Why We Suffer and How We Heal - With Dr. Suzan Song

0:00We think that our experiences are encoded in our memories as kind of video recorders, right? They're just like, this is the reality, this is the quote truth. And so our details are always correct, but that is rarely ever the case. So instead, our memories are constantly changing. What if everything you've built your life around, the work ethic, the achievement, the relentless drive, was actually a trauma response that you've never dealt with? Pain might be unavoidable. Job losses happen. Loved ones pass away unexpectedly. So the pain is unavoidable. But the suffering is not. Meet Dr. Suzanne Song, psychiatrist, author, and someone who works with hostage survivors, Fortune 500 CEOs, and says they're dealing with the exact same thing.

0:54My father was assaulted and kidnapped in an attempted robbery. He later died. So I continued doing everything. I still did my piano lessons. I did start working a couple of jobs. But it wasn't until two decades later that I now find myself in Burundi, where I had essentially recreated a similar scene of violence, hoping that this time around that I would be the one who could save a life which would be my own, because I couldn't save my father. So when people kept saying I was resilient, what they actually were saying or what I was actually doing was performing stability. Dr. Suzanne Song is the author of Why We Suffer and How We Heal, And in this book, she shows you that the life you've been building might be the very thing standing between you and the life you actually want.

1:45I thought my father was assaulted. He stayed in hospice. He died six weeks later. But actually, from the news clippings that I just figured out now, middle age, he actually came home for a year and lived with me. And then he later died actually from metastatic cancer. Now, I don't remember any of that in between. So I asked my mother when I was writing this book, and I said, did this actually happen? Like, I don't remember him coming home. And she said, yeah, you played violin for him at night. You still made him dinner. You brought him cereal. This episode will change how you think about resilience, purpose, and what stability actually means.

2:26If you've ever confused being busy with being okay, this episode's for you. Let's jump in. This episode is brought to you by Granola and Quint. If meetings are eating up your day, Granola is a no-brainer. You can try it totally free for three months. Just head to granola.ai slash kwami. That's granola.ai slash kwami to get your time back. Three months free at granola.ai slash kwami. Find your next fall favorites at Quince. Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers or go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK too. And when Quince asks you where you heard about them, let him know it was me.

3:06That's the best way to support the show. Playing it safe is easy. Playing it safe is comfortable. But here's the problem. Playing it safe and playing by rules that were never meant for you will never take you to the next level. If you've got what it takes to hit the ball out of the park, the only thing holding you back is whether you're brave enough to take a big swing. I'm Kwame Christian, and this is Big Swings Only. Every week, we're telling you the stories of people who fought their fear, chased the life they actually wanted, and became who they had to become to get it. This show is built for people who are meant for more, because if you really want to get to the next level, you've got to do something big.

3:45So the question isn't whether or not you've got what it takes. The question is whether or not you're going to swing. You were built for more, and this show was built for you. Subscribe now. Long ago, I was doing my PhD on intergenerational stress with former child soldiers in Burundi. And during my third year, I found myself in hiding for my life from former child soldiers. And it was my first night in hiding that I stopped and asked myself, like, what is going on? How am I here? I'm a Korean American woman now in the middle of a small country that no one's ever heard of and hiding from my life from child soldiers.

4:32Like, how did this happen? And it immediately dawned on me that it was my dad. So when I was 15 years old, my family owned a liquor store outside of Baltimore. and my father was assaulted and kidnapped in an attempted robbery he later died

4:57now I had I was only 15 but I knew then that it was important to have a stable life and so I continued doing everything. I still did my piano lessons. I still, you know, I did start working a couple of jobs. My GPA did not tank at all. It still saved 3.7 and I basically continued because I had really no narrative to explain what had happened. You know, this was a time and culture where I didn't go see a therapist or talk to anybody about it. So I just kept going. I kept moving forward. People kept telling me how resilient I am because nothing really fell. I kept all things up in the air still.

5:45I went to college, went to medical school, residency, policy degrees, PhD, all the things, fancy schools. But it wasn't until two decades later that I now find myself in Burundi, where I had essentially recreated a similar scene of violence hoping that this time around that I would be the one who could save a life which would be my own because I couldn't save my father. And a lot of that, I think, came from me not actually engaging with what was going on with the loss of my father, right? So when people kept saying I was resilient, what they actually were saying or what I was actually doing was performing stability.

6:39I was, and I hear this all the time, just keep going, just one foot in front of the other. And that has consequences. I mean, you can work for a short period of time, but eventually it's going to catch up to you. And that's what happened to me. Wow. Thank you for sharing that story. And I know it's probably never easy to tell. One of the things that really stands out to me is the conscious awareness and lucidity you had in such a difficult situation. Because let's go back to Burundi in that moment. You asked yourself, how did you get here? And you actually got a meaningful answer. and I want to go back to that moment because I think a lot of our just as humans nobody enjoys suffering but it's an inescapable reality of life and one of the keys to finding well not stability that's not the word that we're going to use finding a better life is finding meaning in our suffering, the classic Viktor Frankl type of mentality.

7:53And it's interesting because you found that meaning in that moment in suffering, but you, to that point, were unable to find that same meaning in the tragedy that happened in the past. So what changed for you in that moment that gave you that understanding?

