Anoush Zamarodi (2:27)

Wait, what is that?

Sandeep Jahar (2:29)

So takotsubo is a special pot that's used in Japan to trap octopuses. And it has a sort of wide base and a very narrow neck. And that's exactly the way her heart looked on the ultrasound that we did. The base was constricted. The apex of the heart had ballooned out into this distinctive shape.

Anoush Zamarodi (3:03)

Whoa. That is crazy. So her heart was like, swollen and this is what heartbreak can look like, literally.

Sandeep Jahar (3:11)

Yeah. So emotions and the responses that they engender can have a direct effect on the heart. And the heart can acutely weaken in response to heartbreak or grief, such as after the death of a loved one or the end of a romantic relationship. So we told her that very likely this would improve, you know, once her emotional state had returned to normal. And that's exactly what happened. You know, once the grief has subsided and she came back to a sort of her baseline state, we repeated the. The ultrasound and her heart had returned to normal. So, you know, it's just a fascinating syndrome. We too often think of the emotional aspects of the heart as purely metaphorical or symbolic. But emotions can have a direct disruptive effect on the heart, and there really is such a thing as heartbreak.

Anoush Zamarodi (4:28)

The average human heart beats nearly 3 billion times over the course of a life. But when stress, fear, or sadness weigh on us, the heart can suffer, sometimes even break. There are, however, ways we can mend it. And so today on the show, stories and ideas about soothing heartache. From the connection between our emotions and our health to protecting our romantic relationships and facing our anxiety about the future, we'll explore ways we can nurture our most vital organ. Sandeep Jahar's fixation on the heart stems back to his family history and a story about his grandfather from 1953, before Sandeep was even born.

Sandeep Jahar (5:19)

It was a summer day in July. My. My grandfather was working in a tiny shop in Kanpur, which was a rural community in North India, and he was bitten by a snake. Now, snake bite is fairly common in India, and when my grandfather came home for lunch, he was feeling fine. But some neighbors brought in the snake that they claimed had bitten my grandfather. And it was a shiny black cobra. And my grandfather took one look at it and he slumped to the floor and died. At the hospital, a doctor pronounced him dead on arrival and said that it wasn't a snake bite that killed my grandfather, but it was a heart attack, probably induced by the sudden sort of tremendous fright of looking at the snake that had bitten him and the fear that he was not going to be able to survive the snake bite.

Anoush Zamarodi (6:41)

So it's not just grief or romantic heartache that can affect our hearts. It can be any really extreme emotion. Was this a story that you heard a lot when you were growing up?

Sandeep Jahar (6:53)

Yeah, that that event was profoundly tragic in our family. And I sort of grew up with this fear that something would happen to my own father. And that fear translated into sort of an obsession. I remember I would lie in bed and sort of monitor the thudding of my heart in my chest. I would look up at the ceiling fan that was rotating and try to synchronize the rotations of the blades with my heartbeat. And I sort of became obsessed with this sort of dichotomous nature of the heart, that it was constantly moving and yet so vulnerable, and in the process made us vulnerable. In other words, there was such a thing as sudden death. And the fact is that sudden death almost always occurs because of the cessation of the heartbeat.

Anoush Zamarodi (8:00)

Here's Sandeep Jahar on the TED stage.

Sandeep Jahar (8:04)

Heart syndromes, including sudden death, have long been reported in individuals experiencing intense emotional disturbance or turmoil in their metaphorical hearts. In 1942, the Harvard physiologist Walter Cannon published a paper called Voodoo Death, in which he described cases of death from fright in people who believed they had been cursed, such as by a witch doctor or as a consequence of eating taboo fruit. In many cases, the victim, all hope lost, dropped dead on the spot. What these cases had in common was the victim's absolute belief that there was external force that could cause their demise and against which they were powerless to fight. This perceived lack of control, Cannon postulated, resulted in an unmitigated physiological response in which blood vessels constricted to such a degree that blood volume acutely dropped, blood pressure plummeted, the heart acutely weakened, and massive organ damage resulted from a lack of transported oxygen. Today, death by grief has been seen in spouses and in siblings. Broken hearts are literally and figuratively deadly.

