EP 72 : Overcome Challenging Behaviors with Emotional Resilience with Jodi Woelkerling

Jodi Woelkerling is a Leadership & Executive Coach & Trainer who specializes in assisting individuals & workplaces to better manage & overcome stress and its effects. Jodi is the owner of Jodi Woelkerling Enterprises where she coaches people on how to be resilient leaders. Jodi is also the author of World Class Leadership. Jodi is passionate about using her knowledge and experience to assist businesses to build an enduring resilient culture at the whole culture level, the various levels of leadership within the business and at the individual level, so that the business as a whole and the individuals within the business can experience the enormous benefits of an enduring resilient culture.

Highlight the emotional resilience required to use and embrace your strengths and effectively manage challenging behaviors.

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Ari Gronich

0:03

Welcome back to another episode of create a new tomorrow I am your host Ari Gronich. And today I have with me Jodie W. Jodie is a resilience expert and yes, I said W cuz I cannot pronounce this wonderful Australian last name. She's a resilience expert and is really fascinated with teaching others how to experience a resilient life. So, Jodi, I'm going to let you tell a little bit about yourself and what it is that you do and why you do it. And let's let the audience know, what is it about resilience that makes you tick?

Jodi Woelkerling

0:42

Yep. Beautiful. Thank you for having me on Ari. So what I focus on, as I said, as you said, is resilience. So that's resilience from people building their own resilience. And it's also from leaders building their own resilience, but also leading in a way that…

Ari Gronich

1:00

Let's define resilience for a second. 

Jodi Woelkerling

1:03

Cool, cool, cool. So I look at resilience in two kind of ways. So the first way is as much as possible, staying calm, when things happen in your life. So we're talking about kids a minute or two ago. So just say that the kids are fighting, you're trying to get ready for work, but they're fighting in to get food organized, or whatever. So there's certain stressors in life as much as possible, staying in that state of calm, and there's various things you can do to help facilitate that. But the reality is, we're all human. And very few people on the planet live in a state of Zen, 24, seven. So the other side of it is when we are actually feeling stressed and resilience is being tested, recognizing that sooner rather than later, and bringing ourselves back to a calm state as quickly as possible, because that second side recognizing it and then bring back to calm is..yeah, critical. critical turning point, yeah.

Ari Gronich

2:17

Okay. So why do you think people should be more aware of how resilience works in their own lives? And, you know, both personal business social, but what do you think? Why do you think it's important for people even recognize whether they're resilient or not?

Jodi Woelkerling

2:33

Yep, absolutely. So there's a couple of different reasons why it's really, really important to start with, it's linked with a lot of health issues. Webmd.com, I think said between 70 and 95% of doctor's visits per hour, I'd have to verify that, but I'm pretty sure it was between 70 and 95. They said doctor's visits are somehow related to stress. So that's either directly like pester does to the doctor says I'm stressed, can you help me or indirect because there's a lot of long term and I'm not medical qualified, but so please don't take this as advice. But there are a lot of long term health issues with being in a state of stress, because the state of stress changes things physiologically in it. So things like blood flow to the to the, the core organs, doesn't go as well, because if we're living in that stress state, we're living in fight or flight, the blood flow goes to the extremities, so and there's a whole lot of other physiological feeds. So…

Ari Gronich

3:39

Hold on a second. So it sounds like you're talking about emotional resilience as the only form of resilience that we're talking about in this context, so I just want to I want to make sure that I'm being correct. Are we only talking about emotional resilience? Are we talking about physical resilience, financial resilience, we're talking about other forms of resilience?

Jodi Woelkerling

4:03

Okay, it's a good it's a good question. So my focus you've correctly picked is more on the emotional resilience. But things like you said financial resilience, making sure you've got like a buffer that you can fall back on, if things go bad, that sort of stuff. Yes, does is important. And strangely enough, they're all kind of intermingled. So if you have resiliency built into your relationships in your life, it means that you handle stressors in your life better and there's probably not as many stressors so yeah, but you're definitely picked it definitely my focus is more emotional resilience.

Ari Gronich

4:41

Okay, so so let's get really deep and dark into the dirt of resilience, emotional resilience. So let's just go through a mass of litany of traumas that are possible, right betrayal, sexual abuse, physical abuse, abandonment, feeling not worthy, shame, right? All these things. So what benefit to those things? Does being resilient have?

Jodi Woelkerling

5:17

So questionnaires Are you talking about when those events are happening? Are you are you talking about the effect of those events on your life?

Ari Gronich

5:26

All of the above, right? So you have an events, you have something everybody's had a series of something that's occurred to them in life, right? And I guess what, what we're talking about is the benefit of having a resilient emotional outlook. So you said we're talking about emotional resilience. And I like to make sure that the audience has actionable things, right, that they can do when they leave for that. So I want to be just really clear and go down into the dirt of the matter. So when is resilience important? It's To me, it's not important. If everything is going well, in life, right? resilience is not as important if everything is going a Okay, it's only really important when we're challenged. And so that's what I'm getting to you is what are the benefits of resilience? In your personal your life? Right? When you've had all of these tragedies, all these experiences of life?