8:15that's a great question i mean i think one is maybe a little bit of time and distance i think when we are in the actual crisis like when my father actually passed away you know our brains act in a very different way and so i had shut down quite a bit in order to function and this studies have shown this across the board in all humanitarian conflict right when there is crisis we do shut down kind of emotionally so that we can function there's nothing wrong with that and distraction is very useful many many times but the problem is when that's the only thing we go to and when that's too prolonged so i think for me at the time when i was a child i my brain wasn't sure what to do with the information and so i just tucked it away so I could keep on going.

9:10I think the difference is when I was then in Berundi and I had this moment, one, I had been in therapy for many, many years. I'm a psychiatrist and that's part of what my training was, was to go into therapy and to be more introspective and to be more curious.

9:28But it was also, I think I was just more open to the world. I had been more open and wanting answers because I knew something was wrong. I had been pushing the limits for a very long time in my career. So, you know, I started off as a general psychiatrist and then a pediatric psychiatrist. But then I started working with systems and the systems were always around violence, right? So like systems of care and systems of violence with perpetrators of violence, whether that's child soldiers or people who were engaged in sexual assault. And I was just, I kept pushing the boundaries and the limits. So I work with survivors of torture.

10:14I work with survivors of trafficking and not just of former trafficking, but kids who are currently exploited in trafficking, which is one of the hardest populations I think to work with. and i did have this nagging question in the back of my mind during my career of is this healthy like is this normal for me to just keep pushing so much almost as if i was trying to die or like why is it so important for me to get so close to the danger and the violence in a way that other people were not. And to me, I said, well, this is, I need to be able to locate myself within whatever it is that I'm studying or working with.

10:59And to me, that was the people and the systems and the cultures around them. But I think because I have primed myself to wondering and just this curiosity about, is this okay? Is this healthy? Is this intentional? Or is this that I'm being driven by some other motor that I'm not aware of. It's fascinating because you work with people who have experienced great degrees of suffering or currently are experiencing great degrees of suffering, and you help them work through that. And then in your life, you've experienced it too, and you've had the ability to work with other professionals as well. But it's interesting through the entire story of your life, There's been this metacognitive awareness throughout where you're trying to ask yourself these deeper questions and getting answers, getting closer.

11:59But again, it wasn't until you were so close to death in that situation that it finally broke through. And so I'm wondering, if you were to go back and talk to Suzanne 20 years ago, and you could be your own therapist, what kind of things would you tell yourself to work through that? you know i honestly wouldn't tell myself anything except i would encourage myself to be more in relation with others because we heal and we find our grounding through others it's in relationship and that's one thing that i've learned especially in my work with in humanitarian settings where there are no therapists, there are no psychiatrists really, maybe one for the country, but people heal through a sense of belonging and they heal relationally.

13:07And they find, yes, personal agency, but they also tap into this collective agency so that suffering is not an individual experience as it is here in the U.S. very much. Suffering is privatized here in the U.S. Like we're told, oh, you have a loved one who passed away. Oh, take off three days from work and then come back and be productive. Like get over it, come back and be good. And that is not the same in many other cultures that are relationally interdependent, where if one person suffers, they all experience the suffering together. And so it just, you know, life is hard, but it's so much harder if you do it alone.

13:54And so I would go back and tell myself that, that I don't even have to go inwards into my experience necessarily, but just spend more time with other people in community. and be of use because we all feel better when we are needed and when we matter to someone. And I think we're missing a lot of that. You know, I work with a lot of these high flyers. I work with a lot of CEOs and, you know, high profile politicians, but I have people who come into my office when they've reached the top of their game, Like they have made it. They have done everything. And they come to me because they say, I don't feel it.

14:42Like I feel dissatisfied and I'm not sure why. And oftentimes it's because they've spent so much of their life as I did, just this kind of one foot in front of the other, this achievement goal habit. and they've lost that internal, not just the why, but who am I and who matters to me and what is my life for, kind of that more existential part. And we learn that through our relationships. first of all little aside um we privatized suffering in america so beautifully articulated and so true and a we often lose the we forget the value of community it's funny because whether it's a situation where i'm going through hard times myself or it's just a normal day sometimes I might have scheduled an outing with a friend or a group of friends and I see it on my calendar and I'm dreading it.

15:50Dr. Suzan Song: And I'm saying, oh my gosh, I'm so tired. Why am I doing this? I'm so busy. I don't feel like it. 100 % of the time after I have that experience, I say two things. Number one, that was delightful. It was utterly delightful. And number two, why don't I do this more? because in the individualistic society that we live in, the majority of the listeners live in versus collectivist societies, we are hyper-focused on ourself. And I know this is something that will come up more frequently throughout the rest of the episode, but I think it's something very important to highlight that we forget the value of community.

16:33And one of the things that you mentioned that I thought was so powerful and so relatable was you said that you used achievement as a coping mechanism. And so many people can relate to that. And I remember I was, I journal a lot. And in my journal, I said, I've become addicted to not feeling like I'm enough, where you put yourself on this constant hamster wheel of success, hoping that that is going to give you the release and the freedom that you're looking for. and then you just habituate to it and then you go on seeking. And so when you think about the people that you've worked with, how do you help them to rediscover these fundamental truths of humanity?