Anoush Zamarodi (9:28)

You know, Sandeep, I think we hear a lot these days about how stress is bad for us, it's bad for our health. But do you feel like people just don't take that seriously enough or they don't understand the stakes of, like, how much stress and emotions are connected to our physical well being?

Sandeep Jahar (9:47)

Yeah, you know, the American Heart association for the longest time did not list psychosocial stress as a key modifiable risk factor for heart disease. Now why is that? I think the reason is that it's so much easier to lower blood pressure than it is to lower emotional stress. You can take a pill to lower your cholesterol or your blood pressure, but psychosocial stress is just entirely different. Beast. And, you know, it's interesting that I went through a three year training program in cardiology and not once did we talk about the effect of stress or the emotions on the heart.

Anoush Zamarodi (10:38)

And so how do we, what do we do, Sandeep? How do we get to this middle place where we feel, I mean, is it, you know, you open a magazine and you'll be told to meditate, basically. But I think what you're talking about is both on an individual way managing our own stress, and also a systemic way that we need to care for ourselves differently.

Sandeep Jahar (11:05)

So there are a lot of ways to go about it. But I think the first step is to recognize that there's a problem. Do you know how long a typical American doctor allows a patient to speak before interrupting them? About 16 seconds. I was one of those doctors. But nowadays I'll walk in and I'll let the patient talk. And increasingly I see that if I let the patient really describe what's bothering them, you can get deeper, you can get to the sort of root cause of things. I've just recently actually learned about a patient who was having heart failure symptoms and, you know, all sorts of physical trouble. And it turned out that he had tremendously disrupted relationship with, with his two daughters. And that grief over that disrupted relationship just came out in the office visit. He was weeping. So we actually reached out to the daughters and talked to them about what was going on at his request. And the improvement in that relationship with his daughters had tremendous effects on his physical health. So I would say that this is a very fertile area. And you know, I think we would do well to act in ways, change our lifestyles to, to, to, to pay, you know, respect to the, the, the intense sort of effects of emotions on, you know, this organ that we need to, to.

Anoush Zamarodi (13:01)

That's cardiologist Sandeep Johar. He's the author of the book A History. You can see his full talk@ted.com on the show today. Heartache. I'm Anoush Zamarodi and you're listening to the TED Radio Hour from npr.

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Anoush Zamarodi (15:26)

Hey there, listener. Did you know that NPR's app is better than ever? With live radio, digital stories, podcasts and new videos, you can get everything in one place on the NPR app. It's the TED RADIO Hour from npr. I'm Anoush Zamorodi. And on the show today, heartache. Okay, let's, let's sit down. So one of our producers, James Test Test, and his partner, Joanne Test Test. How does that sound? It looks well. They just got married last year and so we gave them an assignment.

Sandeep Jahar (16:01)

So are you ready?

Weiwen Sato (16:02)

Yeah, let's do it.

Anoush Zamarodi (16:05)

We asked them to peer into the future and talk about what issues, relationship issues they think might come up.

Sandeep Jahar (16:14)

I mean, we're about to move to a really expensive part of the country,

Anoush Zamarodi (16:20)

money, childcare, careers, buying a home, the big issues that can cause a lot of heartache for couples.

Jeannie Suk Gerson (16:29)

Yeah, I mean, I don't know when we'll be able to afford to buy a house there.

Sandeep Jahar (16:34)

I mean, we want to have kids soon. And daycare is also really expensive.

Weiwen Sato (16:38)

My mom was a stay at home mom. So it's going to be we're moving

Sandeep Jahar (16:42)

close to your family, but my family lives all over the place and one

Jeannie Suk Gerson (16:46)

of us might have to give up

Weiwen Sato (16:49)

our career to be a parent full time.

Sandeep Jahar (16:53)

It's a lot.

Weiwen Sato (16:54)

Yeah, it's a lot.

