How to cultivate resilience and get through tough times (with Lucy Hone) (re-release)

Summary

Podcast Summary: "How to Cultivate Resilience and Get Through Tough Times" with Lucy Hone

Podcast Information:

• Title: How to Be a Better Human
• Host: Chris Duffy (TED)
• Episode: How to Cultivate Resilience and Get Through Tough Times (with Lucy Hone) (Re-release)
• Release Date: December 23, 2024

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Introduction

In this poignant episode of How to Be a Better Human, host Chris Duffy engages in a deeply moving conversation with Dr. Lucy Hone, a renowned expert on well-being and resilience. Recorded during the tumultuous times of the pandemic lockdowns and ongoing economic and political unrest, the episode delves into the essence of resilience, personal tragedy, and the pathways to overcoming life's most challenging moments.

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Lucy Hone's Journey and Personal Tragedy

Dr. Lucy Hone opens up about her academic pursuits and unexpected personal loss. As she pursued her doctoral research in Christchurch, New Zealand, the region was struck by devastating earthquakes. Initially, Hone channeled her expertise into aiding her community's recovery efforts, collaborating with various organizations to bolster resilience. However, her mission was tragically interrupted on Queen's Birthday weekend in 2014, when her 12-year-old daughter, Abby, her best friend Ella, and Ella's mother Sally were killed in a car accident.

Notable Quote:

"Instead of being the resilience expert, suddenly I'm the grieving mother, waking up not knowing who I am, trying to wrap my head around unthinking, unthinkable news. My world smashed to smithereens." — Lucy Hone [01:23]

This profound loss redefined Hone's understanding of resilience, transforming her from an advisor to someone who had to personally navigate the depths of grief and rebuild her life.

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Defining Resilience

Hone clarifies the concept of resilience, emphasizing that it is often misunderstood and misused. She defines resilience as the ability of a person or organization to adapt and navigate through adversity, allowing them to continue functioning effectively and learn from the experience.

Notable Quote:

"Resilience is a person or an organization's ability to adapt and flex and steer through some form of adversity and challenge so that they can continue to function reasonably well or get back to functioning reasonably well and also learning from it." — Lucy Hone [05:51]

She stresses that resilience involves facing adversity head-on, managing to "keep the show on the road," and undergoing a process of learning and growth.

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Practical Strategies for Building Resilience

Lucy Hone shares three foundational strategies that underpin her work on resilience:

1. Acceptance of Suffering: Resilient individuals recognize that suffering is an inherent part of life. This acceptance prevents feelings of isolation during tough times.

   Quote:

   "Resilient people get that shit happens. They know that suffering is part of life." — Lucy Hone [20:42]

2. Selective Attention: They excel at choosing where to focus their attention, concentrating on aspects they can change and accepting those they cannot. This skill helps manage the constant barrage of modern-day stressors.

   Quote:

   "Resilient people are really good at choosing carefully where they select their attention. They have a habit of realistically appraising situations and typically managing to focus on the things that they can change and somehow accept the things that they can't." — Lucy Hone [20:42]

3. Evaluative Self-Questioning: Continuously asking oneself whether current actions are helpful or harmful fosters agency and control over one's responses to adversity.

   Quote:

   "Resilient people ask themselves, is what I'm doing helping or harming me?" — Lucy Hone [20:42]

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Societal Attitudes Towards Grief and Resilience

The conversation highlights a societal tendency to overlook or inadequately address profound grief and trauma. Hone criticizes the prevalent "happiness-only" narrative perpetuated by social media, urging for more open dialogues that acknowledge and process negative emotions.

Notable Quote:

"Covid has taught us that no one's immune to, you know, bad things happening. And so it is really important that we enter a much more open dialogue about what that feels like and to not brush our negative emotions aside." — Lucy Hone [09:52]

She advocates for normalizing discussions around death and grief, moving away from euphemisms to foster genuine understanding and support.

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Coping with Loss and Grief

Hone delves into the bereavement process, emphasizing the importance of storytelling and meaning-making. Sharing one's story helps reconstruct a new life narrative post-loss, enabling individuals to integrate their experiences and honor the legacy of their loved ones.

Notable Quote:

"When our life path splits and we are forced to go down a completely different, unanticipated, unwanted road, what we are doing by talking to people and talking it out and telling our stories is we are slowly managing to start to piece together again the new life story." — Lucy Hone [12:52]

She encourages supportive actions such as offering hope, instrumental help, and creating rituals to keep the memory of the deceased alive.