17:22Yeah, I mean, it's such a good point that you bring up because probably like you and many high flyers and like high achieving people to get there, that doesn't happen overnight, right? People become very high achieving in their careers through a very curated, almost like habituated way of coping that has a cost. And that opportunity cost is compartmentalizing. It's putting aside their needs. It's pushing aside any sort of difficult emotions or even like really happy emotions that sometimes too. It's like, and so all of that becomes habituated. And again, these coping skills can help. It gets people to accomplish the goal.

18:17But at some point, and this is when they come in to see me, they realize they've hit the bottom, whether that's me, I'm now hiding from my life, or it's for, you know, the CEO is saying, I don't even know why I'm here. I just had someone who made senior partner. And the next day they're like, I've never seen them in such distress because she said, what am I doing? Why did I, I didn't know, I don't even want this. So now what do I do? Because all of their energies are going towards this goal and we know we want it. We kind of know why it'll give us this quote stable life, but it's not fulfilling.

18:53And so to your question of how do we help people see? One is to understand that people have internalized an identity of being competent. And that's a very fragile platform, right? So that if I'm always the person who's like, I can over-function, I can get stuff done, right? Like, come to me, you know it'll get done. But now as in my personal life, so I had a divorce and a house fire and my kids were displaced all within a year. And I am normally the person who gets a lot of stuff done. Like people have called me hyper-efficient. My identity is as being a competent person. But now that's all out the window, right?

19:43Because instabilities, when they hit, almost by definition, they're going to upend us. We can't rationalize our way through it so much. And so we have to understand that maybe our identities should not be built on this platform of being like a high achiever, a competent person, and we can turn it towards something else. and this is where what i call the three friends of ritual sorry three friends of winter which are narrative rituals and purpose and so those can help us really engage with and not avoid all of these instabilities when they come into our lives yes oh this is so good and and first First of all, I have to address the fact that I think every high achiever in the audience, when they heard you say that we need to build our identity on something other than our achievement and competency, collectively immediately became nauseous.

20:48Oh my God.

20:50Dr. Suzan Song: Then what have I been doing for the last few decades? If I don't have my achievement, who am I? And what do I move toward? What am I supposed to do? Just feel enough and find joy and purpose in life? What's that about? So I think this is exactly what people need. And I think one of the most thought-provoking things that you said before we started the podcast was the fact that so many people are chasing stability, but they have a fundamental misunderstanding of the concepts of stability and instability. So before we get into the three friends of winter, let's talk about that fundamental misunderstanding because I think it'll give, it'll shed light on challenges that people have been facing but couldn't give words to.

21:41Yeah. So our society, I think, has groomed us to stability, right? So we are told at an early age, this is the school you should go to. These of the grades you should get. This is even who you should marry or what kind of job you should get so that you can have a stable, predictable, successful life, right? So success means stability in many ways. And that's supposed to gird you against really, really difficult life challenges. But look at our society and our times right now, right? We are living in chronic instability, right? We have AI that is looming over everybody's heads around what jobs are.

22:28So even people just 10 years ago were telling us, well, this is a type of job you should try to attain to have a stable career. But now that's all upended, right? Thinking about climate right now, we have so many instabilities that are at our fingertips before we wake up in the morning before we let our coffee, right? On our screens, we can just see these constant threats that are in our lives. And so whether we like it or not, stability is an illusion, right? That's just part of life. So the question is not, are we going to experience a major you know loss or upheaval it's will we have the skills to engage with them and find grounding and mastery and not lose ourselves within them when they come and to me that is more resilience not just this keep on going and barreling through it this is so good and it's and this is a perfect time to talk about the three friends of winter because now as we are slowly shattering the worldviews of the high achievers they are slowly starting to recognize that a lot of their existence was predicated upon this quixotic endeavor to find a myth so we are out here chasing you might have might as well find a windmill and start a fight, you know, because we're trying to find stability and it just doesn't exist.

24:08So let's talk about these three friends of winter, because I believe that can help to give us meaning and purpose and a greater understanding of how we can put ourselves on a path of wellness while we're still on a path of achievement. Yeah, great. So the first is narrative. So narratives are the stories and explanations behind our reality. They shape everything that we do. They're basically the logic operating model that's underlying all of our actions, our thoughts, and our feelings. And so the narratives are important because they frame our reality and how we engage with people. Have you ever walked out of a meeting feeling really good about it, and then 10 minutes later someone's messaging you saying something like, wait, what did we actually decide in that meeting?

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25:39It just fits nicely into the tools you already use. You can stay focused on the conversation and still walk away knowing exactly what decided and who's doing what next. If meetings are eating up your day, Granola is a no-brainer. You can try it totally free for three months. Just head to granola.ai.com. That's granola.ai.com to get your time back. Three months free at granola.ai.com. The first thing that I ever got from Quince was this pair of really nice formal pants, but they were stretchy and made for travel. So for me as a lawyer and businessman as I travel and I do these keynotes all over the world, it's really nice to be able to know that I could wear something that looks good in the airport, that's comfortable on the airplane, and I could wear comfortably if I have to roll into a meeting or an event right after getting off the plane.

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27:05But the thing is, it's not only clothing either. They carry that same quality into bedding, bath, kitchen essentials, and furniture, all designed with the same care. I use Quince and so should you. Find your next fall favorites at Quince. Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers or go to Quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK too. And when Quince asks you where you heard about them, let them know it was me. That's the best way to support the show. So narratives give us insight, but insight isn't enough, right? Insight alone doesn't create change.

