 00:07:06

organizational metrics above all else, that this can be part of

Susan Ney: 00:07:11

the perfectionism, the martyrdom, that is often the

Susan Ney: 00:07:15

makeup of individuals who are called due to this kind of work.

Susan Ney: 00:07:20

Can you take it from here, please? Sure.

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:07:23

So there's a lot of different things you said

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:07:24

here that actually go to different aspects of this. So

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:07:29

first of all, you know, this idea that of what a humanitarian

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:07:37

is, so in the book, I defined the humanitarian as anyone

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:07:40

working to alleviate pain and suffering for others. And so

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:07:44

this applies to a really broad range of people. So in my case,

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:07:47

it happened to be that I was working in government service,

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:07:50

and I was working with asylum seekers and refugees, so kind of

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:07:53

in that humanitarian arena, or what's more traditionally known

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:07:57

as the humanitarian arena. But you know, it's been, I mean, I

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:08:04

talked about in the book that whether you're a medical

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:08:06

professional, whether you're an aid worker, or whether you're a

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:08:09

member of the clergy, you know, a journalist in kind of high

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:08:14

risk areas, like there's so many different places where this

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:08:17

applies. So. So I think about this in terms of mission driven

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:08:22

work, where we have a mission of serving others. But really, what

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:08:27

I'm learning, as this book goes out, is it's applying across

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:08:31

sectors regardless, and so. So I just wanted to clarify that, but

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:08:37

But yeah, you know, this idea of, of metrics driven versus

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:08:42

human centered is, it's something I've thought about for

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:08:45

a really long time. And it's fascinating to me, because with

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:08:49

COVID, you know, I had high hopes, is terrible as COVID was,

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:08:56

and there was such an intense, you know, loss and grief, and so

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:09:00

many people were left kind of reevaluating, re evaluating

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:09:05

what's important in life. And so, you know, we had a lot we

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:09:10

had, we saw things like the great resignation, where a lot

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:09:13

of people decided to walk away, because it just started to feel

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:09:18

like what am I doing, you know, this, the work I do is not, it's

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:09:21

not me, like, it's not, it doesn't define me. And there's

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:09:26

so many other things that are a lot more important besides just

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:09:30

the work and so, you know, what's interesting, though, so I

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:09:34

really thought that, as a result, organizations would

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:09:38

shift a bit and kind of factor that in, but what I've seen is

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:09:42

so many organizations kind of doubling down on bringing people

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:09:47

back into the workplace and, you know, and even during COVID,

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:09:51

focusing on you know, profit metrics and productivity

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:09:55

metrics, rather than stopping to say, Hey, are you okay? Like,

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:10:00

what do you need. And so I just that, to me was really

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:10:03

interesting to watch. But, you know, I often say, metrics, like

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:10:09

I understand I'm not out here in the world advocating for no

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:10:13

metrics, because I understand that metrics are important. And

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:10:17

in and of themselves, they aren't bad necessarily. But

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:10:20

again, they become problematic when everything else, like

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:10:24

bringing apathy, empathy and compassion into the workplace,

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:10:27

or fostering a culture that leads to healthy and happy

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:10:31

employees, is viewed as kind of an added bonus or a nice to

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:10:34

have. And the reality is that the more that we actually start

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:10:38

putting people at the center of our organizations, and focusing

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:10:43

on their needs, the reality is that people, then number one,

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:10:47

that it fosters loyalty, it creates trust, it creates

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:10:50

psychological safety, and those are all the kinetic creates

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:10:54

connection. And so those are all the factors that go into making

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:10:58

us feel safe. And so if we feel safe in our workplace, we're

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:11:02

more likely to be able to show up, do the work. And we will

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:11:06

actually, you know, organizations will see that

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:11:08

they'll actually end up hitting their benchmarks, with greater

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:11:11

ease and actually be able to meet their mission with greater

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:11:14

ease. And, you know, unfortunately, that's just kind

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:11:18

of the opposite of what we're taught to do. Because we tend to

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:11:21

even the terminology we use, right human resources, or humans

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:11:25

are not resources, they're human beings. But we accept this,

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:11:29

because we're just really, you know, we're stretched in the

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:11:32

workplace, and we don't have the time or energy to, or we think

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:11:36

we don't have the time or energy to deal with the emotional side

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:11:39

of being human. And so we're, we're discouraged from bringing

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:11:43

that side to the work. And a lot of this I talked about in the

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:11:46

book is kind of the legacy of the Industrial Revolution. So

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:11:51

the Industrial Revolution was all about creating efficiency in

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:11:56

our workplaces, and the thing that people often forget is that

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:12:00

this was in kind of a factory setting where people were

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:12:03

making, you know, the same thing over and over. And so we wanted

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:12:06

to create efficiency around that. But that model was then

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:12:09

applied across the board. And that doesn't work when you think

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:12:12

about what it takes to serve other human beings. And so I

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:12:17

talk a lot about how being human is messy, but serving humanity

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:12:21

is messier. And so, you know, we need to acknowledge that we

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:12:27

don't like I said, we don't have a bunch of robots coming into

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:12:30

work, but we actually have human beings who are showing up every

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:12:32

day. And so metrics alone can't be the driving force. And we

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:12:37

need to start bringing in questions about how the

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:12:42

decisions that we're making are going to impact the workforce.

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:12:45

So, you know, even as we start to look at metrics for, you

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:12:48

know, workload or other things, that that workforce health and

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:12:54

well being should be a factor that's taken into consideration

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:12:57

at the same time. So both of those are working together, to

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:13:01

then create our policies for our staff.

Susan Ney: 00:13:05

And there's so much research that supports

Susan Ney: 00:13:08

everything that you've said, you know, it's like the leadership

Susan Ney: 00:13:12

books talk about that need to make sure that all of those

Susan Ney: 00:13:20

variables are considered in decision making and productivity

Susan Ney: 00:13:24

and, and how when they are, it's always a positive outcome. Yeah,

Susan Ney: 00:13:30

it's, it's really quite simple, but it's still not well applied

Susan Ney: 00:13:33

within our organizations. You talked a lot in your book about

Susan Ney: 00:13:38

trauma and the impact of trauma. And you define that as trauma

Susan Ney: 00:13:44

being an event or an experience that affects our ability to cope

Susan Ney: 00:13:47

and function. And that there are actual several types of traumas

Susan Ney: 00:13:53

faced by those that are engaged in particular service,

Susan Ney: 00:13:56

particularly service work, and we are going to go through each

Susan Ney: 00:13:59

one of those, but could you start with the term, the Carius

Susan Ney: 00:14:03

trauma, and you define that as the experience of trauma

Susan Ney: 00:14:06

symptoms that can result from repeated exposure to other

Susan Ney: 00:14:10

people's trauma? And there's their stories of traumatic

Susan Ney: 00:14:14

events linked start there? Sure.