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Modern Challenges and Resilience

The discussion touches on contemporary challenges like the COVID-19 pandemic, social media's impact, and community tragedies. Hone reflects on how these events have underscored the necessity of resilience and the interplay between internal resources and supportive environments.

Notable Quote:

"Covid has really taught and reminded me how much our resilience comes from our internal resources and our external environments." — Lucy Hone [24:53]

She acknowledges that while internal resilience is crucial, external support systems significantly amplify one's ability to cope.

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Debunking Resilience Myths

Hone challenges the commonly held belief that "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger," asserting that not all traumatic experiences lead to increased resilience. She points out that ongoing or severe adversities can instead diminish one's capacity to recover.

Notable Quote:

"I don't think [what doesn't kill you makes you stronger] is true. There's a valorization of it's great to be injured, it's great to have trauma... I'm not sure that that's really true at all." — Lucy Hone [27:37]

She emphasizes the importance of recognizing when trauma leads to vulnerability rather than strength.

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Supporting Others in Grief

When discussing ways to support those in mourning, Hone suggests offering hope, expressing belief in their ability to overcome, and providing both emotional and practical assistance. Encouraging loved ones to share their stories and create meaningful rituals can facilitate healing.

Notable Quote:

"One of the best, most supportive things that you can do to help them is to ask them about the bereaved, to ask them to and give them time and space, endless time and space to tell their story." — Lucy Hone [31:37]

She underscores the value of instrumental help, such as assisting with daily tasks, to alleviate the burden on those grieving.

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Personal Practices and Continued Growth

Despite her expertise, Hone remains committed to personal growth and cultural competency. She actively engages in learning about the indigenous Māori culture in New Zealand, striving to dismantle the impacts of colonization and enhance her understanding of diverse resilience practices.

Notable Quote:

"We're intentionally, deliberately striving to increase our cultural competency to understand more about the indigenous people of New Zealand, the Māori." — Lucy Hone [36:27]

Her ongoing efforts reflect a dedication to being a better human by embracing humility and continuous learning.

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Conclusion

This episode with Dr. Lucy Hone offers profound insights into the nature of resilience, the complexities of grief, and practical strategies to navigate life's adversities. Through personal tragedy and professional expertise, Hone illustrates that resilience is a learned and nurtured capability, deeply influenced by both internal fortitude and external support systems. Listeners are encouraged to foster open dialogues about suffering, support one another through practical and emotional means, and cultivate personal resilience by embracing realistic optimism and mindful self-questioning.

Key Takeaways:

• Resilience is the ability to adapt and recover from adversity, involving both maintaining functionality and learning from experiences.
• Acceptance of suffering and selective attention are crucial components of resilience.
• Societal narratives often neglect the importance of acknowledging and processing negative emotions.
• Supporting others in grief involves offering hope, listening, and providing practical assistance.
• Personal growth and cultural competency enhance one's ability to be resilient and supportive.

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Notable Quotes Recap:

• Lucy Hone on personal tragedy and resilience: "Instead of being the resilience expert, suddenly I'm the grieving mother..." [01:23]
• Defining resilience: "Resilience is a person or an organization's ability to adapt and flex..." [05:51]
• Acceptance of suffering: "Resilient people get that shit happens..." [20:42]
• Debunking resilience myths: "I don't think [what doesn't kill you makes you stronger] is true." [27:37]
• Supporting those in grief: "One of the best, most supportive things that you can do to help them is to ask them about the bereaved..." [31:37]

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This episode serves as a compelling guide for anyone seeking to understand and enhance their resilience in the face of life's inevitable challenges. Dr. Lucy Hone's heartfelt narrative and expert advice provide valuable lessons on navigating sorrow, fostering hope, and building a stronger, more compassionate human experience.

Transcript

[Chris Duffy]

You're listening to how to Be a Better Human. I am your host, Chris Duffy, and this week we are still on our holiday break between seasons, but we will be back with new episodes in mid January, so stay tuned. In the meantime though, today we have an episode from our very first season. And this interview was recorded in the midst of pandemic lockdowns and economic and political unrest. And in many ways the issues that we were dealing with front and center when this episode was recorded are still ongoing today. But I do just want to give you the context so you know when this interview took place. And I also want to say that over the years of hosting this show, this conversation with Lucy Hone, an expert on well being and resilience, this is the single episode that listeners have brought up to me the most. I know that what Lucy has to say here has really spoken to people and it's stuck with me too, because Lucy's research and her work, they're all about how do you get through tough times, how do you survive when it feels like your world is falling apart? And those are questions that we're all going to have to face at some point in our lives. They're some of the biggest challenges that come with being human. In Lucy's talk, which was recorded at TEDX Christchurch, she shares her research on coping with sorrow and tragedy and also her own journey back to hope and strength and life after the unthinkable happened to her.

