Making Positive Psychology Work · 2026-04-07 · 42 min
Key moments - from our scoring
Substance score
38 / 100
Five dimensions, 20 points each
Dr. Margaret Wheatley, a leadership consultant and author of thirteen books including Restoring Sanity (2024), argues that contemporary leaders face an unprecedented challenge: not merely rapid change, but existential uncertainty that makes traditional planning impossible. When fear activates survival responses in the brain, people lose access to creativity, compassion, and vision - the very capacities needed for meaningful work. Wheatley proposes creating "islands of sanity" within organizations: bounded communities where teams share clear purpose, mutual respect, and commitment to stay together and work through conflict. These refugia, inspired by ecological concepts, provide enough psychological safety for people to access their humanity and contribute meaningfully. She emphasizes that leaders must cultivate unshakable faith in people's inherent creativity, generosity, and kindness, and help teams discover that meaning comes not from success, money, or status, but from relationships, helping others, and contributing to something larger than oneself. Importantly, Wheatley reframes workplace grief - which research shows affects one in three workers - not as a problem to solve but as a natural, healthy response to genuine loss that, when acknowledged, deepens empathy and resolve. This conversation is essential for leaders navigating poly-crisis conditions and seeking to build resilient, human-centered organizations.
Leadership is difficult because people are in fear and survival mode, which shuts down creativity, vision, and compassion. Additionally, pure uncertainty makes traditional planning impossible - the pace of change now exceeds the speed at which organizations can adapt, so leaders cannot create reliable plans or predict future conditions.
An island of sanity is a bounded space within an organization where teams can work together with mutual respect, shared purpose, and commitment to stay together. It provides psychological refuge from external chaos and fragility, allowing people to access their full humanity, creativity, and capacity for meaningful contribution in ways they cannot in unprotected environments.
Rather than treating grief as a problem to solve, leaders should acknowledge it as a natural response to genuine loss. When recognized as part of one's sensitivity and empathy, grief deepens a leader's capacity for compassion and connection with others, rather than being a deadening end state.
Meaning comes from relationships, helping others, and contributing something worthwhile - not from success, money, positive outcomes, or technological solutions. This is what people near the end of life report mattering most, and what naturally inspires and energizes people when they engage in it.
Teams need protected time together, genuine respect and curiosity about one another, trust that members will not abandon each other when conflict arises, and shared commitment to a meaningful purpose larger than individual self-interest.
Our reviewer’s read on each dimension, with quotes from the episode.
The episode offers occasional interesting reframes (grief as a permanent state of being rather than a problem to solve, the biological concept of refugia as an organizational metaphor, Tonglen practice) but is heavily padded with abstract philosophising, mutual affirmation, and well-worn leadership generalisms. The ratio of novel ideas to filler is low for a 42-minute episode.
we understand that we are always sad. Always. Yeah. Because life is filled with suffering...feeling sad or grieving is not the problem to be solved
life creates these places that are called refugia, where life can continue. That's what we're doing
The refugia-as-organizational-metaphor and the reframing of grief as a continuous state rather than an episode to be resolved are genuinely fresh angles, but the bulk of the content recycles familiar concepts (reptilian brain, adaptive organizations, psychological safety, meaningful work) without adding a new or contrarian layer.
creation is the antidote to all this destruction
all this conversation about, uh, generative AI destroying jobs, and the solution is, well, we'll just pay everyone an amount of money...that is the most dehumanizing image
Wheatley is a genuine long-tenured practitioner with 13 books and documented field work across multiple continents and sectors, giving her real credibility. However, she operates primarily as a consultant, author, and speaker rather than as an operator who built or ran an organisation at scale, which limits the depth of operational specificity she can offer.
I've worked in a number of devastated cultures. In Southern African nations and in Australia among Aboriginal people
I worked with the Victoria Volunteer Firemen's association for a few years
Concrete evidence is sparse and dated - the most specific data point is Nokia's 90-day planning horizon from 2001, and the host's own survey of ~1,000 US workers is mentioned in a single sentence without methodology or deeper findings. The vast majority of claims are asserted without supporting data, named companies, timelines, or measurable outcomes.
I was working with Nokia and the phone company in Finland and they said our planning Horizon now is 90 days. Yeah, mhm. That was in 2001
we recently just did this study with almost 1,000 US workers and we found that one in three workers reported these feelings of grief
The host frequently answers her own questions or pivots to extended personal anecdotes rather than drawing out the guest, and never pushes back when Wheatley declines to give a specific case example or makes sweeping unsubstantiated claims. The exchange functions largely as mutual validation rather than a probing interview.
