The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast - 570. How You Should Deal with Stress and Tragedy ｜ Answer the Call

00:00:00.000 The first thing I would say is that the story that you told painted you too clearly as the villain.

00:00:07.800 You don't want to bear the burden of the children that you serve so intently

00:00:12.680 that it just drives you into the ground because then you're another person in need of care.

00:00:17.360 Driving yourself into the ground is not a good solution.

00:00:21.420 You have less time for many things than you think. 1.00

00:00:24.400 You should be aware of that and grateful and awake and minimize the stupidity and unnecessary suffering. 0.99

00:00:31.600 You focus on making the pathway that you have to walk, painful as it is, 0.99

00:00:37.320 the least like hell it can possibly be.

00:00:40.460 It's a moral requirement not to lose faith.

00:00:43.640 You try to be grateful for the brief existence of your son despite the pain of his loss.

00:00:50.420 There's an old idea that God walks with us when we're suffering.

00:00:55.340 Although we're called upon to bear the utter catastrophe of mortality and malevolence,

00:01:01.640 the spirit that resides at the bottom of being itself is there with us as we suffer.

00:01:08.780 Thank you to everybody who brought these serious concerns forward in such a thoughtful and revelatory manner.

00:01:20.420 This episode is going to be tough.

00:01:24.480 We're dealing with people who are experiencing serious levels of tragedy.

00:01:29.080 I'm extremely grateful to be here to help.

00:01:32.020 Hopefully it helps you guys too.

00:01:33.740 We have a serious lineup of callers today.

00:01:37.360 This might get heavy.

00:01:38.820 We're going to start with Erica in Tennessee.

00:01:41.060 Erica.

00:01:42.160 Hi, Dr. Peterson.

00:01:43.320 Thank you so much for the opportunity today to talk to you.

00:01:46.820 A little bit of background for you.

00:01:48.980 My husband was medically retired from the Air Force at 16 years,

00:01:54.920 and that was due to a stage 4 colorectal cancer diagnosis at the age of 34.

00:02:02.440 We have been fighting that for 7 1⁄2 years now.

00:02:08.480 And obviously throughout that time period, there has been lots of surgeries,

00:02:13.800 medical interventions, lots of treatment.

00:02:16.320 And most notably, and I guess the biggest blessing,

00:02:20.780 is that we were able to conceive our daughter throughout that time period through IVF.

00:02:26.380 And she's now this beautiful 5-year-old little girl that is very bright.

00:02:32.500 And we are looking at how we can talk to her about this.

00:02:36.900 And so the big question is, how do we explain to our 5-year-old that her daddy has a significant advanced cancer

00:02:49.200 in a way that she can understand the gravity of that and the weight of that,

00:02:54.680 while at the same time balancing fears and concerns that something terrible might happen tomorrow?

00:03:02.620 Well, is she asking questions?

00:03:06.660 So we've kind of phrased it with her that her daddy has an owie, right?

00:03:11.560 So whenever he does go through chemotherapy or have surgeries,

00:03:16.340 the chemotherapy is a three-day-long process, so he brings the medication home with him.

00:03:22.980 And so her big thing is she just doesn't understand why she can't do certain things with daddy,

00:03:27.260 you know, why we can't.

00:03:28.120 We have to be careful.

00:03:28.840 And she just doesn't really understand when it's going to go away.

00:03:35.960 The most important, imagine that you have a child and the child is watching a scary movie with you

00:03:42.720 and they aren't sure how to react because the person that they're identifying with is in danger.

00:03:51.080 What you tell them to do is not to be scared and not to close their eyes,

00:03:57.380 but to watch the hero of the movie because they will figure out how to get through it.

00:04:04.640 And so you can explain to your daughter what's going on in the most sophisticated language that she can understand,

00:04:12.860 that people get hurt, that people get sick, that that's the case for her, that's the case for her parents,

00:04:20.520 it's the case for everyone that you love, but that you can face it together

00:04:26.520 and you can cope with it and contend with it and pull out things that are good

00:04:32.860 and enjoy your time together if you hang together as a family and pay careful attention.

00:04:40.080 See, because you can't hide the truth from her.

00:04:43.180 The truth is the terrible truth.

00:04:45.320 And it's also uncertain.

00:04:46.740 I mean, you've been, your family has been dealing with this for a multi-year period.

00:04:52.280 You have an indefinite period of uncertainty interlaced with suffering ahead of you.

00:04:58.120 And she has that to face as well.

00:05:02.400 And her understanding of that will develop.

00:05:05.800 What she needs to know is that people's ability to contend with trouble is almost unlimited

00:05:12.600 if they face it squarely, honestly, and have support.

