You Are Not Depressed, You Are Unfinished
In this powerful episode of Broken Beautiful Me - Stories of Hope, Gratitude & Resilience, host we welcomes Dr. Ardeshir Mehran, a globally recognized psychologist, bestselling author, and keynote speaker, to share his transformative insights on depression and the path to fulfillment. Dr. Mehran, author of the widely acclaimed book You Are Not Depressed, You Are Unfinished, brings decades of expertise in understanding human psychology, emotions, and personal growth. His unique approach challenges conventional notions of depression, framing it not as a permanent emotional state but as a reflection of an incomplete journey towards discovering our true potential.
With a career spanning over 30 years, Dr. Mehran has worked with global organizations, including his former role as a Change Psychologist at Genentech, where he helped individuals and teams overcome obstacles, navigate personal challenges, and find deeper meaning in their lives. His work, deeply rooted in both scientific research and personal experience, empowers those who are grieving or struggling with depression to embrace their pain as part of their growth and healing process.
Through his innovative methodology, Dr. Mehran offers practical strategies for transforming grief and despair into hope, resilience, and purpose. Listeners will gain valuable insights into how they can move beyond feelings of loss and incompletion, finding the courage to pursue a fulfilled life with gratitude and grace. This episode is an inspiring conversation about personal transformation, designed to uplift and empower anyone navigating the complexities of grief and depression. Tune in to discover how you, too, can shift from being unfinished to living with a renewed sense of wholeness and purpose.
To learn more about Dr. Ardeshir Mehran's groundbreaking work or to connect with him for speaking engagements and consultations, visit his website at ardeshirmehran.com or reach out via LinkedIn at Ardeshir Mehran LinkedIn.
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00:00:02
So good morning, everyone.
00:00:04
It's my absolute pleasure to
00:00:07
welcome Dr. Ardeshir Moran to the show.
00:00:10
Dr. Moran is disrupting the
00:00:12
mental health field and
00:00:13
delivering more effective
00:00:15
practices to heal
00:00:17
depression and ease the
00:00:18
emotional suffering of
00:00:20
people across the world.
00:00:22
He is the author of the bestselling book,
00:00:24
You Are Not Depressed, You Are Unfinished,
00:00:27
which I love.
00:00:29
Everyone else portrays
00:00:30
depression as an immovable cause,
00:00:33
a mood disorder that must be treated.
00:00:36
Dr. Moran busts this myth
00:00:39
and focuses attention on the real culprit,
00:00:41
the unfulfilled life we
00:00:43
must lead when we deny our birthrights.
00:00:47
He developed the Bill of
00:00:48
Emotional Rights based on
00:00:50
30 years of research, coaching,
00:00:53
and clinical work.
00:00:54
And you can read more about
00:00:57
his life work on his website,
00:00:59
ArtistsSharedLaurent.com.
00:01:01
He's a psychologist, a trauma therapist,
00:01:04
behavioral researcher,
00:01:06
leadership and team coach.
00:01:08
He has a PhD and an MED in counseling,
00:01:11
organizational and research
00:01:13
psychology from Columbia
00:01:15
University in New York City.
00:01:17
And he has held leadership
00:01:18
roles in corporations and
00:01:20
consulting firms and has
00:01:22
advanced training in psychoanalysis,
00:01:24
group therapy, and team dynamics.
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And I am just so honored
00:01:29
that you are taking the
00:01:31
time to speak with me today.
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So thanks.
00:01:34
Great.
00:01:34
Thank you so much, Kelly.
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Delighted to be here.
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And your program, Broken Beautiful Me,
00:01:41
caught my attention right away.
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And I thought, wow,
00:01:44
we're going to have a great conversation.
00:01:47
Thank you.
00:01:47
Oh, thank you so much.
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I think so too.
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Just looking at your body of work, I'm
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I'm so interested in your,
00:01:55
in your viewpoint as it
00:01:56
relates to some of my work with grief and,
00:01:59
and what wisdom you can offer today.
00:02:01
So, um, so let's just jump right in.
00:02:03
Thank you.
00:02:05
Lead the way.
00:02:05
Okay.
00:02:07
Um, so can you share just to start a bit,
00:02:11
uh,
00:02:11
for the listeners about your personal
00:02:13
journey and what led you to write?
00:02:17
You are not depressed.
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You are unfinished.
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Great.
00:02:20
Thank you.
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Thank you, Kelly.
00:02:21
And, um,
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To be honest,
00:02:24
I didn't know I'd be doing
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the work that I'm doing right now,
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except what I was noticing,
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starting from my own
00:02:34
childhood and later on in graduate school,
00:02:38
getting my doctorate in
00:02:39
psychology and then in corporate,
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I would see people stressed,
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look depressed, unhappy, and
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It was a state of mind and
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experience that it would last forever.
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You would see people who
00:02:56
were always unhappy.
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I remember my own family, my own parents.
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Later on, I saw it myself.
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And you would see corporate environment,
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corporate leaders, team members,
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that the general sense of
00:03:11
people didn't feel well, felt broken,
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felt unsatisfied.
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And it would become a state of mind.
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And people will say, that's life,
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deal with it.
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And then as I work with people,
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every now and then I was like, smart Alex,
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show me what's in your
00:03:30
purse or in your backpack, your drawer.