Can you give us a practical example of someone you think is doing it well...
Um, yeah, well, I'm not going to give you one case example
Computed from the transcript - who did the talking, and the words that came up most.
One in 3 workers are carrying grief about the changes happening at work - and our data suggests this runs deeper than just sadness: layers of feeling invisible, abandoned, and distrusted by the people making decisions. In this fourth episode of Season 7 - The Change Fatigue Remedy Series - Dr Michelle McQuaid sits down with Dr Margaret Wheatley, renowned teacher, advisor, and author of Restoring Sanity , to explore why leaders often transmit the very fear they're trying to protect their teams from - and what it takes to build an island of sanity where people can find refuge from the chaos, trust each other, and do meaningful work together. Drawing on five decades of working with leaders, Meg shows what it takes to build an island of sanity, why acknowledging grief - not fixing it - is what moves people forward, and how leaders create the conditions for creativity, generosity and kindness to be the norm. 01:37 Meg explains why leadership is harder now than it has ever been - and what fear is doing to people's capacity to create, care and contribute.
Transcribed and scored by The B2B Podcast Index.
Speaker A: Hey there. I'm Dr. Michelle McQuade and welcome to our bonus season seven of Making Positive Psychology Work, the Change Fatigue Remedy series from our team at the Change Lab. Over five episodes, we're interviewing leading researchers and practitioners to give you the evidence based insights and practical tools you need to help yourself and others navigate complex changes without quietly cracking or burning out. And if this leaves you wanting more, be sure to check out our self paced certificate in leading the heart of change@the changelabs.com you'll find all the links you need in the show notes. Joining us today is Dr. Margaret Wheatley who is a renowned speaker, teacher, consultant and senior level advisor who acts from the unshakable conviction that leaders must learn how to invoke people's inherent generosity, creativity and need for community, not no matter what's happening in their external circumstances. Meg has written 13 books, from the classic Leadership and the New Science to her most recent, Restoring Practices to Awaken Generosity, Creativity and Kindness. And what I love about reading Meg's work is it's always an invitation to explore new ways of seeing and leading based on wisdom drawn from new science, hearing history, archaeology, cosmology and many spiritual traditions. Welcome Meg.
Speaker B: I'm glad to be with you again, Michelle.
Speaker A: It's such a pleasure to have another conversation with you, Meg. I feel very privileged to, uh, get this gift of time with you. So, Meg, your most recent book, Restoring Sanity, which came out in 2024, begins with the observation that leadership has never been more difficult. And I know many of our listeners will be nodding their heads in agreement to. I'm curious because you've been working with leaders since 1973. What are you seeing that makes leadership so challenging at this moment in time?
Speaker B: And I would ask your listeners just to see if I'm creating a checklist, then you just go, yep, yep, yep. Because when we think, think about what is leadership meant to do? It's meant to create plans that lead to positive outcomes and to motivate people to engage fully with creating those plans rather than being told what to do. Now, I just gave you the best description of high engagement, trusting in people, leadership, but there was a lot of that around now. What is possible with leadership? We're dealing with people who are frightened, who are experiencing great loss. Not just loss of jobs or loss of vision, but we're all in a deeply self protective state, which is what happens to human capacity when we're under threat. We're in fear, there's plenty to fear and we're constantly told to Fear, different things. I mean, fear is now being used as a device, an instrument to cow people into submission. And that's why we have increasing autocracy and dictatorship around the world. When we're in fear, we're in the reptilian brain. We have no human capacities. We cannot vision, we cannot care, we have no sense of compassion. We can't get engaged in creativity because we're back in this small part of the brain that's only about survival. So the first purpose of leadership, which is to motivate and engage people, is increasingly difficult. I will talk about ways to bring people into the fullness of our human brains and spirits, but that's, I'm just the starting point. People are in more and more fear. Yeah, we can't expect anything good from them except self protection. So we get hatred, we get fear of the stranger, we get all these very negative dynamics now. But then for the leader, what do you do? The main issue is no longer the pace of change. I mean it's pure uncertainty. You cannot plan. I mean, I was recently, uh, saying to a group just the other day, if you're trying to plan your organization to serve in this current state, the steady state where you think, okay, I, I'll figure out how we organize and what our products will be or what our team should be, just give it up. Because this is changing at a rate now that makes evolution and adaptation impossible. And that's a scientific statement. You know, for so many years we were trying to encourage leaders to lead adaptive learning organizations. Right. That's not possible anymore because the changes are happening with scared people in survival mode. And so all business leaders now when they're polled, they cite uncertainty as their major issue. It's not the pace of change, it's literally not knowing what the future will be. And when you're in a planning function, when you have to order things and structure businesses and plan for future products and future audiences, consumers for those products, you can't land any of that now. I mean, I remember after 9 11, I was working with Nokia and the phone company in Finland and they said our planning Horizon now is 90 days. Yeah, mhm. That was in 2001.