00:05:18.980 And then practically speaking, I would also say that the way that a family can deal with such things

00:05:26.560 when the circumstances become overwhelming is to shorten their time frame of concern.

00:05:35.060 You know, the more uncertainty there is in the future, the shorter the time frame over which you start to perceive.

00:05:44.880 So sometimes when your life is stable and everything is promising, you can think out five years.

00:05:50.920 Sometimes you can think out one year.

00:05:53.760 Sometimes a month.

00:05:56.080 Sometimes a week.

00:05:57.740 Sometimes the next day.

00:06:00.680 Sometimes the next minute.

00:06:02.440 And so as the crisis intensifies, the period of time that you attend to shortens.

00:06:09.960 And in real periods of crisis, you shorten your time frame to the next hour or the next minutes.

00:06:15.360 And you focus on making the pathway that you have to walk, painful as it is, as the least like hell it can possibly be.

00:06:26.480 You know, and now I've seen, so when my wife and I in particular were dealing with my daughter's illness

00:06:34.180 and our own intense illnesses, we would shorten our time frame certainly to the day.

00:06:42.580 You know, let's get through the day.

00:06:45.120 Let's not bring in any other concerns that aren't absolutely paramount.

00:06:50.940 And let's treat each other very carefully.

00:06:53.820 And we also did things that you might find useful too.

00:06:57.980 Like we had rules, my wife and I, when we were dealing with my daughter's illness, which was chronic,

00:07:04.560 not to talk about it after a certain time at night.

00:07:08.380 It's like we can't be neck deep in this absolute bloody catastrophe 100% of the time

00:07:14.740 because all that'll happen is we'll burn ourselves to a crisp and we have a long haul in front of us in all likelihood.

00:07:20.900 So I don't remember exactly what the rule was.

00:07:23.600 I think it was, we didn't talk about anything that was illness related after eight o'clock at night.

00:07:29.820 And so, you know, you can set aside times to intently focus on the catastrophe at hand.

00:07:36.900 And then you want to set aside times with your daughter to spend attentive time with her and schedule that in every day.

00:07:46.200 But most important is to let her know that you can face things.

00:07:53.220 You know, she has a tremendous challenge in front of her, especially for someone that young.

00:08:00.020 The only thing you can do about it is fortify her belief that she can handle it and you can all handle it together no matter what comes.

00:08:11.280 And that's true, especially if you're extremely careful and you strive not to add additional complication to the situation.

00:08:24.340 Mick?

00:08:24.580 Like, I don't know what this lady's faith is, but the only way I really managed to handle your illness was through faith. 0.90

00:08:38.240 And 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.

00:08:44.640 Like, and that might have even been a naive belief.

00:08:48.680 It might have been what I needed to believe in order to get through it, but that's what got me through it.

00:08:53.440 And 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.

00:09:08.080 Because it is, at least for me, it is too heavy.

00:09:12.380 Like, this world is too heavy.

00:09:13.720 I 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.

00:09:35.300 And I think that's right.

00:10:05.980 Is 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?

00:10:14.740 In God, it's a moral requirement not to lose faith.

00:10:19.300 So that's actually a form of courage rather than a form of naivety.

00:10:23.280 You 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.

00:10:31.780 If 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.

00:10:41.420 And so despair is a sin.

00:10:44.400 And I think that's right.

00:10:45.760 And 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.

00:10:58.680 And 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.

00:11:17.920 And 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.

00:11:26.020 I've seen that in the aftermath of my parents' death.

00:11:28.560 Like my brother and sister and I, who were pretty close, have been working to be even closer afterwards.

00:11:35.720 So 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.

00:11:50.420 You 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.

00:12:06.400 Good. I knew you were going to pull through.

00:12:08.460 I don't know why, but I did.

00:12:10.340 Well, your mom said the same thing.

00:12:12.660 Faith.

00:12:13.820 Yeah.

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00:13:15.660 Okay, next.

00:13:16.900 Next.

00:13:17.760 So on the line now, we have Carl in California.

00:13:21.260 It'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.

00:13:33.720 And I didn't know that this would be the one, but I asked him.

00:13:37.240 He was a strong Christian and I asked him that he'd been throwing up from esophageal cancer.

00:13:42.120 He'd been really in bad shape.

00:13:43.320 And I asked him, Dad, have you been praying and how's your faith?

00:13:47.280 And he looked at me and kind of shook his head.

00:13:49.880 And I just had this calling to pray with him.

00:13:54.920 So I asked him if I could pray with him.

00:13:56.160 And he said, yes.

00:13:56.800 And 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.

00:14:08.400 And it was like almost like God or the universe looking back at me.

00:14:14.200 And he said, thank you.

00:14:15.560 Anyway, I just wanted to share that.

00:14:21.580 I have a question, but that was maybe one of the most powerful moments of my life besides my daughter being born.

