In this episode, we talk to a mother whose husband was diagnosed with terminal colon cancer at the age of 34, and her 5-year-old daughter, who is now 5 years old, about how to talk to her about it.
00:08:24.580Like, I don't know what this lady's faith is, but the only way I really managed to handle your illness was through faith.
00:08:38.240And I wouldn't, I didn't, I wasn't like a Christian at that point, but I had this really strong belief that everything was going to be okay.
00:08:44.640Like, and that might have even been a naive belief.
00:08:48.680It might have been what I needed to believe in order to get through it, but that's what got me through it.
00:08:53.440And now I would say the only way to deal with how horrible illness can be and like life sometimes when you are trying to figure out how to survive the next hour is having some sort of faith.
00:09:08.080Because it is, at least for me, it is too heavy.
00:09:13.720I think the part of that that isn't naive is the idea that if you're facing upward and trying to do the right thing, even under very difficult circumstances, that you maximize the possibility that you'll find a path that isn't like the ultimate hell, at least that.
00:10:05.980Is that you are called upon not to lose faith in yourself and your value and not to lose faith in the spirit of being, right?
00:10:14.740In God, it's a moral requirement not to lose faith.
00:10:19.300So that's actually a form of courage rather than a form of naivety.
00:10:23.280You know, and so you can have a naive faith in the future, but if that's disrupted by tragedy or malevolence, that tends to be traumatic.
00:10:31.780If you have a courageous faith, what you understand is that there's more to you than has yet been revealed and that you don't know the future.
00:10:45.760And you can think about it, you can just think about it practically, you know, if you're suffering and suffering unjustly and then you lose faith in yourself and the world, you've taken the unjust suffering and multiplied it.
00:10:58.680And if you confront that instead with the faith that a pathway can be found or at least the least terrible pathway can be found, well, then you're in a position to take whatever offering comes to you in the midst of the suffering.
00:11:17.920And there can be lots, like I saw when your mom was dealing with the death of her mother and her father, her family pulled together.
00:11:26.020I've seen that in the aftermath of my parents' death.
00:11:28.560Like my brother and sister and I, who were pretty close, have been working to be even closer afterwards.
00:11:35.720So you can do that, you can pull together and so, and that's what you look for and you practice your gratitude even in the midst of catastrophe and you aim up and trudge forward.
00:11:50.420You know, and the fact that you and your mom didn't lose faith when I was so ill and was wishing that things would just come to an end for years, that was certainly a huge part of what got me through it.
00:12:06.400Good. I knew you were going to pull through.
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00:13:17.760So on the line now, we have Carl in California.
00:13:21.260It's funny that you're talking about faith because my father just passed and before he died, you know, you don't really realize when your last conversation is going to be.
00:13:33.720And I didn't know that this would be the one, but I asked him.
00:13:37.240He was a strong Christian and I asked him that he'd been throwing up from esophageal cancer.
00:13:56.800And I'm not necessarily the best prayer in the world, but I prayed with him and he held on to my hand so tightly and looked at me with these eyes that I'll never forget.
00:14:08.400And it was like almost like God or the universe looking back at me.
00:14:21.580I have a question, but that was maybe one of the most powerful moments of my life besides my daughter being born.
00:14:29.100My question is, I recently lost my father and he was an actor and a huge reason I became a filmmaker and an artist.
00:14:37.520Now as a husband and a father of a two-year-old daughter, I'm stepping into a new role, both as a leader of my family and a leader of my work.
00:14:46.060My first feature film is actually coming together right as I'm grieving and all this loss is happening at the same time with this amazing opportunity to tell a story.
00:14:55.840And how do I balance all of this grief, responsibility, health issues with my family, creative purpose without losing my footing?
00:15:07.280Okay, well, I'm going to address both of the things that you said.
00:15:10.220You know, one of the things that I recommend to people when they're dealing with, when they're facing the reality of their aging parents is to count.
00:15:21.500So when I was 50 and my parents were 70, we lived a fair distance from them and we spent some time together every year and I counted the remaining times and there was like 25 of them.
00:15:41.720And that was 25 if everything went well.
00:15:44.500And so one of the things you do have to understand is that you have less time for many things than you think.
00:15:51.320And you should be aware of that and grateful and awake and maximize the time and minimize the stupidity and unnecessary suffering because you do not know when that opportunity is going to disappear.
00:16:06.900And then, you know, so there's that and so you touched on that at the beginning of your story and then the prayer issue, the right way to pray, so to speak, is to ask for faith and strength and resilience and courage in the face of catastrophe.
00:16:26.520To set your sight so that you can conduct yourself with a certain amount of nobility and to ask for the strength to share that with people when they're suffering.
00:16:41.360You saw that with your father, you know, you were able to unite with him and to see to the bottom of his soul.
