Deborah Gilboa's Blog

I asked you if you had any “slow bleeds” in your life that are draining your resilience and wow did you ever answer!

Slow bleeds in the form of loved ones with big mental health challenges, co-workers who don’t step up, bosses that over-promise and under-deliver, marriages that haven’t been strong for years, markets that change constantly, economic struggles, a sick pet… 

So what do you do? 

Most of us try to “put a bandaid over it” and keep moving. But that doesn’t work. If you can’t do something to stop the bleeding or treat it another way, the bandaid will just get soaked and fall off. 

I know that for most of these situations, there is no way to stop the bleeding. You wouldn’t ever stop caring for that loved one, you may not be able to control who your co-workers are or how they behave, you may not be able to afford a different job or move into a new market (or a different country!). 

So how can you handle these slow bleeds a different way? There are three pillars to support that you can choose:

Address this issue directly by learning more, trying new strategies, having  a meeting with your boss or team or family or doctor(depending only on where the “bleeding” is occurring) and actively search for new ways to approach what is happening.Recruit support. Maybe you have to be the primary person facing or handling this issue but that doesn’t mean you have to handle everything alone. Can you get some help with other tasks? Can you have a set time to talk to someone trustworthy every week or month about how you’re doing and what else might help?Keep the rest of you as healthy as possible. You have a lot of strategies for handling the stressors that are slowly draining you. But are you remembering to strengthen yourself? Sleep, water, healthy food, outside air, a few minutes to yourself, hanging out with a friend, petting your pet, listening to music, prayer, exercise – you know what heals you. Are you bothering to do any of that? 

The first strategy – addressing this issue head on instead of assuming “everyone already knows and there’s no point talking about it” is the hardest. What ideas would you offer a friend in your situation?

All the best,

Dr. G

The post A slow bleed needs more than a bandaid appeared first on Ask Dr. G.

We tend to think about stressors as big changes. We get terrible news (or great news, like we talked about last week) and often that’s the case. 

We are moving through our lives, doing what needs to get done and – bam! – something big happens that drops our resilience. It’s like a knife slipped and cut us enough to need stitches when we thought we were just preparing dinner. There are strategies that we can use in those moments and often we remember to do that because the change really catches our attention.

Some drops in resilience, though, don’t come from a “big cut.” 

Sometimes our resilience drops because we’re dealing with the 78th small cut in a week. Or we have a “cut” that just won’t heal. 

What I mean by a cut that just won’t heal is a stressor that persists with no relief in sight. It may be a terminally understaffed workforce when you’re not in a leadership position to change things. It might be dealing with a chronic illness in you or a loved one. It might be a learning disability you’ve learned to navigate but will always be with you. It may be a relationship with someone in your workplace that is a constant irritant but doesn’t improve despite all your strategies. 

This “slow bleed” of resilience can harm us even more than the big impact event. That’s because we take this as normal. We don’t recruit strategies or seek support or look for new ways to handle it – it just becomes background noise to us, the status quo. And, as we’ve talked about, our brains are suckers for the status quo, even when it’s not what’s best for us. 

So what do you do? First you notice. That slow bleed may not be life threatening, but it’s not good for you. It can actually be dangerous! Next week we’ll talk about how to handle it but for now I want to ask you – do you have a resilience slow bleed? Comment and tell me.

All my best,

Dr. G

The post The Slow Bleed appeared first on Ask Dr. G.

This week is a Truly Good Week!

If you’ve been around this community for a bit you know that I’m Jewish. Or in the words of Seth Myers, you can tell from “my name, my face, pretty much everything about me.”  And this week being Jewish means, for the vast majority of the 16 million Jews left around the world, a collective holding of breath, a lack of sleep, a hiccupping sob and exhale as the last living hostages in Gaza returned to their families. To our family. 

It’s tremendous, it’s glorious, it’s miraculous. And it’s hard! It’s exhausting and confusing and gut-punching, this miracle. The resilience required to navigate this amazing change is shocking – even to me and I study resilience as my life’s work.

So, what lesson is there for you in this dichotomy? Even if you’re not a part of the 0.2% of the world that hung on every day of the last two years and every moment of Monday, you will also experience in your life the fulfillment of a dream. As a matter of fact, the more longed for, worked towards and believed in your dream, the more resilience you may need when it comes true.