00:14:29.100 My question is, I recently lost my father and he was an actor and a huge reason I became a filmmaker and an artist.

00:14:37.520 Now 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.

00:14:46.060 My 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.

00:14:55.840 And how do I balance all of this grief, responsibility, health issues with my family, creative purpose without losing my footing?

00:15:07.280 Okay, well, I'm going to address both of the things that you said.

00:15:10.220 You 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.

00:15:21.500 So 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.

00:15:36.720 And 25, that's not a very big number.

00:15:41.720 And that was 25 if everything went well.

00:15:44.500 And so one of the things you do have to understand is that you have less time for many things than you think. 0.58

00:15:51.320 And 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.

00:16:06.900 And 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.

00:16:26.520 To 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.

00:16:39.340 And, you know, and you saw that.

00:16:41.360 You saw that with your father, you know, you were able to unite with him and to see to the bottom of his soul.

00:16:47.420 You know, and there's an old idea that God walks with us when we're suffering.

00:16:52.960 And that Christ on the cross, for example, was simultaneously suffering from all the suffering in the world.

00:17:02.480 And 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.

00:17:20.780 And I believe, I believe, I believe as a biologist that that's true.

00:17:26.260 And 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.

00:17:41.740 And human beings, like, we are adapted to our life, terrible as that life is, bounded by mortality and malevolence.

00:17:50.120 If 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.

00:18:01.900 And you had that moment of grace where you saw that.

00:18:07.620 And my wife had a similar experience with her son.

00:18:12.300 These things happen.

00:18:13.460 And it's the same thing that happened to Moses when he saw to the bottom of the burning bush, for example, and God spoke to him.

00:18:21.680 If you look upon what's most horrifying with absolute intensity, you can see to the bottom of the world.

00:18:29.960 And you had a taste of that.

00:18:32.980 And so, all right.

00:18:34.560 And 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.

00:18:49.880 And you need to set up your days so that you have opportunity and time set aside to focus on all of those things.

00:18:59.640 And that way you can keep them straight and bounded and separate.

00:19:04.840 And so, you may need time to think about your father and to grieve.

00:19:08.960 You obviously need time to attend to your daughter.

00:19:11.920 You need time to do your creative work.

00:19:14.860 And look, I'm a big fan of scheduling and most people don't like schedules.

00:19:20.980 They don't like using a Google Calendar, for example, which I use like religiously.

00:19:25.540 And that's because they use a schedule like it's a prison.

00:19:29.040 They write down all the things they have to do.

00:19:31.620 And then they fight against that because they put themselves in, it's like they're their own worst superego.

00:19:38.080 They're their own tyrant.

00:19:39.260 This is the day you have to have.

00:19:41.820 That's not how you use a schedule.

00:19:43.560 Well, the way you use a schedule is that you produce a contract with yourself to have the day you'd really like to have.

00:19:52.320 And 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.

00:20:00.400 So, I have to schedule those in because otherwise the chaos mounts and that's not good.

00:20:05.500 And then I want to mix in there a certain amount of leisure so that I get a chance to think and to recover.

00:20:11.900 And I want to lace that with the opportunities that I really want to pursue.

00:20:18.100 And 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.

00:20:33.480 And at the end of that, I'll be satisfied that I conducted myself responsibly and I took advantage, proper advantage of the day.

00:20:45.280 And so, this is particularly true.

00:20:48.420 You're a father now.

00:20:49.600 Your responsibilities are multiplying.

00:20:51.680 You have to organize your time intelligently.

00:20:55.420 You know, and there's all sorts of ways to increase the amount of time you have.

00:20:59.960 You know, if you're finding it difficult to find time to do your creative work, get up at five.

00:21:06.700 You know, it only takes two weeks before you're accustomed to that.

00:21:10.440 Then you might have three hours in the morning before you have any other responsibilities at all.

00:21:16.500 And pay particular attention in your schedule, this is something people never get right, to the things that repeat every day.

00:21:25.360 Because the things that repeat every day, that's your life.

00:21:29.080 Get those things right.

00:21:31.220 And if you use your...

00:21:33.720 There'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.

00:21:41.600 You know, and if you're facing too many challenges on the domestic front, maybe you need some help.

00:21:47.740 But 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.

00:22:01.680 And 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.

00:22:12.440 So you can do that.

00:22:14.440 That seems wise.

00:22:16.400 I think some of the things that helped me when we were going through hell, I did...

00:22:22.580 I just...

00:22:23.100 You reminded me of this.

00:22:24.020 I set aside, like, worry-free hours.

00:22:28.140 So literally scheduled, okay, from 5 to 8 p.m. tonight, I'm just not going to think about it.