Jodi Woelkerling

6:27

Yep. So if I go back to why is it important, so I talked about the health stuff, it also has a big impact on how we function intellectually. So one of the physiological things, when we're feeling stressed is the thinking part of our brain doesn't function as well. So having resilience and being able to stay calm, to draw back to you in the moment, something's happening, how do I was an advantage is in the moment, if you are feeling stressed, the functioning part of your thinking part of the brain is impaired. So that is often when people make decisions that may not be for their best. And they also may do things like I don't know, just say that there's a there's a stress at work, they may act and yell at somebody at work or act in a way that they would prefer not to, because they're acting out of that emotional state. So in the moment, it's important because it's keeping you more in that logical state, and you are more likely to respond in a way that is better for you. short and long term. Does that answer your question? 

Ari Gronich

7:43

So, I'm gonna just break down your answer and physiological terms a little bit, right? So stress triggers your parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous system to go into fight or flight. When you're in fight or flight, all of the blood goes from the main part of your organs into your extremities, so that you can run so that you can flee so that you can do something other than or stop other than processing food, processing nutrients, you're not doing any of that stuff, you're no longer processing and your organs, you're literally in fight or flight. When you're in that state. At a regular chronic level, you become in chronic pain you be you begin to develop chronic stress levels, you're talking about resilience as a mediating factor to the stress levels, right? So the resilience emotional resilience is techniques and tools that you could use to I would imagine to breathe to meditate to do things to calm that central nervous system so that you're not in fight or flight Am I correct it all the things that I've said so far translate words. Am I anything. 

Jodi Woelkerling

9:01

What I'm going to do with your permission is break it down a little bit more and talk about how I work with people, because I think that may be given a little bit more..

Ari Gronich

9:10

I'd rather not do that first, because I don't want to talk about how you work with people, right? I'm not so much interested in how we work with people as much as the direct benefits. So at the moment of what is it that resilience is what it does, how it works in the body physiologically, and then we could go to some tips and tricks and things that people can do in order to get into a state of resilience, instead of a state of stress or a state the state of fight or flight. Okay. So down and dirty on the deep part of what benefits we get from resilience. So what you're saying, if I'm hearing you correctly is that the blood is now we're going to rush back into the organs, the body is going to start going moving into a homeostasis place what benefit does that give the body?

Jodi Woelkerling

10:12

It means that it functions the way it's supposed to. So a good example is the gaps in the digestive system. So it depends it changes in its different. The way it sort of, as I said, Please, please, I am not medically trained on resilience, life coach, help coach trained, so please don't take this as medical advice. But one of the common things that people experience when they're going through prolonged stress is issues with their digestion. And that can be all different parts of your digestive from the top part where you get reflux and heartburn, way down to irritable bowel and that sort of stuff. So your whole digestive system. One of the things that happens when people are stressed is this, this area can be really affected. So it means that you're in less comfort, because some of those things are really uncomfortable and unpleasant. And it can mean that your body's not working properly to digest and to take up the nutrients of your food. So hence the health side of it. So digestion is just one of them. But it's probably one of the most common ones. It also living in that fight or flight does things like your immune system doesn't work as well. So you're not able to fight off infections as well. So the in essence, the functioning of those core organs in your body that it that other vital organs for your body running well don't work as well, because there's less blood flow in them. Because if you go back to the origins of the stress response, as you said, like the fight or flight, it is the body going, Okay, I'm in a life or death situation, what's the best chance of me surviving this life or death situation. So if you think back, caveman times, walk around a corner, there's a saber toothed tiger, your body or is very, it's actually a really cool body system. And it makes a lot of sense in that I need to get out of this. In the moment. Go my blood flow goes through my arms or legs so I can fight flight or freeze best to give him the best chance of survival. But modern life there's very few life or death situations maybe a car crash, maybe I don’t know you come across somebody in the street who has ill intent. But really in the scheme of everyday life. Now there's very few in the moment life or death. So your body's reacting, though as if you are rich, it means that Yeah, the functioning of those core things that keep you healthy and well and keep the body functioning well. Don't work as well.

Ari Gronich

13:01

So does resilience fade through time? And if so, how can somebody consistently practice resilience so that it doesn't fade? So that actually builds?

Jodi Woelkerling

13:15

An interesting question, the fighting? I think it may it requires in order for it to be retained some sort of consistent practices, some sort of consistent awareness of it. So I'm not sure if that answers whether it fades, but it requires that ongoing thing if somebody consistently is doing things in their life to help it. I can't imagine it would fade. It obviously gets tested to various degrees at different stages in you mentioned some examples. So people are going for a marriage breakup, they've lost their job, they've been having a health concern. Yeah, it gets tested to different stages, but I can't imagine it would fade on at time. What was the second part of your question Ari?

Ari Gronich

14:01

The second part is consistent practices that helped to build resilience? And also, is there a point where resilience becomes a bad thing or a negative thing? Like persistence can become obsession, right? So I can be persistent or I could be obsessive about something. Can resilience have a bad point or a negative connotation to it? 

Jodi Woelkerling

14:27

It's interesting. It's something I've never contemplated, um, my gut says, I don't think so. But I've never contemplated it. If you go back, like I said, there's very few people in the world who are who live in a state of Zen. There's a handful, so maybe like Yogi in India, or in a Buddhist monastery somewhere or somewhere. They are often able to deal with things like physical stressors or all that sort of stuff. I can't imagine there's a bad side to it. But to be honest, you've asked a really good question, because it's not something I've ever thought about. So my gut says, No, there's not a bad side.

Ari Gronich

15:13

To resilience. No. So how is how is resilience related to mental health? And if there's no like, bad side to how is it related to mental health? 

