Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: Today I'm talking with Dr. Magdalena Back Meier. And this conversation is going to hit you right where it counts. I first met Magdalena seven years ago at a conference in London for coaches and therapists. She gave a talk on mind, body connection. That absolutely blew me away and honestly, it stayed with me ever since. Magdalena grew up in Poland under a repressive regime, came to the US as an immigrant and and knows what it feels like to be an outsider. But here's what's amazing. She turned those early struggles into her superpower. Now based in London, she's a neuroscientist and the founder of Make Time Count. Her clients call her the physician of the soul because she works with people who look wildly successful on the outside, but are quietly falling apart on the inside. The kind of people who have everything they thought they wanted, yet spend their days doing things they don't care about with people they don't even like.
Magdalena created the grid method, a system now used by more than 1500 people. She's helped clients win multimillion pound research fellowships and coach CEOs back from the brink when they've called saying, help me, I'm about to go over the edge. What I love most about her work is how she bridges what she calls heart and mind. Too many of us walk around as brains on legs, disconnected from the body and our emotions. And that's a big part of why we suffer. In this conversation, we explore why successful people hit crisis points. How to reconnect with emotions you've been sweeping under the rug for years and why if you feel guilty about having pleasure, you probably need more of changed. How I think about safety, productivity and what it truly means to feel alive. And I think it'll do the same for you.
Here's Dr. Magdalena Buck Meyer.
[00:01:55] Speaker B: Thank you so much for coming on. And you work with high achievers and people who have it all. I was curious to know what's the hidden suffering you see in successful people.
[00:02:08] Speaker C: Oh, where do we start?
[00:02:12] Speaker B: Or maybe I'm going right for the thing that I wanted to talk to you about.
[00:02:18] Speaker C: Well, I guess we should say that there are probably successful people that go through cycles of enjoying their success and then cycles when they don't enjoy their success.
I suppose that would probably be fairly, fairly accurate. Right. So, so. And when they get to those points when they're not enjoying it, it depends, I guess on the threshold of.
Is the discomfort of not enjoying it enough them to sort of come my way or reach out for some help? Or is it one of Those things, they can kind of like a wave just sort of get through.
And my sense is that quite a number of people try to surf the wave a few times and then eventually sort of discover a pattern that says, I've been through this a few times and it doesn't seem to go away.
[00:03:19] Speaker B: What are some of the patterns that they might notice?
[00:03:23] Speaker C: Well, I suppose one pattern might be this kind of crush and bust cycle.
It could be a burnout cycle.
It could be a cycle of always chasing the next thing.
It could be a cycle of feeling no one sees them or appreciates them.
Yeah, it could be a cycle of, you know, chasing this realization of, you know, I need to be at the top and then feeling like they're not at the top anymore, so they do something more to be at the top then they're not at the top and da, da, da.
And probably in some deeper way, the longer people go, the more this sense of internal imposter and a sense of, I think I'm a fraud, I think I don't know how to do anything.
[00:04:18] Speaker B: That's an awful. That sounds awful.
[00:04:21] Speaker C: It is actually quite a hell in a way, which is nicely medicated, of course.
You know, it's with shopping, nice toys, good retreats, you know, distraction, a new affair, whatever will suit. Right. Medicine is of our own choosing.
But at some point also with years that comes this kind of reckoning, I suppose, of sort of going, I'm not getting any younger, I should get this right.
Yeah. So it depends. It really depends.
[00:04:59] Speaker B: I was just thinking the CEO crisis call helped me not go over the edge is what I picked up on your website. What was that story?
[00:05:09] Speaker C: Oh, I don't remember every story anymore because some of the things on the website are quite a long time ago and some are fresh.
But. But on the whole, not going over the edge for a lot of people can be really incredible burnout, incredible pain, incredible disconnection.
A sense of real deep existential crisis where your wife leaves you, your kids don't talk to you, employees hate you, you get sacked from a job because you've made a terrible error simply because you were too stressed. The kind of real difficult places, I think they're difficult patches or even situations where you might find yourself in places you didn't plan for.
So, for example, company restructures, your business partner took your stuff because you weren't paying attention.
So, you know, there's painful moments of being so busy or so out of touch with the reality that you pay the price for that, and that's painful. Know it's a painful encounter.
[00:06:23] Speaker B: Wow. So what led you to create the grid, which is a great productivity system?
[00:06:30] Speaker C: Well, I suppose the starting point was really my own life because I had a chronic illness I didn't quite know about.
I was working essentially three jobs in one, but also feeling like I wasn't really seen for the work or valued for the work because I was not a natural attention seeker. I'm an introvert. So I don't tend to kind of put myself out. I got on with the job, but I did see that that's not the people who necessarily get promoted get to go forward and just trying to balance it all and finding it a bit hard, but also sort of missing some of my creative artistic streaks and things that I had time for in the past that I somehow were getting squeezed out.
And so I literally began to look at it and go, hold on a second, I need an accountability system that is different.
I could be the good homemaker, I could be excellent at my job. And that was what I saw in literature being the traditional work life balance equation. This is what we were taught to do, work life balance.
And then I realized, hold on a second. But that makes it very hard for me to do these other things that essentially are important to refuel me, are important to top up, are important to keep me motivated.
And that's how I created the grid to make space for two more places so that we had a space for self care, which is now really recognized over the last years quite a lot in literature, that it's very important.
And then a space for what I called career management. Simply because when I started to look at other people, whether it was, you know, in science or in corporates or even entrepreneurship, there was an element of a place, like a place needed for your exposure, for your network, for your visibility, for all these things that are not your day to day job.
And they weren't the same and they were super keen.