Here's a clip.

[Lucy Hone]

I finished my studies in America and I returned home here to Christchurch to start my doctoral research. I just begun that study when the Christchurch earthquakes hit. So I put my research on hold and I started working with my home community to help them through that terrible post quake period. I work with all sorts of organizations from government departments to building companies and all sorts of community groups. Groups teaching them the ways of thinking and acting that we know boost resilience. I thought that was my calling, my moment to put all of that research to good use. But sadly I was wrong. For my own true test came in 2014 on Queen's Birthday weekend. We and two other families had decided to go down to Lake Ohau and bike the Alps to ocean. At the last minute, my beautiful 12 year old daughter Abby decided to hop in the car with her best friend Ella, also 12, and Ella's mum Sally, a dear, dear friend of mine. On the way down, as they traveled through Rakaia on Thompson's Track, a car sped through a stop sign, crashing into them and killing all three of them instantly. In the blink of an eye, I find myself flung to the other side of the equation, waking up with a whole new identity. Instead of being the resilience expert, suddenly I'm the grieving mother, waking up not knowing who I am, trying to wrap my head around unthinking, unthinkable news. My world smashed to smithereens.

[Chris Duffy]

If you're listening and you are struggling, I hear you. I feel you. Lucy hears you. And she feels you too. You are not alone. And as Lucy is about to tell us, there is a path through. I'm Chris Duffy, and this is how to be a better human. We'll be right back.

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[Chris Duffy]

We'Re back. Today we're talking with Dr. Lucy Hone, an expert on resilience and wellbeing.

[Lucy Hone]

Chia Ora as we say down here in Aoteara, New Zealand, I am Dr. Lucy Hone. I'm a co founder and co director at the New Zealand Institute of Wellbeing and Resilience.

[Chris Duffy]

I think maybe we should start by just talking about the word resilience, for a moment, you study it both academically, but also you do a lot of work with the practical implications of resilience. But I think it's also one of those words that people really throw around a lot and mean a lot of different things with. So when you say resilience, what do you mean by that?

[Lucy Hone]

Such a good point. And it drives me nuts that people just band this word around without really understanding that there are some real kind of myths here. So we define resilience as a person or an organization's ability to adapt and flex and steer through some form of adversity and challenge so that they can continue to function reasonably well or get back to functioning reasonably well and also learning from it. I think those are all the important parts of it. You've got to have adversity. And it's about managing to kind of, you know, keep the show on the road despite what's happening to you, so that you continue to function in a, you know, pretty reasonable fashion despite what's going on. But I also truly believe that it is about adaptation. It's about a process of. Of learning and flexing and changing and growing as we go.

[Chris Duffy]

Personally, I think many, many people have been dealing with these ways in which life has thrown us unexpected curveballs. And I think that the way that you talk about practical ways in which we can make ourselves more resilient rather than just feeling like we either are or are not, it really resonates with me, and I think it will really resonate with many people right now, if not every single person. So can we talk about that for a second? I mean, resilient people. It almost seems to me like some people just handle bad things better, like they're able to do them. But you really don't feel like that. You feel like it's a learned skill?

[Lucy Hone]

Well, yes and no. That is true that some people have a greater inbuilt capacity to cope with whatever seems to happen to them. Not quite whatever happens to them, because there is research that shows that if you continually bombarded with adverse events, then of course, that is more likely to erode your capacity to, you know, get back. So I do think that, yeah, adversity doesn't discriminate. Happens to us all. Shit, things happen to us all. And yet we do have an incredible inherent ability to cope using very ordinary processes. And my job and my absolute mission is to get more people to understand, firstly to give them some hope that they can get through tough times and then give them some practical ways of thinking and acting to help them navigate those tough times, to give them some choices and to give them what we would call in psychology, some agency, you know, some active ingredients, rather than just being passive recipients. And I feel so strongly about this work, Chris, because I don't think, particularly when it comes to grief, there isn't sufficient knowledge about our ability just to be able to cope. Even grief has been pathologized, you know, it's been made kind of like, you know, there's something wrong with you. Yeah. I'm on a new mission now to help people understand a bit more about coping with loss.