Anoush Zamarodi (16:56)

So we weren't just being callous by pushing James and Joanne to have this difficult conversation. We asked them to do this because our next guest says discussions like these are crucial to preventing heartache later on.

Jeannie Suk Gerson (17:10)

I think it's fair to say that most people live marriages without thinking about divorce.

Anoush Zamarodi (17:16)

This is Harvard Law professor Jeannie Suk Gerson. She teaches family law.

Jeannie Suk Gerson (17:21)

In fact, at the height of your love for somebody, when you're really looking forward to the life that you're going to build with this person. That is the best time to start thinking about these relationships in a way that is divorce conscious.

Anoush Zamarodi (17:37)

Jeannie continues from the TED stage.

TED Talk Narrator/Moderator (17:40)

The reason that I think this is so important is that I think everyone should be having some of these very painful conversations that divorced people experience. These are painful conversations about what we contributed, what we owe, what we are willing to give and what we give up. Those conversations should be happening in a good marriage, not after it is broken, because when you wait until it's broken, it's too late. But if you have them early on, they can actually help build a better marriage.

Anoush Zamarodi (18:23)

In your TED Talk, Jeannie, you actually break things down into three examples, three principles that you think couples need to consider.

Jeannie Suk Gerson (18:33)

That's right. First, marriage is an exchange of sacrifice, and that that sacrifice has to be thought of as a fair exchange. The second one is the idea that there's no such thing as free child care. And the third is what is starting out as each person's property probably is going to become part of the general property of the marriage.

TED Talk Narrator/Moderator (19:00)

The first one, sacrifice, should be a fair exchange. Take the example of Lisa and Andy. Lisa decides to go to medical school early in the marriage, and Andy works to support them. And Andy works night shifts in order to do that. And he also gives up a great job in another city. He does this out of love. But of course he also understands that Lisa's degree will benefit them both in the end. But after a few years, Andy becomes neglected and resentful and he starts drinking heavily. And Lisa looks at her life and she looks at Andy and she thinks, this is not the bargain I wanted to make. A couple of years go by, she graduates from medical school and she files for a divorce.

Anoush Zamarodi (19:51)

That is rough, Jeannie.

Jeannie Suk Gerson (19:53)

Yes. When you look at that situation, which I think is extremely common, you think to yourself, did this couple, did these two people ask themselves and each other what they were exchanging and how fair that exchange was? What was each giving up? What was each giving to the other? What was each going to owe the other person? And these, of course, this language of owing and giving and exchange is for many people, anathema to a romantic connection. But that is, I think, a delusion to think that a marriage can be devoid of those things. And in fact, that is what a marriage ultimately is. When you strip it down, it is an exchange.

Anoush Zamarodi (20:44)

You know, it's making me think of people I know and what they say, like, well, we just have to get through these next few tough years. And then, like, as though Utopia will arrive once the degree does.

Jeannie Suk Gerson (20:55)

Exactly. And maybe, you know, if you get through those tough years, of course, many marriages go through tough years and then they have a better period. That's wonderful. But if those tough years end up harming the connection and the intimacy, which sometimes it can, that's when they're going to be forced to talk about these questions about exchange and who owes what and who gave what and who sacrificed what. And that is when Lisa's going to realize she is owing Andy financial support. And then, of course, Andy might get financial support from Lisa, but is he going to truly feel compensated for the things he gave up?

Anoush Zamarodi (21:38)

So if Lisa and Andy had followed Jeannie Sue Gerson's rules, what would they have thought about? What would they, what would this, what conversation would they have had prior to or early on in their marriage?

Jeannie Suk Gerson (21:51)

Well, if they had thought about this, it's possible that Lisa would have looked at the situation that I mapped out and would have thought, well, maybe it's not a good idea for Andy to give up his job that he likes and it's better to take on loans now than to have Andy give up his career. That is a possibility. Or she might have thought, let me see if I could get a part time job in order to defray the costs so that Andy is not entirely responsible.

Anoush Zamarodi (22:23)

It's more fair. You're saying that's the part that, yes, we're both going to have to sacrifice, but we're going to have to sacrifice equally.