And I also noticed that for a lot of people, be their parents, be their carers, be their introverts, not everyone easily goes into those areas on their own. For many people who carry a lot of responsibilities, they are the things we are most likely to give up simply because we want to be good, we want to serve others, we want to make sure no one else is losing out.
And also society wise, they're not rewarded in the same way, you know, so they don't carry the same kind of external reward. You're not gonna sort of, no one's gonna say to you if you, if you go to work and you say, hey guys, I had 11 hours sleep, you're not gonna get points.
You know, you're probably gonna be told you lazy so and so. How come you're not up with the door and you're pounding the pavement with your workouts and doing all these things that are very achiever culture based, that are not necessarily refueling.
[00:09:48] Speaker B: That's interesting. Would, would psychological safety be under self care?
[00:09:55] Speaker C: No, Psychological safety is a, you know, a general concept of feeling safe and having a grounded nervous system. So that's about just that being everywhere. Whether you're at your breakfast table with your kids, or whether you're at work or whether you're at a conference, psychological safety has to be there for us to function well and for us to connect well with each other.
So I think that's, that's everywhere. It's literally as simple as making space.
I think grid at its core makes space for these things to have an actual place. It's a bit like, you know, you need a place in your home for the loo or for preparing dinner. You know what I mean? Like you need the place. If you didn't have a place, you go, hold on a second, I don't have a place for this. Where do I put this?
And so it's about essentially creating a wholesome structure that can support all activities. And we basically always say that in the grid, whatever you're doing, there is a place in a grid where this belongs.
[00:11:04] Speaker B: How do you create psychological safety? Is it like a meditation practice or is it working with a therapist? Or what can you do?
[00:11:14] Speaker C: Maybe, maybe we should first unpack what you mean by psychological safety when you say that.
[00:11:21] Speaker B: What I mean by that is feeling safe in the workplace or feeling safe at home, or feeling safe within a family system.
How can you create that sense of safety if you grew up without it? In your TED Talk, you talk about children who grew up without psychological safety having lower IQ scores and the, and lowered ability in the workplace, or lowered productivity or capability. I'm addressing dysregulation from childhood that then continues into adulthood. And what can somebody do who easily gets reactive or dysregulated later on in life?
[00:12:06] Speaker C: I suppose the first thing you know that I, I work on with people is, is knowing and tracking your body and your, your own response to know that you're being either shut down as in you're shutting off because you know, when things get to be too much, people tend to withdraw.
So they, their, their body is telling them, I will sit this one out.
And so starting to pay attention to the times when, for example, you go. Quiet is a really nice example, whether it's a family dinner and something gets said. And all of a sudden you just. You go quiet. You. You have no words. Like, you just. You go. I don't know what to do. Right. There's a kind of a sense of that or an embodied kind of freeze response or a sense of collapse, like physical collapse. You know, your head might hang low, you might feel like you're. You have weakness in your muscles.
So people in the workplace often talk about fatigue, and fatigue is often a sign that they are overwhelmed in some way, so they don't have the safety they need. Because when we feel safe, we're playful, we're curious.
So there's that side of it, I suppose. And then the other side is when we are so active, so chaotic, so full on, that thinking of someone like that. Actually, that is someone I work with at the moment. And it's really interesting because this person constantly needs to be busy, needs to have drama, needs to have things going on.
Things can be calm because calm feels weird.
It's a bit like what not speaking feels like for a lot of people who are not comfortable with such a silence.
It's like we can't just be. We can't just land to each other. We can't just enjoy being together for a moment, let the conversation percolate in.
We. We have to just keep on talking, keep on talking, you know, And. And so that also tells you. This hyperactivity tells you a lot about, you know, what's going on for this person. Maybe it's always this overactive doing.
[00:14:30] Speaker B: Mm. Oh, I identify with that.
[00:14:34] Speaker C: Yeah. There's some part inside that is needing to keep busy. And the question to ask is sort of what happens? You know, what are you so afraid of? If you stop?
What's it like to stop?
[00:14:51] Speaker B: Maybe feelings will surface.
[00:14:54] Speaker C: Maybe.
Yeah. Like, maybe if I stop, I just don't. Like, for a lot of people I work with on burnout, people will say, if I stop, I will not restart.
[00:15:10] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, you lose your momentum.
[00:15:13] Speaker C: Yes, yes. And they'll go, restarting. This is not going to be easy. So if you. If you pull me out and I stop, I'll collapse. When I collapse, that could mean weeks on a sofa, weeks in bed doing nothing, being in sweatpants. And this is not good because I know where that's heading. And that could be heading for, I'm a vegetable, I'm not useful, I'm not Productive.
I don't want this. This is not a picture of who I am.
[00:15:41] Speaker B: Could it be tied to dopamine? Because when we're reaching goals, there's this dopamine response. As we reach these goals, it feels great. If we're on are not chasing a goal, then where does the dopamine come?
[00:15:55] Speaker C: Well, I don't know whether it's just dopamine. I think that that's sort of journalists simplifying things. I think the brain is complicated.
You can be chasing every Netflix payoff, You can be chasing a drink. You could be chasing all kinds of dopamine payoffs. That's just simply reward.
We associate reward with different things. But I suppose in the kind of classical overachiever, you know, I was yesterday watching Wimbledon final in a park, and just in front of us were three MBA students, you know, big achievers, you know, working for big companies. They're, you know, sort of like, onto their internship, they're finishing their mba, and they're, you know, sort of dropping names and building their network. And, you know, and it was very interesting because my colleague and I engaged in a conversation and I said, so which bit do you enjoy?
[00:16:53] Speaker B: What did they say?
