The Success Spiral

Oct 31

In Episode 10 of Season 2, Dr. Seena Haines, University of Mississippi director for professional well-being and belonging in the Pharmacy department, joined co-hosts Meagan Rosenthal, Ph.D, and Alexis Lee on The Mayo Lab Podcast. During the episode, Haines discussed the topic of success and how it relates to well-being, values and personal growth.

Dr. Haines pointed out the common misconception that success or reaching a goal will lead to enduring happiness. People’s view of success are influenced—and often clouded—by cognitive filters, such as emotional influences, genetic factors, life circumstances and self-limited beliefs.

Dr. Haines speaks to students about success, particularly as they focus on “grade currency.” Students may think that if they fail a test, that mark will permanently affect them.

“It's a scarlet letter that you apply to yourself to say, I can't come back from that if that was to happen or that will happen,” Dr. Haines said. “You start telling yourself, you're forecasting it will. So that's how powerful our mindset is around what we perceive to be successful and even what we don't.”

On rethinking one’s inner critic, Dr. Haines recommends applying self-knowledge and considering what is the source of the critiques. Instead, focus on your core values, your “true north,” as Haines calls it, to guide you. “Our core values are not something we can accomplish,” she said.

“We hijack our emotions about ourselves when we get caught up in what we think we’re not doing and the success that we’re not achieving. So getting into the side of our being that operates from more peace, more groundedness, better clarity, it can impact work and productivity, but that's not the primary purpose. It helps us step out of this success spiral thinking that we’re all patterned to be doing.”

— Dr. Seena Haines

Core values, Dr. Haines explained, are deeply personal and unique to each person, and the manifestation of these values can vary widely. What matters to one person may not be the same as what matters to another, but there are ways to align personal core values with the broader community.

One example Dr. Haines gave was for conversations with new people. “What if when we meet someone new, we don't ask the first question out of the mouth, ‘Well, what do you do?’ I think it falls into that. What if we said, ‘Hey, Meagen, what do you do for fun or to relax?’ What kind of conversation would we have with people that builds relationships and helps us think about other aspects of life that reflect your core values and therefore our life domains, which is an extension of that—what we choose to do with our time in a meaningful way.”

Dr. Haines stressed the negative impact of the success spiral, which leads people to constantly measure themselves against external standards, and the need to shift toward a more grounded, compassionate and peaceful approach to life and well-being. By stepping out of this spiral and focusing on values, play and well-being, people can break free from the pursuit of conventional success metrics and find greater contentment.

To hear more from Episode 10 of Season 2, scroll down to listen to the episode or read the transcript.