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:14:17

Yeah. So all of these I talk about is

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:14:19

occupational traumas. And these are common for people who are

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:14:23

working in high stress, trauma exposed fields. And so with

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:14:27

vicarious trauma, and I usually talk about vicarious trauma and

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:14:31

secondary traumatic stress together because they're very

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:14:33

similar, and often they're used interchangeably, and so

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:14:38

vicarious trauma again, as you just mentioned, it's the

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:14:41

experience of where we're basically taking on another

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:14:44

person's trauma. So if you're in a profession where you are

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:14:50

regularly exposed to other people's trauma, we can very

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:14:54

easily start taking that in and we don't realize we're doing

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:14:57

that but and you know, What's interesting to me is, as I was

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:15:01

kind of writing my story, what I realized was that, you know,

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:15:05

when I was interviewing asylum seekers and refugees, I thought

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:15:08

I was putting up this wall of professionalism that I could sit

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:15:11

down, I could have this conversation, it was fine. What

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:15:14

I didn't realize was that a lot of the stories that they were

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:15:17

telling me, were a mirror to things I had experienced in my

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:15:21

own life. So every time I sat face to face with someone in

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:15:25

their trauma, I was actually revisiting my own trauma without

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:15:28

recognizing it. And I think a lot of us go through that

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:15:31

without realizing it. And so if I carry us trauma, though, is

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:15:34

where we're exposed to other people's trauma. And over time,

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:15:39

it builds up and we start to experience symptoms, similar to

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:15:44

post traumatic stress disorder. secondary traumatic stress is

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:15:50

almost exactly the same thing. But the difference is that it

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:15:53

can happen after just a single incident. So So whereas you

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:15:57

know, vicarious trauma is something where we're in this

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:15:59

profession day after day, we're experiencing things. Vicarious,

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:16:03

I mean, secondary traumatic stress is I can go be in a

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:16:07

situation one time, or even we saw this during COVID, or, you

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:16:12

know, other like 911, for example, you'd have a single

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:16:16

incident, where you see something that's that traumatic,

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:16:20

that it has that impact on you. And so, so again, those are

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:16:24

often used interchangeably, though, they're a bit different.

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:16:28

And so this is very, again, very common in the kinds of work

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:16:32

where, you know, whether it's like social work, medical work,

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:16:38

even, you know, I've been doing a lot of work with attorneys and

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:16:40

judges lately. Because they're often interviewing people or

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:16:44

working with people. So it again, it can be across sectors,

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:16:49

but it's just where you have that trauma exposure.

Susan Ney: 00:16:52

Okay, and just being aware that that's a possibility

Susan Ney: 00:16:56

of something that you may be experiencing, and then

Susan Ney: 00:17:00

recognizing that that may be impacting your energy level, how

Susan Ney: 00:17:04

you're feeling. Okay. You also use the term compassion fatigue

Susan Ney: 00:17:09

is that different? You said, it's a combination of physical,

Susan Ney: 00:17:14

emotional and spiritual depletion associated with caring

Susan Ney: 00:17:17

with for others who are in significant pain and physical

Susan Ney: 00:17:20

distress. So this one's more a physical one. No, it can

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:17:24

be both. So compassion. Fatigue also goes

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:17:27

hand in hand with vicarious trauma quite often, but they are

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:17:30

a bit different. So vicarious trauma has symptoms that mimic

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:17:34

mimic PTSD, so things like nightmares, the inability to

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:17:38

regulate emotions, your heart racing, maybe your shallow

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:17:42

breathing, and really just unable to disconnect from the

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:17:46

work like you can't stop thinking about it. Compassion,

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:17:49

fatigue is kind of the other end of the spectrum, right. So it's

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:17:54

been described as the cost of caring for others and emotional

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:17:58

pain. And what we've seen is, especially in helping

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:18:02

professions, that this is start, like, they've started to

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:18:06

recognize that employees are deeply affected by the work that

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:18:10

they do. So I've been doing a lot of work with palliative care

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:18:13

professionals lately. And so compassion fatigue is a big

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:18:18

topic of discussion. And so whether it's by direct exposure

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:18:22

to the traumatic events, so like first responders, emergency

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:18:27

workers, things like that, or secondary exposure, so again,

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:18:30

hearing about clients or people you're in communication with

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:18:35

talking about trauma that they've experienced, we can

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:18:39

start to start taking that in. And so the difference here

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:18:46

though, is that with, with compassion, fatigue, we actually

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:18:51

start to disengage, and we have a hard time. It's exactly what

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:18:56

it says, we have a hard time feeling that sense of

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:18:58

compassion, because it's just so overwhelming. And we've taken so

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:19:02

much of it in, it's like, we just can't take anymore. And so

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:19:08

that's when we start to experience some of these

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:19:10

symptoms.

Susan Ney: 00:19:11

Sounds like you start to numb yourself. Yeah, to sort

Susan Ney: 00:19:14

of put some some walls up, perhaps.

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:19:19

Definitely.

Susan Ney: 00:19:20

You know, it's interesting, because we talk

Susan Ney: 00:19:22

about and it's not a surprise when you think about first

Susan Ney: 00:19:25

responders or, you know, people are having to take a look at,

Susan Ney: 00:19:29

like a lawyer, you know, the evidence that it might be

Susan Ney: 00:19:33

pretty, pretty awful. And it wasn't till a number of years

Susan Ney: 00:19:38

back that I read Peter frost books, both toxic emotions at

Susan Ney: 00:19:43

work, how compassionate managers handle pain and conflict, and

Susan Ney: 00:19:47

the toxic handler, organizational hero and cow

Susan Ney: 00:19:50

casualty. As an HR practitioner, I've never considered myself as

Susan Ney: 00:19:56

a toxic handler, but I shared it after reading his book Because

Susan Ney: 00:20:01

the role of making nice for ever being the peacemaker, you know,

Susan Ney: 00:20:05

hearing some of the stories and sometimes not being able to do

Susan Ney: 00:20:09

anything to help. I know I had a very difficult time I continue

Susan Ney: 00:20:14

to have leaving that at the office and not having it

Susan Ney: 00:20:17

continue to impact me. So, given this, this podcast is for people

Susan Ney: 00:20:26

who have oversight, people oversight responsibilities, I

Susan Ney: 00:20:29

think it's really important to be hearing that in your people,

Susan Ney: 00:20:32

oversight roles. You know, many of these traumas, many of these

Susan Ney: 00:20:37

challenges are ones that you could be facing, and maybe

Susan Ney: 00:20:42

contributing to, you know, not feeling quite as energetic or as

Susan Ney: 00:20:47

excited as perhaps, you know, you were before taking on some

Susan Ney: 00:20:51

of the responsibilities. I was going to ask more about

Susan Ney: 00:20:55

dramatics, the secondary traumatic stress stress, but I

Susan Ney: 00:20:59

think we've probably covered that. And you mentioned post

Susan Ney: 00:21:06

traumatic stress. And I know that we're seeing a lot more of

Susan Ney: 00:21:11

that. And again, I think it's really important to be

Susan Ney: 00:21:17

recognizing that our work situations could be creating

Susan Ney: 00:21:22

those with within us anything further before we move on to

Susan Ney: 00:21:26

some of the other areas in your book. Yeah,

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:21:29

I will say this, this area of occupational

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:21:32

PTSD is actually starting to gain some momentum. And it's,

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:21:38

you know, there's no, like single set of triggers for PTSD

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:21:41

and PTSD is really, it's unprocessed trauma resulting

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:21:45

from traditionally, it's been resulting from exposure to life

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:21:50

threatening or highly distressing events. And it

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:21:55

typically lasts more than a month, and it starts to impact

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:21:58

our daily functioning. But occupational PTSD is really a

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:22:03

it's it's more generally characterized by different

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:22:06

emotional, cognitive and physical challenges that people

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:22:09

experience when they have difficulty coping with negative

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:22:13

abusive or traumatic aspects of their jobs. And so we see this

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:22:17

every day in so many places, right? So a lot of times, it's

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:22:25

it's, again, like managers who don't necessarily recognize the

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:22:31

importance of acknowledging things like grief, or when

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:22:34

people are experiencing a tough time. And so occupational PTSD

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:22:39

is often this a symptom of organizational culture. And so

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:22:44

ongoing things like exposure to emotional abuse, threatening

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:22:48

behaviors, sexual or racial harassment, bullying, these can

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:22:54

result in occupational PTSD when staff are exposed to it. And it

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:22:59

can even be prompted by less kind of overtly egregious

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:23:03

things. You know, things like chronic overwork, unrealistic

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:23:09

performance expectations, not being given the resources to

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:23:13

really succeed in your job. undelivered promises by

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:23:17

management, boundary violations, not allowing people to actually

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:23:23

take leave when they need it. So all of these things creates

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:23:28

organizations that are not psychologically safe. And and so

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:23:34

you know, just about every one of us has probably experienced

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:23:38

one or more of these things in our workplaces. And that doesn't

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:23:42

necessarily mean that people will experience occupational

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:23:45

PTSD. And even with all of these occupational traumas, just

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:23:49

because you're exposed to things doesn't mean you're necessarily

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:23:52

experienced them. But a lot of it has to do with our own kind

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:23:56

of window of tolerance to stress. And part of that is

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:23:59

based on things that have happened to us in our lifetimes.