[00:16:55] Speaker C: He was just dumbfounded. He struggled. He was put on a spot, and he was like, well, it's really hard because I have to hustle and I have to build my network. And it really began to be kind of seeping through that there wasn't anything he particularly enjoyed. I don't even think he worked. He enjoyed the company he landed his internship with, but he was basically going, this is what it takes. This is a breadcrumb on my road to success. I have to pay the price.
So this whole orientation was like, I have to grind my teeth. I have to push through this.
It's a bit like when we're pushing for a time on our marathon or we're pushing for KPI, we go at all cost, at all costs. And sometimes that's not a bad thing, because people often think of this either. Or it's like, oh, but where are we going to be without discipline? Like, this morning, I was coaching someone, and he had a long debate about, but Magdalena, if there's no discipline, there would be no sinner. He has to have discipline. And I said, well, actually, the first thing he talks about is the joy of tennis.
[00:18:02] Speaker B: Oh.
[00:18:04] Speaker C: So it's like, yeah, tennis takes practice. Yes, you have to be practicing the same way at top pianist or violinist practices.
But hopefully they enjoy their practice. They're on that leading edge where it's exciting because remember one of the interviews, I think they're saying how Novak said to him, you're too predictable. And he went, I can learn. It will be fun not to be predictable.
And so notice there's an attachment to. This can be more fun for me if I learn this. So there's a motivation, there's dopamine in that, but it's a motivation that isn't fear based, that isn't how can I suffer through this.
[00:18:46] Speaker B: You mentioned people spending time doing things they don't care about with people they don't like.
[00:18:51] Speaker C: Yes, that's nicely put. I like that. I like that.
[00:18:55] Speaker B: So this happens a lot with people who have a lot of choices. And I see it a lot in some of my circles.
Actually back in the day when I used to drink, that's what I did, but I had to drink in order to cope with that.
What do you think about that.
[00:19:12] Speaker C: Being with people you don't like?
I think we are social creatures and we are all part of systems, right? So we are part of work systems, we are part of family systems, we are part of national systems, state systems, government parties.
We are creatures of systems.
And it is hard sometimes to loosen our grips on those systems, to kind of extricate ourselves away because it's a question of when we are wanting to leave something or loosen it.
Often the other parts feel it and they try to pull us back in.
So there are these kind of larger forces that I'm very intrigued by that keep us both sometimes repelled from some things, but also really attracted to other things. And sometimes we have to really look for that attraction. So in what you shared with me, I think that sometimes if I really want to escape and have a drink, I'm not going to invite a friend of mine who says, well, hey, I don't drink, so can we just go for a walk? Because if I want a drink, I want someone to drink with. So there are these kinds of just normal realities that we can, you know, we want to do what we want to do because that could be our habit. And so of course I will go do those things with people. It's a question of kind of what we have in common. I mean, that's part of our identity theory and in a sense of, you know, I have something in common with these people.
The same way that, you know, the other day I was taking a walk in London and there were people at south bank throwing fires and having this amazing time being magical and so on. And I remember thinking to me, they Seem like wonderful bunch of people, but I have nothing in common with them, you know, And I was like, I wouldn't really go and spend much time with them because we have nothing in common. I appreciate that. What they do is fantastic, but it's not for me, you know, so. And that will change. You know, there's this beautiful quote I saw in. In the London Underground. It said, if you're going to change your life, be prepared to change your friends.
[00:21:29] Speaker B: Oh, wow.
And that's really applicable.
[00:21:34] Speaker C: It said unknown, so it wasn't attributed. But I thought, how true is that? You know, when we go through certain real transitions in life, we come to these painful moments where we realize some of the people we were spending time with are no longer the right match. They won't support, you know, the person would be coming.
[00:21:56] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. People say you become the average of the five people you spend the most time with.
[00:22:02] Speaker C: That's probably true.
Yeah.
[00:22:05] Speaker B: We can hang out with people who are safe psychologically and who are kind and compassionate. I think you talk about that when you talk about your immigration story.
When you landed in New York City and there was a. One of your hosts was cooking for you. It was. He showed you kindness, care, and compassion, and it helped you feel a sense of psychological safety.
[00:22:29] Speaker C: Yes. Yeah.
[00:22:31] Speaker B: And that was very. It put an imprint on you that has carried you through your whole career.
And could you elaborate on that?
[00:22:41] Speaker C: Yeah. I grew up in a very oppressive political system in Poland and a lot of spying and a lot of reporting on people and quite an unsafe environment, I suppose that was outside of my family home, but inside my family. I grew up around a very loving and compassionate grandparents, you know, and a sense of they're always being enough and they're always being sharing and the kind of warmth, a real warmth. And I say this because I work with clients where I can really detect that they have opulence, but they lack warmth. They have no warmth.
And this is something incredible to have. It's such a gift to have this warmth.
And I guess, you know, moving to the States the way we did and ending up with, you know, John in his sort of corner pub, it was the same that in spite of this being really tough, if you think about it, to go from safety to the sleep on the floor mattress, you know, feeling like things changed and to have this warm family that would, you know, he put his hands on my shoulders, hey, let's go make a hot dog together, and it's going to be okay. And that kind of real warmth. And it was Irish Warmth, you know, he's Polish Irish.
So I think that that probably was incredibly helpful to what could have been a really traumatic experience. It just allowed me to land and to feel safe when my parents were out trying to get jobs. It could have been really quite an abandoning experience. And it wasn't.
[00:24:28] Speaker B: So, yeah, I just discovered that you had that New York history. I always thought you went straight to London.
[00:24:36] Speaker C: No, no, I spent, you know, my youth in New York and then I went to California.
Really?
[00:24:43] Speaker B: How long were you in the States for?