Jodi Woelkerling

15:27

Very closely related. So if you're able to stay in that state of calm and able to process things, and not, there's a difference between appearing to become and appearing to deal with things well, versus actually being calm, there's a lot of people who put on very good facade, especially in places like corporate world, but actually in yourself, being able to stay calm when things go on. Yeah, it's, it means that you are better able to cope with the things in your in your life without adversely affecting you, as I said before.

Ari Gronich

16:09

So I'm gonna challenge you for a second because I keep hearing something sad in a way that that kind of strikes me, it appears to me that your version of resilience is actually just a version of meditation or stress relief or calm, and not necessarily resilience. So it's to me I'll just, you know, go to me resilience is something crappy happens. And I'm going to bounce back, and it may take me a little bit, but I'm going to bounce back, I'm going to be resilient, I'm going to adapt to the situation, I may not be combed through it, I may not be, I may not be no stress about it, I may have a ton of stress, not be calm at all. But I'm resilient. And I will bounce back and I will make headway. And I will get ahead, right. So that's, that's where I guess I'm struggling in internally on the definition, because it doesn't sound like we have the same definition of resilience. The definition I'm hearing is one of like meditation and calm.

Jodi Woelkerling

17:21

It's part of it. But like the part that you just said, with your example, part of which, I talked about is mindset. So the stuff you're talking about his mindset is things happen in life, how am I going to mentally process that and deal with that in a way that is gonna give me the best outcome long term. So I do cover that we just haven't covered that in this conversation.

Ari Gronich

17:51

Okay, that sounds like strategy, still not resilience. See, to me, that sounds like a strategy for resiliency. Right?

Jodi Woelkerling

18:00

Mindset is a strategy, but it is also extremely practical. So, for example, to go back to you talking about something happens. So just say, I don't know you're walking along the street, and you get mad. That's a real stressor in in your life. And it's something where you can mindset, you can go into victim mode, and woe is me, and I'm so unlucky, and the world's out to get me or you can do like usage. Go, okay, well, that sucked. I need to do X, Y, and Z. So it might be replaced the credit cards, that might be whatever. And in the end, is there anything that this is actually given to him, which is an interesting twist on better things in life, I've done that a lot with people who have long term effects because of trauma. But please don't do that with other people. If you do that with somebody else, and you're not really careful how you do it, you'll get them off site very quickly, but that's a side point. But in yourself, if you look at that, something like I've been much, and you go, Okay, I guess it's such, but I need to do X, Y, and Z and I may need to have medical or emotional care x, y and Z. But if I do that, and if I go through the steps of processing it and talking about it, and changing my perspective on it, and maybe going okay, well what did it actually teach me something? Did it teach me how to handle myself in really difficult situations? It can actually that mindset shift can make a huge difference. And probably one of the most common examples I see of this as our leaders of businesses. The reason I say that is leading a business is something where your resilience is tested constantly. You're generally in charge of people who you have various relationships with. You're working with stakeholders. So that could be customers, employees, suppliers, possibly shareholders policy and possibly a board of director, you're dealing with market forces that change all the time and are often largely out of your control. And I could go on that being a head of a business is extremely testing to your resilience. So, by developing your resilience, and you look at any of the really good leaders in the world, they are able to, over a long period of time to look at those challenges that come up and be able to handle them in a way that gives them and the organization the best chance of dealing within moving beyond those stresses. So yes, I agree with you that meditation and that sort of stuff is part of it. But it's also how you deal with those things that that come up, because as you're absolutely right. Everybody goes through issues, it changes the individual what the issue is, but yeah, it's also being able to deal with it. And for it to not be a long-term issue and not to be something that long term is going to be detrimental to you. Does that make sense? Or less likely to be detrimental?

Ari Gronich

21:22

Absolutely. So, I just went, and I looked up the actual definition of the word. So, I just wanted to kind come to a place where we could get this capacity to recover quickly, from difficulties toughness, the often-remarkable resilience of so many British institutions, that's the sentence that goes with it, the ability of a substance or object is spring back into shape, elasticity, nylon is an excellent wearability and resilience. So, it bounces back into shape. So if resilience kind of means bouncing back into shape, right? Toughness, being able to go back to where you were after being stretched. Right? Um, let me let me ask you another question that is one I just thought of, is resilience good? If it puts you right back into the shape, you're in? Or do we want resilience to remold and reshape us into a more opportune up, you know, opportune version of like, let's say you were a rubber band, right? So, we pull a rubber band, it bounces back to where it was, eventually, it either gets brittle or it snaps, right? We want to be able to stretch without snapping, so to speak, to me, that's what resilience is the stretch without the snap. 

Jodi Woelkerling

23:00

It's a really, good question. You want to as a human being, be constantly developing and growing. So, if you take the thing of go back to the way you were before, you want to be able to Okay, I've dealt with this, we'll go back to the being mud situation. I want to be able to deal with this particular awful event in my life, to be able to better handle the next thing that happens in my life. So yeah, one of the goals of life is always to be constantly growing and developing and building our resilience means that we are more likely to the next stressor that happens in our life, be able to handle it better.