Jeannie Suk Gerson (22:30)

That's right. And to understand what the sacrifices are. Which also breeds less resentment.

Anoush Zamarodi (22:37)

Resentment.

Jeannie Suk Gerson (22:39)

Yeah. Resentment is like the biggest killer. Resentment is the big marriage killer.

TED Talk Narrator/Moderator (22:48)

So let's take another couple, Emily and Deb. They live in a big city, they have two children, they both work. Emily gets a job in a small town and they decide to move there together. And Deb quits her job to look after the children full time. Deb leaves behind an extended family, her friends, and a job that she really liked. And in that small town, Deb starts to feel isolated and lonely. And 10 years later, Deb has an affair and things fall apart. Now, the marriage mediator, who would have come in before they moved and before Deb quit her job, might have asked them, what do your choices about childcare due to the obligations you have to each other, how do they affect your relationship? Because you have to remember that there is no such thing as free childcare.

Anoush Zamarodi (23:48)

So Deb and Emily, what specifically should they have talked about when planning to start a family?

Jeannie Suk Gerson (23:56)

They might have thought about how Much. Deb relied on the network of family, friends and work colleagues in terms of her general happiness and how that is precisely the kind of social context in which full time parenthood actually works. Well, maybe Emily, the one who got the job in the small town that everyone moved there for, she might have thought to herself, on the one hand, I love this new job offer. It's so exciting. On the other hand, I have to factor in what the cost is for my partner. And if Deb incurs this cost, what will be owed to her? Right. What will I owe to her?

TED Talk Narrator/Moderator (24:44)

So let's go back to Lisa and Andy. Lisa had an inheritance from her grandmother before the marriage. And when they got married, they bought a home, and Lisa put that inheritance toward a down payment on that home. And then Andy, of course, worked to make the mortgage payments, and all of their premarital and marital property became joined. So in a split, what's going to happen? They're going to have to sell the house and split the proceeds, or one of them can buy the other out. So this marriage mediator, if they had talked to them before all of this happened, that person would have asked, what do you want to keep separate and what do you want to keep together? And how does that choice actually support the security of the marriage? Because you have to remember that what's yours probably will become ours unless you actually are mindful and take steps to do otherwise.

Anoush Zamarodi (25:44)

I can see Lisa thinking, like, this is incredibly unfair. Fair.

Jeannie Suk Gerson (25:48)

That's right. That might seem incredibly unfair. And in. In Andy's mind, if. If a different rule were to pertain, he would think, hey, I made all that money and we were able to make mortgage payments so that it would seem unfair to him. Right. If somehow now the inheritance that went into the down payment, like, got separated out and given to Lisa. So there is a lot of potential for strife, for resentment, and for a feeling of being aggrieved.

Anoush Zamarodi (26:18)

You're sort of saying you should decide with your partner before you even get close to being in a position where the law might decide for you.

Jeannie Suk Gerson (26:29)

That is exactly what I'm saying,

Anoush Zamarodi (26:32)

Jeannie. I feel I would not be doing my journalistic duty if I didn't point out that not only are you a family law expert, but that you are also divorced.

Jeannie Suk Gerson (26:43)

I am. I am divorced. And I got divorced less than 10 years ago, and then I got remarried. In my TED Talk, one of the lines that I quote is something that someone once told me, which is, you should always marry your second husband first. And the important thing that I draw is not that you can only meet the man of your dreams or the woman of your dreams the second time, but rather that the mindfulness about what a marriage is, the sacrifices that are exchanged, all of those principles become more, more easy to think about once one has been through a divorce. And I would really like to have people not have to go through a divorce to learn those things.

Anoush Zamarodi (27:32)

Jeannie Suk Gerson is a mediator and family law professor professor at Harvard. You can watch her full talk@ted.com and as far as James and Joanne, they're on board with Jeannie's ideas.

Sandeep Jahar (27:47)

So do you think after all this divorce talk, you are still like, excited to be married?

Jeannie Suk Gerson (27:54)

Yeah, I think so.

Weiwen Sato (27:56)

I think we can stick it out.