The moment you see that this thing you want as much as – or more than – anything is going to actually happen? Your brain is shook! Your amygdala will respond with a huge rush of chemicals trying to protect you from this huge change. Imagine you’ve been working towards a revenue goal or an impact goal in your career. It may only be the difference of one dollar, one grant, one follower that tips you over to meeting that goal – but it represents something much, much bigger to you. 

It represents a change in what you work towards next.

It represents a change in how you define yourself.

It represents a change in who you are and what is possible.

When dreams come true our whole lives have to shift. That requires a huge amount of resilience.

So when your dream comes true and it’s hard, use the same strategies you would if something bad happened. Give yourself some empathy, reach out for support, manage your discomfort… all the things we talk about together weekly. And try not to be surprised. There is nothing wrong with you. You are equal to this moment, you deserve this good thing.

Tell me about something you want this much, you’re working towards this hard – I want to know and to cheer you on, and support you when it comes true.

All my best,

The post You need resilience when dreams come true appeared first on Ask Dr. G.

You are not supposed to everyone’s therapist. You’re not supposed to be anyone’s therapist, actually, unless you’re, you know… a therapist. 

This week I had the opportunity to speak at an industry conference in Savannah, GA (great town!) for an incredible group of publishing and tech professionals. We spent the morning talking about their resilience – how to find it, how to grow it, how to protect it – and the afternoon talking about how to make the people they work with more resilient. After that second keynote a group of people pulled me into a follow up conversation they were having.

“Listen, I want my team, my leadership, the sales people, my buyers, all of them to be more resilient. What you described sounds great. I think the strategies would work. But I don’t want to be their therapist!” This whole group of leaders agreed that every feedback or review conversation feels to them like it is either ineffective or turns into a therapy session. I get that.

So the question this brings up for me: Can leaders be empathetic, effective communicators without having to do (or dodge) “therapy” sessions with their team members? 

Also, please note, only trained people actually do therapy. The rest of us just feel like we’re forced to cosplay at it.

The answer is that you can use resilience strategies without practicing (an untrained version of) psychology. Strategies are just that – ways you can approach someone to help them navigate change more successfully. You can listen empathetically to someone’s concerns or frustrations without helping them try to fix those issues. You can give processing time without agreeing to listen to all of their processing. Your role is to offer these strategies and put up a healthy boundary around the reaction. 

What does that look like? Here’s one possible response:

“I appreciate that you’re giving this some thought. Will you get back with me (tomorrow, next week, pick a time) and let me know your plan to move forward?”

You can have empathy “I care about what you’re feeling” without working through all the details of that with your co-worker or employee. 

Agree or disagree? What thoughts do you have about this?

All my best,

Dr. G

The post Are you supposed to be everyone’s therapist? appeared first on Ask Dr. G.

Today is Yom Kippur. This is a holy day in Judaism and it marks the end of our annual period of atonement. What does that mean and how might it be useful to you? 

Well, let me tell you. 

Judaism has a lot of rules about.., I mean, honestly everything. But in particular there are lots of rules and guidance about this process of atoning. 

First, you have to “take an accounting of your soul.” Which loosely translates to asking yourself what you have to feel guilty about. And that brings us to what I want to share today. Guilt can be really useful, if you do it right. (Please insert all the Jewish mom guilt jokes here so I don’t have to…)

Guilt is a totally appropriate feeling if you’ve acted against your values. Counterpoint: guilt is not an appropriate response to acting IN accordance with your values, even if someone else didn’t like it or felt hurt by it. You can regret the fallout, even express empathy to that person, but that is different than guilt. 

When you feel guilty, figure out which of your values you are in acting in opposition to and that will be your guide. Your guide to what? To knowing to whom you owe and apology and to knowing how you need to change your behavior in the future. 

In my tradition we’re taught that every apology has three steps:

Figure out what you did that wasn’t okApologize to those you injured Actively work on making it right and not doing it again

Look, we throw around the concept of “feeling bad” or “feeling guilty” a lot in our society. And it’s bad for our resilience. It confuses us to focus on feeling like we did something wrong when we did what was right and it wasn’t well received. 