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And you would see lots of
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medications for back pain, stomach pain,
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chest pain.
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Or I would travel with
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people you would see drinking a lot.
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And people told me about
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their life struggles, infidelity,
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and so on.
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And I always wondered,
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what is it that people, when they suffer,
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suffering lasts a long time?
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And why we, I'm a psychologist,
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the proud psychologist,
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why is it that we cannot
00:04:07
help people to heal?
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The best we are doing,
00:04:11
we help people to manage their struggles.
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But people who've been in
00:04:16
therapy or who are psychologists,
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they know depression comes back,
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anxiety comes back,
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and obsessive compulsive
00:04:23
mindset comes back.
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And I was wondering why, why?
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And it was only after I
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changed my lens of inquiry
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from how to help people to
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why do people get ill and
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why healing lasts a long
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time that I realized
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actually we are solving the
00:04:50
wrong problem.
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All we're doing is symptom
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management and looking at your
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title of your podcast broken me.
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Yes, we can be broken.
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But brokenness is a adaptive response.
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It's not a cause is an
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adaptive response is a
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survival experience.
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We need to go upstream about
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what happened when we broke.
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And I realized that actually there are,
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based upon certain experiences,
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certain life realities,
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that if you focus on that,
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brokenness not only minimizes,
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it dissipates.
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That's the essence of my
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work and then my book,
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that depression is about
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living an unfinished life.
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Parts of you never got a chance to be
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fulfilled, to be experienced,
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to be owned because nobody
00:05:57
taught us that nobody's fault.
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Nobody taught us that, that we as humans,
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we have certain emotional rights.
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We all do everywhere, all eras,
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all cultures.
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Once we know that our
00:06:11
brokenness goes away.
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That is beautiful.
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And, and I, I so agree.
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Um,
00:06:19
the title of the podcast is truly how I
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made a conscious decision to
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live so that there are
00:06:26
events in life that will
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make you feel broken,
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but your approach to them
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can actually lead to a more
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beautiful and fulfilled life.
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And so your work is just so
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important for today's world
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where I think people feel, especially
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you know,
00:06:47
being isolated post COVID and
00:06:50
just feeling just
00:06:51
particularly broken and not
00:06:52
really sure of the pathway to go forward.
00:06:56
So what advice would you
00:06:58
give listeners kind of
00:07:00
struggling with being
00:07:01
unfinished or incomplete?
00:07:03
What would you say to them?
00:07:04
Great.
00:07:05
So there are two things,
00:07:07
there are two dimensions to wellness.
00:07:11
And one is that
00:07:15
Understanding the power of human body,
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human nervous system.
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The next one is that knowing
00:07:22
that we humans,
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like the way when we are born,
00:07:25
almost think about vitamins.
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We know what vitamin
00:07:30
deficiency looks like when
00:07:31
you don't have enough vitamin C,
00:07:33
vitamin D, vitamin E, and so on.
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You know, vitamin deficiency looks like,
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and you know, what,
00:07:40
what is the regimen for vitamin health?
00:07:45
What we don't have is that
00:07:47
emotional fulfillment,
00:07:50
emotional deficiency.
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Many people have emotional deficiency.
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They don't even know it.
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It's not their fault.
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Nobody taught us that.
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The same way we take vitamins,
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we need to have emotional
00:08:05
recipe for health.
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So reset your body, your nervous system,
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and make sure you have your
00:08:13
emotional vitamins,
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your emotional health.
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You combine those two, you will do well.
00:08:22
Let me explain a bit further.
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Since about 20 years ago,
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there's been a significant
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shift and advancement in the field of
00:08:36
medicine,
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coming from actually from veteran
00:08:39
affairs hospitals with soldiers, PTSD.
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This information came from pain clinics,
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trauma centers.
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So we're learning the power,
00:08:50
the impact of trauma on people's bodies,
00:08:53
people's lives.
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What we really learn is
00:08:58
about how the whole nervous system,
00:09:00
our entire body works.
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That when we have early
00:09:06
childhood trauma trauma
00:09:08
basically instance of being
00:09:09
overwhelmed experiences
00:09:12
that they are so extreme or
00:09:14
so they last a long time
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like poverty child abuse
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neglect shame physical
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abuse in terms of coming
00:09:26
from the like war
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you know, water torn areas or hunger.
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So what happens more or less
00:09:35
we live in a compromised state of being,
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you know,
00:09:39
we live in what is called
00:09:40
emotional freeze, that we hunker down,
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we get stuck,
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we live a life of fearfulness.
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When that happens,
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Our inner nervous system, our gut tightens,
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creates cortisol, adrenaline.
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Those are the reactions to fear,
00:10:00
sense of being very apprehensive.
00:10:03
Our heart has started to race, you know,
00:10:05
like, you know,
00:10:05
as a way we always ready to pounce,
00:10:07
ready to run, ready to do something.
00:10:10
So when you're in a state like that,
00:10:13
our cognitive, our thinking,
00:10:17
Our way of relating to the
00:10:18
world is minimized,
00:10:20
more or less be a state of
00:10:21
fear based responding to the world.
00:10:25
And a child who grows up in
00:10:26
an environment like that,
00:10:28
they are passive.
00:10:29
They are quiet.
00:10:31
That's where ADHD starts to happen.
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They live in a very reactive
00:10:36
state of mind.
