What to Do When You Don't Know What to Do

Transcript of a Sage Hill Live Fully Podcast conversation with Dr. Chip Dodd. Lightly edited for readability; speaker labels omitted.

This podcast is brought to you by Sage Hill, a social impact organization. Our mission is to help people be who they're made to be so that they can do what they're made to do. Find more resources to live fully, love deeply, Chip Chip Dodd and I are there's a conversation that we, had recently about ambiguity and and ambivalence, what it means to live in this middle space between pre COVID and post COVID, and what's it mean to live in the in the gap, and how do we navigate not knowing and being pulled in different directions. So, hope hope you enjoy it. I hope it's helpful to you. Also, you may wanna check out and go ahead and preorder Chip and I's newest book, Hope in the Age of Addiction. We really do talk about the pandemic of addiction. It comes out in August from Ravel. You can go ahead and preorder that on Amazon. So enjoy this podcast from Chip and I. Hey, Chip. Are you started? We're started. We're doing the podcast right now.

Oh, so this is gonna be on it? This is on it. Hey, Stephen. James, how are you? I am, restless, irritable, and discontent with the side of happy. So so so everything's got food for you. That's the metaphor today. Oh, that's good. That's good. I got a I got a main course of restless. I've got a side dish of irritables to discontent, and I got a little happy, but I just ordered it on the side. So the re reality is it it may taste good, but you're gonna have indigestion. Well, the taste of resentment always tastes worse coming back up, doesn't it? You know, I am, tell you what, I have found myself to be very, very thankful. I'm I'm noticing, honestly, you know excuse me for interrupting your you know, like, oh. Ask how you're doing. Hey. Yeah. You're doing. Exactly. You're you're being, like, super realistic. And everybody's like, yeah, man. And I'm going like, mister Pollyanna going, you know, I've been so thankful lately. But I've I've I have found myself to to be actually very grateful lately. I mean, really a lot of gratitude. And it's not because something great's happened. It's just that I'm thankful for some things that haven't happened, and I'm seeing some things that have. You know? So I'm looking I'm looking for it. And by the way, do you remember the there's a the quote that says, Eucharista precedes the miracle.

Gratitude precedes the miracle. Are you familiar with that? I think it's a good time. I'm so glad that you threw in the gratitude for a little side of happy. She said, hey. We can all build one. We can build on that. We can build on that. Gratitude literally, changes brain waves, brain brain fog, brain movement. Your brain cannot be anxious and grateful at the same time. It's a positive. Yeah. So when I picture it in my head, like, the side of happy is, like, that what's that dish, like, potluck suppers ambrosia with, like, the mushrooms and the fruit salad that whipped cream? That's happy. That's a side of happy. Ambrosia salad. Mushrooms and fruit salad. Mushrooms. Marshmallows. Okay. Good. Does. I just wanted I just wanted I just know that if anyone's listening, they're all going mushrooms and and ambrosia. I don't see. Hey. But you have this Marshmallows,

fruit fruit salad, and whipped cream all mixed up together. Stephen, you you brought up just then that the brain really can't handle, but anxiety can't live in the same space with gratitude. And what we what we're gonna talk about today is ambiguity or really, you know, like, living living in the both end. And yet, is the brain capable or is it made to be able to tolerate both end when when when anxiety and gratitude can't live in the same space? It actually is the way the brain grows and we learn is when it's thrust into a level of just enough distress or ambiguity that it's trying to make new meaning or trying to create new learning Yep. New categories. Too much of that then is we our brain gets flooded and and we shut down. You you actually can't learn or grow without some level of distress.

Yes. And you know what? The when you say you call it distress, it's actually, like yes. It is it it is stress, but not necessarily distress. But but if if you come from a place of security, what a lot of people call distress is really opportunity or eustress, you know, like a challenge. Yeah. And you you brought up, you know, Mary Anne Diamond, back. We're talking about late, mid sixties. She is the person who began to, research and discover that the Like, you mean hold on. You mean nineteen sixties, like, the twentieth century? Yeah. Back in the no. It was back in the nineteen hundreds. Like, '26 in the nineteen hundreds and the '26 sounds a it sounds a lot longer going, say, back in the nineteen hundreds. Back in the nineteen hundreds. Yeah. I'm from the nineteen hundreds. In fact, to be perfectly honest, I knew I was doing a podcast with you today, so I wore pleated pants. With cuffs? Do you have cuffs, dude? Yeah. From the nineteen hundreds. Oh, anyway.