27:42So we need to embody our insights into rituals. So rituals are the bridge between where we are and where we want to be. And they bind us across time and space. So if you think about if anyone's ever lost a loved one, in any part of the world, any culture, they have a ritual on what to do. Because when we lose someone, our brains can't think. Time stops. And we aren't sure how to engage in life. And so we need a ritual to tell us and guide us with some scaffolding to say, okay, this is the map of what you do. You have this funeral here. You have people to come. You wear this clothes, like very specific.

28:34So rituals can really help. And what they do is they're typically, they can be individual, but typically rituals are in community. So they remind you that you're part of a culture or a group or, yeah, some other, something that's bigger than yourself. So that's the ritual. And then purpose is what gives us direction. So it tells us where we should invest our energies, our time, our resources. It gives us direction to where to go. Now, purpose is not the same as passion. It's not achievement. Purpose is, and it's not something to found outside of yourself, we're already living out our purpose. We just have to tap into it.

29:24So if we think about either where we're resonant in our lives, that tells us our purpose, or who we matter to, right? That can kind of give us an insight on where our purpose is right now. And if we're a little directionless and maybe in transition with jobs or personally, and we can think about who we want to matter to. And that helps just give us some guidance towards where we want to spend our energy. There is so much to explore. I, you know, this is just a good reminder for folks who say, I need more of this. There is a book for that. And there will be a link in the description below. This is great.

30:12Let's explore narrative Because especially when we think about this from a psychological perspective, we think about cognitive reappraisal, essentially telling ourselves better stories. I feel like people fail to recognize not just the power of stories, but how malleable the stories that we tell ourselves are. So can you tell us a story about a time where somebody changed their stories for the better? Yeah, well, you know, I'm so glad that you acknowledge the malleability of stories because stories, our narratives are predicated on our memories. And our memories, and let me just go into this neurobiology a little bit because I think it's important for people to understand.

31:02And we think that our experiences are encoded in our memories as kind of video recorders, right? They're just like, this is the reality. This is the truth, the quote truth. And so our details are always correct, but that is rarely ever the case. So instead, our memories are constantly changing. So a memory is laid down when you have two neurons. Basically, it's like you have two people playing tennis, and those are the neurons, and they're bopping, the ball is this electrical signal going back and forth. So the more that these tennis players play, the better they get at playing, you know, the ball going back and forth.

31:52That's faster. Now, if you and I are playing tennis and I was out drinking the night before or I didn't have my coffee this morning or I just got into an argument with someone, I'm not going to play as well. It's going to affect how I play the game. In the same way, those external factors also affect how we remember and how we talk about our memories. So if we think about everyone's had a breakup, right? Think about your first heartbreak. The day after, you've had a certain story about that person, right? How could they do this to me? They're a horrible person, blah, blah, blah. Now, 10 years later, it's the same event, but you probably have a different story about it, right?

32:41So the actual event itself is the same, but your story about it is very different. And that's important for us to all know because everyone's walking around thinking that our initial thoughts are fact and that everything we remember is fact. But actually, our memory and our stories, they're all processes of reconstruction based on who we're talking to, who the audience is, and who we're talking with. It's so common that people can tell us something about the past, and we're filling in the gaps. So my father, I didn't realize until I was writing this book. I know I'm almost pushing to my 50s right now, so I just recently wrote this book.

33:34This is the first time in writing the book that my agent had said, you need to tell me more about your dad. And I said, that was when I was 15 years old. I have no new memories to lay down. I don't know much about what happened with my dad or even what he was like before then. He was working a lot, you know, immigrant father. But I looked up and I found just two news clips of the assault that had happened to him. And the timelines were wrong or were different than I thought. So I thought my father was assaulted. He stayed in hospice. He died six weeks later. But actually, from the news clippings that I just figured out now, middle age, he actually came home for a year and lived with me.

34:26and then he later died actually from metastatic cancer is when he was in hospice. Now, I don't remember any of that in between. I don't remember him coming home. So I asked my mother when I was writing this book, and I said, did this actually happen? Like, I don't remember him coming home. And she said, yeah, you played violin for him at night. You still made him dinner. You brought him cereal. So I don't remember that. But now that she has told me, my memory is very suggestible. So now I can say, oh, maybe I do remember doing that. But this shows the impact of stress and trauma on our memory.

35:11We shut down in order to function. But also how suggestible our memories can be.

35:21Dr. Suzan Song: Wow. Wow. Thank you again for telling this story. That's so fascinating because this is something I was doing a negotiation training the other day, just yesterday. I was talking about how malleable memories can be, citing the studies of Elizabeth Loftus. And it becomes very creepy to understand just how suggestible memories are. And that's why I tell people not to argue about the past. Don't relitigate the past because both of you could be telling your truths as accurately as you remember and calling each other liars from a genuine place. And just a little aside to show you how nerdy I am with psychology.

36:03After I heard the studies of Elizabeth Loftus and how you can create memories in people, I said, oh my gosh, I need to do this. And so I worked with my mom to create a memory for my brother it it's there she gave us the formula and so now listen people i don't this is not a podcast on how to be manipulative gaslighters okay that's not what i'm trying to say but if we can positively gaslight ourselves with the truth i think we should try to endeavor to do so because a lot of times what ends up happening we have to recognize that our limbic system, the amygdala, the emotions that come will always come faster.