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:24:02

And, you know, and that determines how likely it is that

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:24:06

we will actually experience these things.

Susan Ney: 00:24:12

To an interesting point, yeah. And an important

Susan Ney: 00:24:16

one moral injury, you talked about in the book, and you

Susan Ney: 00:24:22

define that as perpetuating perpetrating, sorry, failing to

Susan Ney: 00:24:27

prevent bearing witness to or learning about acts that

Susan Ney: 00:24:30

transgress one's deeply held beliefs and expectations, that

Susan Ney: 00:24:35

it can be the whiplash that we've experienced from

Susan Ney: 00:24:37

constantly changing policies and procedures that conflict with

Susan Ney: 00:24:40

our personal morals. Now, I know several examples came to mind

Susan Ney: 00:24:45

from my work in local government, things like a city

Susan Ney: 00:24:48

clerk being directed to, to do something that would have been a

Susan Ney: 00:24:52

violation of our the laws governing local government, or a

Susan Ney: 00:24:58

city manager facing off with Count So, again over something

Susan Ney: 00:25:01

that would have been a legal violation. No tax, we've had to

Susan Ney: 00:25:04

bring a lawyer in to tell the the Board counsel, the same

Susan Ney: 00:25:13

things that we've been talking to them about, but they just

Susan Ney: 00:25:16

wouldn't believe us. They had to hear from an external. I

Susan Ney: 00:25:21

remember how frustrating how costly and how disengaging that

Susan Ney: 00:25:25

was. And I think those probably would be kind of along the lines

Susan Ney: 00:25:30

of moral injury of just, you know, the the potential

Susan Ney: 00:25:33

violation and things that you held very strongly but adhering

Susan Ney: 00:25:37

to the law, or, yeah,

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:25:40

I'm sorry, good.

Susan Ney: 00:25:41

You're just Yes, sir. I didn't mean to drop. Yeah,

Susan Ney: 00:25:44

that is totally got that. Right. Absolutely.

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:25:49

You know, it's interesting, because I often get

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:25:52

frustrated, sorry, because I hear a lot of discussion about

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:25:57

burnout, like everything is lumped under burnout. And I

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:26:00

think especially right now, more people are actually facing moral

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:26:05

injury, and they don't realize it, and especially in government

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:26:09

service. So you know, what's interesting about government

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:26:11

services, when you're a civil servant, you are expected to

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:26:17

uphold the laws and policies of regardless of what

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:26:20

administration is in power. And so I think, you know, so moral

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:26:25

injury actually started out it was a term that was coined for

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:26:28

soldiers coming back from the frontlines of war, when they had

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:26:31

been asked to, you know, do things in the midst of war that,

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:26:35

that violated their own deeply held morals. And when they were

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:26:39

coming back, they were struggling with these kinds of

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:26:42

PTSD like symptoms, but people couldn't understand like what

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:26:45

the issue was. And so they finally figured out that it was,

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:26:48

it was as a result of being asked to do these things that

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:26:51

that were deeply troubling to them. And so when we think about

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:26:55

it, like, I really think we need to be talking about moral injury

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:26:58

in the government space, a lot more it's being it's starting to

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:27:02

have more discussion in the medical professions, especially

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:27:07

post COVID. But in the government space, you know, we

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:27:12

will if if we are a government, civil servant for like our

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:27:18

lifetime career, we will inevitably work for people with

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:27:23

whom we just simply don't agree, like, we don't agree with the

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:27:26

policies. And you know, a lot of times people say, Oh, well, if

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:27:29

you don't agree, just quit. But that's, that's actually a

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:27:33

statement that comes out of a lot of privilege, right? To be

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:27:35

able to say, like, Oh, I'm gonna walk away on principle, that's

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:27:38

great. Like, if you have the means and the capacity to do so

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:27:42

fantastic. But most of us don't have that option, like we have

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:27:46

to keep working. And so part of this is recognizing that, you

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:27:51

know, when we are asking people to do things, it may be

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:27:57

impacting them in this way. And then that does impact how they

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:28:01

show up, it impacts their mental health, which in turn impacts

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:28:04

their physical health and their relational health. Like when you

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:28:07

think about relationships, whether they're at work, or

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:28:11

whether they're, you know, in your personal life, all of those

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:28:14

get impacted. And I always talk about, you know, with all of

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:28:17

this, I talk about how we are whole human beings, and we do

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:28:21

not leave a piece of ourselves at the door when we come into

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:28:23

work. And even though we are expected to compartmentalize

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:28:27

ourselves in ways that just don't work, and is as much as we

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:28:31

think we may be compartmentalizing, we're not.

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:28:34

And so, at any given moment, if something is really, you know,

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:28:38

painful is happening at home, it's going to bleed into how

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:28:42

we're showing up outside of our homes, right. And vice versa, if

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:28:46

something's happening at work, or in other parts of our lives,

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:28:49

it's going to impact how we show up in our personal relationships

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:28:53

and, and lives. So it's just important to keep that in mind

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:28:58

and with moral injury. You know, it's, it's, it's challenging,

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:29:05

because our morals are so personal to who we are as

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:29:09

individuals. And so part of this is, you know, starting to create

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:29:13

space for people to kind of work through that. So that they can

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:29:18

keep showing up to do the work, which isn't always easy.

Susan Ney: 00:29:22

And also, I think, people taking time individually,

Susan Ney: 00:29:26

to really get to know themselves, and what are what

Susan Ney: 00:29:30

are the values and the morals that are important and are kind

Susan Ney: 00:29:33

of the non negotiables. And then, you know, seeking out

Susan Ney: 00:29:37

organizations, if that's possible, that align with sort

Susan Ney: 00:29:41

of the like, choosing to work in service and some of the earlier

Susan Ney: 00:29:48

common interests and needs of the individuals that are drawn

Susan Ney: 00:29:54

to working in service. That's actually a really good segue to

Susan Ney: 00:29:58

talking about the lack of training that is provided for

Susan Ney: 00:30:02

people who have people oversight roles. And I can't agree with

Susan Ney: 00:30:06

you more. I've seen too many training budgets, that the

Susan Ney: 00:30:10

training is the first thing to be axed recruitment processes

Susan Ney: 00:30:16

where there's not even a consideration that the

Susan Ney: 00:30:18

individual might need people skills, when their primary

Susan Ney: 00:30:21

responsibility is going to be overseeing people. And then also

Susan Ney: 00:30:27

insufficient knowledge of for the people in these roles. But

Susan Ney: 00:30:32

how to deal with the situations that we're talking about today?