Ari Gronich

23:49

You know, it's funny, I was just thinking about it and martial arts. You hit something long enough, and your bones become like flexible steel, the matrix inside of the bone becomes like a massively strong web, it forges your bones into a flexible, like steel substance it strengthens creates the flexibility so that it snaps less, you know, it doesn't break as easily and so on. And it takes a lot of hitting a lot of a lot of pounding a lot of damage to create that much strength. A lot of forging if we look at just like the ancient steel swords, it was like 600 folds of hammer and fold and hammer and fold to strengthen that steel. So, resilience is a lot about being able to go through the fire being forged, so to speak. So, when resilience fails, what should somebody do? I mean. Let's say you've been forged, and then all of a sudden, you just get like, cool too quick and you shatter a little bit, right? Now what? How do we get back to that resilient place we just were?

Jodi Woelkerling

25:15

Well, um, when I go back to when I talked about the two parts of the resilience is there are times when, when we're not in zen, and our resilience is tested. So self-awareness is the first part of it, because I find so many people aren't even aware that their resilience has been tested. And that emotional outburst or whatever is going on has come from that place of lack of resilience and not being in that state of calm. So self-awareness is a huge part of it, of being able to spot it in yourself. I mean, that's, you talk about mental health, that's a lot of mental health stuff is he can't overturn something and make it better, unless you're aware of it. So, self-awareness is definitely a huge part. And then it's a case of knowing yourself and knowing what is it that I need in the moment. So, I'll take another example that causes people stress, marriage breakups, very, very common one, but it's often for a lot of people, one of the most stressful events in their life. So, people, when they're going through marriage, breakups can sometimes behave in ways that they really, objectively later wouldn't have liked to. So, and they can be all sorts of examples of that with outbursts and stuff that's not disclosed, that should be in all sorts of things. Recognizing that you're not working for my best state at the moment and knowing yourself enough so that you can do things to bring yourself back to a good state. Does that mean I need to take a week off of work and be by myself to reset? Does it mean I have to I would, I want to seek outside help, whether that is talking to friends, talking to a counselor, being kind of self-aware, and taking those steps needed in order to get yourself back to calm and that's going to be very individual, for different people. That's just a couple of examples like the take time off.

Ari Gronich

27:27

Right? So let me let me take this down a darker path that we start talking in our pre interview a little bit about the pressure cooker, that is the world right now. And, you know, we both had some thoughts about this pressure cooker, that's how I describe it I describe the world right now is basically we're like trapped, and they're trapping us more trying to keep us contained more, and it's a pressure cooker, and eventually, you know, we're going to explode. And that's just the nature of a pressure cooker. So, without getting to the deep pain of war, the deep pain of brutal, you know, civil unrest. What can we do now to build personal resilience, and then group resilience around the concept of what we're going through as a world you know, you and I talked a lot, a little bit about it, but I'd like, I'd like the audience to hear some of what you had said.

Jodi Woelkerling

28:51

Yep. Um, it's such an enormous issue at the moment. So in terms of your own personal resilience, knowing yourself spotting when it's being tested, really listening to your own inner voice of what you need, and taking steps to help yourself so even if I mean Victoria in Australia, and we've been one of the most lockdown parts of the world, and yes, what you can, what you are allowed to do is a lot more legally allowed to do is a lot more restricted. But there's still things that you can do in yourself. So again, it goes back to the knowing yourself being self-aware, and actually making yourself a priority and taking those steps to help yourself so for me, for example, walking is a big one. So, taking time and making sure I allocate time to actually go for a walk, I have bush land near me and spend some time in nature and that sort of stuff. So that's from a personal side and having, this without going too much into rabbit hole system, things that are happening that are really concerning. But there's some things that are majorly concerning for people, in terms of you said of the civil rights, their body sovereignty, their ability to be able to earn a living for some people. I mean, if you were working in the travel industry over the last year, your ability to earn a living would have been seriously affected. knowing yourself and taking steps in yourself to bring yourself back to the status. And I often find it's very easy. And I've seen a lot of it in this environment of wanting to bury your head in the sand and almost hand over your decisions in your thinking process to someone else's sin. A lot of people do that.

Jodi Woelkerling

31:10

I'm sort of trying to work out how to actually put this. It's almost like the most resilient people I see are often the people who've gone through bad stuff, and they see the bad stuff. So, they see some of the very concerning patterns that are going on. And they're trying to operate from a place of keeping themselves okay and descend a little bit. Woohoo, to operate from a place of love and look at people who are who may because there's been one thing that's happened in this environment is a lot of division. And a lot of people talk about cancel culture and that sort of stuff, a lot of tensions with people who they weren't previously tensions with. So, the people from my perspective, who I see handling this with the most kind of logical, go back to the word Zen kind of way they stay. They're aware of in themselves, they see the patterns of what's going on. And they're coming from that place of love. And sometimes from that place of action in terms of dealing with it. So, there's certain legal people in the world, there's this, there's people who are really seriously fighting this. So though, not sure if I'm answering your question.

Ari Gronich

32:34

That's okay. I'll get there. So, we worked around the rabbit hole, we want to dive into the rabbit hole. So stop beating around the bush, just go into the rabbit hole, where you really want to speak. You and I talked about this? I know what you had said to me.

Jodi Woelkerling

32:58

Yeah. Yeah. So which particular rabbit hole you referring to? 

Ari Gronich

33:03

Well, we're talking about pressure cooker, we're talking about resilience, right? So, the pressure cooker is that the world is locking us up. And if we don't do something, as a person, as an individual, and as a community together, we're going to explode, right? So, if I'm going to try to avoid the explosion, or at least limit the amount of explosion and steam that can come out, then what am I going to do to be resilient? What am I going to do in order as a community to let off the scene without it becoming a violent expression?