00:10:37
It's almost like a scared cat.
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When you approach a scared cat,
00:10:40
what they do, they pounce on you,
00:10:42
but they don't want to be touched.
00:10:44
Many people, we don't have data.
00:10:47
But many people live,
00:10:49
grow up in a state of like
00:10:51
that kind of like being
00:10:52
state of hyper vigilant, hyper scared,
00:10:55
hyper alert.
00:10:57
Second thing, when that happens,
00:11:00
we stop paying attention
00:11:03
and owning our emotional needs,
00:11:06
needs for connection.
00:11:08
needs to live a life of
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safety a life of relating
00:11:13
and being honored by others
00:11:15
live a life pursuing our
00:11:16
dreams more or less we're
00:11:18
state of becoming observer
00:11:20
of life versus actually
00:11:22
living in life that's where
00:11:24
depression comes in the
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very first part when we are
00:11:28
in a state of hyper
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vigilance very anxious
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that's where anxiety
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obsessive compulsiveness
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and adhd comes in
00:11:38
When we are held back from
00:11:40
living our life in a calm,
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intentional way,
00:11:44
that's where depression comes in.
00:11:46
Depression is a sense of
00:11:49
disconnection to our needs,
00:11:52
to our experiences,
00:11:55
to what we want and we
00:11:58
crave to have in life.
00:12:01
So anxiety and depression,
00:12:02
they go hand in hand.
00:12:04
They feed each other.
00:12:07
so what your listeners can
00:12:10
do is pay attention to your
00:12:13
emotional health but more
00:12:16
important pay attention to
00:12:18
your own body as you're
00:12:20
listening to this call do
00:12:22
you experience like tight
00:12:24
guts you know do you spend
00:12:25
like churning you know
00:12:26
stomach do you experience
00:12:29
in your daily life like a
00:12:32
chest problem you know like
00:12:33
racing heart you know like a short breath
00:12:37
Or do you experience body pain,
00:12:40
aches like in your hips, your thighs,
00:12:44
back of the neck, shoulders?
00:12:47
If you do,
00:12:48
they could signal a body that is
00:12:50
the state of a stress-prone life.
00:12:57
Your body tells you when
00:12:59
your body has a lot of discomfort,
00:13:03
that tells you you're
00:13:04
living a compromised life.
00:13:07
you are you are in a state
00:13:08
of fear a state of worries
00:13:11
a state of like
00:13:12
apprehension about your
00:13:14
daily life and the way of
00:13:17
healing is first trying to
00:13:19
reset your body and the way
00:13:22
you do that you go see a
00:13:24
therapy or counselor who's
00:13:26
trained in trauma work or
00:13:28
it's called somatic work
00:13:29
that they know how do you heal your body
00:13:32
And next, as you do that,
00:13:35
you start to claim,
00:13:37
what do I want in life?
00:13:39
Those emotional rights,
00:13:40
which I want to describe.
00:13:43
There are needs you have.
00:13:45
Are you aware of them?
00:13:47
Are you claiming them?
00:13:50
Absolutely.
00:13:52
So I think that ties into
00:13:54
your bill of emotional rights.
00:13:57
um just beautifully and so
00:14:00
can we I would love it if
00:14:02
you would expand on that
00:14:03
because because one of the
00:14:06
um the the things that I
00:14:07
have utilized in in my own
00:14:09
daily practice to recover
00:14:11
from my own life traumas um
00:14:14
are affirmations and uh I
00:14:16
say them every morning and
00:14:19
Your bill of emotional rights,
00:14:23
it spoke to me because it
00:14:25
feels like affirmations
00:14:26
that I have been using for some time.
00:14:31
So if you could tell the
00:14:32
audience a little bit about
00:14:35
how you developed it and
00:14:36
what that means in terms of
00:14:38
a person's mental health.
00:14:39
Great.
00:14:40
Thank you.
00:14:40
Thank you, Kelly.
00:14:42
Yes, these are actually affirmation.
00:14:44
There are a number of my clients,
00:14:45
and in fact,
00:14:47
neighbors who have printed
00:14:50
emotional rights in color,
00:14:52
you see a big poster behind me,
00:14:53
and they have either tagged
00:14:59
on the refrigerator, on the wall at work,
00:15:02
by their bed, as a way to remind them.
00:15:08
So number one.
00:15:08
Number two,
00:15:10
the reason I call them emotional rights,
00:15:13
these are literally rights.
00:15:16
And I use the statement from
00:15:18
US Constitution that we
00:15:22
hold these truths to be self-evident.
00:15:26
These rights
00:15:28
They've been with humankind forever.
00:15:32
I went to like early writing
00:15:35
of Greek and Roman philosophers.
00:15:38
They are in all holy books.
00:15:41
And you see them through all time,
00:15:44
but nobody's put them together.
00:15:48
These rights, humans,
00:15:50
we are wired to experience these rights.
00:15:54
Literally,
00:15:54
they are as elemental as our DNA.
00:15:57
Parents don't give it to us.
00:15:59
Teachers, managers, politicians,
00:16:03
we are born to experience them.
00:16:06
The very first right happens
00:16:10
from birth, you know,
00:16:11
even from the womb and a
00:16:12
sense of connection,
00:16:13
sense of belonging that I
00:16:16
entered this world, that there's somebody,
00:16:19
their mother or primary
00:16:20
caregiver that holds me.