[Chris Duffy]

And I feel like one of the hard parts of dealing with the things that you would need to be resilient about, whether it's illness or injury or loss or heartbreak or assault, anything that is one of these really big, challenging things. It feels like as a society, we often don't address them, and so we don't really have the context for what is normal and what is not normal and what is okay and what is not okay. It's just like these are things that we'd rather not think about at all.

[Lucy Hone]

Yeah. And I think this is a really important point to make, that we need to step away from the happy ology and the Instagram world that lives all kind of la la and pretty and beautiful and happiness is all that counts. And we're pretty much. I think Covid has taught us that no one's immune to, you know, bad things happening. And so it is really important that we enter a much more open dialogue about what that feels like and to not brush our negative emotions aside, but to speak, learn how to sit with them and live in that uncomfortableness alongside starting to piece our lives back together. That has been the most incredible discovery for me, is that you can grieve and live at the same time. People have got out of the habit of talking about death. There's a lot of euphemisms used in, you know, passing on, you know, my daughter was killed. She died. And, you know, I'm happy to talk about that. It's a fact of life and sugar coating it doesn't make it any better, but being able to talk about it does.

[Chris Duffy]

You know, it's interesting thinking about how you were just saying how we are so uncomfortable. As a North American, I do feel. I feel like it's challenging to talk about this stuff. And even knowing that I'm going to be interviewing you about this, it feels almost rude or unacceptable to bring up things that have happened in your life. Like losing your daughter. Because it feels so personal. But I hear what you're saying, which is that not talking about it doesn't change it. And creating space to talk about it and allowing you to be acknowledged. And for that to be real, that actually can be much more helpful than this polite, quote unquote politeness that I and I think a lot of people feel when we talk about difficult things.

[Lucy Hone]

Yeah, totally. So, actually, you'll be amused to hear that I almost trump you with the North American not wanting to talk about it. Cause I actually was born in London. So I've got the British stiff upper lip thing going on in my jeans. And actually moving To New Zealand 20 years ago has made a difference to my experience of grief. Which began when I was still in England in the year 2000 and my dear mum died.

[Chris Duffy]

It feels like in a traumatic time, we have to not rush past it.

Or ignore it, or try to feel better right away, but actually acknowledge it.

And sit with it and be okay with it not being okay. But then we have to also figure out how to not drown in that. And still be able to anchor ourselves.

To something outside of pain and sadness.

And. And that is a really hard balance to strike.

[Lucy Hone]

Yeah, so true. So, actually, what you're speaking to, theoretically, there are those two things of a bit about trauma and a bit about grief. So on the grief side, one of the things I've learned most about bereavement since Abby died is that, you know how people's. When they've lost someone, they do sometimes really want to tell their story. And. And have you ever come across someone, Chris, who's gone into it in really kind of tiny detail. And you kind of get to the point where you're almost embarrassed because they're telling it so much? And what that is about. This is Bob Niemeyer's work about meaning making through loss. And that when our life path splits. And we are forced to go down a completely different, unanticipated, unwanted road, it means that what happens is that our life schema, this kind of grand plan that we had for ourselves, is smashed to smithereens. And so what we are doing by talking to people and talking it out and telling our stories, is we are slowly managing to start to piece together again the new life story. And make a new kind of meaningful concept come from what has happened. To integrate it into your life. So this is really important because it means that if you are. If you've got a friend or a family member or a colleague who has lost someone One of the best, most supportive things that you can do to help them is to ask them about the bereaved, to ask them to and give them time and space, endless time and space to tell their story and even retell their story. Because every time we do so, we are doing that really important processing of creating the new life narrative. One of the other great advancements in bereavement research is that when someone dies, you don't have to sever your connection with the dead. And that actually what we are doing in the bereavement process is creating and cultivating a new ongoing relationship with those who we've lost. So in doing this work for me, I am kind of keeping Abby's place in the world alive. You know, I'm building a legacy. I'm making even her short life of just 12 years count for something more. I'm kind of perpetuating her contribution to the world. And that's warming.

[Chris Duffy]

Yeah, I love that. I love the idea of continuing the relationship.