Jodi Woelkerling

33:41

Yep. Again, I'm going to go back to the knowing yourself developing your own self resilience. 

Ari Gronich

33:48

So with knowing yourself part. There's a lot of people who have never heard that statement. They've never heard the statement of becoming self-aware. That would be that would be woowoo. Enough for somebody they don't they've never heard I want to, why would they have never seen a mirror and seeing it as something other than a place to take a selfie? Right? So, there's an awareness of self-awareness that doesn't exist. I think for a lot of people, like a majority of people have no idea what self-awareness is. So, I want to take you away from that term. And just like let's define that out so that somebody who's listening who doesn't maybe know what that means can say, Okay, I want to become whatever that is that she just said, what do I do to do that? And why is it that I'm not that.

Jodi Woelkerling

34:44

So often it takes an outside person to help you with this process, not for everybody. But this is where coaches and coaches are different to counselors in that they will do similar to what you're doing is a little bit of challenge and push outside of comfort zones. And notice that you're doing. I can tell I'm often for somebody who is really unaware, having an outside person will help them develop that in themselves. But so being self-aware is things like knowing your triggers, knowing your automatic reactions, realizing that is actually a choice, you actually choose to do that whether you're conscious of it or not. It's having the realization that just because I think it doesn't make it real. Because we always have this constant voice going around in our head, just because we think it doesn't mean it's the reality. So, people can develop in themselves. And there's, there's ways to do that. But for a lot of people, especially somebody who, as you said that the selfie, yeah, if they want to develop that it often would take a coach and an outside person to actually help them develop that in themselves. And why would they do that? It means that they can react at my own question, it means that they can react more from more from what is true to themselves, and what they really want in their soul rather than from automatic response. So, for example, I mentioned before, there's a lot of division happening now. Most people, and probably sounds Woohoo, but my theory is most people want love and connection in their life. And there's things that happen that mean that they push that away, but at our core, most people want love and connection. But if you are reacting with so just say there's somebody who has a different opinion to you or is reacting to what's going on in different ways to you. And your reaction to them, is aggression and disapproval and judgment. You're acting from either triggers a habitual response, a state of fear. There's all sorts of reasons why people are doing that at the moment. I mean, yeah. If they were self-aware, they will be aware that that's what they're doing, that they're maybe not reacting in a way that is true. coherence with who in their core they want to be.

Ari Gronich

37:42

Right? So, I'm gonna, take this to Facebook, right? We're going to Facebook now. And somebody has written another something about something that just, I just am just so triggered by her. How do I do what you just said? I don't cancel culture. And I don't want to be the person who's triggered so I'm going to start attacking that person on their on their own posts, right? What do I do? What do I do? I'm triggered.

Jodi Woelkerling

38:22

It's interesting, because I had this happened to me recently. And my response to it was, there's too much of this. My life's too short, and I stopped using Facebook. I use it for a little bit of this and it wasn't the first time it was just like the final straw. I use it for posting my business stuff. But otherwise, I pretty much don't use it anymore. So yeah, it's about what I did was go okay. There is no point arguing with this person or stating my point. Again. 

Ari Gronich

38:59

I'm not talking about you, I'm talking about the person who's triggered by your post, you post something. I'm triggered by your post. Who I do. To not be the person that is trolling to not be the person that is just reacting to every post that I don't agree with that, you know, like, that's actually becoming self-aware and saying, holy crap, I just got triggered by some random person's post. And I'm not going to do what I normally do and, you know, shout my, you know, trigger all over the other person, I'm going to be resilient. I'm going to figure out why this trigger is triggering me and I'm going to figure out what's causing me to have that reaction, right. So, the question that I'm asking you is, how does somebody go about realizing that they're being that they are the troll realizing that like, if everybody's the troll. Everybody, because you're the troll for your opinion, right? So if you're the troll for your opinion, and you're doing something where you want to cancel or you want to cut off, or you want to stop the trigger, right? So, so here's my thing, I don't want to stop the trigger, I want to stop my response to the trigger. That's how I want to be resilient. Cuz there's going to be triggers for my whole life that I'm not going to be able to stop, right? So I want to be resilient. And I want to stop my reaction to the triggers.

Jodi Woelkerling

0:05

So I guess why went to me is because that's exactly what I did. So I was triggered by her response. And I went, Okay, what and try to work from that logical part of the brain? How can I respond to this for one response is his attack back? And obviously, that's you're saying what you don't want to do? And work. Okay, so what's a better solution to this? Is this something that I need to process in some way, by talking to somebody who comes from the same path as me? Do I need to scribble it down in a journal, process it in a way that you're not operating out of that emotional triggered state, because to me, that's the key. If you're acting on almost like survival type of emotions, which I think is what's happening with a lot of these tensions that are going on. People have their map of the world, which may be very, very different to person x, who's responded to the Facebook post. Basically, working in a way that you can process that you're not working from that emotional state. So again, if we're going to talk about the example with me, what I did was back off and not respond. And yes, I was emotionally triggered. But by pretty much went through a process in myself of almost decoding and I didn't journal actually mentally processed it myself and probably talked a little bit out loud to myself and that sort of stuff. So, process in a way that you're not working from that emotionally triggered state. Because that emotionally triggered state, you're not going to work in the most logical way.

Ari Gronich

1:54

Yeah. And I'm just going to add one thing to that is typically taking yourself out of it like a third person, so treating yourself like you're a third person in the situation. Why does Ari feel that way?