[00:24:46] Speaker C: Well, for pretty much my whole teenage years, my undergraduates. And then I went to do my PhD at Caltech in California.
So, yeah, really, Basically I've been in. I've been in England as long as I've been in the US.
[00:25:03] Speaker B: And what do you like better? Obviously, England, right?
[00:25:08] Speaker C: Well, I mean, I don't know. You know, I often think like, well, if I could be somewhere in like, upstate New York or, I don't know, New England, I think I'd be happy. I think the fast pace of New York City probably didn't suit me when I was younger. It just, you know, it's just too fast. But then California was a bit too slow and too laid back for a New Yorker.
So I sort of feel like I remember to this day throwing my first afternoon barbecue party in California and asking people to come for two o'. Clock. And I thought that was the perfect time. We had this giant pool. We could, you know, so splash in the pool, have a great barbecue. And I think the first guest arrived at around 5:30 or 6pm oh my God.
You know, labor culture of like, it's a Saturday, like, you know, we'll arrive when we arrive, it's no big deal.
And being so pissed off, you know, about it being a New Yorker that I packed away the food and I went, I'm sorry the barbecue happened.
And I said, we can have beers and we can swim, but I'm not doing a barbecue now. And you know, and it was because I was only there for, I think about maybe three months or so. And I thought, you are not for real. You know, I thought this. I felt so disrespected, you know, from the way that I sort of thought, you know, here I am putting on this wonderful show for you and, you know, you're not showing up.
But then, of course, I loosened up and, you know, discovered Hawaii and picked up my own aloha so I could, you know, enjoy California and the pace of it different. What brought you to England?
To London, you mean? To England?
[00:27:02] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:27:04] Speaker C: I came as a student. I was invited to give a lecture by a famous professor whose work I picked up during my PhD.
And when I came, I fell in love with it. I remember going to Regent's park, seeing the black cabs and just finding it so romantic. That's what people say about Paris.
But I didn't find it in Paris. I mean, I went to Paris many times, but I like visiting, but I wouldn't see myself living there. But I think it's part about the language because, you know, having been an immigrant who has had to learn English, being in a place where I don't speak the language makes me feel like I'm on the back foot because, you know, I can't hard in the arts. It's, it's just sort of like a second class citizen type of thing. So it's much harder.
Yeah. But London feels.
[00:27:53] Speaker B: I met you, I met you in London at the, at that conference for. I think it no longer exists. But it was the association of Coaches and Therapists, I think.
[00:28:02] Speaker C: Yes. Integrative practitioners. Yeah.
[00:28:04] Speaker B: Yes. And you gave a speech on heart and mind and connecting the two. And, and it stayed with me ever since.
[00:28:11] Speaker C: Oh.
[00:28:12] Speaker B: Because it's been my biggest challenge is connecting the heart and the mind. So I come from a family that values the intellect greatly and feelings were always sort of discounted and laughed about. So I've gotten, I think over time got very good at, you know, shoving my emotions away and disconnecting with them and putting them under a rug and, and then once in a while I would blow my top. And then I was told I was very unladylike for, for getting angry. And you know, it's sort of, it was sort of like a pressure cooker. You know, if you kind of keep your emotions under wrap, eventually it blows.
But it's, it's, it's a challenge. How do you, how, how would you advise somebody like me to reconnect with emotions? Because sometimes I don't even feel.
[00:29:03] Speaker C: Well. Do you not feel them or do you block them?
[00:29:06] Speaker B: Well, yeah, I block them, but I, I subconsciously block them.
[00:29:10] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:29:11] Speaker B: So I have to remind myself to, to sort of slow down and go, what am I actually feeling? And sometimes it's, I'm like, I don't know, I'm tired.
And then I have to dig a little more. And, and I have friends who can look at my face and go, diana, what's wrong? I'm like, what? And you look really upset. And I'm like, what? No, I'm not upset. Yes, you are. I can tell by the look on your face. And then eventually when I calm down, I'm like, yeah, I was upset, but they could see it before I did. What's that all about?
[00:29:44] Speaker C: Well, I suppose it's about the fact that it wasn't safe for you to show your emotions.
Yeah, right. So when it's not safe, then we learn to find a way to hide it. We learn a way to overcome it, to look busy, to distract ourselves, to do other things so that we slowly create this separation.
You know, I mean, I will confess, you know, in my family, I mean, I think there are three people in my immediate family who are empaths. And we have always been made fun of.
We've always also been told that we're way too sensitive and.
But, you know, but whenever there's a. Anything that happens in a family, we're the people that get called, you know.
[00:30:37] Speaker B: How do you deal with family, though? It's like you're a professional, you're a therapist, a neuroscientist, a coach and more.
And you can't treat your own family.
[00:30:52] Speaker C: You cannot treat your own family, and you can't treat, really anyone who doesn't want to be treated.
Right, yeah.
Family is just, you know, I guess, our closest backyard. So, yeah, family doesn't want to be treated, you know, they'll say, you know, don't psychoanalyze me.
You know, don't try to coach me.
Yeah, but I suppose when people are curious, family or not, you know, clients, same. I think some clients, I'm sure you've seen that they come for work, but they resist the work. They kind of don't want to really go into the work, or they have parts of them that resist the work. So you might have a part that wants to get better, and then you have other parts that go, oh, no, don't listen to that.
That are going to sabotage it at some point. And sometimes you might find that in practice, a client moves forward and then eventually they do something horrible and come back to you and you go, I thought we had that sorted. And then you go, ah, we didn't have it sorted. We sorted it for maybe a fraction of you, and then the other fraction became Napoleonic and went to war.
So, you know, so that's where we have to be careful to kind of make sure that one of the questions I often ask, can you just check in and is there a part of you that doesn't want to do this?