00:16:47.420You know, and there's an old idea that God walks with us when we're suffering.
00:16:52.960And that Christ on the cross, for example, was simultaneously suffering from all the suffering in the world.
00:17:02.480And the idea there is that although we're called upon to bear the utter catastrophe of mortality and malevolence, that the spirit that resides at the bottom of being itself is there with us as we suffer.
00:17:20.780And I believe, I believe, I believe as a biologist that that's true.
00:17:26.260And I think the reason for that in part is that if you face what you faced, for example, with your father, then the best part of you is required to emerge to deal with it.
00:17:41.740And human beings, like, we are adapted to our life, terrible as that life is, bounded by mortality and malevolence.
00:17:50.120If we don't shrink from it, something can emerge within us that can help us bear it gratefully even, gratefully, which is a hell of a thing to ask for in the midst of suffering.
00:18:01.900And you had that moment of grace where you saw that.
00:18:07.620And my wife had a similar experience with her son.
00:18:34.560And then the next, the question, what I would say is that you need to compartmentalize and schedule, you know, because you have this weird paradoxical juxtaposition of responsibility and chaos and grief and opportunity.
00:18:49.880And you need to set up your days so that you have opportunity and time set aside to focus on all of those things.
00:18:59.640And that way you can keep them straight and bounded and separate.
00:19:04.840And so, you may need time to think about your father and to grieve.
00:19:08.960You obviously need time to attend to your daughter.
00:19:11.920You need time to do your creative work.
00:19:14.860And look, I'm a big fan of scheduling and most people don't like schedules.
00:19:20.980They don't like using a Google Calendar, for example, which I use like religiously.
00:19:25.540And that's because they use a schedule like it's a prison.
00:19:29.040They write down all the things they have to do.
00:19:31.620And then they fight against that because they put themselves in, it's like they're their own worst superego.
00:19:43.560Well, the way you use a schedule is that you produce a contract with yourself to have the day you'd really like to have.
00:19:52.320And to repeat that, think, well, there are a certain number of things I have to do to keep the world in order around me day by day.
00:20:00.400So, I have to schedule those in because otherwise the chaos mounts and that's not good.
00:20:05.500And then I want to mix in there a certain amount of leisure so that I get a chance to think and to recover.
00:20:11.900And I want to lace that with the opportunities that I really want to pursue.
00:20:18.100And I want to play with that until the balance between that proclivity to order and that proclivity to pursue chaos and opportunity is optimized so that when I look at my schedule, I think I could do that.
00:20:33.480And at the end of that, I'll be satisfied that I conducted myself responsibly and I took advantage, proper advantage of the day.
00:21:33.720There's no limit to the number of things you do if you use your time wisely and also if you build a bit of an organization around you and distribute responsibility.
00:21:41.600You know, and if you're facing too many challenges on the domestic front, maybe you need some help.
00:21:47.740But assume that you can do it and pursue your opportunities, live up to your responsibilities, but optimize your time utilization and put some help in where you need it.
00:22:01.680And then play with your schedule until you think, man, if I did all that in the next month, two months, three months, if I did all that day by day, I'd have the life I'd really like to have.
00:23:40.100And then if you're aiming up and you're walking that pathway up, then that's good.
00:23:44.980Now, there's still room for improvement.
00:23:47.440But the thing is, you, that's part of it being good.
00:23:51.080You wouldn't want a situation where you had run out of room for improvement because you'd be out of possibility.
00:23:56.100The, the, the worry-free time, there's a cognitive trick that goes along with that.
00:24:02.560What happens is if you put aside that time and a worry comes up, what you do is you tell yourself, I will worry about that, you know, at the scheduled time.
00:24:13.440And the, the alarm part of your brain is the part that produces anxiety.
00:24:18.760And it's not exactly a cognitive part.
00:24:22.020It doesn't exactly care what your plan is.
00:24:27.020What it cares about is that you have a plan.
00:24:54.240I think it, it took me six months after mom was diagnosed when we were dealing with your health problems or a year to figure out that I didn't have to solve.
00:25:03.760First of all, there are unsolvable problems and then it can just drive you crazy.
00:25:08.100So it, I think it took me a year to figure out I could take a break and that I needed, I needed to not worry for a little, like at least a little bit each day.
00:25:22.980Cause you can easily feel guilty about like, well, it's like, that's a Sabbath, you know.
00:25:28.820Well, and God says, don't worry about tomorrow.
00:25:32.780Well, he full on tells you that, don't worry about tomorrow.
00:25:35.360Well, that, that has something to do with the issue of timeframe that we described.
00:25:38.860So the idea is to orient yourself upward and then to focus on the moment and then you can adjust the size of the moment.