Actual guilt – and taking steps to rectify it – build resilience and relationships. When you owe someone an apology (whether they know it or not) and you’re brave enough to speak it you will often strengthen that connection. Even when you don’t strengthen that connection you will always strengthen your own sense of self, your ability to navigate life and come through it the kind of person you mean to be. 

What do you think of using the litmus test of your own values to determine whether you should or shouldn’t feel guilty about something? 

And wishing an easy fast and meaningful Yom Kippur to all who observe. 

All my best,

Dr. G

The post What’s the Use of Guilt? appeared first on Ask Dr. G.

Stress, as we’ve been talking about recently, is like exercise in many ways. They both make us stronger – stress builds mental fitness and strength and exercise build physical fitness and strength. They both, for most of us, feel… pretty awful, and are easier to avoid than engage in. And they are both useful tools to getting the life we want. But there is one place that this analogy really breaks down. You really only exercise if you choose to do that. 

Some stress you choose. 

A promotion, a new job, a new responsibility. Plans, or a new friend or volunteer work. Adopting a pet or growing your family or moving to a new city.

But some stress chooses you. 

A parking ticket or broken window or power outage. A stomach bug or a co-worker who quits. A bad relationship or a bad diagnosis. 

All change is stressful and not all stress is bad – but some is. And that bad stress can make us feel directionless, helpless, hopeless. If you’re in that space, I’m so sorry you’re feeling that way, it feels terrible and it’s not fair. 

It’s also not true.

Feelings are real, but they’re not facts. And (in the wise words of my late mom, z”l) if you’re still breathing, you have options. So even though some stress was not your choice, came from a source you’d never choose, that feeling that there is nothing you can do is not true. 

Neurochemically, the answer when you feel completely swamped by change is to remind yourself of something you can choose. Whether it’s a very, very small choice like if you’re going to sit down or stand up, or a really big choice like if you’re going to quit or fire someone or end a relationship or do chemotherapy or write a will or plant a tree or or or… you have choices. Reminding your brain that you have choices lights up a portion of the brain (the ventromedial prefrontal cortex) that soothes the amygdala. That calms your threat response and makes you feel safer. 

Or, in the words of Albus Dumbledore to Harry Potter, 

“It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.”

What choices have you made that reminded you of who you really are?

All the best,

Dr. G

The post How stress is not like exercise appeared first on Ask Dr. G.

Stress is awful, and useful. That was the subject of last week’s conversation.

The strength and force of your reactions to this made me realize something. Our pervasive belief that stress is toxic is harming individuals and workplaces, maybe as much as the damage stress can do if it is rampant and unchecked. 

Please don’t misunderstand me – stress can be damaging. Just like exercise can be damaging – if there is way too much of it or if you “play hurt” or don’t have any coaching or support through it. We need to recognize our own warning signs and get support before we’re injured. 

But stress itself is not inherently toxic. Toxic means that any dose will harm us – and that is exactly what we’ve been taught to believe. As a society we are terrified of stress. So much that, if we’re stressed, we believe we’re doing life wrong. That if someone is causing us stress we have been told they must be the villain in our story. And none of that is true. That belief itself is harming our ability to build the life we want for two reasons.

First, if you believe that the very air you are breathing at work is killing you, you cannot bring your best self. You have to stay defensive, pushing off tasks, telling people why you can’t do what you’ve been asked to do rather than collaborating to find ways to excel. 

Second, we can’t get to the lives we want, the lives we’re working towards and dreaming about, without stress. Because all change is stressful at the neurochemical level. 

So we, as a society and as individuals, need to change our perspective and our language about stress. Go from “stress is toxic” to “stress is a tool.” I have some ideas about how we can do that, and I’m wondering if you do, too. Would you hit reply and let me know?

All my best,

Dr. G

The post If you believe the air you breathe is killing you, you can’t be at your best appeared first on Ask Dr. G.

If you had a chance to read my post last week you saw that I said something confusing and controversial: Stress is not the problem. 

Lots of you reacted – in really positive ways – to that with your own experiences of growing and learning from stress, being motivated by stress to do something positive. But the underlying premise – that stress is, as one of you put it, “a silent killer” does seem to stick. 