But so With with penny loafers? Do you have penny loafers on? No. I have some really cool, suede, kit. Nordstrom loafers. That's good. That's good. But Nordstrom Nordstrom off the rack. Okay? Okay. But anyway So Mary Ann Diamond 1960. Yeah. Now this is important because the when we when we move towards talking about ambiguity doing the both and, which means tolerating life's changes in so many ways without trying to dictate to life. She she discovered and it's amazing. She was a female in the world of all males in the in the neuroscientific neuroanatomy world and she tells a story about presenting at a conference brain, you either use it or lose it. In a conference where everybody believed that the brain was a static organ, that once it was established, it didn't change a thing. Okay? Nothing could be changed about it. You could only lose brain cells. You couldn't get grow or change that. Yeah. Once, like, even like, once once you were sick with, anxiety, then then you basically you needed to be medicated or put away. But but she was saying, no. The brain can shift and change and grow. And what she discovered that the five territories of growth are brain health. One that you just mentioned was, you know, the stress piece where we grow through, nutrition and exercise. Okay? Those are like basic physiological things. Right? And then she said that we grow our brain health occurs through challenge and seeing new things. So, like, being curious about the world and taking the risk of stepping into it. And then she said that the fifth territory is love, which we know to be, relational connection, security and relational connection. She said, I can't find proof of love, but I know it's there. Oh, that's beautiful. Right. It is. And and then she was in the sixties, but what's amazing is that the world didn't catch up. That even the scientific community took thirty years for the neuroscientific community to come to a place that that, you know, where the spiritual root system teaches and you and I have been working in the territory of, recognizing that you and I are created for relationship and we can't find fulfillment without living in it. In other words, you can't you can't really tolerate even the ambiguities, the questions and the unknowings of life unless you have security in relationship, but still you got to go live it. Yeah. And neuroscience is now called up to say, oh gosh, we really are creative for social connection and we can't have security without it, and we can't tolerate life's terms without security. Period. There. I see.

That's really good. The well, the reason that that I wanna talk about this today was that we're in we're in the middle right now of a lot of uncertainty or a lot of ambiguity. There's not a lot of clear answers. There's there's a lot of hypothesis, with COVID nineteen and coronavirus and public policy and politics and economics. Like, there's a lot of, theory. There's a there's a lot of hope. There's a lot of despair, but there's not a lot of certainty right now. Lot of confusion. Lot of confusion, and that leads to ambiguity. Right? The other, which is an uncertainty or not knowing You know, Stephen, it it I'm I'm interrupting, but but, the confusion, does lead to, ambiguity being a negative. And and lack of confusion leads to ambiguity being tolerable, which is living in the not knowing, but knowing that that it's okay.

Which we'll get to that in a second. Yeah. Nicole, let's get to the solution in a second. The the the other thing that comes up is a I think as a way to avoid ambiguity is to is to is to kinda feel the ambivalence of, like, two ambivalence, people get confused with ambiguity. Right? They wanna call them the same thing. But ambivalence is have two competing desires at the same time. Right? I want this, and I want this. Like and they're pulling me in two different directions. And I think right now, as I'm talking to people, there's the ambivalence of I want to feel safe and secure, and I want to feel free. And in the in the COVID world, safe and freedom seem to not go well together. Like, it's been politicized and agendaized and dehumanized, and there's haters on both sides of it. But but that that feeling of I want to be safe and I want to be free is a normal human feeling. Right? But right now home and I want to work. Yeah. Yeah. Absolute that's that's a very practical way to say it. And so we have ambiguity with uncertainty, and we have this internal experience of ambivalence. Right? And what you and I know, the reason I wanna talk about it is, like, the the human experience of dealing with that is actually, what do you feel? What do you need? What do you believe in? What do you trust? You know? And if you're putting your trust we'll start at the end, and we can start at the beginning then work back through. If you're putting your trust in something other than, the divine, God, the process, your own powerlessness, then you're you're gonna spin in anxiety, and you're gonna be doing research every day, all day long, watching whatever your news channel of preference is, you know, trying to confirm your bias so that you knew you were right about what you were afraid of. And if it and, you know, it's in puts that polarization that's going on. Right? Yeah. So that that would be controlled by anxiety rather than paying attention to fear. Yes. Listen to my fear and being afraid and being able to learn to tolerate fear as a feeling. I was listening to a guy that they talk, and he he said fear I'm I'm trying to remember who it was, but he said fear is actually our most salient emotion. Right? It it comes super clear. It's very strong. And then once you've had the experience of it, it actually doesn't do anything after that. Because, like, it's like, hey. Look out. And then then you gotta, like, think. You know? Because your fear becomes crazy making if you're not thinking. And then, you know, in in voice of the heart, which is so perfect at this moment,