Susan Ney: 00:30:37

You know, this isn't easy, you know, what are the symptoms?

Susan Ney: 00:30:39

What are what, when you're overseeing your work team are

Susan Ney: 00:30:42

the signs that somebody might be starting to experience that and,

Susan Ney: 00:30:47

and then, you know, how, in our role, are we able to help them?

Susan Ney: 00:30:50

And I think the first step is just by saying, you, okay, you

Susan Ney: 00:30:54

know that just that that wonderful, simple, caring? That?

Susan Ney: 00:30:58

Are you okay, like, I'm noticing me, you're just not quite the

Susan Ney: 00:31:02

bubbly self that you usually are? I Yeah. And I don't know

Susan Ney: 00:31:09

that I'll go into the details. But it certainly brings me back

Susan Ney: 00:31:12

to a situation that I dealt with early in my career where I

Susan Ney: 00:31:15

followed direction, my gut was just screaming at me, this is

Susan Ney: 00:31:20

not the time. I did it anyway, I was not coached on how to handle

Susan Ney: 00:31:26

this difficult phone call. I know it didn't go well. I just

Susan Ney: 00:31:30

ended and it's left a mark with me. I learned from it, you know,

Susan Ney: 00:31:34

I but I wasn't coached. I wasn't no one checked in with me

Susan Ney: 00:31:38

afterwards to say, how did that go? No one did sort of an after

Susan Ney: 00:31:42

action review. And I think it's important that we learned from

Susan Ney: 00:31:47

things that we know that we could do better. But oh my

Susan Ney: 00:31:51

goodness, wouldn't it be better if we had the training ahead of

Susan Ney: 00:31:53

time? Or someone you could go to? Yeah, your thoughts on that

Susan Ney: 00:32:01

before we move to other areas?

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:32:03

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, first of

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:32:05

all, I'm so sorry that you went through that because it sounds

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:32:07

awful. And yeah, you know, I think we tend to promote people

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:32:12

based on technical or subject matter expertise. And then we

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:32:16

tend to train supervisors in kind of the punitive aspects of

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:32:20

supervising, right, so how to write people up how to document

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:32:24

issues of poor performance, and you know, and things like that.

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:32:28

And, but we don't teach people how to lead. And there's a

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:32:31

distinction between leading and supervising. And it's funny,

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:32:34

because when I created the leadership program that I did, I

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:32:38

specifically, even though we were the program was for mid

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:32:41

level managers. So first and second line supervisors, I kept

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:32:46

using the word leader. And when I kind of pitched the program to

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:32:51

our senior executive team, they kept saying, Why are you calling

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:32:55

of lead? And I said, because they are leaders. And we have to

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:32:59

start using that term. Because they are leaders. They're not

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:33:03

just supervisors. And I don't mean to say just but like, you

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:33:07

know, supervising is about managing resources. And our

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:33:11

people are not resources. Again, they're human beings. And

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:33:15

supervising is about like, those little technical details along

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:33:18

the way. But leading is about guiding and motivating and

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:33:22

coaching people to be the best versions of themselves with, you

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:33:26

know, with the ultimate goal of meeting the collective mission.

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:33:29

Right. And so I think, you know, if it is any consolation, I

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:33:34

think we've all as new leaders had experiences like yours. I

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:33:39

know for me, when I when I first became a senior manager or a

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:33:44

junior manager. Boy, I walked onto this team, it was a team

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:33:50

that was already there full of people. And I walked in with an

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:33:54

agenda. And this is how we're going to do it. And this is, you

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:33:58

know, in one year, these are all the benchmarks we're going to

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:34:01

hit. And if you don't like it, that's fine. You can leave and I

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:34:05

burned so many bridges. And I, you know, created such a

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:34:11

terrible environment for people who had been there for a while.

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:34:16

And I did end up having three people leave the team. And it

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:34:21

was just such a humbling experience. And the other part

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:34:25

of this was I was working so hard to prove myself. And I

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:34:28

think this is often what happens, that my standards were

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:34:33

so unrealistically high for myself, which in turn, bled over

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:34:38

into the team and so I was expecting things of them that

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:34:41

that weren't fair. And it to this day is one of my biggest

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:34:45

regrets because I look back on how I handled that. And I think

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:34:49

about how much more we could have done had I gone in with a

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:34:51

different approach right and I didn't give people an

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:34:54

opportunity to share their thoughts or their their

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:34:57

knowledge or wisdom which might have led to even better ideas,

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:35:00

you know. So part of this is understanding that this is this

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:35:04

is part of the learning process. It's part of the learning curve

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:35:08

of leading. But, you know, I think we also have to when I

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:35:13

talk about human centered leadership, Human Centered

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:35:15

Leadership is grounded in empathy and connection. And it

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:35:19

really requires leaders to have strong self awareness, and also

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:35:26

to be able to practice self compassion. And all these things

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:35:30

together, the awareness and the compassion is what allows us to

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:35:34

regulate our nervous systems in real time. And that's what all

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:35:37

of this is about. Because when we are faced with conflict, or

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:35:42

other challenges, or even, you know, crisis or trauma in our

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:35:46

workplace, we are often operating from a place of fear

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:35:53

and survival. And in that space, we can only react. And so we

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:35:58

react. And what we want to learn to do is to actually tune in to

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:36:04

what's happening in our minds and our bodies so that we can,

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:36:08

you know, reactivate our parasympathetic nervous system

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:36:11

and calm ourselves so that we can actually respond with

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:36:15

intention, especially during those moments of stress crisis

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:36:18

and trauma. And so self compassion is so important.

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:36:22

Because it's what allows us to recognize our own humanity, even

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:36:27

as leaders to say, you know, I'm not perfect, and I'm gonna make

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:36:30

mistakes, and that's okay. But you know, a lot and a lot of

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:36:35

leaders think, oh, self compassion is soft, and there's

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:36:37

but self compassion is one of the hardest things to practice.

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:36:40

And there's two facets to it, there's the the kindness piece

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:36:44

of it, which is important. But there's the other side, which is

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:36:46

kind of a tough love component. And that tough love component is

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:36:50

what gets us to stand back up and say, okay, you know, what,

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:36:53

I'm going to try this again, and maybe do things differently this

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:36:55

time. And so, especially for new leaders, I can't say this

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:36:59

enough, you know, I, I hope that new leaders will start to

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:37:03

cultivate more self compassion, so that they can actually lead

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:37:07

from this place of authenticity, and, and showing up as their

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:37:10

full selves, because that's what people really need in order to

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:37:13

connect. So, and oh, and the other piece of this also is, is

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:37:19

the compassion allows us to hopefully take responsibility

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:37:22

and accountability for our actions, so that when we do

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:37:25

something that harms another person, whether it's, it's

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:37:29

hopefully, you know, not on purpose, that we can take

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:37:35

responsibility for that and, and be able to learn from our

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:37:39

mistakes rather than just, you know, getting defensive and

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:37:44

doubling down and things like that.