00:22:35.360 And, like, I was like, what disaster is going to befall me in three hours if I just don't think about it for a little bit?

00:22:41.740 So that was helpful.

00:22:43.060 I also, just to wrap it up, I don't think you can be a bad prayer.

00:22:48.400 I don't think God cares about that at all.

00:22:50.860 I don't think there's a way to do it.

00:22:52.080 I think it's whatever is in your heart.

00:22:54.600 So I don't think there's such a thing as a bad prayer.

00:22:56.600 That assumes that you're striving upward.

00:23:00.400 Yeah, what's in your heart.

00:23:01.280 You can strive upward badly.

00:23:04.040 Is that even badly?

00:23:07.260 Well, it's badly in that your aim and your ability to improve your aim can continually improve, right?

00:23:14.720 Yeah, which it always can.

00:23:16.020 Well, that's what I mean by badly.

00:23:18.980 But the true goodness in the pursuit of improvement is walking the pathway of improvement.

00:23:26.300 It isn't.

00:23:27.140 Like, so what you need is an, you don't have to be somewhere good exactly.

00:23:32.440 Or, and you don't even have to be doing, you certainly don't have to be doing things perfectly.

00:23:36.620 You have to be aiming up, right?

00:23:40.100 And then if you're aiming up and you're walking that pathway up, then that's good.

00:23:44.980 Now, there's still room for improvement.

00:23:47.440 But the thing is, you, that's part of it being good.

00:23:51.080 You wouldn't want a situation where you had run out of room for improvement because you'd be out of possibility.

00:23:56.100 The, the, the worry-free time, there's a cognitive trick that goes along with that.

00:24:02.560 What 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.

00:24:13.440 And the, the alarm part of your brain is the part that produces anxiety.

00:24:18.760 And it's not exactly a cognitive part.

00:24:22.020 It doesn't exactly care what your plan is.

00:24:27.020 What it cares about is that you have a plan.

00:24:29.580 It's like a little kid who's anxious.

00:24:31.580 It wants to know that someone's in control.

00:24:33.740 There's lots of good plans, but a very bad plan is no plan.

00:24:37.720 So if you get worried and you say, I will think exactly about that at seven o'clock tomorrow morning and you train yourself, that'll work.

00:24:47.720 That'll work.

00:24:48.420 Yep.

00:24:48.820 It's very necessary, especially when all hell is broken loose.

00:24:53.480 Agreed.

00:24:54.240 I 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.

00:25:03.760 First of all, there are unsolvable problems and then it can just drive you crazy.

00:25:08.100 So 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.

00:25:17.680 Right, right.

00:25:18.280 And you can train it.

00:25:19.320 That that's morally acceptable and necessary.

00:25:22.680 Right.

00:25:22.980 Cause you can easily feel guilty about like, well, it's like, that's a Sabbath, you know.

00:25:28.820 Well, and God says, don't worry about tomorrow.

00:25:32.780 Well, he full on tells you that, don't worry about tomorrow.

00:25:35.360 Well, that, that has something to do with the issue of timeframe that we described.

00:25:38.860 So the idea is to orient yourself upward and then to focus on the moment and then you can adjust the size of the moment.

00:25:47.800 But 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.

00:25:58.540 And that's in the, in the best way that it can.

00:26:01.900 That doesn't, that doesn't mean it's not going to be a wavy ride, you know.

00:26:05.860 That's for sure.

00:26:06.700 Yeah.

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00:26:50.220 We have another caller.

00:26:57.900 Are you ready?

00:26:58.540 I'm ready.

00:26:59.880 Hello, Ms. Peterson.

00:27:00.880 Hi, Dr. Peterson.

00:27:02.500 How are you?

00:27:03.300 Good, good.

00:27:04.060 Thanks for participating.

00:27:05.280 I'm looking forward to your question.

00:27:07.480 Thank you for taking my call.

00:27:10.100 So, to begin, I work as a school counselor in a middle school, in a high school setting.

00:27:16.100 So, over the last few years, the job has become more and more taxing to my own mental health.

00:27:23.500 You 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.

00:27:36.400 To add a little bit more of a background, my parents are getting older.

00:27:39.620 My 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.

00:27:50.460 You know, and my mother, you know, God bless her.

00:27:54.080 You know, she's going through her very own mental health challenges right now. 1.00

00:27:59.160 She's struggling a lot.

00:28:00.420 And 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.

00:28:15.120 It's simultaneously moving forward as this job is becoming more taxing.

00:28:21.020 So, I just need assistance in navigating these waters.

00:28:25.400 You know, they're becoming older, and I'm not sure I can keep pace with their needs as well as keeping a sane mind.

00:28:32.440 How many sisters do you have? 0.98

00:28:34.780 I have two younger siblings.