fear is a feeling that allows us to reach out, cry out for help, allows us to prepare. So, oh, I dodged the car. Oh, gosh. Now I'm prepared to make sure I look both ways before I step into the street. I mean, fear teaches about life and its consequences and and the better we are at doing fear, the more capable we are of living life. Yeah. Then and you know what, Stephen? The ambivalence is, you know, like, you were talking about earlier. Ambivalence, like, oh, gosh. I really am made to live, and I'm made to get up and go do it. But if I go do it, it's gonna hurt and be scary. Right? That's ambivalence. So I wanna stay home where it's safe, and I wanna go out where I could build things. Gosh. But if I build things, I might fall and get, you know, that whole thing. Yeah. So if you Well, as as we've said, if you build things, you will fall. Yes. You you said if you're gonna go fight somebody, you gotta know you're gonna get hit in the mouth. You're gonna get hit in the mouth. It's gonna hurt. You but see and so we're back to we we really can't we really can move into choice making when we're ambivalent by being able to process feelings. Right? And we're capable because ambiguity means that I'm taught I can I'm capable of handling what I don't know is gonna happen next. That when we think of ambiguity related to the future. No. Yeah. It'd be yeah. It means my frontal lobe can't find an answer. Yes. And my temporal lobe yeah. Yeah. So if you can't do feelings, you know, you you can't process you can't have you can't have, a security in yourself. Like, you can't tolerate ambiguity unless you know yourself Yes. Which means you have trust of self, Which means you know what you feel. You can trust what you're looking at. You could be curious about reaching out to find out. You know what you need. You know how to ask for help. You have a list of people you can go to after the challenge is over. In other words, relationship and its fulfillment and ability to live in it allows us to step into ambiguity Yes. Which is called life on life's terms. Right?

And and that that the sir the serenity that comes, even if it's momentarily. Right? Like, this idea that we find serenity and we just stay there. Like, I don't know who's selling that besides Tony Robbins and whoever else. I'm like it's like, living life on life's terms means we move from moments of serenity, powerlessness, serenity, and then serenity is disrupted. And then we find powerlessness and surrender and then serenity and then serenity is erupted. Like, that is the rhythm. Yes. And he you know, a great example, my my a friend of mine started building houses. Okay? And he was brand new to it. And he had his first piece of land. He was building his first house. It was a a house a spec house. He had risked, you know, his beginning income. He said the first night before he started the the actual putting the footings in, he said he laid on the couch. He couldn't sleep. He would roll off the couch over the floor so anxious because he was so, like, oh. Then he started building the house. So and he's he's way into it. He said I would keep a bottle of Pepto Bismol in my pocket. Okay? Meaning, you know, like, it could've been bourbon. Right? Because, like and then he was like, oh god. Thank you so much that, you know, I'm able to be in this process and putting these boards up and putting the two by four his gratitude. He'd find his gratitude in the drawer. Looked at the he, yeah, had his gratitude, had his serenity. Then he looked at the plans, realized he'd put a window frame in upside down. Okay? Then he's he's like, oh god. You know, this is great. I I appreciate you teaching me. And then he's taking out the frame. He hits his hand. He said he started cussing so much. He grabbed the Pepto Bismol. He said, I almost drank the whole thing wishing it was whiskey. So, I mean Oh. You just said and I've given you a, like, a down home version. Chip, I totally have that same as Chip