So we can check and see whether there are Parts that are going, no, that's not a good idea, or, that's not good for me.
I don't want you to lose that weight because then I'm gonna be exposed. Or I don't want you to go dating because then I'm not gonna get to do what I want to do.
[00:32:40] Speaker B: Oh, gosh, you know me well.
[00:32:46] Speaker C: Yeah, I think I know myself well, Diana. Like, I'm just like everyone else. It's just that I end up doing work on myself a lot. So it's. We're all the same.
We're all beautifully human and just wonderfully paradoxical and very, very complex.
[00:33:03] Speaker B: It's okay to be single, though, isn't it? It's not. It's not an indication of some kind of pathology or, I've got a dog.
[00:33:12] Speaker C: I think it's okay to be whatever you want to be and need to be.
I don't think people need to be coupled up. Not at all.
But I do meet a lot of people who are single for the wrong reasons.
So they might be single because they feel. Feel unsafe.
They might be, you know, single because they haven't done the healing from a relationship and they are afraid of getting hurt.
They might be, you know, relying on friends and pets as a coping mechanism.
[00:33:56] Speaker B: For.
[00:33:58] Speaker C: Sort of, you know, neurological safety. So it kind of allows them to ground. But ultimately they're not safe in themselves.
So I guess it depends very much on sort of looking a little bit more closely about what we really long for. I sometimes ask people, what does your heart really whisper?
What would be nice? Because sometimes people also confuse. They think, well, relationships are all the same, and relationships are not all the same. And there isn't such a thing as one recipe for coupling either.
You know, we can. We can. You know, sometimes, like when I work with people who get back into dating, they.
When you listen to them, they.
They really put up these huge fears about, but what if this happens? And I sometimes say, you're not going to go marry this person on the second date. Like, just go and hang out and see if you enjoy spending one evening together. And then don't worry about the next steps. Sort of take it one step at a time. What if your life ends tomorrow? That's one extra awesome dinner you could have in the company of a stranger that you get to know. So it kind of depends. I think it's so individual and not easy to have these general answers for, but one has to search one's heart about, you know, when. When I'm alone, am I still happy?
Or not.
[00:35:30] Speaker B: Interesting. But if one is cut off from one's emotions a lot of the time, then how does one know what one wants?
[00:35:38] Speaker C: Well, then we start with the emotions. In my practice, I use so many different ways of not talking. When you came to my workshop, I mean, we played with bodies, we did poses, and I hope you remember, we can do colors and words and collages, and we can play a beat.
There are so many ways of letting us know what you're feeling. That has nothing to do with words.
Because for people who have not been languaging emotions, having words for our feelings or sensations is actually very hard. Quite a lot of people will say, I'm sad.
Like, I'm sad, and everything is, I'm sad, or I'm happy or I'm. Do you know what I mean? Or I'm angry. So they can maybe name three.
But sometimes we don't really quite know because we lack the language.
And sometimes to try to explain it, you have to go to your head to reason it out, to say it.
That's not always so good, is it? Because then you're going exactly where you shouldn't necessarily go.
Right.
[00:36:47] Speaker B: Do you like the idea of using body scans to figure out.
Let's say I had seen a chart. Actually, I did. I did some trauma work in Arizona, and the place I went to gave us a chart that said if you're feeling tightness in your chest, that could indicate fear. It had different body parts associated with certain emotions, and then they had one with carried emotions. Like if your parents shove their emotions on you, you might carry that emotion in a different place.
I thought that was fascinating.
[00:37:21] Speaker C: I don't know about that particular way of doing things, but I suppose I did write Body talk, and Body Talk is about using your mind and art therapy to draw your body. And I start with people often by saying, put an X where this emotion feels the strongest or this sensation feels the strongest. Because there are places in the body where, for example, physical tension. So whether it's your shoulders, whether it's your back, whether it's your hips, does translate to or is linked to real psychological barriers or symptoms or ways in which you carry yourself.
But equally so does posture.
You know, I think if you. You know, I often say if you sit somewhere outside and have a coffee and just watch people go by, it's a really great exercise. I invite, you know, therapists to try because you can just watch people's bodies and you'll see the emotions they carry.
[00:38:30] Speaker B: My goodness. Really?
[00:38:32] Speaker C: What emotions do you see well, depends. Like, for example, I go to Starbucks and I watch the line, and there'll be three people hunched over shoulders, looking very mournful, very tired.
They're carrying problems.
They're not coming and standing happy and erect and having an open chest. Their shoulders are slouched. Their protecting. They're hunched over, they're standing on one leg. So the body tells us an awful lot.
How people move tells us an awful lot. When people drag their feet, they're resisting moving forward.
There are people who happily skip along the sidewalk. So you kind of go, they have a bounce. They have what I call kind of like a spiritual spark. They're alive.
Yeah, you know, they're alive. You can see it in their eyes. Or sometimes, like when you look into people's eyes, they have very bland, bleak eyes. Like yesterday, we were saying how we watched the little children. There were five children in the park watching the Wimbledon, and none of them reacted to social cues. So my friend, of course, smiled at the kids, and we found it very perplexing. They didn't know what to do with that emotional face. And we wondered how they're being reared, because it's a traditional thing for us to think, like, if you smile at me, I'll smile back. It's a mirror response. If I grow up without much attunement and I'm just watching television, I don't recognize these cues.
So we did wonder.
[00:40:11] Speaker B: On your website, you have a video where you're speaking about. The title of your talk is Flourishing Humans.
[00:40:18] Speaker C: Oh, yes.
[00:40:19] Speaker B: Yeah. It's a great talk.
[00:40:20] Speaker C: And.