Susan Ney: 00:37:47

And those very cherished apologies, from our

Susan Ney: 00:37:51

former leaders, or anybody who's in a people oversight role, of

Susan Ney: 00:37:56

saying, I messed up, I too am learning that vulnerability

Susan Ney: 00:38:02

models that others can make mistakes and be forgiven for

Susan Ney: 00:38:07

them. You know, as long as there's an interest in doing

Susan Ney: 00:38:09

better and differently next time. So yeah, so important. I'm

Susan Ney: 00:38:14

gonna go to an area of your book where you did talk about more of

Susan Ney: 00:38:17

the organizational trauma, but you reference the book,

Susan Ney: 00:38:21

organizational trauma and healing by Pat Vivian and Shana

Susan Ney: 00:38:25

Hormann, where there's three points made, I think these are

Susan Ney: 00:38:28

really important points. So I'm going to take us there first

Susan Ney: 00:38:32

being a lack of transparency in organizational communication and

Susan Ney: 00:38:35

decision making, which leaves staff speculating or gossiping

Susan Ney: 00:38:40

about leadership motives and choices as they relate to

Susan Ney: 00:38:43

fulfilling the mission as a factor. Second, being top down

Susan Ney: 00:38:48

issues that don't take into account and we've talked about

Susan Ney: 00:38:51

this earlier, of workforce, health, well being another

Susan Ney: 00:38:55

needs. And the last point being perceptions of or actual racial,

Susan Ney: 00:39:01

social or other inequities or unfairness in the workplace,

Susan Ney: 00:39:05

being factors that organizations really need to be paying

Susan Ney: 00:39:09

attention to any any Kenyatta and any more meat around those

Susan Ney: 00:39:16

for us.

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:39:19

Yeah, so, you know, a lot of times people

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:39:22

don't realize that just as we as individuals can be wounded in

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:39:27

harm, so to get the systems within which we work, and it

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:39:31

makes a lot, you know, so a lot of times I hear people saying,

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:39:34

oh, you know, the system systems are broken systems are broken,

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:39:36

but I always say, the systems are not broken, they are doing

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:39:40

exactly what they were created to do. And what we need to

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:39:44

recognize is that all of our systems are created by

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:39:46

individuals and individuals are bringing their own lens, you

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:39:51

know, that has been created through their own experiences.

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:39:54

And so part of this is recognizing that you You know,

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:40:00

so organizational trauma, I always describe it as the water

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:40:03

that we're swimming in. And so there's a great little story

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:40:07

about these two fishes swimming along. And this older fish kind

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:40:12

of swims by and says, Oh, well, hey, boys, how's the water

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:40:14

today? And they kind of keep swimming. And then the one fish

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:40:17

looks at the other and says, Well, what the heck is water.

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:40:20

And so, so organizational trauma is kind of, it's the thing that

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:40:25

happens over time, because of all these different factors. And

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:40:29

it just gets to the point where we stop noticing anymore, and it

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:40:32

just becomes the norm, and we accept it. And yet, it continues

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:40:37

to harm the people within the space. And so, you know, we just

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:40:43

want to, but as you noted, I mean, the good news is that we

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:40:47

actually can, we can kind of re build our cultures, and create

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:40:54

these more human self centered cultures. But to do that, we

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:40:58

have to be able to actually acknowledge and address the root

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:41:01

issues of a lot of the trauma that's happening in the

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:41:05

workplace. Before we can move on, so I'm actually working with

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:41:09

a client right now. And that's one of the discussions were

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:41:12

having, because they've had, you know, a team in particular,

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:41:15

that's had a lot of a lot of organizational trauma related

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:41:23

issues. And so, you know, now we're getting into the meat of

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:41:26

well, how do we sit down and actually start looking at some

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:41:29

of these root causes, and getting the team together to

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:41:33

talk about them, and to address them, so that we can then move

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:41:37

past them and build something together that actually reflects

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:41:41

what is needed for the collective rather than through

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:41:45

the lens of one, you know, a single person or a single group

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:41:48

of people.

Susan Ney: 00:41:50

And I want, I want to actually talk more about that

Susan Ney: 00:41:52

ability to reset and to redesign what you call once traumatized

Susan Ney: 00:41:58

cultures. And yeah, thank you, because it really is about

Susan Ney: 00:42:04

addressing the root causes that can't remain unacknowledged and

Susan Ney: 00:42:08

unresolved. First of all, some of the not to do's and then I

Susan Ney: 00:42:13

want to get into the we want to end this on a big high. One

Susan Ney: 00:42:19

about toxic positive positivity, which I found interesting. And

Susan Ney: 00:42:24

then you define that as quickly reframing the situation with

Susan Ney: 00:42:26

platitudes, like, everything happens for a reason, or this

Susan Ney: 00:42:30

too shall pass. And I know I use the this too, shall pass in a

Susan Ney: 00:42:35

really challenging round in negotiations, but it probably

Susan Ney: 00:42:38

kept me sane was just one who was personally for me. But

Susan Ney: 00:42:44

you're right, that those kinds of platitudes do make light of

Susan Ney: 00:42:47

situations that are quite serious. And, again, that that

Susan Ney: 00:42:52

often is used to not address the roots.

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:42:56

Yeah, you know, the thing is, with, with toxic

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:43:00

positivity, I mean, it's a fine line, right? We, we encourage

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:43:05

people to cultivate positive emotions, because we know that

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:43:09

the more that we cultivate positive emotions, we broaden

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:43:12

our perspective, we tend to see more in our surroundings that

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:43:17

cultivate more positive emotions of gratitude. And so we want to

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:43:21

kind of build those upward spirals of positivity. When we

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:43:24

talk about toxic positivity, it's when we are facing a

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:43:27

challenge, or a difficult circumstance, and we quickly,

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:43:33

you know, use these platitudes or we, you know, try to just

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:43:38

sugarcoat coat what's happening rather than acknowledging like,

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:43:42

hey, you know, this is this is tough. And so it's, and I think

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:43:50

it's, it's, it's a comfort thing, right? We, it's hard to

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:43:54

say like, oh, especially in the workplace, if you're a leader,

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:43:58

it's hard to say, well, you know, this really sucks, like,

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:44:01

this thing that we're experiencing is terrible. But

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:44:06

you have to, you know, if we say, well, you know, what, it's,

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:44:10

it's fine. And the thing is these platitudes, there's wisdom

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:44:13

in them, there's wisdom in them, and they are useful when they're

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:44:17

used in the right way. But when they're used as a way to, like

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:44:21

kind of go around and not acknowledge what people are

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:44:24

actually facing, it becomes problematic and so we want to

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:44:28

actually create space where people can feel seen and feel

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:44:33

heard and feel valued. And and feel like their leaders

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:44:37

especially see like hey, you know what, I'm really

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:44:40

struggling. So COVID was another again, a great example because

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:44:45

especially in those early days, where there was so much

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:44:47

uncertainty and so much fear, and then again, so much grief,

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:44:52

because so many people had family members who had died. And

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:44:58

I remember in My workplace, you know, the the leaders I was

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:45:02

working with, because we were working on these things around

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:45:05

empathy and whatnot, their teams were actually doing great, like

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:45:10

they were supporting each other, they were taking care of each

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:45:12

other. But the teams that had other leaders who, you know,

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:45:17

didn't know how to have these conversations, and what I often

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:45:21

tell people is, you know, this is this is just again, trying to

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:45:26

commute, like, connect on a human to human level. So empathy

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:45:31

is not empathy does not have to be anything extraordinary. When

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:45:35

we talk about empathy, we talk about creating a good friend of

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:45:39

mine talks about creating a ministry of presence. And so

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:45:44

it's, it's being present to the people who are there and, and

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:45:48

what they're experiencing. And we have these mirror neurons in

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:45:51

our brain, that allow us to, to experience to a degree what the

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:45:58

other person is experiencing, it doesn't mean so a lot of times

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:46:01

leaders are like, you know, I don't want to take on another

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:46:03

person's stuff. But that's not what's happening. But you can

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:46:07

that's, that's how we show empathy is by being with the

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:46:10

person to say, you know, what I see you, I see what you're going

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:46:13

through. You don't have to fix it. In fact, you should not try

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:46:18

to fix it. That's the other thing, we often want to try to

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:46:20

fix what's happening. That's not your job, your job is just to be

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:46:24

present to what what they're they're sharing and what they

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:46:27

need. Sometimes that's just sitting in silence, you know,

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:46:30

but it's nothing extraordinary. But it's just recognizing this

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:46:34

is a human being sitting in front of me, and they're

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:46:37

hurting. So what can I do to connect on that level?