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: And look where we are now. I mean it's. There are no words to describe the current scene. For organizations, especially businesses that rely on planning and rely on a future sense of where they're going. The only thing we can do is say it's extremely fragile, which means anything you might be doing will suddenly break or crumble or be ripped out from under you, defunded, discarded, told that work is not important. So, uh, it's not an environment for leading. If you look at the macro environment, which is why I've come down to what can you create within your own team or your own organization that I'm calling islands of sanity. Because you have to create some stability, some focus and act in ways together that bring out our best, that activate our human, our humanity. Now our human brains, our creativity, our caring are willing to look to the future with wide open eyes and not get lost in fantastical hopes that things are going to turn out well or technology will save us or anything. So I'm noticing in my own readings how many people are using the phrase islands now. So islands of consciousness, islands of wholeness, islands of, uh, coherence. And that's the true need we have to create a boundary condition so that we can still lead in ways that we know, engage people. And the boundary creates enough sense of safety from these constant shifts and creates enough sense of we truly are here for one another. So it brings out our best human qualities, not our worst. And they can talk much more about what you do once you realize I can only create an island only. And it's really hard work, but it's good work.
Speaker A: It is indeed. And I love your definition of what an island of sanity is in the book. And you point to, uh, two components I took away, but feel free to correct me, Meng. One is that providing the refuge from the destructive dynamics, policies and behaviors, just the sheer scale of the uncertainty around us. So that boundary that you're describing. But the other is offering the possibilities of being able to work together in harmonious relationships to accomplish meaningful work. Right. Which is what our brains and our bodies and our hearts are crave. What we all need absolutely to be well, like that. How we are wired to be. Well, can you give us a practical example of someone you think is doing it well at the moment to create that island of sanity amidst so much uncertainty, fragility, unpredictability.
Speaker B: Um, yeah, well, I'm not going to give you one case example. I'm going to refer people back to their own experience, which is easier the older you are. Yes, true time when good teamwork was what you were doing, you were working together as a team. And what were the conditions that made good teamwork possible? Well, some of the conditions you want to look at is how much time did you have to be together. I remember leaving four day. Four day off site team building retreats.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: And I also remember because this is a Vivid memory. It was with, uh, a California, a very large corporation. And we were off for four days in a beautiful California rural, rustic setting. And fax machines had just come in. So goodness knows, this would have been in the 80s. No phones, of course, no Internet really at all. And my secretary, I called her from a pay phone and she said, well, I've just received some correspondence from another client that I was going to be working with of what they want and their ideas, et cetera. Uh, do you want me to send it to you, fax it to you? And my reply was just seems like pure fantasy was no, I don't want to be distracted from being with this one client. Yeah, If I didn't remember it so vividly, I would say, oh, get over bank. That never happened. So the qualities for everyone to tune in, if you've had an experience of working well together with people, could be, ah, a community effort. It could be in a rescue effort after a natural disaster, or it could be when you were given time and resources to come together as a team and actually engage in thinking about what you're going to do and planning what you're going to do. Some of the conditions. This is what's necessary in an island of sanity. We need to be together. We need to honor and respect one another and we need to trust that we won't bail on each other. That will stay. That's a big one. Like if I anger you, you're not just going to walk off and tell me that was a microaggression and you don't want to be around me anymore. No, we're going to work things out because we know we can only survive as an island if we stay together and work on our stuff when it arises. So respect for one another and curiosity about each other, fundamental. Now, uh, we've talked about that for years, um, in teaching dialogue or teaching crucial conversation. Oh, whatever we were doing, this is different. This is a level of realizing I'm not going to survive if I don't figure out how to work with you. And by the way, we are already linked together because we all want to create something good and wholesome, you know, so, uh, we're not a random group. We do come together for a common faith, a common shared purpose. And I mean, only when I use the word faith. It's faith in people.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: Because we're organization. Yeah. So we share that. And if we don't share a clear sense of, you know, I. One of my definitions of saying leadership is having unshakable faith. That people can be creative, generous and kind.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: It's the leader's role to create the conditions, to evoke those innate inherent qualities that we all possess. So that's a new role for leaders. Right. You have to believe in people. You have to know that within each person in your organization, you at least want to test for their level of creativity and generosity, of spirit and kindness. Because it's there in almost everyone. And if it's. You can't find it in a person, you do let them go. You need to create a real sense of refugia, uh, of refuge. This is where we know we can flourish as human beings. I like the phrase I coined human beings being fully human.