[Lucy Hone]

I think it's a really important part of learning to relearning to live in the world, to learn to live without those that we've lost, is to work out how we can continue a relationship with them, to continue to talk about them in our lives, talk about them to other people, to have aspects of them, build those into your life. So when I in my workshops, I often talk to people about what is the legacy of the deceased? You know, what did they teach you and how have you changed because of them? When you live in a way that recognizes the impact that the deceased has on you, then you are keeping them and their legacy alive.

[Chris Duffy]

We're going to hear Dr. Lucy Hone's strategies to tap into your resilience and get through tough times. And we have so much more right after this. So don't go anywhere.

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[Chris Duffy]

And you gave that in August of 2019, which is not that far ago. And yet I think at the time that you were giving it, most people would have only felt like this was relevant to them if they themselves had personally experienced loss or bereavement. And yet now it kind of feels like this is the default state for the world. Like so many people right now are just grieving a loss of what we thought our lives were going to be, or someone that we have lost. Or even if we haven't directly lost a person, we almost certainly know someone who has lost someone or who has lost a job or a relationship. There's been this huge global trauma in so many ways. Let's listen to what you had to say in your Talk back in 2019.

[Lucy Hone]

These are my go to strategies that I relied upon and saved me in my darkest days. They're three strategies that underpin all of my work and they're pretty readily available to us all. Anyone can learn them. You can learn them right here today. So, number one, resilient people get that shit happens. They know that suffering is part of life. This doesn't mean they actually welcome it in. They're not actually delusional, just that when the tough times come, they seem to know that suffering is part of every human existence and knowing this stops you from feeling discriminated against when the tough times come. The real tragedy is that not enough of us seem to know this any longer. We seem to live in an age where we're entitled to a perfect life, where shiny, happy photos on Instagram are the norm. When actually, as you all demonstrated at the start of my talk, the very opposite is true. Number two, resilient people are really good at choosing carefully where they select their attention. They have a habit of realistically appraising situations and typically managing to focus on the things that they can change and somehow accept the things that they can't. This is a vital, learnable skill for resilience. As humans, we are really good at noticing threats and weaknesses. Being wired in this way is actually really good for us and served us well from an evolutionary perspective. The problem is we now live in an era where we are constantly bombarded by threats all day long and our poor brains treat every single one of those threats as though they were a tiger. Our threat focus, our stress response, is permanently dialed up. Resilient people don't diminish the negative, but they also have worked out a way of tuning into the good. Number three, resilient people ask themselves, is what I'm doing helping or harming me? This is a question that's used a lot in good therapy, and boy is it powerful. This was my go to question in the days after the girls died, I would ask it again and again. Should I go to the trial and see the driver? Would that help me or would it harm me? Well, that was a no brainer for me. I chose to stay away. But Trevor, my husband, decided to meet with the driver at a later time. Late at night, I'd find myself sometimes poring over old photos of Abby getting more and more upset. I'd ask myself, really, is this helping you or is it harming you? Put away the photos, go to bed for the night. Be kind to yourself. This question can be applied to so many different contexts. Is the way I'm thinking and acting helping or harming you in your bid to get that promotion, to pass that examination, to recover from a heart attack? Asking yourself whether what you're doing, the way you're thinking, the way you're acting is helping or harming you, puts you back in the driver's seat. It gives you some control over your decision making.

[Chris Duffy]

I wonder if there have been any new resilience strategies that you have seen or that you've experience personally or in your work during this time that have come about.

[Lucy Hone]

That's such a good question. And you're right that, you know, I've been in this field for 11 years now and Dr. Denise Quinlan, who's my co director at the institute, she and I always kind of laugh about the fact that we've been in this field for, you know, her 13 years, me 11 years, and that for most of that time no one was ever interested in our work. And then because I live here in Christchurch, we had some terrible earthquakes. So that kind of woke up my local region to the fact that the ways that we think and act as individuals, as communities and as you know, societies have a huge impact on our resilience. And then we also had that awful mosque shooting, do you remember, in March 2019. And so that, you know, that's woken us up to it again. And now it feels like the world has also, you know, sadly gone through the same experience of just realizing how important it is to understand more about the way you think and act and how that helps or harms you. And I think, to be honest, for me, the same strategies seem to work, whatever the disaster. You know, we've had a couple of earthquakes, we had that mosque shooting, we've had Covid. I've lost my daughter and my mother and, you know, the same kind of strategy seemed to work for me. But what Covid has really taught and reminded me is how much our resilience comes from our internal resources and our external environments. And unless you are lucky enough to live in a supportive society and community and workplace, then it is so much more of a challenge to dig for your resilience and get through that Makes.