Susan Ney: 00:46:43

Thank you. And just really quickly, you also talk

Susan Ney: 00:46:46

about spiritual bypassing, which is an attempt to find a silver

Susan Ney: 00:46:51

lining and every negative experience. Similarly, just to

Susan Ney: 00:46:56

be careful of that, for the same reasons, yeah, I think I think

Susan Ney: 00:47:01

it's time for us to go to some of the ideas that you share. The

Susan Ney: 00:47:05

first thing, radical responsibility, which is a

Susan Ney: 00:47:08

commitment to ourselves, as we've talked about in the

Susan Ney: 00:47:11

podcast, and the people around us to take ownership and

Susan Ney: 00:47:14

responsibility for our own thoughts, behaviors, resulting

Susan Ney: 00:47:18

outcomes, some of that self awareness that we've talked

Susan Ney: 00:47:21

about. And we have to make changes for ourselves before we

Susan Ney: 00:47:25

can actually make them as organizations, that the healing

Susan Ney: 00:47:28

process that organizations and individuals have to go through,

Susan Ney: 00:47:32

do require vulnerability and vulnerability does require

Susan Ney: 00:47:36

courage. Take off the mask of perfectionism, and the need for

Susan Ney: 00:47:41

martyrdom, recognize that that's part of who you might be. And do

Susan Ney: 00:47:48

you still need to be that? And then maybe the duty of care if

Susan Ney: 00:47:54

you could talk a little bit about that as well, to take so

Susan Ney: 00:47:57

yeah, to think, why don't you? Why don't we talk a little bit

Susan Ney: 00:48:00

about some of this radical responsibility, and the duty of

Susan Ney: 00:48:04

care?

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:48:06

Sure. So, you know, I, I, I really do believe

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:48:12

that before we can work on our organizations, we have to work

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:48:15

on ourselves. And so and I also know from personal experience,

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:48:19

that our organizations aren't going to save us and, and that's

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:48:22

okay. But hopefully, my I am very hopeful that in the future,

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:48:28

organizations will be more mindful of, again, of the human

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:48:32

beings that are in their space. But so, because we know this, we

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:48:40

are now free to kind of make choices that are going to allow

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:48:43

ourselves to flourish and support our own health and, and

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:48:47

start to heal some of our own trauma. So even during times of

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:48:50

adversity and challenge when we think about radical

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:48:53

responsibility. It's not radical responsibility doesn't let

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:48:59

organizations off the hook. But it acknowledges that as

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:49:03

individuals, we have to make those changes for ourselves

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:49:06

first before we make them as an organization. And there's three

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:49:09

kind of key components, which is accountability, well being and

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:49:12

mindset. And when we take these three things together, we start

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:49:18

to create a state of being where we show up with intentionality

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:49:21

and awareness, and we start to check in with ourselves more

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:49:25

often to ask, you know, like, what's kind of What's my

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:49:29

motivation behind this? Why am I being you know, why am I saying

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:49:33

this? Or why am I feeling this? And we start to get more curious

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:49:37

about our reactions. And this is also the space radical

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:49:41

responsibility helps us to break a lot of those outdated patterns

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:49:45

that are no longer serving us that we tend to default to

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:49:47

because that's just how our brains work. And so, radical

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:49:53

responsibility is about being accountable for the way that we

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:49:56

personally show up during times of adversity and To the way that

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:50:01

we make ourselves part of the solution. It also serves as a

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:50:05

foundation for every other thing that we do. Because, you know,

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:50:09

in cultures where blame and shame and judgment are the norm

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:50:12

when we start to practice radical responsibility and own

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:50:15

our own mistakes, and then apologize and make amends, if

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:50:19

we've you know, harmed somebody else, it can feel challenging,

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:50:23

but the ripple effects are incredibly powerful. And so the

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:50:27

more that we practice this, the easier it becomes to embody this

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:50:31

way of being. And so duty of care. So that's kind of on the

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:50:36

individual side duty of care is what we look at for the

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:50:38

organization. And so duty of care, it started out in tort

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:50:43

law, and it refers to kind of this obligation that this legal

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:50:47

obligation that organizations have to kind of protect us from

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:50:51

predictable harm. And what that means really is it focuses

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:50:55

primarily on our physical health and safety historically. And so,

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:51:01

you know, this is where we think about like, creating a safe

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:51:05

environment for staff ensuring that staff don't work, you know,

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:51:08

extremely long hours, or where staff roles are defined, where

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:51:14

we provide sufficient training, especially for kind of high risk

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:51:18

situations, things like that. And this is where, hopefully,

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:51:21

we're protecting staff from things like bullying and

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:51:23

harassment, discrimination, things like that. And so the

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:51:27

duty of care practice in so many mission driven organizations has

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:51:31

primarily focused on this physical health and safety. But

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:51:34

for organizations with like, especially human centered

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:51:39

missions, where we're serving other human beings, I really

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:51:42

think that we have to create a more holistic, human centered

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:51:47

duty of care, that goes beyond just the physical health and

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:51:51

safety, but actually starts to look at and acknowledge our

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:51:55

mental, physical, emotional, relational, and spiritual health

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:51:59

and well being as well. And so in the book, I created a

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:52:02

framework that consists of four commitments. And so the first

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:52:06

commitment is normalizing and address addressing occupational

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:52:10

mental health challenges and trauma. And so again, this is

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:52:13

becoming a trauma informed organization, this is where we

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:52:16

start to recognize, oh, yeah, we're serving other humans,

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:52:19

there's probably going to be some impact on our staff. And

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:52:22

we're going to start to recognize that we're gonna

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:52:24

start, you know, helping our leaders learn how to recognize

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:52:28

that, how to handle it, how to manage it, and how to create

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:52:32

spaces of empathy, and connection. And then commitment

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:52:37

to is evolving from metrics driven cultures into human

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:52:39

centered one. So we've talked a little bit about this already.