Speaker A: Absolutely.
Speaker B: And a lot of older leaders know exactly how to do that because we could do it in the past. We cannot do it without creating this real boundary now.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: And even then, the leader's job, if you're a, uh, mid level leader dealing with scared senior leaders, they're going to put more and more demands on you for certainty, for outcomes, for plans and timelines.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: That's where their fear is going. Yeah. I can't control what's going on, so I'll control you.
Speaker A: Yeah. Or at least try.
Speaker B: You will give me fantasies. Uh, a planning document that includes a schedule, that includes steps, that includes outcomes. No, what we really need are people really bonded together so we can create. And creation is the antidote to all this destruction that's going on. Yeah. Creation awakens us at this deep human spirit level of who we truly are. And so we want to create the conditions for people to discover their creativity, to discover what it feels like to be highly engaged again.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: You can't do that while you're also in this unprotected, highly vulnerable environment which is going to keep shifting and is going to just discard you when it needs to.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: You know, I'll just do a little riff here. All this conversation about, uh, generative AI destroying jobs, and the solution is, well, we'll just pay everyone an amount of money and then they can do what they want. Now that is the most dehumanizing image.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: Of people.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: We need to contribute, we need to be creative. And, uh, I mean, that's just a death knell for our species to even that. People in leadership positions want that. Yeah.
Speaker A: Well, I think there are some people who think they'll benefit from that with the rest of us kind of rotting away. Right. Because that's what happens when we don't have that chance to create, to have meaningful Connections to feel like we're doing something of purpose, we kind of rot away from the inside. Right. It's not how we. That Absolutely.
Speaker B: We go crazy. Right?
Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B: And we commit suicide.
Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. Meg, I love your definition of sanity as that honest relationship with reality. And that's kind of what we're touching into some of here of uh, going no, we're not meant to be, you know, um, sitting on beaches and doing nothing all the time. You know, maybe a couple of days. But too much of any of that is not great for us. And you really challenge us to look at reality without our filters, our ah, judgments, our biases, so that we can start to figure out, well, what actions here might serve us and others best. And I know for many leaders trying to honestly face into that reality that you're uh, describing of the uncertainty, the fragility, just the levels of fear churning around in the general discourse of our society right now can make face facing what's happening in the world, in our workplaces. Challenging.
Speaker B: Right.
Speaker A: I know for myself as I started to understand more of the, I think about it as the super cycle of change, or the poly crisis, or this colliding and amplifying of technology and environment and economics and politics and social changes coming on, I definitely had my own existential crisis as a leader, uh, where I had to, you know, get really quiet for a while and just feel, figure out as the. You ask us so beautifully in your books, who do I want to be in this time if I, I can't control it, I can't outrun it, I can't avoid it. Who am I going to be as a leader? And so I think in order to be able to help, be that island of sanity, evoke those human qualities in others. As leaders we have to feel safe enough in us. We have to have done that reckoning with reality to have that honest relationship so we're not spreading the fear to um, the people that we're leading. Any advice on, on how you're seeing leaders do that?
Speaker B: Yeah. I mean what you describe is common. Mhm. But underneath it all, what I hear in you, Michelle, and I assume everyone listening, we still want to contribute.
Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker B: Still want meaningful lives. Yeah. And in fact what has shifted, been taken away from us is all the definitions of a meaningful life. Success, money, living forever, having a great time, going on extraordinary vacations, having a bucket list all about me and pleasuring me. All of that is when we look at reality that is yesterday. Yeah. It's not where we find meaning today. But the ultimate meaning of life, what is it? That's what we all have to ask ourselves. And if you've been around people who are dying, they will tell you the meaning of life is not any of these things that we've accumulated. It's about our relationships, it's about love and it's about. Maybe I can say I did contribute something here. This is a huge test challenge. It is fundamentally existential because we're redefining. Why am I even here? What is the meaning of my life? And this. It starts out as painful, but it leads to feeling really inspired and clear. So for all the years that I've introduced people to the cycles of empires and we're in the last cycle, we are in collapse. This is going away with great tragedies for billions of people. But what do I want to contribute? What is truly meaningful for me? Well, for just about everyone, it's when you're in a really good relationship, when you've helped someone else, when you've gotten out of your own dramas and just been there for somebody else. Now the easiest place we see this is after a natural disaster.
Speaker A: Mhm.
Speaker B: People rush in. I mean there's a great community spirit available. Except in certain countries that have always bred dependency. I mean I remember that was a big issue in Japan. I think it's changed now. But certainly in Australia after a natural disaster or even before I worked with the Victoria Volunteer Firemen's association for a few years. So we all know that spirit of I want to help. Yeah. There's someone who needs me. Yeah. That's the meaning of life. Yeah. And we can create that within an organized form, within a company or a business if it's making a contribution. I mean there's still. I just have to put that in y. You're just producing crap and yeah. Giving birth to more and more commercialism or the answer to all of your suffering is just buy more and look better and feel healthier. No. Uh, that it doesn't work. And those people who recognize that what I'm contributing to is not helping. Yeah. The development of community or bringing out the best in people, then you, you do leave.
Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B: You leave in a soul saving way to find good work. But if you're in an organization where you still are on board with what you're creating, producing or offering, then you can. In an island mentality where there is a border that protects. We can create the conditions for the very best of our human qualities to come forth and we create meaningful work there.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: And the Work is for the rest of the crazy world. You know, so we're not just hunkering down, enjoying life together.
Speaker A: We've disconnected from it all.
Speaker B: No. It's preparing us. Yeah. To be able to stay in. In this cruelness and meaningless and destructive. Yeah. Forces that are now at play everywhere. So we're creating the conditions to still be out there. Yeah. Fully engaged. But we. We don't develop more compassion or slowing, uh, down our reflective practices day to day when we're working in that maelstrom.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: We need a place of refuge. And I just want to point out that I've learned more and more, you know, as a biological concept. This is how nature.
Speaker A: Yes.
Speaker B: Protects life. Yes.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: So in the midst of tragedies, floods and earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, life creates these places that are called refugia, where life can continue.
Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker B: That's what we're doing.
Speaker A: Yeah. And I think for me, Meg, what I found as I worked through that existential crisis, as I really came to honestly look at the reality of the times in which we live, the challenges not just that we're experiencing now, but that are ahead of us, the level of uncertainty and fragility of both the world around us and the work that we were doing. What helped me in that island of sanity was to understand that that was more. I don't want to say control, but it was more actively mine to shape in all of that chaos and unpredictability. Um, and so it did restore some sanity to me. To go, okay, what is mine to own is how I show up each day, how I learn and grow in the midst of all of this, what I choose to contribute and how I support others. And I don't know what tomorrow will bring, but I do get to know how I will show up in this moment. And, you know, at the end of this day, as the sun sets on it, will I go? Uh, yeah. I gave that my best shot with what I had and to contribute for myself and others, which, of course, Meg, is all any of us have ever really had. It's just that the stability. Right. Or wanted or needed. Right. Again, I mean, I just want to
Speaker B: reflect back to your energy level right now.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: And yes. When we get through the existential crisis.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: We land on, um, pretty solid ground of, uh, oh, I still want to contribute. Yeah. I want to help others. Yeah. I know these services really. An ultimately restorative action.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: Opens my heart.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: I benefit from others heartfulness. And so independent of, uh, the craziness when we're Doing just the work you described. When we discover that as work and then we actually do it, we are inspired and we are energized and we know we're on the right path.
Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. And I think with that, to me as the, it dissipates some of that fear that we were talking about. Right. It allows us to tap back into those human qualities. And what I found then is as I kind of found my feet on my island of sanity, I was also able to sit with those feelings of grief for what has gone before and what comes ahead, as well as gratitude for, uh, the role I get to play. And I was curious, Meg. We recently just did this study with almost 1,000 US workers and we found that one in three workers reported these feelings of grief about the changes they're experiencing. And talking to leaders in workplaces recently, it's a theme that's been coming up. Our people seem to be carrying some grief. There's this heaviness of grief for what people feel they're losing. And of course one of the things I think workplace places completely lack a language for and often any form of practice to support is grief.