00:25:47.800But the idea is that if you intensely focus upward and you pay enough attention to what's right in front of you, the tomorrow will take care of itself.
00:25:58.540And that's in the, in the best way that it can.
00:26:01.900That doesn't, that doesn't mean it's not going to be a wavy ride, you know.
00:26:06.820You're not everything you could be, and you know it.
00:26:13.880Would you like to develop a foundation of knowledge so solid that nothing could shake you?
00:26:19.940To learn about music, art, literature, mathematics, history, and biology.
00:26:24.660Where can you find people who want to teach you at your speed about the topics you deem crucial so you can become the best that you could be?
00:26:34.100At Peterson Academy, we have 50 stellar eight-hour lectures already available.
00:27:10.100So, to begin, I work as a school counselor in a middle school, in a high school setting.
00:27:16.100So, over the last few years, the job has become more and more taxing to my own mental health.
00:27:23.500You know, I'm navigating these waters of the children and their issues, but I'm almost becoming increasingly numb to their issues, my own personal issues, and familial issues.
00:27:36.400To add a little bit more of a background, my parents are getting older.
00:27:39.620My father is a retired New York City fireman, so he deals a lot of the trauma just from the job and, of course, 9-11.
00:27:50.460You know, and my mother, you know, God bless her.
00:27:54.080You know, she's going through her very own mental health challenges right now.
00:28:00.420And she's in and out of therapies, so my sisters have looked at me as almost like the pseudo-parent, you know, to parent them, to make decisions for the family, to coordinate events, to coordinate emotions and doctor's appointments.
00:28:15.120It's simultaneously moving forward as this job is becoming more taxing.
00:28:21.020So, I just need assistance in navigating these waters.
00:28:25.400You know, they're becoming older, and I'm not sure I can keep pace with their needs as well as keeping a sane mind.
00:28:51.580Well, I would say, the first thing I would say about your situation is that what you're essentially reporting is that you have too many concerns on your plate.
00:29:02.660Now, that might be situational, and there's a situational element to it.
00:29:07.500It might also be that you haven't learned well enough to detach yourself from the suffering for enough, enough.
00:29:18.900Like, one of the dangers of being a caring person is that you're carrying the burdens of other people all the time.
00:29:26.480Well, you can't do that because you die, and then you're useless.
00:29:30.360And so, one of the things you have to do as a caring person is you have to direct some of that care toward yourself and understand that you're in a medium to long-term game.
00:29:42.880You don't want to bear the burden of the children that you serve and your parents and your sisters so intently that it just drives you into the ground because then you're another person in need of care, and that addition of misery to the world is not helpful.
00:29:58.820So, you're going to have to determine just exactly how much of a load you can iteratively carry.
00:30:07.360And look, every person in a helping profession has to deal with this.
00:30:10.980You know, I don't know how many kids you can see a day.
00:30:14.000I don't know how much time you need away from that concern.
00:30:20.100You're going to need time every day where you don't think about the kids, and you don't think about your parents and your sister, and time when you do, and you adopt your responsibilities, and then you have to negotiate with yourself until you find out how much of that you can take so that you're not terrified when you wake up in the morning.
00:30:40.900And that's a way of discovering who you are.
00:30:43.560Like, there's going to be a load you can carry, and there's going to be a load you can't carry.
00:30:48.140And you might be able to learn to increase the load as you get more efficient and you get more resilient, but it's not unreasonable for you to have a limit.
00:30:58.680So, you need to back off from the responsibilities until your ability to move forward in the job and with your parents is reestablished.
00:31:44.980Okay, and so your sisters are in their late 20s.
00:31:47.220Okay, so you guys, it's possible that you need to have a practical meeting with your sisters for an hour, once a week, or once every two weeks, and parse out the responsibilities.
00:32:02.120If you do that, well, then you'll learn to work together as a unit, and you should be able to make the complicated situation with your parents as the least amount complicated possible over the next few decades.
00:32:17.480And you'll be able to work together to distribute the workload in the manner that's most, that's optimized so that you can all do it.
00:32:27.640Because if you don't set aside that time, it sounds to me, if you don't set aside that time, that time is going to be demanded of you when you're least likely to manage it.
00:32:39.700Instead, you know, you can set up a meeting with your sisters at their convenience after you've all eaten so that you're accustomed to it and you could learn to work together so that the responsibilities are distributed.
00:32:52.720People aren't generally that good at negotiating, and so you've got to lay down some rules, which is, well, why are we doing this?
00:33:00.640To have the least amount of hell possible, and so that we can serve our parents and ourselves most effectively, and maybe make our relationship grow while we do it.
00:33:13.060Then the next rule is, everybody brings their concerns to the table, everybody listens, and no one is forced to do anything against their will, right?
00:33:25.080So if everyone understands the game and you develop that trust, then they'll be able to do it.