Jodi Woelkerling

2:12

But you're seeing yourself from an outside perspective. Yep. It's a good point. And once you're not emotionally emission it, you can then go, logically, what's my next best step? So, for me, I was triggered emotionally processed it and go, well, what's the best way forward? And my conclusion was, well, am I actually achieving anything by continuing using Facebook and I just went up to my logical reaction was, my life's too short, I don't need this rubbish. And I walked away. And I mean, that can apply to so many different things. Oh, my gosh, it's so highlighted, as you said, by what's going on at the moment, there is division and cancelling of, if you have a different opinion to me, you're therefore less of a person or whatever, which is just, I don't know, it just goes so against what people want to do in their souls. And I know I sound probably Woohoo, and idealistic. But really, in the end, we don't want to be treating other people badly. It's an emotive reaction that really it so we wouldn't want to do.

Ari Gronich

3:24

Right. So unfortunately, that seems to be the case. For at least, you know, like, half of the culture this these days is like, as if you don't agree with every single thought that I had, and going back 20 years, 30 years, 40 years, if ever any point in time, you did not agree with the thought that I have now, I must cancel you. Because I can't be around anything that isn't exactly the same as the way that I feel. Now, that to me is the antithesis of resilience, the antithesis of adaptability, right. It's the opposite, saying that the whole culture of canceled culture, If I can't have you exactly the way I want you, then you're going to be gone. Right?

Jodi Woelkerling

4:24

That's you're saying that easily isn't really.

Ari Gronich

4:27

Antithesis. It's the exact opposite of resilience. So, resilience is, it doesn't matter what you believe, I can still be your friend, I can still have a conversation with you. I can still love you no matter what. I don't have to agree with every word you say, but I'm resilient in my open mind and my thinking, I'm resilient in my body. If I get injured, I'm going to bounce back and I'm going to train and I'm going to get better. I'm not going to let that injury takes me out of life, right? So that's resilience to me is the is that core, bouncing back, there is no resilience and cancel culture, there's no resilience. There's no strength, there's no power. There's no nothing in cancel culture, it's the most intense form, in my opinion of weakness, of human nature that human nature could ever produce.

Jodi Woelkerling

5:27

Yep. And as we both said, we're seeing a lot of it at the moment. And I think it's a sign of people, you know, you're talking about it is a sign of people not being resilient, and then being really pressured by what's actually going on externally that’s, they feel like it's not in their control, they feel fearful.

Ari Gronich

5:48

Yeah, right. So, then the question becomes, with all of the bombardment of society these days, how does somebody stay in that state of resilience, right? How does somebody stay there, so that they can actually be a contributing factor to the world versus somebody who's sucked up by the world? 

Jodi Woelkerling

6:14

So, the first side is if you are feeling so being the self-awareness, as I've said, and if you are feeling triggered, having things to bring yourself back to calm, and I'm quite happy to share those with the audience, too. So, there's certain ways, okay, so different things work for different people, but there are certain they talked to the physiological stress response helped to reset your physiology back to, to a steady calm. So, things like deep belly breathing, where you sit up right, and you're breathing very slowly from the bottom of your lungs, he can tell you during that because your belly goes in and out. And you can do just a couple of minutes of that, and that will reset physiological response. There's a series of other ones. My favorite one is actually I call it giving yourself a hug. So, you do this, it actually physiologically changes you back to a state of calm. I say it feels like a warm hug from grandma. There's all sorts of other ones as well that bring yourself back to calm so you can

Ari Gronich

7:23

And the rolling out the ears does that a little bit. So, in brain gym, there's this technique for thinking caps. As your whole body is represented in your ears the same way as in your hands the same way as in your feet. And reflexology. This looks like a baby in the womb. Right? And so, all of these points are points that relate to your body. And so, if you roll out your ears it magically touches a button and helps with that the one that I tell all of my autistic parents, parents of autistic kids is right about here. There's like a notch. If you tap slowly, like a heartbeat 42 times it basically will calm the anxiety response of a child who's going through an autistic, like, anxiety attack.

Jodi Woelkerling

8:43

That's, that's a good one for autistic kids because mom and dad can do it. Yeah. Interest this, there's a whole range of them. Um, my favorite one for people who are in positions where they're surrounded by people. And so, if you do this, or you do this, it's pretty obvious you're doing something. So, the one that I tell people to go to, if they're surrounded by people, and they don't want people around them to realize they're doing something is when you feel stressed, your mouth dries up. And most people can pick realize this. So, things like public speaking, most people, when they're nervous about public speaking, they find that their mouth dry. It's a physiological reaction to as part of the whole stress, fight or flight. If you stop yourself from swallowing your saliva, let it build up and swirl it around in your mouth. That's telling the body that I'm not in this life-or-death situation and bring you back to calm that's my favorite for people who are surrounded by other people. So, like they're in a boardroom meeting or whatever. Yeah, but there's a whole range of them. So that's the first part recognizing bring yourself back to come but there's also a lot of lifestyle things that you can do that means that you are more able to react from this state. And with what's happened over the last 18 months, I wonder how much of this is related. So, the lifestyle things I mean, you mentioned meditation and mindfulness, they're definitely part of it. But your basic, your free health basics of sleep, diet and exercise, have an enormous difference. So, if I do sleep as an example, most people when they're feeling stressed, one of the first thing that gets affected is the quality or quantity of sleep. So, they have the racy mind, or they wake up lots or there are wide awake at four o'clock in the morning, can't get back to sleep. So, if you're stressed, your sleeps affected, the flip is also the case that if you're you haven't had a good night's sleep, you're less able to handle stressors as they come in your life. So, it works both ways. So, there are so many things that help build your ability to deal with other things in in your life. So, as I said, sleep, diet, exercise, connections with other people, ways of processing the things going around in your head. So, one of my favorite for people who are triggered a lot and are feeling a lot of emotional is fears and resentment journaling. So, this is this is a technique that I kind of picked up from a lady who I follow on YouTube. That's basically it's a way of almost like a brain dump and a processing of what am I fearful of? What am I resentful of? And by actually physically recording them in a journal, you're getting yourself out of that emotionally triggered state, putting it onto the paper and it's almost like a relief process. So, things like gratitude journaling, a fantastic but if you're feeling really triggered, you almost need kind of both Yeah,