Sandeep Jahar (27:58)

Okay.

Anoush Zamarodi (28:05)

On the show today, stories about heartache and how we live with it.

Weiwen Sato (28:10)

I did not expect to be in pediatrics. I never thought that I was someone who was playful enough to be in pediatrics, but I found that I was better at it than I realized. And there was something about the innocence, the tenacity, and also the vulnerability of children that I just really wanted to be a part of. And also having the opportunity to support their parents and care for them, it just fit.

Anoush Zamarodi (28:46)

This is Weiwen Sato. She's a pediatric nurse in the intensive care unit, which means she's helping the littlest patients at the toughest moments.

Weiwen Sato (28:58)

Sometimes it feels like for a moment I am watching another person's story as I would on tv. But then I quickly realize I'm in the room with them and in whatever time I have with them, whether it's this one shift or, or if I come back in future shifts as their nurse with them, that for this time I am primarily watching their heartbreak and their story and their grief, but I am also a part of it.

Anoush Zamarodi (29:41)

Wei Wen has to be there for her patients and their parents, but the heartache can feel overwhelming for her too.

Weiwen Sato (29:50)

There was a patient we had where the patient had drowned and was not going to pull through. And the parent was at the bedside and was just utterly devastated by the prognosis and had just collapsed to the floor when this parent realized this was not going to get better. And I felt my own sadness well up and I allowed some tears to begin to flow. But I knew that this was primarily about the parents grief and it wasn't about mine, that my focus had to be on the parent and supporting them.

Anoush Zamarodi (30:37)

For a pediatric critical care nurse, tragedies are part of the job. But there are joyful moments too, when children recover and all those Ups and downs, they began to wear on Wei Wen. Here she is on the TED stage.

Weiwen Sato (30:56)

Like many of my colleagues, I went into nursing because I wanted to be a therapeutic presence for others. I envisioned the profession to be one where I lived on the highs, feeling like I was always doing something meaningful and helpful for others. I thought that the highs alone would be enough to help me cope with the intense stress and heartache that come from taking care of so many sick and sometimes dying patients. But as I rode the rollercoaster of suffering with my patients and their families, I could quickly understood that I was going to need something more than the intermittent feel good moments to sustain me through the lows. There would be shifts where we thought we were on the road to recovery and the patient suddenly, suddenly doesn't do well, they suddenly crash, and all of our expectations for things to go well go the other way. And it made me realize there's a lot here that I can't fix. And I didn't think, this is what I signed up for. And I'm not. There was certainly a point where I didn't know what to do with that.

Anoush Zamarodi (32:14)

Did you ever try to talk yourself out of it? Did you ever say to yourself, well, look, it's a job. This is the way it is. Just do your best and go home at the end of the day?

Weiwen Sato (32:24)

Yeah, absolutely. I think there's often this sense that I clock out at the end of my shift and you know what? I just need to leave what happened behind and, you know, shift gears, go home to my family, enjoy my family. I did everything that I could, but I began to realize there wasn't. There wasn't an easy separation and there wasn't just a way to clock out and shut it down. And this isn't just true for me. Nurses everywhere are battling this challenge. In our times of weakness, vulnerability, and helplessness, we need nurses who have found a way to preserve meaning and commitment to their work. While many external factors contributing to burnout have been studied, I have been asking what we nurses are to do with the internal issue of grief. Grief not in terms of caring for others in their grief, but working through our own grief on a deeper level as we are affected by the suffering of our patients and their families. How do I endure through the lows that come with this profession?

Anoush Zamarodi (33:39)

Howe Wen Sato confronted that question in just a moment on the show today. Heartache. I'm Anoush Zamarodi, and you're listening to the TED Radio Hour from npr. Stick with us.

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Anoush Zamarodi (36:14)

it's the TED Radio Hour from npr. I'm Anoush Zamorodi. On the show today, heartache, and we were just talking to pediatric nurse Wei Wen Sato. She works in the intensive care unit, a place where grief and tragedy are unavoidable. Wei Wen, in your talk, you ask an important question, which is how to endure the lows that come with your profession. And I can imagine that there are lots of ways that nurses may answer that, like some might choose another specialty or maybe even find another job altogether if it gets too much. Yeah, others I can only assume compartmentalize, like, just push through the day, try to treat it like a job. But you decided you needed to face the grief head on.