36:44And as a result, our emotions will always have the first shot at interpretation. And usually because of negativity bias, it's going to be a more negative story. But now what we're recognizing is that we have the capacity to use the truth as story fragments that we use to create a better, more empowering story. And it sounds like that's something that you have started to do with this tragic situation with the murder of your father in the past. And so how has the story editing reshaped your life as it relates to finding meaning and purpose and possibly happiness? Yeah, I mean, it has definitely allowed me, I still engage in the same work, but the qualitative process of it feels very different.

37:45So before when I was doing my work, I always felt like I just had to do it. I think one of my mentors long ago said, you know, Suzanne, you always have five pots on the burner, right? I always just have these projects just in case one of them doesn't work or something. Right. And I still do that, actually. But it's more through love and excitement than through fear. And that qualitative change for me has been really meaningful and just allowing me to experience life more fully, actually. because when we're in this chronic threat, our brains narrow and it narrows towards fear. And where is the threat coming from?

38:33And what could possibly be threat? And what am I doing wrong? And did I say this correctly? All of that stuff. And when we step away from that, it becomes much more expansive to, oh, this is great. Let me try this. You allow yourself to feel more. And so it's been actually just much more fun, more fun way of living. Yes. Oh, audience that are, if you are listening, I hope you heard the smile on Suzanne's face as she said that, because it's really empowering. And now here's one of the things that I've recognized as we kind of revisit the idea of metacognition. So thinking about thinking. In other words, you can say the voice is in your head sometimes.

39:18And sometimes I recognize, all right, I have become emotionally attached to a story where even though I recognize for myself that I would be much better served by telling a better story about this fact pattern, the story fragments that I have, there's another voice in my head that says, but this was such a core part of your identity. This belief isn't just a thing that you believe or a story you're telling. It's a part of who you are. And then I say, well, I want to be better. I want to feel better. Can't that be part of who I am? And then there's another version, another voice that comes in and says, but you can't let them win.

40:00So what does that mean? So a lot of times, especially when we have these stories that we've been telling ourselves about ourselves and also about others, we have been kind of holding on to that as a source of resentment and blaming other people for the way that we have been feeling. And it can be scary to say to yourself, you know what, I could have felt better all this time if I told myself a better story. And I was also blaming somebody else for how I was feeling. And that is disempowering, but also absolves you of the responsibility of doing better for yourself. And so there's a little bit of ego and pride and fear that can hold us back from telling better stories because sometimes we don't want to let somebody else off the hook because they were part of that story too.

40:48So for the person who is hearing the chatterboxes in their head and going back and forth where they're saying, hey, listen, I know I can tell a better story now, but I don't want to. How can they find a way to give themselves permission to experiment with this? Well, I mean, this is absolutely right because stories are so self-protective. And I think what you're talking about is when people need to, when there is a story that might counter their internal model of who they know themselves to be, like I am a kind, caring person, and yet someone's telling you about work that you disregard, you left them out of a meeting or you minimize them.

41:31Right? That's in conflict with who I know myself to be. So I can't hear that. I need to still blame you. No, you were wrong, actually. It wasn't me that was doing that. So that's just self-protective. We can't, you know, there's this famous saying by a psychiatrist, psychoanalyst actually named Selma Freyberg, who said, let me get it right. A mother can't hear her child's cries unless the mother's cries are heard first. And it's essentially that we can't hear another person unless our own hurts and potential wounds have been acknowledged. Now, what that means in these situations are we can't just assume or want people to be more open and self-reflective and to take more accountability.

42:38That want is great. But the reality is, like in practice, that's very, very hard. If someone has grown up, especially in a very structured, you know, you have to achieve, your love and worth are predicated on achievement. it's very hard then for that person to then say oh maybe i did make a mistake or maybe i did hurt another person because that's just opening this huge wound of who they really think that they are which is i'm not worthy i'm not a lovable person unless i'm totally competent and perfect and so we first have to go there to say okay who are let's strip away all the accomplishments achievements all those fancy things who are you at the core like what's left in this container and we build that up so we see and we are witness to we all have things we've all been wronged in Everybody has in different levels.

43:52But everyone who comes through my office, all my friends, everyone that I know has been wronged in some way. If we can bear witness to that and validate, I see you, I understand that happened to you and it was wrong. then that now allows a person to say okay maybe i can change my story now i feel safer right now it's not as threatening i don't have to protect myself as much so i think about this as like in the book i call it a porcupine so we have these like quills that go out but there's a soft underbelly that we're all scared of it's we're scared it's going to be seen but once we can like pull the quills down and we see oh it's a cute I love that just a little aside my brother had a hedgehog creatively named Sonic and they operated in the same type of way it's like as long as he likes you the cute little underbelly is very soft nice to pet otherwise

44:56Dr. Suzan Song: you're going to get stabbed and let's wrap up before we bring Simone in, because I know he's been listening patiently and has a great question for you. I want to revisit purpose, going back to the kind of rounding out the three friends of winter here, because you mentioned that purpose gives us direction. But then you said something that was shocking to me, but I think could be really powerful. You said purpose is different from passion and achievement. And for so many people, those are the same thing. So before we disaggregate these concepts, can you help us to understand why it's so important to understand the distinction?