00:28:36.540 How much younger?

00:28:39.020 One year younger and four years younger.

00:28:41.480 How is your communication with them?

00:28:44.120 We're extremely close.

00:28:46.420 Whether it's text or phone calls or seeing each other on weekends.

00:28:49.640 Okay, let's start with that.

00:28:51.580 Well, 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.

00:29:02.660 Now, that might be situational, and there's a situational element to it.

00:29:07.500 It might also be that you haven't learned well enough to detach yourself from the suffering for enough, enough.

00:29:18.900 Like, one of the dangers of being a caring person is that you're carrying the burdens of other people all the time. 0.90

00:29:26.480 Well, you can't do that because you die, and then you're useless.

00:29:30.360 And 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.

00:29:42.880 You 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.

00:29:58.820 So, you're going to have to determine just exactly how much of a load you can iteratively carry.

00:30:07.360 And look, every person in a helping profession has to deal with this.

00:30:10.980 You know, I don't know how many kids you can see a day.

00:30:14.000 I don't know how much time you need away from that concern.

00:30:18.580 You have to play with this.

00:30:20.100 You'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.

00:30:40.900 And that's a way of discovering who you are.

00:30:43.560 Like, there's going to be a load you can carry, and there's going to be a load you can't carry.

00:30:48.140 And 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.

00:30:58.680 So, you need to back off from the responsibilities until your ability to move forward in the job and with your parents is reestablished.

00:31:10.900 And you'll have to play with that.

00:31:12.820 And that'll mean training yourself once you leave work, for example, not to think about work.

00:31:21.020 And to take to yourself not only the moral right to do that, but the moral responsibility to do that.

00:31:28.520 Driving yourself into the ground is not a good solution.

00:31:33.100 It's not an ethical solution.

00:31:35.160 It'd be better if you stayed in the world and were helpful.

00:31:38.080 Okay, now on the side with your sisters, how old are you?

00:31:43.900 I'm 32 years old.

00:31:44.980 Okay, and so your sisters are in their late 20s.

00:31:47.220 Okay, 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.

00:32:02.120 If 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.

00:32:17.480 And 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.

00:32:27.640 Because 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.

00:32:39.700 Instead, 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.

00:32:52.720 People 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?

00:33:00.640 To 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.

00:33:11.720 Establish your joint aim.

00:33:13.060 Then 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?

00:33:25.080 So if everyone understands the game and you develop that trust, then they'll be able to do it.

00:33:31.160 Then the next rule is, if you get upset during the meeting, you can leave, but you have to come back.

00:33:37.540 And then the next rule is, everybody accepts the best solution that can be generated, unless they can come up with a better solution.

00:33:47.280 And so I would set aside some time right away to start talking to your sisters and distributing the responsibility properly.

00:33:57.480 I 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.

00:34:12.740 And 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.

00:34:19.520 And 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.

00:34:30.840 Yeah, right.

00:34:31.340 You know, I don't want to do that.

00:34:32.460 And for agreeable people who are compassionate, in the beginning, it feels extremely selfish to say, I don't want to do that.

00:34:41.320 But 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.

00:34:49.200 And 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.

00:35:04.580 But it's not immoral to say, I don't want to do this.

00:35:07.620 You have to listen to that.

00:35:08.560 The 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.

00:35:18.780 Like your sister.

00:35:19.620 Exactly.

00:35:20.300 And so that's how to calibrate.

00:35:22.780 If you're an agreeable person and you're dealing with the problem that you just described, what simulation do you run?

00:35:31.540 Pretend you're someone you care about.

00:35:33.780 Yeah.

00:35:33.920 Right.

00:35:34.480 And then you say, well, if I was my sister, if I was dealing with my sister and she had this concern, how would I treat her?

00:35:40.700 Well, treat yourself that way.

00:35:42.260 Yeah.

00:35:42.560 Right.

00:35:42.840 Like there are narcissists who are selfish and then there are agreeable people who are like reverse narcissists.

00:35:49.900 Everyone else comes first. 0.95

00:35:51.160 And there is being selfish in the self-centered way.

00:35:55.660 That's not good.

00:35:57.360 But taking advantage of yourself counterproductively and becoming bitter and resentful in the service of others, that is not a moral accomplishment.

00:36:04.880 Yeah.

00:36:05.040 It's not a moral accomplishment.

00:36:06.280 And some of that voice that says, I don't want to do this, can be immaturity and you have to deal with that.

00:36:12.160 But some of it can be, that's too much.

00:36:14.880 Or I can't do this.

00:36:15.760 Yeah.

00:36:16.000 Well, that's it.

00:36:16.580 I don't know how, but it's also, I can see that that will be too much for me across time.

00:36:21.320 Well, then it's not an acceptable solution.