00:16:22
loves me and protects me and
00:16:26
and pay attention to my
00:16:27
needs and help me develop
00:16:29
to become a person that I
00:16:30
am right now that shapes
00:16:33
the early attachment sense
00:16:34
of life is good I'm I'm
00:16:38
seeing I'm loved I'm valued
00:16:42
and and a sense of
00:16:44
belonging gets shaped over there
00:16:48
What we know,
00:16:49
there's a book by the previous U.S.
00:16:53
surgeon general that in
00:16:55
United States and many nations,
00:16:57
we have epidemic of loneliness.
00:17:01
That there are many people,
00:17:02
we sit side by side at work,
00:17:06
in our place of worship,
00:17:07
in our communities, but we are lonely.
00:17:10
We feel disconnected.
00:17:13
and we don't have the basic
00:17:15
connection of relating and reciprocity.
00:17:20
Many of my clients who come
00:17:21
to me for healing,
00:17:23
and these are mostly in relationships,
00:17:27
that they are deeply lonely.
00:17:29
People talk about being in
00:17:31
relationship at night,
00:17:33
sleeping next to their partner,
00:17:36
and being romantic, but they are lonely.
00:17:39
They are unseen.
00:17:40
They feel, I'm not seen,
00:17:43
I'm held and loved and my love received.
00:17:47
So there's an element of loneliness.
00:17:50
That's one of the core emotional needs.
00:17:53
The next need, what I call I'm boundless,
00:17:57
is to appreciate that we humans,
00:18:01
we're actually the whole body of being.
00:18:07
I mean, I've raised,
00:18:08
I have the 20 year old son,
00:18:10
22 year old son.
00:18:12
And for those who raised
00:18:13
kids or been around kids,
00:18:15
sometime around age three or four,
00:18:18
we start to tell our kids, you sit there,
00:18:23
don't be fidgety, put your hands down,
00:18:25
use your words to speak, to communicate.
00:18:29
Basically we teach our kids
00:18:31
to forget your body and
00:18:33
become a cerebral being.
00:18:37
The reality is we think,
00:18:39
actually we know from research,
00:18:41
we think with our entire body.
00:18:43
You're a three-dimensional thinker.
00:18:45
We experience everything through our body.
00:18:48
You're really like a lion or
00:18:50
lioness in the Serengeti.
00:18:53
But in the Western world,
00:18:58
we are born to move, told to sit.
00:19:02
That when that happens,
00:19:04
actually we do feel depressed.
00:19:07
we've become we become a
00:19:09
heady person I mean there's
00:19:10
a term monkey brain a brain
00:19:12
that is thinking versus we
00:19:13
we don't realize that we
00:19:15
actually have energy
00:19:16
excitement emotions in our
00:19:19
entire being a key piece of
00:19:21
data for for listeners
00:19:25
emotions they are not in
00:19:26
our head they are in our bodies
00:19:29
But a brain senses and
00:19:32
processes information.
00:19:35
Sensations, emotions,
00:19:37
they're all in the body.
00:19:39
But we are not attuned to body.
00:19:42
So what happens for people
00:19:44
who are depressed or do not
00:19:45
feel well or feel broken?
00:19:47
Their body feels sluggish.
00:19:49
Their body feels this mass of tissues,
00:19:53
bone and muscle, and move around,
00:19:55
but you feel so disconnected.
00:19:57
Part of the journey of healing
00:19:59
is a tone to your body,
00:20:01
what's coming up for you,
00:20:03
what's for you feeling you
00:20:04
got in your chest, in your shoulders.
00:20:08
The next need is I'm complete.
00:20:10
The term broken has a rear
00:20:16
view version to that,
00:20:19
that I look back at my life
00:20:21
and realize I don't feel well.
00:20:23
There are experiences that are still heavy,
00:20:26
experiences that they are,
00:20:30
bring shame, guilt, regret.
00:20:34
The fact is, from neurology,
00:20:38
there's no such thing as past.
00:20:42
That we may remember our
00:20:45
past relationships, past experiences,
00:20:49
but the experience of
00:20:51
living happens only here and now.
00:20:56
that when you're here and now,
00:20:58
we are okay.
00:20:59
It is when we think about
00:21:00
the past that all these
00:21:02
overwhelming emotions come for us.
00:21:05
And the journey of healing
00:21:08
is finding a way to grieve,
00:21:11
to appreciate and let go of
00:21:14
things that didn't happen for us,
00:21:16
or the things that we
00:21:18
wanted to happen that
00:21:20
shouldn't have happened.
00:21:22
And then coming to terms
00:21:24
with life as it is right
00:21:26
now and start over again.
00:21:27
That instead of fighting
00:21:29
yesterday's battle,
00:21:30
that what kind of life
00:21:32
you're going to create right now,
00:21:34
that you're complete and
00:21:36
living with that.
00:21:38
The next need is I matter.
00:21:41
There are many people,
00:21:44
many people in this world,
00:21:46
in our communities,
00:21:48
in our midst that they're invisible.
00:21:51
The best way to notice next
00:21:53
time when you're at work,
00:21:54
in your gathering, in a picnic,
00:21:57
in a place of worship,
00:21:59
look around to see as people enter,
00:22:02
who's having eye contact with them?