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:52:42

But it's really where we start to bring other things in besides

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:52:47

metrics when we're creating our policies and frameworks within

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:52:50

our organizations. And then commitment, three is supporting

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:52:54

rest and recovery, and who the amount of people that I talked

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:53:00

to that continue in this day and age to where stress and

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:53:03

exhaustion, as a badge of honor is just mind blowing to me. And

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:53:08

so we want to start normalizing the idea of rest, you know, rest

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:53:13

is a badge of honor, because we know that, you know, with like

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:53:20

lack of sleep and things, there are so many studies that have

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:53:22

been done now about how this impacts our cognitive

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:53:25

functioning. And so when we're thinking about big decisions

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:53:28

that need to be made, and especially for leaders, the

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:53:30

decisions that you have to make, if you're operating on not

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:53:34

enough sleep, and you're exhausted all the time, it has

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:53:37

these ripple effects. And so we want to start not only educating

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:53:41

our workforce on the importance of rest, but actually building

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:53:45

in time for recovery throughout the day, so that people can

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:53:49

function at their best. Rather than expecting that, hey, this

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:53:53

is on your own time you figure it out. We want to actually

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:53:57

build that into the day. And then commitment for as fostered

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:54:01

shared purpose and commitment. And so again, you know, I think

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:54:05

in a lot of mission driven spaces, that shared purpose and

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:54:08

commitment is kind of factored in to a degree because we've got

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:54:12

this mission we're all working towards, but part of this is

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:54:15

also recognizing, like, Hey, these are all individuals

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:54:18

bringing these unique gifts into our workplace. How do we create

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:54:22

this space that's, you know, that's grounded in trust, and

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:54:26

that we've created that psychologically safe, and that

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:54:31

everybody understands what we're working towards, and why we're

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:54:35

working towards it, so that we're doing this together in a

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:54:40

way that's sustainable, and that makes sense for all of us. And

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:54:44

so these commitments, these four commitments actually allow

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:54:47

leaders in organizations to start addressing both the

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:54:50

occupational traumas as well as the organizational trauma by

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:54:54

creating conditions in the workplace that help people feel

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:54:57

seen, heard and valued. And in all of this comes through in

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:55:02

these human centered cultures that are grounded in connection

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:55:04

and compassion and empathy. And this is important because

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:55:08

without this, it's incredibly challenging to build trust, and

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:55:11

psychological safety. You know, a lot of times I have, you know,

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:55:17

organizations that will contact me to say, Oh, we want to do

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:55:19

like this, this to our team building thing. And when I

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:55:23

started digging into why, you know, I have to really help

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:55:28

people understand that a to our team building when your team is

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:55:32

experiencing organizational trauma or occupational trauma is

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:55:36

like putting a BandAid on a broken arm, and it's not going

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:55:39

to actually heal anything or make things better. And so trust

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:55:44

and psychological safety are built over time. And so that's

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:55:48

what we want to do is we want to help leaders learn how to

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:55:50

cultivate that over time through authentic connection and through

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:55:54

building spaces of empathy. So that all of this can lead to

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:56:00

building you know, robust and healthy workplaces that actually

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:56:03

end up fostering innovation and growth and help to mitigate

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:56:06

things like attrition and, and organizational trauma. So yeah,

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:56:11

so those are kind of the four commitments that are part of the

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:56:16

duty of care that I'm advocating for through this book.

Susan Ney: 00:56:19

You also, they're wonderful, and you also really

Susan Ney: 00:56:23

emphasize the pricing of social connections, through everyday

Susan Ney: 00:56:27

moments of engagement, grounded in gratitude, kindness, respect,

Susan Ney: 00:56:31

and empathy is critical. And I've certainly seen that have a

Susan Ney: 00:56:35

very positive impact. Just looking at some of the questions

Susan Ney: 00:56:44

I was going to ask you, and I think we've probably covered

Susan Ney: 00:56:47

them.

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:56:51

know, one thing I'll say about social connection

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:56:53

is just that, as human beings, we're hardwired for connection

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:56:56

and belonging. And so the more we can foster social connection

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:57:00

in our workspaces, and again, that doesn't mean you know,

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:57:04

having to take three hours to have a conversation or, you

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:57:08

know, these are little moments of, of genuinely connecting with

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:57:12

another person, which requires us to be present, which requires

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:57:16

us to actually, you know, be a part of that conversation. But

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:57:19

the more we build this social connection, and again, it suits

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:57:22

our nervous system, it makes us feel safe, it makes us feel like

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:57:26

we're a part of something. And this is part of our very like,

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:57:29

this is our evolutionary survival mechanism. This is what

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:57:32

helps us keep moving forward. So that's another reason why social

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:57:35

connection in the workplace is so fundamental, towards creating

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:57:40

healthy happy workplaces.

Susan Ney: 00:57:43

Thank you. Now you also talk about and I'm going to

Susan Ney: 00:57:47

jump to how we tend to numb the pain of work through alcohol and

Susan Ney: 00:57:53

staying busy all the time. And I've certainly been there and

Susan Ney: 00:57:56

staying busy all the time, as my friends ever reminded me. It's

Susan Ney: 00:58:02

become a habit, I think it's important. You know, part of

Susan Ney: 00:58:07

that self awareness, part of the symptoms that may be presenting

Susan Ney: 00:58:12

or, or the way you may be using coping mechanisms, that

Susan Ney: 00:58:16

sometimes it's other people that can identify those for you.

Susan Ney: 00:58:20

Other symptoms before we we move to closing the podcast that

Susan Ney: 00:58:27

people might be just paying a little more attention to

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:58:34

Sure. So in the book, I actually talk about five

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:58:37

survival reactions. So we've all heard of fight or flight. I

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:58:42

talked about fight, flight, freeze, fix and fake. And so the

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:58:47

numbing behaviors are talking about our flight response. And

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:58:50

so flight is really where we are. We just want to get away

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:58:55

from the situation and or the emotions tied to the situation.

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:58:59

And so this is where we do see a lot of addictions show up. This

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:59:03

is where we see the alcoholism, the workaholism, all the isms

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:59:07

that are out there. But this is also where we saw things like

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:59:11

during COVID We saw a lot of binge watching of television,

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:59:14

right? So to get away from what what was happening. What's

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:59:20

interesting with flight, though, is in sometimes it's just

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:59:22

getting up and walking out of the space, right? But the thing

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:59:25

with flight is in that space, we have a real challenge connecting

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:59:30

with other people. And so flight manifests within ourselves as

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:59:35

isolation like this is where we start to isolate ourselves from

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:59:38

other others. And so fight shows up as blame. It shows up as

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:59:42

criticism, it shows up as judgment and it can show up as

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:59:46

violence and all of these things can be directed towards

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:59:48

ourselves or towards others. Freeze is that paralysis by

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:59:53

analysis. This is where we're overthinking everything. We're

Dimple Dhabalia: 00:59:56

stuck. We can't make a decision. We can't move forward. Fix is a,

Dimple Dhabalia: 01:00:03

it's kind of an if then scenario. So we play this game

Dimple Dhabalia: 01:00:06

with ourselves where we'll say, Well, you know, if I could just

Dimple Dhabalia: 01:00:09

be more productive, then my organization will finally

Dimple Dhabalia: 01:00:12

recognize my value. And the thing with fix is it's rooted in

Dimple Dhabalia: 01:00:17

feelings of unworthiness. And so we start to do things to change

Dimple Dhabalia: 01:00:23

ourselves to try to please others around us. And then fake

Dimple Dhabalia: 01:00:27

is where we, we don't want to show any vulnerability. This is

Dimple Dhabalia: 01:00:31

where we show up and we put on this mask of, you know, like,

Dimple Dhabalia: 01:00:36

Yeah, I'm fine. I know, there's nothing wrong. Also, you know,

Dimple Dhabalia: 01:00:40

most leaders do not like saying the words I don't know. But

Dimple Dhabalia: 01:00:45

again, we're human beings, we don't know everything. And this

Dimple Dhabalia: 01:00:48

is why we surround ourselves with a team of people who bring

Dimple Dhabalia: 01:00:51

out the best in us to write and so part of this is, is letting

Dimple Dhabalia: 01:00:56

down that that mask, and otherwise, it turns into often

Dimple Dhabalia: 01:01:00

it turns into perfectionism, where we just want to show the

Dimple Dhabalia: 01:01:02

world that we can do everything ourselves, we know everything.