00:36:23.880 Now, 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.

00:36:32.180 We have another caller.

00:36:33.860 Are you ready?

00:36:34.480 I'm ready.

00:36:34.920 This is Brian from New York.

00:36:38.040 Good to see you.

00:36:40.000 Thank you.

00:36:41.080 The 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.

00:36:55.200 My marriage survived because of my loving wife, and my faith in God was ultimately restored through wrestling with scripture and countless hours of prayer.

00:37:02.920 However, my teenage sons witnessed everything, my addiction, instability, and the downfall of my career that I've built over the years.

00:37:11.760 They've rejected both faith and me in many ways, and they've both become bitter atheists.

00:37:18.340 My greatest heartbreak is knowing that my struggles caused their pain and drove them from a close relationship with God.

00:37:25.500 The 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?

00:37:36.840 How old are they?

00:38:07.360 And the pattern of reaction that your sons took to your situation is a dance between you and them.

00:38:19.580 It's not to be laid at your feet.

00:38:22.900 So they are participating in this as well.

00:38:27.000 So I would say, it's not obvious to me that this is your fault.

00:38:35.320 It's pretty obvious that it's a catastrophe.

00:38:38.460 That's not the same thing.

00:38:40.280 And if you reflexively assume that it's your fault, then you validate their presumption that it was a failure on your part.

00:38:49.020 Now, I imagine you failed in some ways, and you succeeded in some ways.

00:38:55.100 You're still here.

00:38:56.820 You're still married.

00:38:58.500 You're still aiming upward.

00:39:00.300 You've managed to maintain some faith.

00:39:02.720 You've had a hell of a miserable time.

00:39:05.100 Like, those are accomplishments.

00:39:08.380 One 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?

00:39:24.300 Lots of people end up with an opiate addiction in the aftermath of chronic pain.

00:39:30.100 I did.

00:39:31.300 You know, this happens all the time.

00:39:33.160 And this manic depressive disorder, like, that's a serious physiological illness.

00:39:39.100 That's not, manic depressive disorder isn't psychological.

00:39:43.540 It's not like it's a consequence of your flaw.

00:39:47.000 Yeah.

00:39:47.200 I mean, I know there's a physician at Harvard who's treating bipolar successfully with a low-carb diet, you know?

00:39:55.960 So, the first thing I would say is that the story that you told me when you asked that question painted you too clearly as the villain.

00:40:07.880 And, like, I'm not saying there was no villainy involved.

00:40:10.600 Everybody's flawed.

00:40:12.000 No doubt you made mistakes.

00:40:13.840 But 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.

00:40:30.680 And so, you know, I have a program that you might want to try online at selfauthoring.com called the Past Authoring Program.

00:40:40.380 It helps you write an autobiography.

00:40:42.060 And, like, you've got a lot of things to sort through because your situation is really complex.

00:40:47.180 And you might want to write that, do that program, and try to give yourself the benefit of the doubt.

00:40:53.920 And 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.

00:41:05.540 You 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. 0.81

00:41:15.440 It's like, look, kids, it's like, we've had a bitch of a time. 1.00

00:41:18.580 We don't want to propagate this hell in our family for the next 20 years.

00:41:23.380 We want to find a way we can get back together.

00:41:26.460 It's like, ask them, do you have some ideas?

00:41:30.540 How 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?

00:41:42.200 You know, that's a good way of starting.

00:41:45.620 It's like, start with something simple that you can do together.

00:41:48.280 But don't be assuming that you're the villain here.

00:41:54.340 You know, I mean, look, lots of people don't take enough responsibility for their actions.

00:42:01.720 But it's very simple to make the opposite error and to paint yourself.

00:42:06.920 And this is something conscientious people are likely to do, by the way.

00:42:10.020 Like, if you are the sort of person who is somewhat self-sacrificing and who is responsible and industrious and things go wrong,

00:42:21.040 the automatic tendency is going to be to assume that you're some sort of moral failure.

00:42:26.820 But, you know, you laid out the sequence.

00:42:30.800 You had a pretty nasty medical occurrence.

00:42:34.960 Look, most people who become depressed, by the way, most people who become depressed,

00:42:39.380 the depression is precipitated by some catastrophe.

00:42:42.960 It doesn't just come out of the blue.

00:42:46.220 So, you know, begin by cutting yourself a break and thinking about what you did right

00:42:52.640 and understanding that you are still here and there's hope for the future.

00:42:57.920 And then invite your boys to put the family back together

00:43:03.320 and have them contribute their ideas about how that can be done.

00:43:07.420 You can ask them, it's like, do they want to be alienated and miserable and angry for the next 20 years?

00:43:13.940 Or do you want to all work together and pull yourselves back together?