Speaker B: Do you have right culture has a great fear of death and I think
Speaker A: it's amplified in workplaces. Are, uh, there same leadership practices that might help us with grief, Meg?
Speaker B: Well, I, I want to position grief as part of a continuum, um, not an end state because there's a lot of grief work going on that's just trying to make the individual comfortable.
Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B: I'm so against this now because it's a dead end. Literally a dead, deadening end. We want to feel the fullness of our grief for what has been lost in order then to move forward onto grief. What's possible now? Yeah. So the grieving process is essential, but it is not a, uh, technology that leads to inspired, empowered people. It just may eliminate some of our personal suffering. There's two things I want to say about this in my own but it's tradition. We understand that we are always sad. Always. Yeah. Because life is filled with suffering. And at this point we know what's being lost. Yeah. How can you not cry? How can you not lament? But we're also taught now I teach this. That's not being. Feeling sad or grieving is not the problem to be solved. Just recognize I'm always sad.
Speaker A: Mhm.
Speaker B: And when it's not a problem to be solved, it just is there. It's part of my sensitivity, it's part of my openness. It's part of the way I can communicate empathically with people who are grieving. But beyond that is a whole new way of being where I'm holding sadness, but I'm also holding great faith in people. I'm not holding faith in any positive outcomes. But I do know that when we are together, that's when we explore the richness of being human. I've worked in a number of devastated cultures. In Southern African nations and in Australia among Aboriginal people. If it crushes the spirit, then they're really done for. But if they have learned to come together in the expression of grief, and then that's a release of energy, and then they move on. So it's not a problem that we have to solve. It's a state of being. One of their spiritual teachers said, when you wake up to this world, you wake up with a sob. I wake up with sobs most mornings. And then I spend the day in service, mostly to others, and I feel deep connectivity and even joy. And when I can't do it with people, I go outside or I just get with my dog. You know, if I have younger grandchildren around, I don't see them very much right now. But that's also an antidote, is just get with little kids.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: Play.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: You know, play is a, uh, is an important component here. And we're afraid of it because we think we're not taking life seriously. No, we're taking life seriously. We're just trying to recharge, re. Enliven our spirits here, uh, and remember what it means to be together in healthy ways and deep relational ways. Those are always joyful.
Speaker A: Yeah. I think play is where so much curiosity and creativity and connection happens. And I think one of the callings of this time is to bring us back to that energy of playfulness, more on those islands of sanity. And I think I often think, Meg, about Francis, as well as work, about holding grief and gratitude, kind of, you know, one in each hand to understand that there is this tension. They come together. And as I sat with my grief and expressed my grief, rather than trying to run from it or cure it, it did open up a depth of gratitude for all that I do still have. I think every day right now I have a practice of walking as the sun comes up on the beach, and I put my hands in the sand at the end to thank Mother Earth for this extraordina ordinary day that I'm about to experience. Because I feel like I don't know how many more days any of us get to just do something so simple. But so rich, you know, around us.
Speaker B: So let me extend your. That practice, which is gorgeous. Whenever we have any good thing that we're experiencing. A beautiful meal every night. When I get into a warm, safe bed.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: Which is such a blessing. I think of all the Ukrainians suffering through this winter or all the refugees in Gaza in these terrible tent communities, and this is the practice. I send it to them. This is a Tibetan practice called giving, receiving and sending. It's called Tonglen. And you take in the goodness of what you were just experiencing. Like being in a thoughtful conversation, uh, is such rare experience for people. We can think about individuals or whole nations or whole types of people who are not experiencing this. And we send it to them.
Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker B: And then when you're in a negative experience, when you're in grief, when you're in loneliness, when you're in rage, you just stop for a moment and ask, I wonder how many other people, just like me, just like me at this very moment, are experiencing this emotion. So I'm feeling lonely. How many other people just like me are experiencing loneliness? You get up into the millions.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: Hundreds of millions. Or you can focus on a neighbor down the street or someone you saw who's clearly suffering from loneliness, and you just connect with them. And what this does for our mental health and our spiritual health is it transforms my personal experience to the human experience so I'm no longer a victim of loneliness. I don't have to solve that one.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: I just use that experience to say, oh, this is a common human experience. Yeah. And it opens our hearts to others and it relieves the drama of victimhood. It's. It's the most powerful practice I teach it. It's up on my website. Because there's nothing else like it, I would imagine, too.