because I came home today after doing a leadership lab, and I was gonna put this dimmer switch in. And I and I kept messing up, and I screamed really loud. And Elijah came down expecting me to have electrocuted myself. Yes. Exactly. And he said, what happened? Are you okay? I said, I just dropped another screw. Because I I can't I couldn't put it in. I finally called the electrician who's coming on Friday to fix it. But it was that same, like, I'm so grateful, and I'm so upset. And I it's like, that is the that is life. And, you know, and and being able to live in that, either you're gonna have contempt for yourself, hate yourself, start climbing the ladder of perfection again or giving up because you're you're you're trying to make life into an either or process. Either I fail or I succeed. And here's the beautiful thing. You know, when you you were just describing, like, when children stack up blocks or do pick up sticks or make little, buildings out of cards or Play Doh or whatever. You know, somewhere along the line, the Play Doh droops, the cards fall down. And then children live in in live in a perfectionistic beginning because the I I really believe that from the book of Ecclesiastes that we're born with with, you know, the the Eternity in their heart. Yeah. Eternity in their hearts, which means perfection. And but we but but the truth is we don't know the end from the beginning. So we basically, the book says you're gonna live in ambiguity and ambivalence. And so what allows us to make it makes us tolerant of it is, like, a little children when something breaks and falls down, they wail and weep just like you did. You screamed at life, and and and Elijah said that kind of screaming means something really terrible. And the truth was I dropped another screw. And now I know it's childlike and childish both, but, yeah, you you act you responded accurately even though it it wasn't necessarily it terrorized the family or whatever. Oh, the the family myth is every cuss word my kids have ever learned is with me on a job site. Oh, see. Which which means that which which means that that there is when you step onto a job site, you're stepping back into childhood where you where you were alone and and weren't allowed to have those things we talked about security. And what's amazing is the the more that a child is allowed to be able to step into the process of the feelings they have as life happens, the more secure and able they're going to be to tolerate the stresses, the ups and downs, or the ambiguity of life later, and they won't be ambivalent. In other words, they they will take they'll take two decisions, two options, and they'll be able to struggle with it and make a choice and say, you know, they won't make right decisions. They'll make decisions work to make them right. And if it doesn't work, they'll change it. Right? Yep.

I was, you know, talking to this this PhD guy recently who did a study of, leading millennials. And he's actually really high on the good that millennials are bringing into the work set work setting Mhmm. Whole life balance. I've heard that guy. Yes. Yeah. But he also you know, biggest critique of millennials is they're not resilient. Yeah. Right? And he said because it's really not their fault because they grew up in homes where they weren't allowed to grieve. They weren't allowed to fail. They couldn't tolerate their own shame. They weren't taught to tolerate disappointment. And, Stephen, you know what the rap is on millennials? That they're snowflakes or they're weaklings. And the truth is they they they were they were raised so often in a world where feelings were permitted. Right? Where where children had them but then they weren't allowed to go through the process of of learn of developing emotional resilience around the feelings. In other words, toughening up through being able to process and stay in it. So feelings, they were allowed to have, but then the feelings were taken from them immediately because they had to be fixed. Yeah. Pain had to be stopped. Yeah. We we live in a perfect world where we can stop pain, any pain. Yeah. They move jobs every sixteen months. The guy said that the research shows

that, like, older generations will switch jobs every seven to nine years. Yeah. Millennials move jobs after every 16 on average. And you know what? The millennials report, the reason they switched jobs is things got hard. That what? That things get difficult. Yeah. And and and yet you know what? I'll tell you what. I would rather work with the millennial I would too. Who who I would too. Who is facing that struggle or whether is whether in it, but they don't know what to do with it versus the emotional legalist. And let me Emotional shutdownist. Well, let me let me introduce a new a new, phrase, emotional legalism I came up with two weeks ago. I love that. Yeah. And it's a person that when they have a feeling, they make a law out of about not having it. So if you have a feeling, you're breaking the law. And so there's a legal means to stop it. So you've got you've done something wrong. Now you need to stop feeling that way, which is talk toxic shame. Right? So you you you so emotional legalism means you can't feel it. But it malleoliness means I'm having feelings, and I'm not and and somebody needs to do something to stop them. Yeah. And I would rather work with that openness.