00:33:31.160Then the next rule is, if you get upset during the meeting, you can leave, but you have to come back.
00:33:37.540And then the next rule is, everybody accepts the best solution that can be generated, unless they can come up with a better solution.
00:33:47.280And so I would set aside some time right away to start talking to your sisters and distributing the responsibility properly.
00:33:57.480I think, and this is something I had to figure out, because I realized when I was 25 that I was becoming resentful by doing too much for other people, because I thought that was the right thing to do.
00:34:12.740And this was having you as a dad who had told me that this could happen to people, but it took me a while to realize that it was happening to me.
00:34:19.520And it took a number of years to figure out, I really had to internally listen to the little voice that goes, I don't want to do that.
00:34:32.460And for agreeable people who are compassionate, in the beginning, it feels extremely selfish to say, I don't want to do that.
00:34:41.320But you have to listen to that little voice and you have to tell people, I don't want to do that and I can't handle it.
00:34:49.200And I think it's reasonable that if people are coming to you, this is more family related than the kids, but if your sisters are coming to you because they don't want to do it and you also don't want to do it, then you have to negotiate how to figure that out.
00:35:04.580But it's not immoral to say, I don't want to do this.
00:35:08.560The right attitude to take to that is that you should listen to yourself like you would listen to someone that you care for, that you're taking care of.
00:35:57.360But taking advantage of yourself counterproductively and becoming bitter and resentful in the service of others, that is not a moral accomplishment.
00:36:16.580I don't know how, but it's also, I can see that that will be too much for me across time.
00:36:21.320Well, then it's not an acceptable solution.
00:36:23.880Now, that doesn't mean the acceptable solution is obvious, but a fair bit of that often has to do with negotiation and distribution of responsibility.
00:36:41.080The question I have, several years ago, a severe back injury led to an opioid addiction, failed surgery, a major heart attack, deep depression, and undiagnosed bipolar disorder that destroyed my career in higher education.
00:36:55.200My marriage survived because of my loving wife, and my faith in God was ultimately restored through wrestling with scripture and countless hours of prayer.
00:37:02.920However, my teenage sons witnessed everything, my addiction, instability, and the downfall of my career that I've built over the years.
00:37:11.760They've rejected both faith and me in many ways, and they've both become bitter atheists.
00:37:18.340My greatest heartbreak is knowing that my struggles caused their pain and drove them from a close relationship with God.
00:37:25.500The question I have is, how can I rebuild a trusting, meaningful relationship with my teenage boys while gently encouraging them to reconsider their rejection of faith without alienating them any further?
00:39:08.380One question that emerges for me right away is that, like, why is it the case that the story in your family isn't that you prevailed somewhat heroically over horrible circumstances and odds?
00:39:24.300Lots of people end up with an opiate addiction in the aftermath of chronic pain.
00:40:13.840But the notion that this is a story of your catastrophic moral failure and the consequence of that is that your sons have been disabused of their faith, that's not the only story that can be derived out of these circumstances.
00:40:30.680And so, you know, I have a program that you might want to try online at selfauthoring.com called the Past Authoring Program.
00:40:42.060And, like, you've got a lot of things to sort through because your situation is really complex.
00:40:47.180And you might want to write that, do that program, and try to give yourself the benefit of the doubt.
00:40:53.920And once you have that inkling that a lot of what happened to you was situational, you can start to have that discussion with your sons.
00:41:05.540You know, and then I would say more practically, if you want to reestablish the relationship, well, first of all, I would say sit down and tell them that you really want that.
00:41:15.440It's like, look, kids, it's like, we've had a bitch of a time.
00:41:18.580We don't want to propagate this hell in our family for the next 20 years.
00:41:23.380We want to find a way we can get back together.
00:41:26.460It's like, ask them, do you have some ideas?
00:41:30.540How about we go have coffee or go for lunch together once a week for half an hour and just see if we can be happy we're with each other?
00:41:42.200You know, that's a good way of starting.
00:41:45.620It's like, start with something simple that you can do together.
00:41:48.280But don't be assuming that you're the villain here.
00:41:54.340You know, I mean, look, lots of people don't take enough responsibility for their actions.
00:42:01.720But it's very simple to make the opposite error and to paint yourself.
00:42:06.920And this is something conscientious people are likely to do, by the way.
00:42:10.020Like, if you are the sort of person who is somewhat self-sacrificing and who is responsible and industrious and things go wrong,
00:42:21.040the automatic tendency is going to be to assume that you're some sort of moral failure.
00:42:26.820But, you know, you laid out the sequence.
00:42:30.800You had a pretty nasty medical occurrence.
00:42:34.960Look, most people who become depressed, by the way, most people who become depressed,
00:42:39.380the depression is precipitated by some catastrophe.