00:22:04
Who's calling their names?
00:22:06
Kelly, Arashir, good to see you,
00:22:08
come sit here.
00:22:10
There are many people enter
00:22:11
a gathering unseen and
00:22:15
unnoticed and unacknowledged.
00:22:19
They know it, they feel it.
00:22:22
Sense of mattering means that you're seen,
00:22:25
you're respected,
00:22:26
there's an element of
00:22:27
dignity bestowed upon you.
00:22:30
Whether you ride a Ferrari
00:22:32
or you ride a rusted Honda Civic,
00:22:36
that doesn't matter who you are,
00:22:37
that you matter by the
00:22:40
sheer fact of you being in
00:22:42
this community among us and your opinion
00:22:45
Your reactions, your perspectives matter.
00:22:49
And we want to hear it.
00:22:52
The next need is the need of I make.
00:22:57
That everybody in this world
00:23:01
is doing something.
00:23:04
Doesn't matter where you are,
00:23:05
you're president or you're
00:23:06
in the boiler room.
00:23:08
You're in a farm or you're
00:23:10
in the Supreme Court.
00:23:13
that everybody's doing
00:23:15
something in this world.
00:23:17
Is that your thing?
00:23:19
Is that your work?
00:23:20
Does that make you be in flow,
00:23:23
being enjoyed,
00:23:24
that you're making
00:23:25
contribution for many people?
00:23:30
The act of work is about
00:23:32
basically sustenance,
00:23:34
that I have bills to pay,
00:23:35
a family to take care of,
00:23:37
which is very important.
00:23:38
But we numb ourselves to our daily work.
00:23:41
Even the term working for the man,
00:23:44
that no one wants to work
00:23:45
for the man you feel that
00:23:47
you know this is the burden
00:23:48
to carry this need is about
00:23:52
that the thing you do is
00:23:54
that is that your work is
00:23:58
that your occupation is
00:23:59
that your duty if not go
00:24:02
find it because because
00:24:05
when you are in your flow
00:24:08
of work you feel like
00:24:10
you're in love you you feel great
00:24:13
and the and is about finding
00:24:17
your joy about the thing
00:24:19
you do the next need is the
00:24:23
need of I am this is about
00:24:27
your authenticity your
00:24:29
voice your conviction your belief
00:24:34
I'm sure you've seen this
00:24:35
many times in the gathering
00:24:38
and at work again, the community asks,
00:24:41
hey, what do you think?
00:24:43
That person may say that, oh, no,
00:24:45
you go first.
00:24:46
First, tell me, what do you think?
00:24:47
That there are many people
00:24:49
who are holding back their opinion,
00:24:52
their belief.
00:24:53
They're trying to lower the
00:24:55
volume so they please and
00:24:57
appease others while they
00:24:59
have very strong opinion.
00:25:01
And this is about sharing
00:25:03
what's in your heart, what's in your mind,
00:25:06
that your opinion belongs to the world.
00:25:09
Your opinion could be the worst idea.
00:25:11
Nonetheless, it needs to be expressed.
00:25:16
You need to claim your space, your voice,
00:25:21
and your right of expression.
00:25:24
This is actually a very important point.
00:25:26
You have the right to speak.
00:25:29
to share your opinion with
00:25:31
your backbone straight,
00:25:33
looking straight to the
00:25:34
other person or people and say, hey,
00:25:36
this is what I believe in.
00:25:38
And be open to have a
00:25:39
dialogue about back and forth.
00:25:41
There are many quiet people here.
00:25:45
Many people, you see them in marriages,
00:25:47
children that they don't speak, speak up.
00:25:51
And that does damage to our soul,
00:25:54
to our dignity,
00:25:55
to our sense of fulfillment.
00:25:58
The last need, and again,
00:25:59
these are not linear.
00:26:00
This is when I say last need,
00:26:02
this is the final.
00:26:04
The need of eyesore.
00:26:06
Maya Angelou has this
00:26:09
statement in her book,
00:26:11
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sink.
00:26:14
The statement is,
00:26:16
there's no greater agony
00:26:18
than bearing an untold story inside you.
00:26:24
I love that.
00:26:25
That's beautiful, exactly.
00:26:27
And the untold story, we all have a story.
00:26:30
Eight billion people,
00:26:32
eight billion stories.
00:26:34
Everybody has a story.
00:26:35
Everybody has a purpose.
00:26:37
Everybody has a role and
00:26:39
duty to fulfill in this lifetime.
00:26:43
For many of us,
00:26:44
and for many years that was me,
00:26:46
I let my life, my circumstances,
00:26:50
my place of work dictate my story.
00:26:54
but this is about finding who are you?
00:26:57
What do you believe in?
00:26:58
Where are you going?
00:27:00
What are the topics or
00:27:02
passion that you want to dig and says,
00:27:04
I'm doing this.
00:27:06
This is my life.
00:27:08
And pursuing that with energy,
00:27:12
with obsession, you know,
00:27:13
being very hard headed around that.
00:27:17
This is about claiming this is my life.
00:27:20
This is what define me.
00:27:22
For example,
00:27:24
And I shared this with my
00:27:25
wife that when I die, in my grave,
00:27:30
if they allow me, I want to write,
00:27:33
Arashir Mehran,
00:27:34
crack the code of
00:27:35
depression and ease the
00:27:38
suffering of millions.