I would too. They bring more heart. They bring a lot more heart and possibility and can do and team and, I didn't mean to talk about I just that the polarization of what's just happened in three generations, right, of Yeah. Of traumatized stoicism, shut down people who were raised by traumatized stoicism, who didn't decide that they were gonna create a more emotionally intelligent child with but without resilience. Right? Yeah. And so it's like you know, I I don't know how we got on that, but let's Yeah. Let me let me throw something out for just a second. I know we don't have much time left, about five minutes. But, you know, when we talk about ambiguity, like, when when people learn the feelings, like, sadness, hurt, lonely, so on, and then they learn the impairments. Okay? Like, impaired hurt is resentment. K? And but resentment is not the opposite of No. See and so people who can't tolerate ambiguity, they make, okay, resentment's the bad one and hurts the okay one even though I don't like it. And and healing oh, well, I should call healing the okay one and hurts the bad one. You know? Yes. And so that that what that means is people want to people try to turn things into good and bad, right and wrong, which is there's nothing wrong with that. Right? I say I use right and wrong.

There is there is good and bad and right and wrong. Yes. That's what I mean. Those categories don't always apply to everything. Well yeah. And and the thing is you won't know what to do with right, wrong, good, bad. You won't even be able to really hold them unless you start out with truth versus lies. Okay? Now with that said, ambiguity doesn't mean uncertainty unless you don't know how to process feelings. Okay? So ambiguity is called normal. I don't know what's gonna happen tomorrow. I don't have control of tomorrow. But being able to live in the tomorrow, I don't know what's gonna happen, requires that we have security. And it's not that you can't know because you know yourself. And if you if you know how to live before you step into tomorrow, tomorrow is definitely a mystery, and it's not necessarily something we have to be ambivalent about. We decide before we go. Well, and one of the things that helps us tolerate

or or become adept at feeling, knowing what to do with our feelings is just naming them. Right? You and I were talking earlier today about the the research around functional MRIs, and and when someone the amygdala, which is kind of the fear center of the brain. Right? When someone can label what they're feeling, the the the brain scan show that the the intensity goes down. Right? I had a guy call me call me the other day to tell me two guys call me this past week. One guy, his business is tied to manufacture. He's really scared right now. He's just he had he's had to he's trying to keep his employees and, you know, he's putting money back into the business, keep the business open, hoping it's gonna come back. And he called, and he told told me all this. I said, what do you need? He goes, I just feel so better telling somebody how afraid I am. Yep. And then another guy, like, thirty minutes later called to tell me, hey. It's my wife's birthday, and I'm really afraid. I said, I I understand that. And I said and I said, what what do you need? He goes I started giving gift ideas. He's like, hey. I already got her a gift. I just needed to tell somebody I was afraid. I feel better now. Right? Yes. It's like it's there's that part of us that's still a child that needs to go to somebody and say, I'm afraid, a parent Yeah. Right, or needs to go to another figure who's not in fear. Yeah. Say, I'm afraid, and the person goes, I understand you're afraid. Yeah. Call a friend a friend. Call a friend. Right? Yeah. And, like, we don't ever outgrow that. There's no No.

Steve I Stephen, I love that. That's a great closing start. Once again, there we are. Aristotle, the old ancient proverb that of of friend, the other, shares our sorrows and doubles our joys. Yeah. I mean, we are so made for relationship that that life becomes a a a ambiguity, which means undecided, and then ambivalence becomes I can't know. I can't go. Right? And and the thing is which creates tons of confusion. But, see, confusion is not a mental state. We are able to process confusion by untangling the confusion of feelings. Confusion means with feelings that are tangled up, that glob together. So all we gotta do, we gotta stop and say, man, I'm feeling like, what is it like when you are confused? Our our friend says, what happens to you when you get confused? Well, I make bad decisions. I don't know what to do. Well, then when you think about not knowing what to do, what do you feel? Fear. Okay. Well, you're not confused anymore. You got fear. What are you afraid of? And all of a sudden, you said your amygdala calms down. You got a parent and a child there together, which which those two combined make a grown up, which means ready to step into living and being able to know that even though it it will hurt, I'm going because I know what to do with hurt. Even though it's scary, I have a place to go to when that's true. And so, really and truly, feelings make us step into the uncertainty certain.