Weiwen Sato (37:07)

Yeah, absolutely. I. I can understand why people say you can't take your patients stories home with you. If I let myself think about it or if I let myself talk about it with other people, it's just too much. I can't do it. And I began to realize that that's just not the human experience, that the things that we do and encounter in nursing are all about the human experience. And it only makes sense that it would overflow into my thoughts in my daily life, because what I see as a nurse is all about love and loss and what makes for a meaningful life when life doesn't go the way you want it to go.

Anoush Zamarodi (38:00)

So what does that actually look like in practice? How did that change your behavior?

Weiwen Sato (38:05)

Yeah, there's a patient story that will always stay with me. This patient had just already a very tragic sort of backstory that ended up landing the patient into our icu. And while the patient was physically alive, when I left work, we knew that the outcome was not going to be good. And we basically were sustaining the patient physically so that family could come and say goodbye.

Knut Ivar Bjorlikaug (38:37)

Oh, gosh.

Weiwen Sato (38:38)

And so the day after that shift, I was with my younger child at the playground, and I saw some other moms and kids there, and I was pushing my child on the swings and just began to weep quietly and couldn't really engage with the other moms because that's really awkward. You know, it's really awkward to be at a park and just be standing there, you know, with people doing normal daily things and just be crying. And so I also knew that I was supposed to get together with a friend for coffee in about an hour, and I was kind of a mess. I was hurting and crying. And so I texted her and I. I took a chance and I just said, you know, I know we're supposed to meet for coffee. I had a really heartbreaking shift yesterday, and I'm just really hurting right now. And so we can either reschedule at a time when I'm not feeling this as acutely, or if we get together, I'm going to be pretty raw. And her reply to me was, you don't have to protect me from your grief. That astounded me because I think that especially for us nurses, we. We feel like we are supposed to be the ones to just carry it all. And we do. We feel like we were supposed to protect other people that Other people don't want to hear what we actually go through and what we experience. And to have somebody so generously give that space to me was phenomenal. And so we met and she sat with me and just heard me lament for my patient and for what I see at work. And curiously, that let me go on with my day and my week. I would say much better than if I had just put on a brave face and tried to pretend, oh, work was hard yesterday.

Anoush Zamarodi (40:59)

Yeah. You know, it's making me think of how you say that grief can actually be life giving because I guess I'm surprised that it's not paralyzing. Like as a pediatric ICU nurse and the mother to two little girls, how are you not like, I don't know, fearful all the time for their well being.

Weiwen Sato (41:26)

Yeah. I do have to say it's certainly an ongoing process in terms of keeping a sense of paranoia at bay. For my own children, that's a real struggle that certainly hasn't gone away. But I think that I have learned to not see grief as the only voice in the room and that its voice is not 100% evil, destructive, entirely dark. It is very heavy. Absolutely. But I think that it teaches us also some very, very weighty lessons and foundations that we don't get from just living lightly all the time. We tend to think that it's only happy people with perfect circumstances that can have whole lives, that can have rich lives. That's just not realistic. What makes my time with my children so meaningful? Is it that we're just happy all the time? Or is it the realization also that we are frail and that our time together means something because it's not invincible to suffering? And so, you know, even this past year, having my children in distance learning, they've been.

Sandeep Jahar (42:56)

I know what that's like.

Weiwen Sato (42:58)

Yes. I mean, it was, you know, they've been home with me for a year and a half and they have done great. They've been very happy. And I have really struggled to not take them for granted. And it has actually been been the voice of grief from my work that keeps coming in and saying, stop and remember what a gift this is, even when they are driving you insane. And I think that if I didn't have that extra voice that I, I would, I would take them more for granted. And it's not about saying that I capitalize upon, upon other people's suffering so that I can be a better person and I can grow. But I think that there are certain things that grief can teach us that A light life just can't.