00:27:41
That's my life.
00:27:42
That's my life.
00:27:43
Ease the suffering of
00:27:44
millions who struggle with depression.
00:27:47
That's my life.
00:27:48
That will be my legacy.
00:27:49
I don't let anything distract me.
00:27:53
And we all have that legacy, that pursuit.
00:27:56
So these seven needs,
00:27:59
they play in our lifetime
00:28:02
and they show up at different times,
00:28:06
at different stages.
00:28:07
So some of the needs like I am or I soar,
00:28:10
they become very visible.
00:28:11
We become aware of them
00:28:13
around the age of 30.
00:28:16
But some of the things like, I belong,
00:28:17
I matter, or I am, or I'm boundless,
00:28:21
they start very early in life.
00:28:24
And the invitation is for your listeners,
00:28:28
as they hear this,
00:28:31
take a few deep breaths and
00:28:32
see how these rights feel
00:28:35
for them at their tissue level,
00:28:38
at their internal level.
00:28:40
for them to move toward
00:28:42
fulfillment of these rights
00:28:45
in their lives.
00:28:48
I mean, that's so powerful.
00:28:51
And I think about just the
00:28:52
last one you discussed with
00:28:53
eyesore and how many of us
00:28:57
don't step into that truth.
00:28:59
Yes.
00:29:00
Of owning who we are supposed to be.
00:29:04
Yes.
00:29:06
you know, I think you captured very well,
00:29:09
you know,
00:29:10
what you talk about on your headstone,
00:29:12
what, for me,
00:29:12
it would be helping people
00:29:15
who lost loved ones or who
00:29:18
have lost gratitude.
00:29:20
So growth through gratitude.
00:29:23
So leading into that,
00:29:25
so I've worked with the
00:29:26
bereaved now for well, about 15 years.
00:29:30
Um, and I,
00:29:32
my focus is working with
00:29:34
gratitude for the little things.
00:29:36
And, um,
00:29:38
I started doing that after the
00:29:40
loss of my son, Steven in 2009.
00:29:44
So I started looking for one
00:29:46
little thing each day to hang on to.
00:29:49
And it became something
00:29:50
because I had a younger son, um,
00:29:53
who deserved a very happy, healthy life.
00:29:57
So even though we were in
00:29:58
tremendous pain as a family,
00:30:01
at the end of the day,
00:30:02
we would talk about what
00:30:03
our one little thing was for each day.
00:30:07
And it didn't,
00:30:07
I always have said to people
00:30:10
that I've worked with that
00:30:10
it didn't change the pain of that loss.
00:30:14
It alleviates some of that suffering.
00:30:18
And so I believe so strongly
00:30:20
that gratitude is essential
00:30:22
in challenging
00:30:23
circumstances and because
00:30:25
it truly tethers you to
00:30:26
that present moment.
00:30:27
Right.
00:30:28
So,
00:30:28
When you are actively
00:30:30
seeking and looking for the
00:30:32
blessings in your life,
00:30:34
you are not looking back with regret,
00:30:36
nor are you looking forward with worry.
00:30:38
You are right here and right now,
00:30:40
and you are okay.
00:30:44
And I just want to get your
00:30:46
take on that from a
00:30:48
clinical or scientific
00:30:49
approach and from your work.
00:30:53
What do you think about the
00:30:54
benefits of gratitude from, you know,
00:30:56
kind of that research side?
00:30:58
Yeah, great.
00:30:59
Thank you.
00:31:00
Thank you.
00:31:01
I'm so sorry about your son.
00:31:02
I didn't know that.
00:31:03
Oh, thanks so much.
00:31:05
As a parent, that's a very, very heavy,
00:31:13
you know, experience.
00:31:15
I just, you know, I can't...
00:31:22
I hear you and I hold that, you know,
00:31:23
in my heart, you know, Kelly.
00:31:26
The way I think about it,
00:31:28
and I share this with colleagues,
00:31:31
with my clients and practice in my life,
00:31:35
we all live in an
00:31:36
in-between space in lives.
00:31:40
Life is always
00:31:44
the space of darkness and lightness,
00:31:47
tragedy and joy,
00:31:49
that things go well and
00:31:52
then tragedy happen.
00:31:53
This past week, this Friday,
00:31:55
I went to see a friend that
00:32:01
I hadn't seen for almost 20 years.
00:32:04
She came from East Coast too.
00:32:05
I live outside San Francisco.
00:32:08
A mother and her son,
00:32:10
she was in California to see her son,
00:32:13
and she said, I want to share with you,
00:32:14
my son had an accident, motorcycle,
00:32:19
driving by the coast of
00:32:20
Northern California.
00:32:22
He fell off a cliff,
00:32:24
and his right leg was amputated.
00:32:27
A beautiful son, recently married,
00:32:31
and just to think,
00:32:34
so the tragedy happens.
00:32:36
Mm-hmm.
00:32:37
And it reminded me of this
00:32:41
element of grief and gratitude.
00:32:47
Grief is that life is inherently built,
00:32:51
there's a loss built into that,
00:32:53
tragedy built into that.
00:32:55
We lose loved ones.
00:32:58
The hard things happen to our loved ones,
00:33:02
to ourselves.
00:33:04
and gratitude to know that
00:33:06
life still goes on.