45:44Have you ever walked out of a meeting feeling really good about it, and then 10 minutes later, someone's messaging you saying something like, wait, what did we actually decide in that meeting? That gap between what happened and what anyone remembers is exactly what Granola AI closes. Honestly, the first time I looked back at my notes afterwards, I didn't expect them to be that clean. It was more organized than anything I'd ever written myself, and I hadn't done any extra work to get there. Granola AI is an AI-powered notepad built for how people actually meet. You take the same rough notes that you always would, and in the background, Granola AI is quietly transcribing the conversation.

46:20As soon as the meeting wraps, it turns all of that into clear, structured notes automatically. And it also runs through your device's audio, so there's no bots joining your call and nothing extra to configure. It just fits nicely into the tools you already use. You can stay focused on the conversation and still walk away knowing exactly what decided and who's doing what next. If meetings are eating up your day, Granola is a no-brainer. You can try it totally free for three months. Just head to granola.ai.com. That's granola.ai.com Kwame to get your time back. Three months free at granola.ai slash Kwame.

46:57The first thing that I ever got from Quince was this pair of really nice formal pants, but they were stretchy and made for travel. So for me as a lawyer and businessman, as I travel and I do these keynotes all over the world, it's really nice to be able to know that I could wear something that looks good in the airport, that's comfortable on the airplane, and I could wear comfortably if I have to roll into a meeting or an event right after getting off the plane and it was only$60 and that's what turned me into a repeat customer because Quince focuses on wardrobe staples that are made with premium materials.

47:31So for example 100 % Mongolian cashmere, organic cotton and as it's gotten colder I've been leaning on their down jackets and wool outerwear too. They're solid warm layers that don't feel like they're cutting corners just because the price is lower. And that's really the whole model. Because everything at Quince runs about 50 to 80 % less than similar brands simply because they cut out the middlemen and work directly with ethical factories. But the thing is, it's not only clothing either. They carry that same quality into bedding, bath, kitchen essentials, and furniture, all designed with the same care.

48:05I use Quince and so should you. Find your next fall favorites at Quince. Download the Quince app for app exclusive offers or go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK too. And when Quince asks you where you heard about them, let them know it was me. That's the best way to support the show. Yes. I mean, passion and achievement are very individual focused. So they tend to be very goal oriented. Like I, you know, maybe my passion is running. I love running marathons. And so I'm going to, I have my goals of, I want to do four marathons per year.

48:46And so you break it down. So these are how I achieve those goals. That's all fine. That though is not the same as purpose, which is the guiding force of, well, why is it so important to do so many marathons? You're like, what is that goal about? Why do you need to achieve this? And is that really going to be fulfilling to you? Because what I actually see in practice is that people actually find fulfillment when they are engaged in something meaningful that's beyond themselves, right? And that can actually help us through some of the most difficult times. So as an example, I think I mentioned I work with hostage survivors.

49:36and I was working with this one who had been held hostage for about seven years. And I asked him, you know, he lived in total sensory deprivation, right? Like no access to food, water, you know, even the time, sunlight. And you wonder like how in the world, seven years is a very long time to live in deprivation like that. And I wanted to, I was listening for how did he get through it? And he said, people can take everything away from me, but they cannot take away what matters to me, which were at the time his kids. So his kids and also he was thinking, I'm going to get out of here. If I ever get out of here, I'm going to make sure that nobody who's currently in hostage will ever feel abandoned.

50:33so I will make sure that I try to get everyone out of hostage situation that I can. That purpose, that direction gave him a sense of life every day when everything else was taken from him. And so we extrapolate that because I do think if you want to learn something, you learn from like the most extreme. So to me, he was an extreme like survivor, Like he's an extreme example of resilience. We extrapolate that. For all of us, when we're going through a hard time, we think about, well, who outside of us matters? And like when I was going through my house fire, man, I was working full time, single mom of two young kids.

51:19Now this house fire has displaced me. And I had to rebuild a new house. I am like the most, I'm horrible at aesthetics. I cannot design anything. And now I had to design a house and furnish a whole new house. And so I was having a hard time managing it all and working full time. But I told myself, it's pretty clear my purpose is to make sure my kids feel like they have someone who's attuned to them during this time. And just that one purpose, everything else fell into place. because my kids' resilience as my own purpose to help them through it, it guides every single action that I do. So if we just focus on who do we want to matter to and how, well, that right there gives us a sense of meaning to our lives.

52:21Hmm. This, a couple of things, Because what I've recognized just by the way that you described this is that most people don't understand what it really means to have a purpose. And perhaps that is why they constantly feel the unnecessary suffering of instability. Because we understand that suffering is a natural part of life. but some of it is necessary in terms of bad things will happen and as a result we will we will experience human suffering um but then what i'm recognizing is that some of the suffering that we have is not necessary because we are not doing what it takes to not suffer under those circumstances so we're not telling ourselves better stories and as a result of those decisions that we've made consciously or unconsciously, we are suffering unnecessarily.

53:21And tell me if this is an overstep because you're the person who's bringing these ideas to me because it sounds like, like you said at the beginning, we suffer a lot of times because we are seeking an impossibility. We want stability when stability is not realistic. And potentially, the stability that we seek could be found in an attachment, an understanding of our purpose. Because the love that you have for your children and the life that you want to provide to them, that probably will never change. You probably will always love them and want the best for them. And so as the world is falling apart, that purpose stays stable.