Anoush Zamarodi (43:55)

That's Weiwen Sato. She's a critical care nurse at Children's Hospital Los Angeles. You can see her full talk@ted.com on the show today how we can soothe our heartache. As we know, a lot of heartache starts with love, and in this next case, a love of nature.

Knut Ivar Bjorlikaug (44:18)

Yeah. What's the starting point? So once upon a time, when I was a child, I spent most of my days with my grandmother. Her name was Signa. She lived in a small wooden house with my grandfather Knut, very close to the little school in our village Grytastranda at the west coast of Norway, a village where we had time to be. Not much to do, nowhere to go.

Anoush Zamarodi (44:44)

This is social worker and climate advocate Knut Ivar Bjorlikaug.

Knut Ivar Bjorlikaug (44:50)

And I remember once I was hanging out with her in the garden. I was about 6 years old. And she shouted a joyful, magnetic shout to me, knutivor, come here. Come and look. It was late springtime, early summer, and all the flowers in the garden had started to bloom. She said, look. Ah, look. Look at the bumblebees. Look at their hind legs. Can you see the yellow, like the little bags of yellow on their hind feet? And I looked closer and I could glimpse their little bags of pollen. And she said this to me. Imagine that these creatures facilitates our lives. And I didn't quite understand it, but I could kind of feel it. And I think maybe this was my starting point to feel a deeper connection with all living beings, especially old flying creatures.

Anoush Zamarodi (45:48)

But then you started noticing changes to the western coast of Norway, that place you describe so lovingly, where you spent time with your grandma. What did you see happening?

Knut Ivar Bjorlikaug (45:58)

Yeah, only during my short lifetime, there's been dramatic changes, and that means decline, considering bird life and some species are completely gone. And this is due to the ocean pollution, industry overfishing and climate change. It's heartbreaking to see in my short lifetime, and of course, very frustrating that the negative trend just continues.

Anoush Zamarodi (46:29)

As Knut witnessed the destruction of the land he loved so much, he also learned more about Norway's role in the orchestra. Oil and gas industries.

Sandeep Jahar (46:40)

Norway produces millions of barrels of oil

Knut Ivar Bjorlikaug (46:42)

every day for the world market.

Anoush Zamarodi (46:44)

When the country's fossil fuel production took off in the 1970s, the government was flush with cash.

TED Talk Narrator/Moderator (46:51)

Norway has been investing its oil wealth

Sandeep Jahar (46:53)

in its society's future since black gold

Anoush Zamarodi (46:55)

first started pouring out of the north

Sandeep Jahar (46:57)

sea in the 1970s.

Anoush Zamarodi (46:58)

As of 2026, the Norwegian oil Fund, as it's called, is worth more than $2 trillion.

Knut Ivar Bjorlikaug (47:04)

That money was made from the country's vast oil reserves and Norway's sovereign wealth fund.

Anoush Zamarodi (47:09)

It made Norway one of the wealthiest countries in the world, one that could provide all its citizens with health care, a higher education, and a pension of

Sandeep Jahar (47:19)

Norway's sovereign wealth fund for the benefit

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of current and future generations.

Anoush Zamarodi (47:23)

But the fund also created what's called the Norwegian paradox.

Knut Ivar Bjorlikaug (47:28)

But now the Norwegians have discovered their green conscience.

Anoush Zamarodi (47:31)

How can Norway be a leader in stopping climate change and make so much money off of fossil fuels?

Knut Ivar Bjorlikaug (47:38)

Environmentalists are not happy.

Sandeep Jahar (47:40)

The fund's investments have become a topic of heated debate.

Anoush Zamarodi (47:43)

For Knut, that paradox made him feel a deep shame.

Knut Ivar Bjorlikaug (47:49)

About 10 years ago, I had this really deep existential crisis. I went into a deep depression, and I was kind of on the edge. To make a long story short, I remember that what was going on in my body was kind of the feeling of being ashamed of being human, how to cope with being a part of this species that destroys so much. And especially if I think maybe that's a concern for those of us who is kind of unwillingly integrated in nations that are getting super rich on oil and gas, exploiting nature.