[Chris Duffy]

Me think too, whether there's a link between trauma and resilience. I've always thought that one of the strangest expressions that we have, it's a common knowledge, but I don't think it's true is the what doesn't kill us makes us stronger. Because at least in my experience, and also I think you can just observe plenty of things that don't kill you don't make you stronger. They can often leave you like weaker and vulnerable and broken. So I think there's kind of, in some ways this like, valorization of it's great to be injured, it's great to have trauma, it's great to have bad things happen because that makes you stronger. And I'm not sure that that's really true at all.

[Lucy Hone]

No, I don't think it's true. And it's certainly not true when you've got a lot of layers of hardship. You know, with poverty, if you've got no job, nowhere to go, you know, you can't get out of the house, certainly it's much, much harder to be resilient and keep. It's just, it's possible. But boy, is it hard work, you know, every day to get up and try and make the best of what you've got. That's tough.

[Chris Duffy]

You said that the kind of three crucial things that regardless of what you're going through, that you've really found work for you and work in general.

[Lucy Hone]

And I use it all the time. Back in March, when the world was truly spinning on its axis, I remember thinking to myself, okay, quickly, I need to get out of all my news notifications because it felt like we all had that moment, didn't we, where it was all just way too massive for our poor brains to cope with. So, you know, are they helping or harming me? That's a no brainer. I've actually recently taken myself off instagram because my 29 year old niece said she had. And I thought, oh, that's so good. She kind of gave me permission because she's young and cool and I thought, okay, if she has, then I can. It's been so good because I know that trolling through Instagram while watching Netflix at night isn't really helping me and it's been good. So whether it is, you know, the Extra glass of wine, not patching up an argument with a friend, Whatever it is. It's a great question to really put yourself in the driver's seat to say, is this helping or harming me in my quest to get through this?

[Chris Duffy]

Yeah, it's so interesting because I think there's so. Especially with social media, right. There's so many people who are like, oh, it's all good, it's all bad, or, you know, is it helpful? Should I be on? Should I not be on at all? And I feel like you've actually framed it in a way that makes so much more sense, which is just like, well, is it helping you or is it harming you? And if it's harming, how can you not do it in that way? And if there's not a way that you can use it and help you, then don't do it at all.

[Lucy Hone]

You don't have to. I didn't actually have to take myself off Instagram. I just took it off my phone. So if I really want to go and look at Instagram, and if I want to post something, I still can use my laptop to do that, but it has to be much more determined and intentional. So in that way, that's worked for me.

[Chris Duffy]

I've actually done the exact same thing, which I will say is probably not what anyone would recommend for my entertainment and comedy career, but certainly has been good for my mental health and for just not feeling this constant draw of having to do something that I know doesn't make me feel good. Okay, so you've kind of referenced some of these a little bit in this interview, and you've referenced them in several other interviews and talks that I've heard you give? What are some of the pieces of advice that you had heard before or that people often believe about resilience or getting through tough things that you've heard and you want to debunk or that you felt like, ugh, this was totally not useful for me. In fact, it was the opposite.

[Lucy Hone]

Yeah. So the fact that when our daughter was killed, we were told that we were prime candidates for divorce, mental illness, and family estrangement, I was like, wow, seriously, thanks for that. You know, life was already pretty gloomy and dim, thanks to you.

[Chris Duffy]

It's almost like they were trying to sell them to you.

[Lucy Hone]

Yeah. And I could laugh.

[Chris Duffy]

You're a prime candidate for our new products.

[Lucy Hone]

Yeah. Great.

[Chris Duffy]

Yeah.

[Lucy Hone]

And I can laugh about it now, but at the time, I was pretty furious because. And I've subsequently discovered that that is not true. Most of us just do get through somehow, and we actually get back to pretty normal functioning surprisingly quickly. And that's okay. So I want people to know that that is normal and that's okay. And don't let anybody feel. Make you feel like you're somehow not grieving properly because you want to go back to work or you want to go out socially. That's okay. That's normal.

[Chris Duffy]

I'm curious with. You're obviously an expert, you're a professional in this, but you've also done a lot of research on how resilience and the strength to get through these moments can be taught. So what are some ways in which we can pass techniques or mindsets on to others who are in a bad place if we're the support system right now?