00:33:07
There's a bird sitting outside, you know,
00:33:12
on the windowsill.
00:33:14
Like right now when I'm
00:33:15
standing to my left,
00:33:16
there's a window right
00:33:17
outside the window is a
00:33:19
beautiful green apple tree.
00:33:21
I planted it during the...
00:33:24
first year of pandemic,
00:33:26
and that tree died several times.
00:33:27
For me, either not watering it,
00:33:29
overwatering it, not fertilizing it.
00:33:32
But the tree is healthy right now.
00:33:37
But I remember how many
00:33:39
times I thought I need to
00:33:40
upgrade the tree because it looks sick.
00:33:42
I thought it was dying.
00:33:45
There's an element of surrender.
00:33:47
See life as it is.
00:33:51
Life
00:33:52
it's beauty and tragedy
00:33:54
happen at the same time.
00:33:55
And you're right in that middle point.
00:33:58
Enjoy where things happen,
00:34:01
go through when the grief
00:34:03
and tragedy happens, and we'll be okay.
00:34:09
Do your work.
00:34:10
As you said, you have a younger son,
00:34:12
bring the love,
00:34:13
bring the role of the parents,
00:34:15
create the safety and
00:34:17
heartfulness in the family.
00:34:20
And just be there and
00:34:22
breathe in life and move on.
00:34:26
The key part about sense of grief,
00:34:29
grief is not about forgetting.
00:34:31
When we lose something,
00:34:33
it's always there in our heart.
00:34:36
We create a lot of windows
00:34:37
in our heart for the people
00:34:39
who are no longer with us.
00:34:42
And we love them, but it's private.
00:34:45
It's a private remembrance going forward.
00:34:49
Absolutely.
00:34:52
So for someone who is struggling right now,
00:34:58
whether that be from a
00:34:59
personal loss or they are
00:35:02
in a professional setting
00:35:04
and they just can't see their way through,
00:35:09
what would be the number
00:35:10
one place that you would
00:35:11
recommend they start?
00:35:12
What is the starting line for them?
00:35:15
Thank you.
00:35:17
when we struggle three
00:35:19
things are happening
00:35:22
simultaneously when we feel
00:35:25
a struggle like especially
00:35:27
people who are high
00:35:28
achievers professionals parents
00:35:32
We often feel very isolated and lonely.
00:35:37
And many people don't realize that.
00:35:39
They feel, I need to push through.
00:35:42
I need to figure this out.
00:35:45
I can't handle this.
00:35:49
The struggle is a core part
00:35:52
of a struggle is isolation.
00:35:56
Nobody heals by themselves.
00:35:58
We are pack animals.
00:36:01
so when you struggle finding
00:36:05
a friend even finding a pet
00:36:08
like I have a beautiful
00:36:09
golden retriever when I
00:36:10
feel down her name is lucy
00:36:12
very rambunctious golden
00:36:14
retriever we go run
00:36:15
together we go play fetch
00:36:16
together and then she in
00:36:19
some way I see her and I'm
00:36:21
telling myself I cannot be
00:36:23
depressed lucy needs me to play with her
00:36:26
So the very first thing is
00:36:28
to be with somebody,
00:36:31
not necessarily ask for advice.
00:36:33
A lot of times we don't need advice.
00:36:37
We need a sense of connection.
00:36:39
Somebody says, I'm here for you.
00:36:42
I'm here for you.
00:36:42
We can go walk in the park, have a beer,
00:36:46
whatever, just that you matter to me.
00:36:49
Finding somebody within family, friends,
00:36:53
that sense of connection, number one.
00:36:56
When we struggled,
00:36:57
we also started to
00:37:00
literally disconnect from the world.
00:37:03
Our five senses are shut.
00:37:06
We don't enjoy food anymore.
00:37:09
You know, our body feels sluggish.
00:37:11
You know,
00:37:11
we just feel that anything too much,
00:37:14
like the sense of like perfume, scent,
00:37:17
you know, like anything tastes,
00:37:20
we just more or less be
00:37:21
moving towards shutdown.
00:37:24
A way to come out of it is
00:37:26
bring experiences that
00:37:28
awakens your five senses.
00:37:31
Go walk bare feet on your
00:37:32
grass in the park.
00:37:34
If you're by water,
00:37:35
go sit there and just watch the waves.
00:37:38
Watch the birds.
00:37:41
Like wherever you are,
00:37:42
if you're listening to this program,
00:37:44
just listen to the sounds
00:37:46
in your living area, your room.
00:37:50
Your neighborhood, the sky above,
00:37:53
bring your five senses into
00:37:55
play because once we do that,
00:37:57
we feel again connected to
00:37:58
the world around us versus
00:38:01
feeling I'm hunkering down.
00:38:03
The third one, when you struggle,
00:38:06
There's an element of human agency.
00:38:09
Agency means sense of
00:38:10
control that has some
00:38:13
impact on my life versus life guides me.
00:38:16
I'm just a follower.
00:38:18
I have no control.
00:38:21
We want to get our agency back.
00:38:25
that you can influence things in life.
00:38:28
And it could be very simple.
00:38:30
Instead of having a Coke,
00:38:31
you have a Pepsi.
00:38:33
Instead of having a pasta,
00:38:35
you have Mexican food.
00:38:36
So somehow think about what
00:38:39
do you like to do right now and do that.