Ari Gronich

12:12

I find that gratitude journals are great if you're feeling gratitude, if you're not feeling gratitude, they suck. The whole concept of doing gratitude, when you're not feeling gratitude, to me is a misnomer because you have to go through the crap in order to get to the shine. And the gratitude comes only from going through the crap. Right? So if you're not willing to do that step, then you're just faking yourself as far as the gratitude journals go.

Jodi Woelkerling

12:46

You're making a really good point because one thing that I see in people I've got some people who I've come across in my life who love and light people, they're gorgeous people but they love and light and everything's got a positive spin and I don't want to hear about or talk about the negative. Yeah, what that means is often they I find that that that doesn't really in the end fix anything right?

Ari Gronich

13:16

Avoidance is always the greatest of ways to avoid fixing anything

Jodi Woelkerling

13:21

What you'll generally find is it'll show in other ways so it will show so just say they've had a huge trauma in their life and they go I'm on level nine I'm not processing or looking at that it'll generally shun says this is yeah it'll show in other ways so things like illnesses or yes some sort of other dysfunction so in order to actually move beyond something authentically and sustainably and again resiliently is to actually it's almost like look the monster in the face a lot of spiritual people will call it Shadow Work so working through the sides of yourself that you generally don't want to see they're uncomfortable to see and by actually working through those you're actually able to move beyond them so I agree with you in terms of the gratitude journaling if you're in a deep dark place gratitude journaling is not the go to. 

Ari Gronich

14:24

You know it's funny at the saying just popped in my head just now, the saying is if the only thing you see is the light then you are the shadow.

Jodi Woelkerling

14:37

Oh, that's interesting, because he said that the coach

Ari Gronich

14:40

Yeah, I just made it up. 

Jodi Woelkerling

14:42

Oh, there you go. We'll have to write that down and put a put it in in the history books, but you're right. I agree.

Ari Gronich

14:48

My team will take care of that. But the reason why I say that is because every time I've done Shadow Work, I'm delight doing my shadow work, right. So, I'm Shining a light into the shadows right but if all I see is light there's no contrast that makes me the contrast, I'm the shadow. So, it's just kind of interesting that because in that new age world you know so many people want to be enlightened so many people, I want to be enlightened I want to be enlightened I want to be enlightened, I want to raise my vibration I want to go up I want to higher, higher, right? frequency higher this higher that. But we're human and we're like, we're spiritual beings having a human experience, not the other way around. So why do we continually want to die and go back to spirit instead of live in this human body that we're in? And so that's where I go like, okay, so yeah, I don't want to get that enlightened. You know, like, I'll do that when I'm dead. Right now, I want to get really, really, really good at living this life and turning those shadows into light.

Jodi Woelkerling

16:05

It's such a good point. Um, I think a lot of people avoid it, when they're either not aware of it, or they it's, it's scary and confronting to go through Shadow Work. If you look at a lot of people who are spiritual teachers. So, there's a there's a lady called Christina Lopes, who, who I follow fairly closely. She's a spiritual coach and a spiritual teacher. Her and a lot of other spiritual teachers will talk about the stages of spiritual awakening. And a major part of that is they call it dark night of the soul, which is basically you're working through your shadow, you're almost living in your shadow in order to and it's only by working through that, that you actually go to the next stages of spiritual awakening. But it is hard it's uncomfortable, it's hard. For a lot of people, they will choose the old go do something that's,

Ari Gronich

17:13

They choose the easy route of living mundane lives instead of going through the hard You know, route of living in a fantastic life.

Jodi Woelkerling

17:23

Or they'll live painkilling life, right? 

Ari Gronich

17:27

It’s not the painkiller. See that, to me is the misnomer. I think that the people who are who are not challenging themselves to go through it, are the people who are suffering the most in mediocrity.

Jodi Woelkerling

17:42

Probably. So, for example, um, there are there are things that you can do that in the moment may feel good, but in the end, they're really not good for you. So obvious things are things like alcohol and access, cake, candy, pizza. There's things that that in in small amounts are absolutely, they fine, but to access and for them to be emotional Gosha and painkilling. In the moment, it might be okay, but long term, it's really not the best for you. There's that's where a lot of people go to it takes more of a level of bravery and more of a level of self-empowerment to actually go No, that isn't the reaction that I want and more of a level of looking for what's the if you take the cake and the food stuff as an example, it's your perception of pleasure and pain. So are you focusing on the eating this salad I really hate salad, it's just horrible eating salad. And I don't think that way. But if you're focusing on why this thing that you're doing that's meant to be good for your body, your is painful, you're very unlikely to actually stick to it.