[00:40:22] Speaker B: And I think you talk about AI in there, and I think it says.
[00:40:26] Speaker C: The video and how that was a Guardian. Guardian talk, or it might have been Minds charity talk.
[00:40:34] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, you've got some great videos on here and how people are relying on AI for therapy and advice, but they're not really getting the social cues, the human compassion and care that you can get from another human, but not from a robot or can you?
[00:40:55] Speaker C: I think, you know, I'm, you know, I've worked with fellow practitioners who have come my way for some work, and I do think that just because we cognitively understand something.
So, for example, you can type in some inquiry into AI and you will get what I think is a very smart and wise and very holistic answer.
And you might read this and go, ah, I get it.
But it's a bit, I think, not dissimilar from me seeing sometimes some Instagram posts that are very touching, and they're talking about attachment or they're talking about trauma and I can see these things land and I go, yes, yes.
But that's not the same as what I think we do with humans, which is to process the experience.
And AI doesn't let you process the experience.
It lets you just understand it maybe. And I'm not even sure whether it lets you understand it, because a bit like in learning theory, if you were to teach something to a student that doesn't mean the student understood it, you would have had to test it back in order to assess the level of comprehension and the level of synthesis, whether this was digested. Could this really make sense inside this person's brain? Are they making sense of it? And essentially the question we will often ask is, how does this change how you see yourself? How does it change how you see other people? How does it change the way you see the world? At its basic kind of counseling level form, AI can kind of give you information and then it leaves you with it to go, can I assist you with something else? Can I write you a blog post about this?
So essentially I'm thinking it kind of uses us as agents.
It uses us as kind of IT agents of just another bounce antenna.
But that's not the same as really processing the experience. And I think that some of that just is a factor of time.
So I haven't written this, I'm still toying with my substack account to see, but I do have a piece that I have written already for it, which is very much around AI and the way that the speed of the answers that come and this kind of continuous. Would you like me now to do this? Would you like me to. Is too fast for the way we truly process information and emotions and all of that content as humans, we need to go for a walk and take it around the block and maybe bubble it over for a month and then maybe something else happens and then we go, ah, there was that thing I said with Diana three weeks ago and oh, wow, now it's making sense.
We are sense making creatures in a way that is far more organic and it's very asynchronous and it's very different. And all these smart AI systems, they just go. They're too fast for the way we do things.
[00:44:06] Speaker B: When you're watching the news and you're seeing the devastation as a result of young girls being washed away in a flood, and then you're seeing kids die in Gaza and then you're seeing people in Spain getting trampled, and you're seeing all this within an hour I've always thought this is too much for a human being to take in emotionally, but the technology is allowing us to see all this in real time. It's a lot of visual, emotional cues that we're getting through technology that our bodies are just not equipped to handle.
And I'm just. I'm thinking if we didn't have technology, we wouldn't know that there are people dying in Gaza and in Texas and in Spain and in England. You know, we just wouldn't know that. We might read it in the news, but we're not going to see the videos, the bloodied people, and we're not going to see the details that maybe our bodies are not equipped to handle.
[00:45:08] Speaker C: Maybe, maybe not. Because I suppose we had telegrams and we had wonderful journalism and they did write to us about things, and we had amazing photographers who brought these great iconic photos of things are burned into history.
I suppose the other side of this, you know, because I was never really a big fan of social media and all of these things, but I guess one of my teachers when I did cyberpsychology, showed me a different perspective. She really advocated for the fact that the technology is not our enemy, it's how we use it.
Because, you know, technology is just a tool. So social media is a tool. I have to still turn it on and I have to turn on the news and want to watch it every day. And I personally don't because I know that bad things happen.
I've always known bad things happen since I was a kid. And I think when I was a kid and I read books about places where bad things happen, I knew there were bad things happening in the world. But there is a kind of element of.
I worry sometimes that I hear the language of people talk a lot about what's happening somewhere else.
That leaves them naturally, understandably upset, and yet it also leaves them powerless because very little I can do about the suffering in Gaza, right? But it takes up my attention and curiosity and time away from people on my doorstep who actually might need my help and who could benefit by it. So I feel that sometimes it can limit our ability to actually be helpful within the sphere of influence that we have.
Which I think if you start to add up, means that there's a lot of people that these sorts of headlines can disempower, you know, So I guess if I was doing news, I would be doing news to say, yes, there are these bad things over there, and here are two local things. If this is, you know, West London news, if this is, you know, New York news or Manhattan news and saying, here are a couple of things where you could go and do some good.
[00:47:29] Speaker B: Yeah. Because people are maybe getting over overwhelmed with.
[00:47:32] Speaker C: Yes, yes, yes. And what we know from every kind of psychology study is that essentially if you're going to feel that level of disempowerment, the only way to help you manage that is to find places of resource. And so if you can go and do something good locally, then you have a way of balancing and buffering that experience far better.
[00:48:02] Speaker B: Oh, that's really helpful. Thank you, Magdalena. I love that.
That's why I'm so grateful that I'm in. I'm in. You know, I go to my fellowship meetings and service is one of the values of that. My mother has also said, whenever you feel terrible, go do something for somebody else and then you'll feel better.
And so she's always put philanthropy as something very important. And we've been involved in her philanthropic projects, you know, from popping open bottles of champagne at her fundraisers. I remember as a kid I got very good at opening champagne bottles too, just, just being really aware of what's going on locally.
But I also feel like sometimes the next generation, they're a little overwhelmed with, with their own lives. So it's hard to get them to be philanthropic when they're, you know, trying to build their own lives. You know, like when they're 18, 19, 20. It's a bit, it's a bit much to ask them to also focus on philanthropy.