00:38:44
Could be, it's what I tell people,
00:38:47
something could be as
00:38:48
simple as go take a shower, go shave,
00:38:51
go color your hair.
00:38:53
Clean your room.
00:38:54
Mop the floors.
00:38:55
Do something that you feel,
00:38:57
I'm making something better.
00:38:59
So again, sense of connection.
00:39:01
Awaken your five senses and
00:39:05
sense of agency.
00:39:07
Small things you can control.
00:39:11
When we do that,
00:39:12
the impact is you come to here and now.
00:39:15
You feel your backbone.
00:39:17
You feel you.
00:39:18
You feel that energy.
00:39:20
Today I'm mastering me, mastering my life.
00:39:24
I will figure out tomorrow, but today,
00:39:26
this moment I'm okay
00:39:28
because I'm doing this.
00:39:31
That's, that's so beautiful.
00:39:34
Um, and I couldn't agree more about,
00:39:36
you know, the,
00:39:37
the little anchor points of, you know,
00:39:40
for me,
00:39:40
I know in the early days of my breed,
00:39:44
nature played a huge part.
00:39:45
Yeah.
00:39:45
Yeah.
00:39:46
Yeah.
00:39:46
You know, watching.
00:39:48
watching how nature is about, you know,
00:39:52
there's, there's growth,
00:39:53
and there's death.
00:39:55
There's, you know, the bulbs in the spring,
00:39:58
they reemerge from the dirt,
00:40:00
you thought they were gone, you know,
00:40:01
there's so many teaching
00:40:04
examples that we can learn from.
00:40:07
And of course, I
00:40:11
Nothing like a good cuddle
00:40:12
from your puppy.
00:40:14
Exactly.
00:40:14
They're antidepressant.
00:40:16
You don't need medication.
00:40:17
You do not.
00:40:19
They're the greatest example
00:40:20
of unconditional love that
00:40:21
anyone could ever have.
00:40:22
It's so wonderful.
00:40:24
Yeah, yeah.
00:40:25
That's right.
00:40:26
I cannot thank you enough
00:40:28
for this just fascinating
00:40:30
conversation with you.
00:40:31
I so appreciate the wisdom
00:40:33
that you've been so
00:40:34
generous to share with me today.
00:40:36
It's been so nice meeting you.
00:40:38
Same here.
00:40:40
And then the key part,
00:40:41
the one message for folks is that we,
00:40:48
when we get labels, depressed, anxious,
00:40:53
obsessive compulsive, and so on,
00:40:56
we start to take those
00:40:57
labels almost like personality trait.
00:40:59
I'm a depressed person,
00:41:00
I'm anxious person.
00:41:03
Versus those are adaptive responses.
00:41:05
Depression is not a cause,
00:41:08
is a consequence.
00:41:10
Anxiety, ADHD,
00:41:12
all of those are adaptive responses.
00:41:16
To what?
00:41:17
To an unfulfilled life,
00:41:19
to a nervous system that is
00:41:22
in a survival mode.
00:41:24
Focus on those.
00:41:26
And since I'm broken, I'm deficient,
00:41:29
I'm not good enough, I'm depressed,
00:41:31
those response to a life
00:41:34
how you lived so far.
00:41:36
And it is not your fault.
00:41:38
There's no shame and blame.
00:41:39
It's not your fault that you
00:41:42
ended up in certain
00:41:43
environment and you did
00:41:44
your best to survive.
00:41:47
And the journey of coming home,
00:41:49
literally coming home,
00:41:51
is to see what those broken parts are.
00:41:57
Broken parts leads you home to yourself.
00:42:01
Follow that.
00:42:02
Don't lose hope.
00:42:04
In fact, get pissed off and go find you.
00:42:07
Don't waste time fixing a depression.
00:42:10
Go become the person you've
00:42:11
meant to be all along.
00:42:13
Once you do that, depression dissipates.
00:42:17
Oh, I absolutely love that.
00:42:20
And there's no expiration on
00:42:22
starting that.
00:42:22
I mean,
00:42:23
you can arrive at that point at any
00:42:25
time in your life and say, okay,
00:42:27
I'm ready to do this now.
00:42:28
That's right.
00:42:29
And if you stumble, try again, try again.
00:42:32
The one thing beautiful
00:42:33
about human being and all
00:42:35
living thing is we are
00:42:36
wired to start over and
00:42:38
over and over every day.
00:42:40
Start again, do as much as you can.
00:42:43
That's beautiful.
00:42:45
Thank you so much for your time.
00:42:47
I'm so grateful.
00:42:49
And I just want to remind
00:42:50
the listeners to please
00:42:53
visit your website.
00:42:54
And I'm going to have a link
00:42:55
attached to the episode so
00:42:57
that they can learn more
00:42:58
about the Emotional Bill of Rights and,
00:43:00
of course, your book.
00:43:01
And I strongly encourage
00:43:02
everyone to grab a copy of
00:43:05
that and just be inspired
00:43:07
and turn the page for
00:43:08
yourselves and your life.
00:43:10
Great.
00:43:10
Thank you so much, Kelly.
00:43:12
Best of everything to you
00:43:13
and to your listeners.
00:43:15
All right.
00:43:15
Take care.
00:43:16
Thank you.
00:43:17
Bye-bye.
00:43:18
Bye.