Anoush Zamarodi (48:39)

It's a very sad but beautiful way to describe it. I don't think I've heard it described that way. This idea that it sort of made you disgusted with yourself, the humiliation of being a human being who has contributed in some way to the destruction of our planet.

Knut Ivar Bjorlikaug (48:57)

Yeah. So for me, for a year or so, I was kind of in this state and the heartbreak of the loss and nothing is getting done. I think the really important core here for me to get out of it was to. To see that there is still some hope. And for me, as long as there are birds, there is hope. And often we forget this, but it's there and it's so strong.

Anoush Zamarodi (49:31)

I wonder, as you went and spoke to your fellow climate activists and you talked to your clients, the people you saw as a social worker, did you hear that same sentiment from people around you in Norway? This sort of almost repulsion, this heartache that you're talking about?

Knut Ivar Bjorlikaug (49:53)

Especially the last five, six years, I have met many youngsters who have climate anxiety and feel a lot of despair considering the situation that we're in. One of the most important things that we kind of experience and see is that society still doesn't have the room to kind of quite understand this. And that's why it's so important that we talk about it.

Anoush Zamarodi (50:21)

Knut Ivar Bjorlikow continues In his TED

Knut Ivar Bjorlikaug (50:25)

Talk, understanding our emotional and physical reactions better can create the opportunity to reclaim the fact that we are a part of nature, not apart from nature. I sometimes get this. What can we do with our ecological love and sorrow? And why should we do anything? Why should we care to continue at all if our land is lost and gone? This is a hard reality. Some get killed protecting their home and forests. The most vulnerable are being affected the most, for example, First Nation people and climate refugees. I believe we need to make room for this sorrow, this pain, to make room for our vulnerability, to make room for all the complicated feelings related to the ongoing nature and climate crisis. Because this room potentially also creates an opportunity to act.

Anoush Zamarodi (51:30)

I love how you're acknowledging the heartache, you're acknowledging the grief, but saying you can hold that in your mind and you can also hold the idea that you can take action, you can keep talking about it to people, that you can do those two things at the same time.

Knut Ivar Bjorlikaug (51:50)

Yeah, that's right. If you survive a really deep existential crisis. And I want to say this to those of the listeners who maybe are in that state. There's always a way out. We need to reach out and try to find some social support. So we need to take one day at a time and to create that room for hope. We need to spend time outside and see that life is still going on. And when I'm trying to take care of the forest that I live next to, then I'm also taking care of myself. And I think it's really important to point out that this is not individual task, connect with the community that works on this issue. We need to stop the destruction. We need to cut our emissions, and we need to do it now. But I also think that we need to explore our relationship with nature once again and reclaim it.

Anoush Zamarodi (53:01)

That's social worker Knut Ivar Bjorlikaug. You can see his full talk@ted.com thank you so much for listening to our show today on Soothing Heartache. To learn more about the people who were on this episode, go to ted.NPR.org and to see hundreds more TED talks, check out ted.com or the TED app. This episode was produced by Katie Monteleone, James Delahousy, Matthew Cloutier and Fiona Guerin. It was edited by Sanaz Meshkinpour and Rachel Faulkner. Our production staff at NPR also includes Jeff Rogers, Deba Motisham, Sylvie Douglas and Harrison Vijay Choi. Our audio engineer is Daniel Shot Shukin. Our theme music was written by Ramtin Arablouei, our partners at TED are Chris Anderson, Colin Helms, Anna Phelan, Michelle Quint, and Micah Eames. I'm Anoush Zamarodi, and you've been listening to the TED Radio Hour from npr.

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Rare earths have become a powerful political tool for China, but before that, one

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US Company monopolized the industry.

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We have the dramatic story of how America dominated the market for rare earths

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and then lost it all.

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I think about that almost every day of my life, Kenny. What could I have done differently? Listen to Planet Money on the NPR

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app or wherever you get your podcasts.

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