[00:48:58] Speaker C: Yeah. Although. Yeah, yeah, I suppose so. I mean, you know, I'm very much the proponent of, you know, your gas mask on first.
So I look at young people here in the UK where, you know, people go to school and then they don't seem to be able to get a job. And they invested time and money, you know, buying into this model of, you know, I'll do this and then I'll get a job and then, you know, I'll follow what my parents did. But the world is changing and I do, talking to young people, feel like they sometimes worry they've been sold this illusion. So there's a lot of disillusionment, you know, amongst young people. There's quite a lot of young people who, having to go back to live at home because they can't, you know, they can get a job, they can't support themselves. You know, there's a lot of problems, I think, in Europe in terms of young people and, you know, it's a multi factor problem, I suppose. And I'm not an expert to comment, just a mere observer.
That said, you know, I think we can do so much good by just learning to be generous in a kind of day to day way.
You know, I mean, like, you know, I'll give you an example. Like yesterday I was coming home and my neighbor's kids were going to school, you know, and I mean, you can come home and you can sort of almost pass them by, or you can really spend a minute to just engage them and greet them warmly and sort of light their eyes up and give them a sense of going, isn't the world nice? You never know. You could be shaping the future of the next prime minister or, you know, or someone who is going to be, you know, a doctor. Frontiers or. You never know. I find it really surprising. When I came here from New York at the beginning, people always say, oh, New Yorkers are so rude.
And I kind of went, I don't understand what you're talking about. You know, I would never imagine being in New York in any building and having people not come over and introduce themselves and give you some cookies and say, welcome to the building. And, you know, and I actually haven't found that level of openness here necessarily, So I kind of wondered about that. And I do think, like now when I watch people on the sidewalk, I would say the foreigners, if I may be so bold, are people who tend to make eye contact, they tend to smile, they tend to say good morning on the sidewalk. I mean, you know, irrespective of age.
And then you have people who literally have their ipods in.
You know, they're walking like a zombie because they're in their own world, but they're passing human encounters 15 times between three blocks. And as far as they're concerned, there is no world, there's no humans.
[00:51:59] Speaker B: That reminds me of your generosity exercise as part of, you know, the grid, the, your productivity book, the.
I love the whole idea that if you, you're able to, to, to give back even a little bit, like helping your neighbor pick up groceries, that it just, it gives you a sense of abundance that you have.
Yeah. That you have more than you think. You forget. We forget how much we have.
[00:52:21] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because I think the world, you know, focuses on like, oh, yeah, wouldn't it be nice if I had a better car or I had less mortgage or this happened. Or this happened. But we tend not to really look for the things that positive psychology reminds us to look at gratitude, like, look at all the things I do have, you know, and just to basically Balance it. So I guess, you know, it goes back to my key principle that I'm in love with, which is balance.
Nothing is bad.
It's a question of balancing it.
[00:52:52] Speaker B: Moderation. Would you.
[00:52:54] Speaker C: Moderation.
[00:52:54] Speaker B: Do you like the word moderation?
[00:52:56] Speaker C: Well, I don't know. Moderation sounds to me like you're always putting a damper on things. I'm not so sure.
Okay. You wouldn't say, like, oh, yeah, why don't you have fun in moderation?
Go to a party and dance, but make sure it's in moderation. I'm not sure I know what that means. You know, I think it's okay to go and have a blast and have a few drinks if you fancy that, but not doing it every day or doing whatever you want to do, you know, eat a full donut because you want to.
Do. You know what I mean? But not eat a whole tub of ice cream. Like, it's a question of giving yourself the opportunity to really sample life.
[00:53:39] Speaker B: So what's that called, though? Is that called, like, allow yourself some indulgences? But then that doesn't sound good either.
[00:53:47] Speaker C: No, yeah, it's a good one. We might not find the word for it, but that might be a good inquiry to have from our call.
[00:53:55] Speaker B: Thank you, Magdalene.
[00:53:57] Speaker C: What would that be?
The word that comes to mind for me is, like, it would be the joy of the moment, but then that can, I guess, you know, people would say, well, that. That could be taken to extremes. And I was at a social gathering a few weeks ago, and someone said they talked about alcohol because, oh, my God, you're having your third drink. And I said, yes, it's been six hours and I've had three drinks and I'm fine.
But someone said, like, well, it could easily go over the edge. And I go, not quite, because, you know, I have a good sense that I am happy and I'm having fun, but if I drank more, I wouldn't have fun anymore. There comes a point at which it isn't fun.
It turns over and it actually becomes sickening and not nice. And it's kind of knowing that tipping point where. You know what I mean? It's kind of a bit like jokes. Like, we were away with some friends not too long ago, and on our way back, we had a drive of about three hours. And then we were telling jokes, and we got to that point at which we literally, no matter how funny the joke, we basically were out of, like, we hit the limit on the amount of jokes. We need to just now talk about Something else. Be quiet, listen to some music. But, you know, after enough jokes, we were like, no more jokes. You know?
You see what I mean? So I think there is. It sounds fun. Yeah. Kind of place where you go, it's fun until it isn't.
[00:55:25] Speaker B: Maybe it's something to do with awareness. Awareness of the pleasure plateau. Dr. Judd Brewer talks about the pleasure plateau.
[00:55:32] Speaker C: Oh, nice. Interesting.
[00:55:34] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah, I like that. Yeah. Because it's like I have a total espresso addiction. And the first one of the day is fantastic, and then the second one's a little less fantastic, and then it gets to the point where number four and five are just really not that great anymore.
But then I keep going. Keep. I keep hoping I can go back to the feeling of the first one.
[00:55:57] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:55:59] Speaker B: Yeah.
So I like that. It's sort of encouraging us to be curious about pleasure.