54:10Dr. Suzan Song: Yes. Is that a fair way to think about it? That's right. That's right. Yeah. And to one of your earlier points is that, you know, the pain might be unavoidable, right? Job losses happen. Loved ones pass away unexpectedly. So the pain is unavoidable. But the suffering is not. Right. So the suffering is something that it's based off of our stories, also our cultures and how we are defining suffering, what's allowed to be suffering. But the pain is avoidable. It might be unavoidable, but the suffering we have a lot more control over. Have you ever walked out of a meeting feeling really good about it?

54:57And then 10 minutes later, someone's messaging you saying something like, wait, what did we actually decide in that meeting? That gap between what happened and what anyone remembers is exactly what Granola AI closes. Honestly, the first time I looked back at my notes afterwards, I didn't expect them to be that clean. It was more organized than anything I'd ever written myself, and I hadn't done any extra work to get there. Granola AI is an AI-powered notepad built for how people actually meet. You take the same rough notes that you always would, and in the background, Granola AI is quietly transcribing the conversation.

55:30As soon as the meeting wraps, it turns all of that into clear, structured notes automatically. And it also runs through your device's audio, so there's no bots joining your call and nothing extra to configure. It just fits nicely into the tools you already use. You can stay focused on the conversation and still walk away knowing exactly what decided and who's doing what next. If meetings are eating up your day, Granola is a no-brainer. You can try it totally free for three months. Just head to granola.ai. slash Kwame. That's granola.ai slash Kwame to get your time back. Three months free at granola.ai slash Kwame.

56:07The first thing that I ever got from Quince was this pair of really nice formal pants, but they were stretchy and made for travel. So for me as a lawyer and businessman, as I travel and I do these keynotes all over the world, it's really nice to be able to know that I could wear something that looks good in the airport, that's comfortable on the airplane, and I could wear comfortably if I have to roll into a meeting or an event right after getting off the plane, and it was only$60. And that's what turned me into a repeat customer, because Quince focuses on wardrobe staples that are made with premium materials.

56:41So, for example, 100 % Mongolian cashmere, organic cotton, and as it's gotten colder, I've been leaning on their down jackets and wool outerwear too. They're solid, warm layers that don't feel like they're cutting corners just because the price is lower. And that's really the whole model. Because everything at Quince runs about 50 to 80 % less than similar brands simply because they cut out the middlemen and work directly with ethical factories. But the thing is, it's not only clothing either. They carry that same quality into bedding, bath, kitchen essentials, and furniture, all designed with the same care.

57:16I use Quince and so should you. Find your next fall favorites at Quince. Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers or go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK too. And when Quince asks you where you heard about them, let them know it was me. That's the best way to support the show. And that's where we can call on, you know, the narrative, ritual, and purpose to really help us manage. It helps our relationship with suffering. Yes. See, listeners, think about it the way that Suzanne said it. It's much better. And this also shows not just the power of narrative, because we've already discussed that, but the power of word choice within those narratives.

58:05because it might just seem like a semantic distinction, but it's not. The distinction between pain and suffering. If we look at those as two terms that are interchangeable, we miss out on the psychological nuances that could be the key to minimizing our suffering because you're absolutely right. We cannot avoid pain, but we can avoid suffering. And so I want us to draw that distinction. Let's talk about what those terms really mean. Because if the person who's listening can get a better understanding of that, I think it could be life-changing for them. So pain is the event itself. Pain is the event that actually happens, the experience, and what happens.

58:55suffering is often because our reality is not matching our wishes of what we want it to be so our suffering is when we're telling ourselves so for example if someone you know right now i'm working with a lot of people who've had some job loss so that job loss that's the pain the suffering is all of the things around that. Oh, I'm never going to find work again, or oh, I was useless there, or oh, people are going to see me as horrible, or oh, I'm never going to find a job, and so I'm going to run my family into financial ruins. All of that then creates the emotional suffering. You can still have the same pain of the job loss.

59:48What I could say, oh, that was horrible, Well, even if maybe it was unfair, but I'm going to use this time to really think through what my skill sets are. I'm going to do a revamping of where I am and where I want to be. And maybe this will open up opportunities for other types of, you know, career paths I wasn't thinking of before. so the pain event is still the same but the suffering has been optional right and there's a lot more power in that when we have more control over we get to decide what the suffering is and and if how we want to suffer and then this is the last question before we bring and Simone, I love talking to you.

1:00:43This is great. Now, for a lot of high achievers, that also can be kind of scary too, because they might say, well, Suzanne, how am I supposed to achieve from a place of wellness? That seems preposterous, because it is the pain and suffering that propels me to do better. And there's an idea that if you find happiness, contentment, those aren't words that we've used in this episode very much, but just the concepts in general. If I'm okay, doesn't that diminish my hunger? The fact that I'm in pain, that's really what motivates me the most. That's what's always motivated me. So would I not lose my edge if I get on this path of mental wellness.

1:01:36That's so interesting because I think, and I hear this a lot. I actually hear this a lot with lawyers. Lawyers? I am one. It's so funny because I work with a lot of these very high-flying DC lawyers. And they say, well, it's almost like the criticism, their self-criticism that makes them achieve and accomplish. And it's almost like the fire under their butt that gets them going. And so when I come in, I'm telling them, we need to actually be more compassionate to yourself. The biggest fear is I'm never going to achieve anything. And so I guess what I would say is it's less about that and more about the negotiation around one's self-worth.