[Lucy Hone]

Such. Good question. So, number one is to give them hope that they will get through it and belief that they will get through it. So just saying to them, hey, we're here for you. You're going to be okay. We're going to get through this together. Take all the time you need. And I'm here to talk to you anytime you want. You know, tell me what you need, because I'm really here. And I think it's really important that we offer more than just emotional help or listening help, but also instrumental help. So that's another way you can help with anything from, you know, cutting the grass to picking the kids up to anything, any practical help sorting out their it, all of those things. And there are all lots of different ways that you can offer what we would call instrumental help.

[Chris Duffy]

Yeah. I just know in my personal life that one of the things that has been so helpful is that, you know, in the worst of times, being like, okay, we just need to get through one hour. Can we just get like, one good hour? And then when you have one good hour, then the next day it's like, can we get three good hours? Can we get two good hours? And then amazingly, at a certain point, I'm like, oh, it's been two good weeks.

[Lucy Hone]

And also grief doesn't go away, you know, to understand that at some point this COVID lockdown, pandemic will end and other people are going to require help once it's ended, you know, going back to normal life without those that they have loved and so developing any kind of rituals and habits. There's really great research around the importance of rituals, of kind of. What do we call them, sort of unofficial ways of remembering and memorializing those that have died. So whether it's lighting a candle or wearing the color nail varnish that your mother wore, or whether it's. In one of my workshops, I once came across a man who went to the same barbers to have his hair cut every month that his father had always been to. So, you know, just nice ways of drawing them into your life and bumping into them in your life.

[Chris Duffy]

Well, you know, I'm curious, so you seem to me like a very optimistic and fun person. Is that how you self identify as well?

[Lucy Hone]

I think yes. I am basically what we would call realistically optimistic. So I. I hope for the best, and I plan for the worst.

[Chris Duffy]

Okay, I like that. That's like, I want the glass to be half full, but I also know exactly how full this glass is. Well, how do you cope then, when optimism doesn't always seem realistic?

[Lucy Hone]

And actually, the research. Maybe I am like this because the research suggests that it's really important to be pragmatic and really ruthlessly realistic about what we're up against. And that the people who have kind of runaway optimism, that kind of Pollyanna optimism of just going, everything will be fine. We'll all be out of it, just does set you up for disappointment. So I do definitely operate as I say. And I kind of. I know we'll get through this. I know it's gonna take time. And I know that five or six years from now and 20 years from now, we're gonna look back on this and just go, wow, what a crazy, crazy experience that was. So I try and put things in perspective, and I try really hard to focus my attention on the here and now and what I can control.

[Chris Duffy]

You know, I know that I'm a little bit guilty of. Oh, well, I'm more than a little bit guilty of this. I'm totally guilty of this. And I think that there's a real generosity in the fact that you're willing to do it. But it must also be tough that so much of what people want to talk to you about and what people want to focus on is the hardest things that have happened in your life.

[Lucy Hone]

It is like I said to you earlier on, Chris, it does make something good come out of the bad. And that works for me. I guess I just have to moderate it. And I'm pretty careful to look after myself, too.

[Chris Duffy]

So when we have someone on, like you, who's such an expert in how to be a better human, I'm also always curious, like, what are you doing? How are you trying to be a better human?

[Lucy Hone]

Well, thank you for asking me that. My husband and I have been to stay overnight on a mori marae on a traditional meeting house. Because in all of our work at the institute and with another group I work for called Leadership Lab, we are intentionally, deliberately striving to increase our cultural competency to understand more about the indigenous people of New Zealand, the Mori, and working with them and understanding their Tikanga, their practices, their history, the intergenerational impact of colonization on them and what we as pkeh, which is their word for outsiders, white people, what we can do to dismantle the impact of colonization. So we're working really hard on our te reo, our language and our practices. And that's going to be the rest of my lifelong journey, I think.

[Chris Duffy]

Well, thank you so much, Lucy Hon, this is an absolute pleasure.

[Lucy Hone]

No Mihi, thank you.

[Chris Duffy]

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of how to Be a Better Human. That is our show for today. Thank you so much to our guest, Dr. Lucy Hohn. I am your host Chris Duffy. This show is produced by Abhimanudas Daniela Bolarezzo Federica Elizabeth Yosefov and Karen Newman at TED and Jocelyn Gonzalez, Pedro Rafael Rosado and Sandra Lopez Monsalve from PRX Productions. For more on how to be a better human, visit ideas.ted.com we'll see you next week.

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[Chris Duffy]

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