[00:56:07] Speaker C: Yes. I think being curious about pleasure is a very good idea.
[00:56:11] Speaker B: Yeah. Because the word pleasure is such a charged word. It's sort of. Some people feel ashamed having anything that mildly resembles hedonism.
[00:56:20] Speaker C: Yes.
No, I think. I think the people who worry about that are probably the ones who really need to have more pleasure.
[00:56:29] Speaker B: Oh. Oh, my God. I love that.
I really love that.
[00:56:33] Speaker C: If you worry about having pleasure, you should have more pleasure.
[00:56:37] Speaker B: Oh, my God. I think. I think we should leave it on that. That is so good. Oh, my God.
You are so much fun, Magdalena. I wish we lived closer. I want to hang out with you every day.
[00:56:49] Speaker C: Well, you do come this way, don't you? You come this side of the pond, so.
[00:56:52] Speaker B: I do. I do sometimes. Unfortunately, the last few times were fun, so that wasn't so fun. But I like being. I like your city. It's cool.
[00:57:01] Speaker C: All right. I think it is what you make it to be, right? Like, if you. If you. I think every place can be fun if you open your eyes to it and see what it can be.
Yeah. I think people can be miserable in Paris, and they can be happy in Paris, can be miserable in a small town, or they can be amazingly blasting, you know, away going. It's the best thing ever.
Yeah. Yeah. Is there something.
[00:57:25] Speaker B: Is there something you would like to say that you have. I've completely forgotten or omitted, and that you would like our listeners to know about you?
[00:57:35] Speaker C: I would encourage people to check out my books only because it takes time to write them, and they're good. You know, they're good reading. I think they're not too taxing to read. I don't write academies. I write very simple, accessible books.
So that can be found on Amazon, you know, probably the fastest, I guess, around the world.
Amazon.
[00:58:02] Speaker B: I ordered it directly for you.
[00:58:03] Speaker C: For those who do not support Amazon, they can come to my website, www.maketimecount.com and they can get them directly from me. And they might even get a postcard.
[00:58:17] Speaker B: Yeah. I was impressed. I was like, wow, this is, this is so.
[00:58:21] Speaker C: I love it.
[00:58:21] Speaker B: I want to call it analog because I think your. The grid system is so analog. And then getting a postcard from you handwritten, I was like, oh, it was so reminiscent of the time before technology.
[00:58:35] Speaker C: When I was doing my book launch and people came through and they're like, you're actually writing something. And I go, well, I'm not going to just sign my name.
But it did mean the cues were longer. But every person got, got some, they got a connection, they got a moment. Like with my first book, I would look at a person, I would say, start with this exercise. And then people wrote me letters and they said like, you were so right.
Yeah.
So it's nice. It's like, you know, if you're having this moment of connection, you shouldn't let it go to waste.
Yeah.
[00:59:11] Speaker B: So you have a great website and with some great courses on there too, on how to use your grid.
[00:59:16] Speaker C: That's true. Yes. That we have a standalone course on how to use the grid. So you can go from whatever state you're in to a much more balanced, clear, focused state and learn the technique.
And we have a 14 day habit changer course that people use and like for all sorts of habits, from being nicer to their wives, you know, to starting to exercise, to quitting smoking, to finishing their essays if they're students, you know. So I think you can, you can use that course for 14 days. They don't have to be 14 consecutive days, but you follow a particular sort of system.
And then we have our Rise Circles 12 month programs, which are very nice. So we'll have two new groups launching in September and October.
[01:00:14] Speaker B: What happens in those groups?
[01:00:15] Speaker C: The rise groups, we meet. So we follow the go get a bootcamp methodology, which continues to be free on my website, to support people in sort of achieving things or moving towards greater agency or greater healing.
But the Rice circles meet six times a year with a group of just five other people.
And it is a supported group. So you have essentially like a accountability group where you witnessed, where you get to bring in your work, where people you know listen and see you travel.
And we are documenting that journey for the group.
And then we have A ritual at the end where people get to their 12 months and see what they want to do next.
But for people who don't want to travel alone, who are not essentially loners or who maybe have a difficulty being motivated, it's a lovely way to make friends with people, learn through and with others because, you know, other people are doing different things. So there's a kind of way to connect with people and build some friendships.
So, yeah.
[01:01:26] Speaker B: Oh, wonderful.
Well, thank you so much, Magdalena, and my absolute pleasure.
So I will link to your website and to Amazon where they can get your book. And is there anything else?
[01:01:42] Speaker C: No, I think I will happily give you the link directly to the rice circles, the Go Get Bootcamp, so that there are some direct links that people can use because, you know, we're very keen to kind of make things that are accessible, that are free, that are low price, that are basically your only barrier to engagement is your own motivation.
[01:01:59] Speaker B: Nice. Wonderful.
[01:02:01] Speaker C: Thank you so much for having me, Diana. That's a real. You're welcome. I really enjoyed talking to you.
[01:02:09] Speaker B: Me, I really enjoy talking to you, too. Before we wrap up, I'd like to thank Oliver Kiker for the jingle and Gwendolyn Christian for the backup support.
Also, a quick reminder, these interviews are not a substitute for professional medical, legal, or psychological advice. Always consult with a qualified professional for any major decisions in your life.
And thanks for joining me in exploring the connections that make us human and learning insights and strategies to help us build, heal, and nurture relationships, including, and especially the the one with yourself. It's been an honor to share this time with you and to bring you conversations with some of the brightest minds who deserve more recognition. Remember, life's too short to take too seriously, so don't forget to hit that subscribe button, get outside, and let's continue this journey of life together. See you next time.
[01:03:06] Speaker C: Um.