Dimple Dhabalia: 01:01:06

And it's not sustainable over the course of our career. And so

Dimple Dhabalia: 01:01:10

I highlight these because all five of these reactions, when we

Dimple Dhabalia: 01:01:14

are in genuine harm, harm's way, they can be helpful, but And so

Dimple Dhabalia: 01:01:22

and they can also be helpful if we are intentionally choosing

Dimple Dhabalia: 01:01:25

them for a reason. So for example, when my mom passed away

Dimple Dhabalia: 01:01:28

unexpectedly, in 2019, I really struggled, I was really

Dimple Dhabalia: 01:01:32

struggling. And so flight was flight has always been my go to

Dimple Dhabalia: 01:01:36

reaction for most things when I'm stressed. But in that case,

Dimple Dhabalia: 01:01:41

I really turned to my work, to not deal with my emotions. But I

Dimple Dhabalia: 01:01:46

did so with intention, I knew like in that moment, I wasn't

Dimple Dhabalia: 01:01:49

ready. But that I would get to the point where I'd finally be

Dimple Dhabalia: 01:01:52

able to deal with my grief. And so if we can have awareness

Dimple Dhabalia: 01:01:56

around it, it's a different thing. But when we're defaulting

Dimple Dhabalia: 01:01:58

to these, and that's what we do, because we live a good chunk of

Dimple Dhabalia: 01:02:02

our life on autopilot. And so it's important for us to notice

Dimple Dhabalia: 01:02:06

what reactions we have, and under what circumstances because

Dimple Dhabalia: 01:02:09

we all have patterns that have been created since childhood

Dimple Dhabalia: 01:02:12

that have created these deeply etched neural pathways in our in

Dimple Dhabalia: 01:02:16

our brains. And so when we are faced with a similar situation,

Dimple Dhabalia: 01:02:19

we default to one of these, these patterns that we know. And

Dimple Dhabalia: 01:02:23

the good news is that we actually know that we can rewire

Dimple Dhabalia: 01:02:27

our brains, there's something called neuroplasticity, which

Dimple Dhabalia: 01:02:29

allows us to create new neural pathways. But that requires that

Dimple Dhabalia: 01:02:33

we first create awareness around what our patterns are. And we

Dimple Dhabalia: 01:02:36

start making new choices. And we have to repeat those new choices

Dimple Dhabalia: 01:02:39

over and over and over again, before we can actually have new

Dimple Dhabalia: 01:02:43

neural pathways that are going to better serve us in those

Dimple Dhabalia: 01:02:45

situations.

Susan Ney: 01:02:47

Wow. Thank you. And I'm sorry about the loss of your

Susan Ney: 01:02:49

mom. Thank ya, I watch the end of the book, you ask? What if

Susan Ney: 01:03:00

the path is giving us powerful opportunities to reveal and heal

Susan Ney: 01:03:05

our own wounds? And we just don't realize it, that our

Susan Ney: 01:03:09

personal experiences of pain and trauma are not only scars that

Susan Ney: 01:03:13

we bear, but also the source of our superpower. And I know that

Susan Ney: 01:03:19

we're we're longer than we expected. But I think it's

Susan Ney: 01:03:22

really important for us to be talking about this before we

Susan Ney: 01:03:25

close.

Dimple Dhabalia: 01:03:26

Yeah, yeah, you know, I think so often we

Dimple Dhabalia: 01:03:29

associated trauma with weakness and with, you know, feeling like

Dimple Dhabalia: 01:03:34

we're less than because we have experienced these things. But I

Dimple Dhabalia: 01:03:38

really think that all these hardships many of us have

Dimple Dhabalia: 01:03:41

experienced in our lives like i It's interesting to me, as I

Dimple Dhabalia: 01:03:44

talk to other people who have chosen similar career paths,

Dimple Dhabalia: 01:03:47

that almost all of us have gone through some kind of trauma in

Dimple Dhabalia: 01:03:51

our childhood, that often leads us to these paths of wanting to

Dimple Dhabalia: 01:03:56

serve others, because there were people who helped us and so we

Dimple Dhabalia: 01:03:59

feel this inherent need to want to give back in some way and

Dimple Dhabalia: 01:04:02

protect others. And so, I really think that had I not gone

Dimple Dhabalia: 01:04:08

through the things that I had, I wouldn't necessarily have the

Dimple Dhabalia: 01:04:11

empathy and compassion that I have. And so to me, that's a

Dimple Dhabalia: 01:04:13

superpower that came out of something that was really tragic

Dimple Dhabalia: 01:04:16

and challenging. And so it's about having that perspective of

Dimple Dhabalia: 01:04:20

looking at, you know, these hardships that I've gone

Dimple Dhabalia: 01:04:23

through, how are they serving me, but more? And more

Dimple Dhabalia: 01:04:26

importantly, how are they allowing me to serve others? And

Dimple Dhabalia: 01:04:29

I think that that's a really beautiful thing that not

Dimple Dhabalia: 01:04:31

everybody can claim. And so I just really want to help people

Dimple Dhabalia: 01:04:36

in these lines of work recognize that there's probably a reason

Dimple Dhabalia: 01:04:39

you ended up here doing this kind of work. You know, and by

Dimple Dhabalia: 01:04:43

this kind, I mean, you know, mission driven service of, you

Dimple Dhabalia: 01:04:47

know, others or the environment or whatever it is, and so

Dimple Dhabalia: 01:04:50

stopping to recognize, well, what is that? What is it within

Dimple Dhabalia: 01:04:53

me? That's looking to get healed that's leading me down this

Dimple Dhabalia: 01:04:56

road, because that's part of why we ended up here we think that

Dimple Dhabalia: 01:04:59

this is gonna have Help Us, like heal something within ourselves.

Dimple Dhabalia: 01:05:02

And so I think it's a really beautiful opportunity to figure

Dimple Dhabalia: 01:05:05

that out and to actually, you know, break some of those old

Dimple Dhabalia: 01:05:11

cycles and patterns. And especially when we think about

Dimple Dhabalia: 01:05:14

things like generational trauma, like these are great

Dimple Dhabalia: 01:05:16

opportunities to break those cycles so that they don't get

Dimple Dhabalia: 01:05:19

passed on to the next generation.

Susan Ney: 01:05:22

Thank you. Oh, my goodness, I know, dimple reading

Susan Ney: 01:05:27

your book left me with a lot to think about, including these

Susan Ney: 01:05:30

last words of wisdom. And yeah, just taking a look at things

Susan Ney: 01:05:37

differently. And as you say, just digging deeper than we

Susan Ney: 01:05:40

typically do. Any last thoughts before we bring the podcast to a

Susan Ney: 01:05:47

close? Anything that we've not touched on that you think might

Susan Ney: 01:05:49

be important to our listeners?

Dimple Dhabalia: 01:05:52

No, I think we touched on quite a bit. We did.

Dimple Dhabalia: 01:05:56

Yeah, but thank you so much for giving me this opportunity. And

Dimple Dhabalia: 01:05:59

yeah, I hope it helps people.

Susan Ney: 01:06:02

Well, I I highly recommend your book. And I will

Susan Ney: 01:06:07

ensure that information about your book, How to people can get

Susan Ney: 01:06:11

your book and your contact information is going to that

Susan Ney: 01:06:14

will be on the show notes to the podcast. Just thank you. Thank

Susan Ney: 01:06:19

you so much for the work you're doing and for making the time to

Susan Ney: 01:06:23

be here with us today. I can think of lots of organizations

Susan Ney: 01:06:28

that this podcast is going to make a difference two and four

Susan Ney: 01:06:32

and Oregon individuals as well. It is time for us to say

Susan Ney: 01:06:37

goodbye. Remember, for all of our listeners dare to soar.

Susan Ney: 01:06:44

Listen to some of the wonderful insights and wisdom within the

Susan Ney: 01:06:48

book. Antipholus words today because we truly believe you

Susan Ney: 01:06:52

can't thank you. It is dimpling Susan signing out. Have a great

Susan Ney: 01:07:01

rest of the day everyone. Bye for now. Bye