Jodi Woelkerling

19:09

Whereas if you focus on all this, this pizza is making me feel so good. Which I don't think people physically do that. But anyway, if they are focusing on the pleasure is on the eating, then they're, less likely to be able to sustain the change long term. Whereas if they go, Okay, I'm eating this salad what that means as my body is getting the nutrients it needs, it means that I'm dropping these extra extra weight that I want to drop over and they're focusing on the pleasure of the good outcome. It's a Tony Robbins thing that the pleasure and pain concept, but I think it's actually really, really true. It's like, if you look at rich people and you feel resentful towards them. When you try and get rich yourself, you're subconsciously going to go I'm going to be a bad person if I'm rich, and you will subconsciously, you won't even be aware of it most of the time, sabotage yourself, there's so many things like that in life.

Ari Gronich

20:06

Absolutely. So, let's kind of wrap up resilience in this world with like, three tips and tricks you haven't used that you use with your clients. And so, something that people can do today, to start activating their vision for a better world, meaning they want to create a new tomorrow, something in this life is going to trigger them, it's going to stop them, it's going to slow them down, it's going to be a barrier in their way. We want them to have resilience so that they can activate their vision for a better world, give them three things that they can do, immediately.

Jodi Woelkerling

20:45

Yep. So, I would say, to develop your self-awareness. So, you can do that in various ways. I mean, I mentioned it several times through, you can develop in several ways. So, things like mindfulness practices are really good for developing a self-awareness. So, for example, mindfulness meditation means that just say, You're triggered and you're feeling stressed, there are certain physiological reactions that happen in your body, most people aren't aware of them in the body, or mentally, if you develop mindfulness, then you're better able to spot that in yourself. So that would be the first thing is a mindfulness practice. And it can be mindfulness meditation, it can be consciously doing things that you would do on automatic pilot, it could be, as I mentioned, I go for walks in nature, consciously tuning into all of the bird sounds. And so, mindfulness would be the first one. So, with the aim of being aware of what's happening, because I always run with the theory of you can't overturn or stop something unless you're aware of it. So it's always that the starting point. The second thing I would say, is have a look in those things in your life that are that need tweaking that need work on them that are better for your well-being long term. So, as I said, things like sleep, diet, exercise, relationships, work life balance, have almost do like a real thought process of Okay, what do I really need to work on here. And I mentioned sleep kind of repeatedly because it's one of the most common ones, that's a problem for people. And it's not just about quantity, it's also about the quality of the sleep.

Ari Gronich

22:37

There are five cycles that people need to go through every single night. And most people get two of those. Two of those cycles. And those cycles are what puts you into that deep REM sleep where you actually are producing human growth hormone, which means that you're recovering from stress, you're building your muscle tissue, your repairing scar down, you know, scar tissue and damage that you've done to yourself. So, all of those things happen during this one particular cycle of sleep. And you need to have five of those in order to have proper physiological function. And most people are getting approximately two of those a night.

Jodi Woelkerling

23:23

I'm preaching to the converted Ari. And you said 30, I would say to go through and work on those subconscious things. So, we touched on that a bit with the shadow work, but most people to various degrees, have things that have happened, the subconscious things that are automatic reactions in your life, and they're often established around those first seven years of your life. So, what I mean by that is things like, beliefs, values, perceptions, there are automatic things that people have in their life, actually really do that work and uncover them. And if I'm working with people, one on one with coaching, I talk about the three levels and pretty much the three tips I've just gone through level one, level two, level three, the level three is where when I'm coaching with people, I spent the bulk of the time because they're the things that people aren't generally aware of the normally subconscious and the things that have an enormous effect on our life and the way we handle and respond to things so working through those subconscious things are my gosh, it can be absolutely life changing. Yeah, so just say a given example because I'm talking fairly high level. So just say you have a core belief that you're not you're not capable Which a lot of people actually have it's like an inner core belief of they're not they're not good enough that actually uncovering that and working on an overturning and over a period of time can be I'm not exaggerating when I say it can be absolutely life changing.

Ari Gronich

25:21

Awesome. Thank you so much for being here I appreciate you greatly. And where can people get ahold of you if they'd like to learn more?

Jodi Woelkerling

25:31

Yep, so my websites a really good sort of start go to so my I'm sure in the show notes you'll have my full name so it's just jodiwoelkerling.com. So my website if you're on LinkedIn I'm fairly active on LinkedIn so you can look Jodi Woelkerling up on LinkedIn and message me that way. I've for anybody who's in kind of leadership positions I've got a book that's about I'm not sure what your lead time is on shows everywhere. Currently mid-September now so probably in the next week or so that will be released. So, if you're interested in getting a copy of that..

Ari Gronich

26:16

We'll have that link down below. 

Jodi Woelkerling

26:20

Beautiful websites definitely the place and if you want to chat to me this this spots in there that you can reach out to have a complimentary starting chat. 

Ari Gronich

26:29

Perfect thank you so much for being here. This has been another great episode of create a new tomorrow I'm your host Ari Gronich and I just wish you all activating your vision for a better world creating a new tomorrow for yourself and those around us. Let's get moving on this people. solutions are up it's time for him let's engage contacts me Subscribe, comment, play with me hang out. Let's change the world together.