1:02:27because people are often saying, you know, under this fear and the fire under their flame under their butt is I am worthless as a human being unless I'm achieving. That's kind of underneath, those are the logs under that flame. And there are more of those, right? Do I deserve to have a life where I enjoy, I don't know, my time? You know, am I, is it possible for me to actually have my wish, which is to be in a healthy, loving relationship where I'm growing with another human, like another person? Like, all of these kind of underlying narratives that we have these hidden negotiations of what is my worth what is it going to cost me all of that i think that's what i would push and encourage people because you can still have self-worth and achieve and those two go very hand in hand and actually you achieve more.

1:03:47Oh, this is perfect. I'm still an adjunct professor at the law school, so I'll send this to my students. This is great because there, I remember in law school, there was this sadistic status game of suffering where you hear a law student say, oh my gosh, I studied for eight hours last night and somebody said, eight hours? Oh, you're so lucky i didn't sleep at all and somebody comes in and says you sleep you know

1:04:17it gets so messed up sometimes and so this is great this is this is the episode that so many people needed but didn't realize it and so simon with that let's bring you in what what do you have for us.

1:04:33Dr. Suzan Song: I just want to share with you a story about the power of revisiting the stories we tell ourselves. I remember when I was 12 years old, I was living with my mom back then. And I remember one day she was trying to look, she was looking for a ring. She said, where's my ring? Where's my ring? Where's my ring? So she couldn't find it. And the next day, I remember we went to the park and we saw my mom's friend and neighbor with their ring, with my mom's ring. So my mom, she was with her family. So my mom said, hey, I think that you took my ring by mistake. Can you give my ring back, please? Can you give me my ring back, please?

1:05:17Dr. Suzan Song: So she said, yes, of course, I'm sorry. And I was so young, so I said, oh, my God, it's so obvious that she stole the ring. I don't understand why my mom is so naive. then my mom passed away and I have this story about my mom being naive and I was like oh my god maybe she was not ready for these times that's why she died and like one year ago I was taking a shower and I went back to that memory and I realized that my mom was just giving her the opportunity to save face. So she was not naive. She was just giving her the possibility to save face in front of her family. So that changed the whole idea I had about my mom.

1:06:08Dr. Suzan Song: Because before I said, no, of course, my mom is so naive to live in this moment, in this era. And now I think that she was actually very wise. So revisiting the story with fresh eyes can change the perspective we have about our life and the meaning we create for ourselves, right? Absolutely. And that's such a beautiful story because it does show, you're right, in that revisiting the story after some time. And typically it is after a loved one has passed away. I hear this a lot. Either the story changes for the more positive or oftentimes I work with people who've had difficult childhoods, meaning maybe not like physical abuse, but they've had a parent who has alcohol addiction and was never there or a work addiction or was very harsh towards the kids emotionally.

1:07:15and the adult child feels like they can never really like engage with the person until they die once they pass away then it's safe for them right now it's like okay now i can have some more positive feelings towards this person because they're not going to hurt me in some way Right. There's no. So sometimes our narratives and our approaches, they change after a person has passed away because we feel safer or we feel more connected or we decide this is how I want to remember this person. And so your story about your mother, it's beautiful because it really changes not just how you felt about the situation, but it reshapes who your mother is in your mind.

1:08:08And so that's beautiful.

1:08:10Dr. Suzan Song: That's brilliant. That is brilliant. This is so good. I'm so glad we made this change to Big Swings Only. This is a love negotiation. American Negotiation Institute. Check it out. But anyways, this is so much better. I feel like this is, it's so powerful. And as you were going through this, and I was thinking about purpose, this is a great realignment of my purpose. Because you became that which I wanted to be initially, which was a psychiatrist. It was either clinical psychology or psychiatry. I always wanted to be that bridge between where somebody was and where they wanted to be. And that's what I did with negotiation too.

1:08:53Yes, tactics and strategies. And that's how you make your money with the trainings and everything. But people could hear the passion in the, like, especially the TED talk. And when I'm on other shows, they're surprised at how empathetic the approach is. And it's saying, hey, listen, I was a people pleaser. You can overcome that too. And so helping people find that purpose. And this is my purpose. So it's funny because there was a pull to make this shift. and it's a big risk career-wise too. But I felt the need to do it and this conversation with you has given me the clarity to truly understand the why and the power behind the why because the achievement comes from being a lawyer, being the negotiation expert, winning all these awards and everything.

1:09:40And I recognized it yesterday. This was the first professional endeavor that I'm going through where I have no real metric of success other than helping people. Oh, yes. Yes. Oh, I love that. I mean, you would also be a very good clinician too. I could say. No, thank you. If you ever wanted to pivot there. Thank you. This was great. Suzanne, thank you so much for coming on the show. Really appreciate it. And before you go, remind us about the book and how people can work with you too. Great. Yeah, so the book is Why We Suffer and How We Heal. It just came out with Penguin Random House a couple of months ago.

1:10:19And if you go to my website at SuzanneSong.com, it's spelled Susan with a Z, S-U-Z-A-N.com, there you'll find free newsletter, speaking engagements, and the book is available for sale too. Amazing. Suzanne, thank you so much for joining us. Really appreciate it. Yeah, thanks for having me. Thank you.