Oh, what True? Now just to yes. Like, I was talking with one of my business coaching clients, and he just sold this company. He's merging it, and he was we're on a call, and he was talking about la la, round, round, round, round, round. I said, what are you feeling? And he said, confused. And I said, he's new to this. Right? Yeah. I said, open your notebook. Get out your list. What are you feeling? He goes, I feel confused. He looked at the little camera. I said, sounds like you feel fear and lonely. And he goes, oh my gosh. I'm afraid that I'm alone. It's like, I know exactly what to do now. It's like, okay. And so that which that which we that's which we've robbed of children, emotional legalism, or honestly, rob them of being able to stay in a feeling,

which we call, you know, like, a pampering. Or those of us who wisely had to hide our feelings or to survive our childhood. Yeah. Yeah. That's what I meant emotional legalism. Like, you just shut it shut it down. Shut up if you wanna be loved. Yeah. You got it. It's not a like, another person didn't tell us that. Sometimes that's what we told ourselves because it was actually true. Yeah. Like, if I have a feeling, I'm in competition with this adult. Like, only one person gets to have feelings. You know what I'm gonna put mine away. Yeah. I did this to myself. You know what you you know what we've set we've done here today? We have gotten people ready for hope in the age of addiction that's gonna come out in August. Amen to that. Hope in the age of addiction. But you know what? Honestly, then I think I'm could preorder on Amazon. I'm loving this. Keep it up. You know, I forget to do that because I'm so, like, so hungry. Stephen, listen. So what you're what I'm gathering from all of this, that postmodernism, which at on a relational level and a personal level means I can't know what's true. Yes. Well, it turns out that postmodernism is actually a product of emotional legalism and then the pampering to counter the struggle so we won't know. And the truth is postmodernism is a pack of a people who didn't have the courage of dealing with and having their own feelings and facing them. That's the truth.

That's where the truth starts. Or the or the facts of the either feelings of the facts of modernism didn't have all the answers. Well, postmodernism is a product of people who didn't ever knew how to didn't know how to grow up. It was a it was a it was a reaction it was a reaction to modernism because modernism didn't have the answers for the biggest problems of the world. Right. So the the reaction was, well, that's not true. I'll decide my own truth. But it went too far because it it went away from, like, the truth is you and I are the same. Right. And it went to my own philosophy as my truth as opposed to my own human experience as my truth. Well, see, what I'm saying is they they decided this is gonna be truth. No. This is the truth. So it's counteracting. You you know we're just bored about everybody. Both groups running from the truth. Hey. Feel your feelings. Tell the truth. Give it to the process.

And then you can live in the not knowing. Yes. That's awesome. Thank you, Chip. Hey, Stephen. We can live in the not knowing, certainly. Oh, I love that. That's like a funky T shirt. Thank you, man. It's good talking to you. Stephen, it's good talking to you. I look forward to seeing you in person someday. One day. One day. Yeah. But you're a high risk group because you're over 60. I don't wanna get you sick. Well, let me tell you something. I was talking to a doctor the other day, and he said other 60 year olds are in high risk, but not you. Not you. God should not. He's an oak tree. He said Oak tree. You know, cancer recovery, hip replacement, old dude. I'm not at risk. Not true. Alright. Alright, bro. Thank you. Thank you, Stephen.

Hey. Thanks for listening to the Live Fully podcast from Sage Hill. Listen to Stephen James, the executive director of Sage Hill Counseling, and Chip Dodd. Find out more about what we're doing in ways that you can engage your heart and what it means to live fully. You can, look at chip.com and see what Chip's up to and, lots of blogs and posts and, teaching opportunities that he's doing. Or you can go to sageocounseling.com, and there's ways that you can, engage in teletherapy or emotional coaching. Look at look what's even if you're not in the Middle Tennessee area, there's ways to engage with us now. So, thank you, and I hope you're well. This podcast is brought to you by Sage Hill, a social impact organization. Our mission is to help people be who they're made to be so that they can do what they're made to do. Find more resources to live fully, love deeply, and lead well at sagehillresources.com.