00:43:18.960 So, and then you can help negotiate.

00:43:21.220 You can help them negotiate and find their way to do that once you guys have set a joint aim.

00:43:26.060 The joint aim should be, Jesus, you know, we've been through enough.

00:43:29.620 How about we don't torture each other to death unnecessarily for the next 10 years?

00:43:36.300 And maybe we can find our way together.

00:43:38.360 They're old enough to participate in that.

00:43:40.700 Yeah, I agree with everything you said that it sounds situational.

00:43:44.240 Injury, opiate addiction, opioids are addictive.

00:43:47.720 So I, I mean, I didn't take, I took them for a year.

00:43:52.360 I had miserable withdrawal for about six weeks, miserable.

00:43:57.220 It was OxyContin.

00:43:58.040 And then it took me a couple of years to recover from taking them.

00:44:01.380 And I only took them for a year.

00:44:03.400 So that's not a moral failure.

00:44:05.740 They are addictive.

00:44:06.780 You can't do anything about that, right?

00:44:08.960 And then the mental health things, like who knows how much of that is either diet related

00:44:13.480 or because of the opiates, like that's a lot going on.

00:44:16.980 Or the pain or like.

00:44:18.260 Or the pain, yeah, who knows?

00:44:19.620 I would also say like those kids are still young.

00:44:23.440 They might just need some time.

00:44:25.120 And I know in regards to faith, what helped me was just witnessing what it did to people. 0.99

00:44:31.880 So when mom had cancer and got saved and was like, God saved me, I could see the change in her.

00:44:39.040 And, and it stayed.

00:44:40.520 It wasn't like a month long thing that was a trick or something.

00:44:43.240 It stayed and I watched.

00:44:44.200 No, it stayed and it improved.

00:44:46.220 It stayed and it strengthened.

00:44:47.640 Yeah.

00:44:48.060 And then when I met my husband, I was like, okay, this is a, I could feel, it felt like safe,

00:44:54.700 loving, warm.

00:44:57.320 And so I think if, if you can manage to be a source of safety for a while, this will just

00:45:05.100 go away. 0.82

00:45:06.080 You know, it might need some time.

00:45:06.940 Well, that, that's also why it's useful to have these events together, to go out for

00:45:11.260 lunch, to do small things together that are without crisis and just reestablish those

00:45:17.040 islands of stability.

00:45:18.860 So.

00:45:19.540 Yeah.

00:45:20.000 Yeah.

00:45:20.560 Yeah.

00:45:21.020 Well, good luck with that.

00:45:22.160 Good luck with that.

00:45:22.880 I, I think you should face this with the assumption and you can bring your boys into this discussion.

00:45:28.000 And why don't you guys all move forward with the assumption that you should do this, that

00:45:34.220 you can do it, that there'll be bumps along the way, but that, you know, if you guys put

00:45:38.960 in, they're still pretty young teenagers.

00:45:41.720 If you guys put in a couple of years of diligent effort, I see no reason why you couldn't put

00:45:47.300 your family back together.

00:45:48.600 Yeah.

00:45:48.920 Agreed.

00:45:49.360 Last but not least, we have a prerecorded call from Alex in the UK.

00:45:55.140 All right.

00:45:56.620 Hi, Jordan.

00:45:58.060 I have a three-year-old son who unfortunately has been very sick since birth.

00:46:03.200 He was given an initial life expectancy of two years.

00:46:06.820 And so we've done well to get to this point, but we recently had a three-month long hospital

00:46:12.340 stay with a period in intensive care in the middle of that.

00:46:15.560 And we were told that he may only have weeks or at best months to live.

00:46:21.620 And 12 Rules for Life, you described how you and your family managed with Michaela's health

00:46:25.540 struggles.

00:46:26.200 And that was very helpful for me and my wife when things weren't as bad as they are now.

00:46:30.880 But I feel like this situation is far more acute.

00:46:34.280 And in a few weeks or months from now, life will never be the same for us.

00:46:37.840 My question is, do you have any more advice on how to navigate life during this period and manage

00:46:45.720 a very high stressful job, interpersonal relationships, and to try to make the most of the time that we

00:46:53.380 have left with him?

00:46:55.880 Well, we spoke earlier in the episode about the utility of narrowing your time frame.

00:47:02.820 And so you are in for a period of intense suffering.

00:47:07.860 And one of the only ways I really know how to ameliorate that is to focus on the moment,

00:47:19.040 on the increasingly small moment.

00:47:21.620 You and your wife would do well, and this might be the case with the friends and family around

00:47:27.920 you that are supportive, to attend to each other's comfort and concern with more attention than

00:47:37.940 usual.