Stress is no more silent, and no more of a killer, than exercise. 

The analogy of stress to exercise is a good starting point. Stress is to resilience as exercise is to body health. If we want to get more physically fit we have to (unfortunately) exercise. And if we want to get more resilient we have to experience stress. Both stress and exercise feel… terrible for most of us. Both stress and exercise do damage if we get too much of it, or if we’re not hydrated, rested, healthy to begin with. Both actually help our bodies and brains get stronger.

The analogy of stress to exercise doesn’t carry us through to the end of the story, I know. More on that next week. 

For now, I want to keep questioning the idea that stress is a silent killer. It is not insidious like an invisible poison in the air we breathe, though we’re often told it is. Like anything, the danger is in the dose – we need to pay attention to our health at the beginning and the amount we try to handle. 

Do you notice that you have a fundamental belief that stress must be dangerous? Or are you part of conversations that see it another way?

All my best,

Dr. G

The post Stress is like exercise. Terrible. And useful! appeared first on Ask Dr. G.

“What do you speak about?” 

This is a question I’m asked pretty often, and it seems like the answer should be simple. For years – 13 years actually – I’ve answered this with a very “it depends” tone in my voice. There are good reasons for that. My research and ideas are constantly evolving. I tailor my message to the audience to whom I’m speaking. I genuinely believe that every group grows stronger by learning about navigating change and resilience. 

All that said, I’ve recently uncovered another reason I don’t answer this question in a consistent, straightforward fashion. It’s because… I’m afraid to do that.

If I were to be boldly, baldly honest, what I speak about is controversial. Counter-cultural. Maybe even so different than what we as a society believe that I fear telling people right up front will close their minds to any further conversation or learning. Because here is what I talk about:

Stress is not the problem. 

See? That is so different than what we normally say that it’s hard to take it in. You are still reading (thank you!!) either because you’re an unusually open-minded, curious person or because we’ve built some trust between us in these emails over time. But most people can’t hear this message, it’s too different.

As a society we have learned to fear stress more than just about anything. We hear messages that stress is the silent killer. As a matter of fact, when I was in med school our professors said “Stress is the new smoking – make sure your patients avoid it at all costs.” 

My med school professors were right – stress can be damaging. We have to avoid or minimize the damage by knowing our limits, recognizing the warning signs in our own minds and bodies. Not just the red flags, like substance abuse, risky behaviors, or sabotaging relationships, but the yellow flags as well – the behaviors or feelings that tell us we need to ask for help now, before we get hurt.

And my med school professors were wrong.  Stress is a tool, not a toxin. Just like every tool, it can hurt you if you don’t know how to use it, but you can’t build without it.

I have lots of science to back this up, metaphors to make it more obvious, strategies to handle it – but this is the core of all my work. 

How does it land with you?

All my best,

Dr. G

The post Pushing back against a societal belief appeared first on Ask Dr. G.

Thank you, sincerely. Every time I reach out to this community with a new idea and ask for your feedback, I’m blown away. Fully half of you open and read this newsletter every week (if you do any email work you know how amazingly generous that makes you) and you are incredibly responsive. You’re insightful, deep, funny and practical and I learn from you every week. 

A few years ago I realized that the most valuable resource in my life is the people I know and the ones I could meet. Along the way I discovered that resilience and doing life better is not only interesting to me but to many folks! So I launched the Think Tank on Resilience. You may already be a part of it, and if so – thank you for that. 

We wrapped Season 3 in June and my incredible team has helped me put together a great “sizzle” of some highlights. If you’re intrigued but not yet involved, I hope you’ll check it out. There’s no cost to be a part of the Think Tank but you do need to register (this is to block the very… crudely creative zoom bomber who showed up to the first episode!). We meet the last Tuesday of the month from 12:05p to 12:50p Eastern time live online and the conversations always yield immediately actionable takeaways for building resilience in yourself and your team. 

We’re kicking off Season 4 focused on resilience in GenZ – so if you’re working with or leading (or raising) a GenZ’er, you won’t want to miss it. 

Thank you again for sharing your ideas and thoughts with me – I’m blown away!

All my best,

Dr. G

The post There’s so much wisdom in our community appeared first on Ask Dr. G.