Speaker A: Meg. It kind of, uh. It eases some of that inner critic that so many of us wrestle with, where we think it's just us. I'm just the person that's getting it wrong. I'm the person that's unlovable. I need to be better. But to remember, hey, it's not just me, that this is part of that human condition.
Speaker B: It's normal human experience. And, um, we're told, no, it's all your fault, that you're the problem. But it. It's transformative just for what you just.
Speaker A: I'm gonna play with that on my morning practices when you're now having this
Speaker B: beautiful practice of the sun and the beach, water and the sand. I would just end it by sending it out to Whatever group you want to name. Mhm. And you will find over time, you are now more connected to that group.
Speaker A: Beautiful. I shall report back.
Speaker B: I, I, I guarantee it. And so I just want to go back to your survey.
Speaker A: Sure.
Speaker B: Of us workers that are feeling grief. They're feeling a lot more than grief. They're feeling abandoned. M they're feeling distrusted, dishonored, disrespected, of no importance to decision makers. So they can label that grief, but it has more, many more nuanced layers to it. It's people who have been now abandoned is the right word. Emotionally abandoned. And they do report that. I mean there are other political surveys of people who just realize our leaders don't give a shit about us. And you know, they'll talk a good story. But then you look at what's happening here. It's a complete destruction of life on this planet is how I sum it up. Is one powerful destructive force.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: That does not value anything living, including the planet. Yeah. Including people. Including all other beings.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: And that's the reality that if we face it, our first experience is total breakdown.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: But if you talk about it with others and it's okay. So where can I be one who restores life? Where can I be creative? I mean, I just gave a number of my students the assignment go and do something meaningless but creative.
Speaker A: Love that assignment.
Speaker B: Right. And you know, because what we want to awaken, I mean, you named it earlier. We want to awaken and nourish our own humanity. Spirits which are inherently creative and generous and kind when we're not in fear. Yeah. So meaningless play.
Speaker A: Mhm.
Speaker B: Awakens our human spirits and then we will do good things, we will help others. But right now we need a little more meaninglessness that's conscious. You know, it's uh, not withdrawal, it's not denial into, you know, going down different distraction holes. No. It's I need to just reawaken, rekindle my own spiritual growth. And the path to that is be creative, have fun, be with other people. And then you will naturally want to help other people from there.
Speaker A: I think that's such a beautiful invitation to leave all of us with. Thank you so much for your service in to the world and for this conversation.
Speaker B: Well, Michelle, you're doing wonderful work and I quoted back to you that a group, uh, of educators I'm meeting with is using an article you wrote about our last interview in 2020. So please, you keep up. I mean, you're asking the right questions and you're serving the right needs. So I want to honor you for that.
Speaker A: Thank you. Thank you so much Meg. And thank you for listening. To find more of Meg's wonderful insights and tools, please check out her book Restoring Sanity and Visit her website margaretweatly.com for more. And if you'd like to see how you're doing when it comes to navigating complex change, visit TheChangeLabs.com and take the free 5 minute survey to find more evidence based tools to help you restore sanity in your team and workplace. And remember, if you want to go deeper, be sure to look at our self paced Certificate in Leading the Heart of Change. But hurry. Places are open for a limited time. You've been listening to Making Positive psychology work with Dr. Michelle McQuaid. Today's podcast was made possible by our wonderful team, Laura Butler, Charlie McQuaid and Sam Atkinson. If you found our conversation helpful today, then be sure to share this podcast with a friend or colleague to help navigate changes and in our workplaces, schools and communities. Or if you can leave an honest review on your favourite podcasting platform, we would be most grateful. After all, as President Teddy Roosevelt wisely said, do what you can where you are, with what you have. Until next time, take care and keep playfully experimenting with ways you can help yourself and others navigate complex changes without without quietly cracking or burning out.
BONUS SEASON: The Complexity ConundrumBONUS SEASON: The Change Fatigue ContinuumBONUS SEASON: The Self-Compassion ChallengeBONUS SEASON: Learn To Trust Yourself When ChallengedBONUS SEASON: Build Your Take-Anywhere Somatic Toolkit