00:47:39.420 And, you know, instead of you being concerned about your suffering, which you can be properly

00:47:45.820 concerned about, and your wife being concerned about hers, she could be concerned about yours, 0.52

00:47:50.400 and you could be concerned about hers, and you could practice taking care of each other.

00:47:55.180 And with any luck, this is a very tricky thing to negotiate, you know, because a lot of couples 1.00

00:48:00.540 collapse as a consequence of the loss of a child.

00:48:04.440 It's a very severe situation that you're facing.

00:48:07.660 And if you can orient yourself so that you're doing what you can to ameliorate the grief of

00:48:15.240 your wife and vice versa, you'll serve each other during this time. 1.00

00:48:19.520 And with any luck, that will strengthen your love.

00:48:22.540 Now, that'll also be useful for your child because it's necessary for him to see that

00:48:31.940 you two are a unit that's solid while he's in distress and chaos.

00:48:42.860 And so that'll also be the best way to serve him.

00:48:45.680 Um, and then I would say, what next?

00:48:51.600 What next?

00:48:52.740 I can jump in.

00:48:53.860 Yes, do that.

00:48:54.800 Well, I was going to add on to your, I don't think anybody can handle that situation.

00:49:01.520 I don't think there's psychological tricks to handle that.

00:49:04.400 Like that is going to be a mess because it's a, it's a disaster.

00:49:10.580 Right.

00:49:11.160 So, right.

00:49:13.220 So you have to figure out how to suffer and have it not take you out, you know?

00:49:17.600 Yes, that's right.

00:49:18.480 And I think your suggestion of focus on your wife and try to keep the relationship in,

00:49:23.780 intact is key because even in, not that I've gone through something like that and I have

00:49:29.860 three kids and I've thought about that because I think that's every parent's fear.

00:49:33.480 And I have thought about that, I guess because it's every parent's fear, but when thinking

00:49:42.140 about that, I figured, okay, what I would do in that situation is focus on my relationship

00:49:48.140 to make sure the relationship stays intact because I, I'll survive this, you know?

00:49:54.000 So you guys can survive this.

00:49:55.780 You guys can survive this.

00:49:57.340 It won't feel like surviving while it's going on.

00:49:59.800 And that is completely normal, but you guys can survive this.

00:50:03.260 And if you focus on each other, then your relationship can survive this.

00:50:07.100 And then you'll have a foundation for the future as well.

00:50:10.000 And that's about as good as it gets.

00:50:11.400 You know, and the other thing I would say is that you can also, you said of your son's

00:50:18.900 life that you implied that you'd been blessed by the fact that his life has been longer than

00:50:26.260 was originally predicted.

00:50:27.900 And so one of the things you do when you grieve that's worth noticing is that the fact that

00:50:36.320 you grieve is a celebration of the person's worth, right?

00:50:41.280 You wouldn't grieve if you didn't appreciate at a very deep level that the existence of the person

00:50:50.680 that you're grieving for was a blessing, even in its truncated form, you know?

00:51:04.300 And so one of the things you do, this is a very difficult thing to manage is that you try

00:51:10.900 to be grateful for the brief existence of your son, despite the pain of his loss.

00:51:17.580 And that's hard, but you wouldn't be grieving if you weren't grateful.

00:51:23.380 And so you have to remind yourselves of that.

00:51:26.180 You have to try to make the most of the time you have left with very acute focus on the

00:51:33.740 comfort of your partner and faith that your relationship can strengthen and triumph through

00:51:42.680 this and that you're young enough so you don't know yet what the future will bring.

00:51:49.640 And then as Michaela implied, give yourself a break for your suffering because it's going

00:51:55.500 to be rough.

00:51:57.420 And that doesn't mean you're doing something wrong.

00:52:00.180 Yeah.

00:52:00.680 So that was rough.

00:52:02.260 Thank you so much to our callers.

00:52:04.100 I know how hard it is to be vulnerable with those experiences.

00:52:09.040 And I think they exemplified human suffering extremely well, unfortunately.

00:52:14.760 So hopefully those people's suffering can help you guys watching.

00:52:19.740 So thank you for watching.

00:52:21.460 Yeah, well, and thank you to everybody who brought these like serious concerns forward

00:52:26.880 in such a thoughtful and profound and revelatory manner.

00:52:32.380 It was, those are very good questions and very serious discussions.

00:52:38.020 And so I appreciate the fact that you're brought them to our attention, that we had a chance to

00:52:44.420 discuss them.

00:52:44.980 And I hope, wish for all of you the best.

00:52:50.160 Do you have a question you'd like us to explore?

00:52:53.320 Share it with us at the link in the video's description.

00:52:56.340 And let's face life's challenges together.

The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast - August 11, 2025

570. How You Should Deal with Stress and Tragedy ｜ Answer the Call

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