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Meagen Rosenthal:
I'm Meagen Rosenthal.
Alexis Lee:
And I'm Alexis Lee, and this is the Mayo Lab Podcast.
Meagen Rosenthal:
Well, welcome back to the Mayo Lab Podcast everyone. We are really excited to have Dr. Seena Haines here with us this week to talk a little bit about success and its good parts and it's not so good parts. But before we jump into that particular conversation, I just want to give Dr. Haines a chance to introduce herself and tell us a little bit about who she is and what she does.
Dr. Seena Haines:
Thank you so much, Meagen, for inviting me to be part of this podcast and the meaningful conversations happening around mental health, stigma, substance misuse disorders, and other critical and important topics to help support wellbeing and resilience. I serve as director for professional wellbeing and belonging here in the School of Pharmacy at the University of Mississippi and lead faculty champion for wellbeing and resilience in the Office of Wellbeing at UMC. My role is to help support learners so that students, residents, graduate students, which I'm so excited to work with now because I hadn't before, but also our staff and our faculty.
I also want to share with your listeners that my health profession's career started as a dietician. It was born from my own personal struggles with weight and the stigma associated with it as an adolescent. My teenage years were filled with difficulties due to strained relationship with my father. I was born with learning disabilities, placed in special ed classes all the way through with afterschool tutoring till middle school. And I personally faced fears and feelings of not fitting in with my peers, which led me down a path of overeating. Food became a way to console myself to help fill the void and bury my emotions. And I ultimately felt very isolated and alone.
It really took years of self-discovery and healing my wounded child, working with a counselor to tame my inner critic, my judge, of which we all have, who said I'm unworthy of success, to challenge my own mindset, my beliefs and assumptions formed much early in my life. And in the years that followed, I immersed myself in lifestyle medicine, growing my knowledge, skill, and ability, in this journey of self-development to what led me to become a dietician in hopes of paying that forward to others.
It was really during my time, during my education that I discovered this opportunity to combine the PharmD and the RD down a pathway that took me with great interest to explore this relationship between behavior modification and chronic disease. Synergizing this non pharmacotherapy with pharmacotherapy, it really excited me in furthering my education through the doctorate in pharmacy and residency training to specialize in ambulatory care practice.
I've never really left academia since completing residency. I've had many blessed opportunities in my academic career, but my greatest joy now, is in supporting clients, people I coach, whether it's individuals or teams, reaching their wellbeing, vision and career aspirations, drawing upon the field of positive psychology, appreciative inquiry and motivational interviewing, as well as cognitive behavioral therapy and reframing techniques. I like to think of myself as the guide on the side.
Meagen Rosenthal:
I love that. And thank you for providing that context and your total background because I think that we've talked about this lots on this season of the Mayo Lab Podcast, that context matters and informs and influences all of the kinds of decisions that we make every day in our current life and the kinds of decisions that we make into the future. As we alluded to at the top of the show, we're talking, we're here to talk today about success and, like I said, it's good pieces and it's bad pieces. From your perspective, in thinking through all of the different hats you have worn in your career to date, could you talk a little bit about what you think success means from your perspective? And then we'll dive a little bit more into some other questions that we've got around that topic.
Dr. Seena Haines:
Yes. Now, I think in order to bridge to what you're asking, I just have to begin with a question, because I think it'll already drive the point home or at least part of what the problem is around success. How many of us work so hard to reach a goal in life only to find that once we cross that finish line, we're filled with depression, maybe even some stress sources? Hello. Reaching for that happiness and satisfaction, and then we just think, okay, we got to move on to the next thing. It's almost like whether we achieve what we're striving for or don't, it has a similar result. And it's over driving us, this misconception that success is a sole metric, like winning versus losing, in order to attain specific goals or the idea we have to keep striving again, moving on, never celebrating or savoring this hustle to holism mentality that I think we all commonly suffer from. That is because we all share similar fallacies of thought.
There are many cognitive filters, these mental filters that we all have, which can be influenced by numerous factors, emotional influences, some genetic, we have a genetic set point, life circumstance certainly influence us. We also have self-limiting beliefs and assumptions that we make, but it could also be social pressures. And there's two fallacies that I think really impact people's views of success and they're unaware of them, these mental filters.
One of them is the arrival fallacy. And I alluded to this in my question I asked. The arrival fallacy is a false assumption that when we reach a goal, we're going to be happy forever, that we have some degree of enduring happiness. This is actually a term that was shared by, you may have heard of Tal Ben-Shahar. He's a Harvard trained positive psychology expert, and he has talked quite a bit about this false fallacy that we wear around success.
The second is effective forecasting or this mental contrasting that we commonly do, where we think if we could predict this success that I'm striving for when I have it, when I get it, I will be happy. Or if I have this, when I have this, if only I had, that we're driven by the idea that we could predict how success will make us happy. Similar, but they are subtly different, but they don't serve us well mentally, emotionally, physically.
Meagen Rosenthal:
Sure.
Dr. Seena Haines:
Any... Sorry, go ahead.
Meagen Rosenthal:
No, I was just going to say I think one of the best examples, at least in my own life, of that experience was defending my dissertation. For those of you all who don't know, to finish your PhD, to get those letters after your name, you basically have to write a book or a giant book of all of this research that you've conducted. And then before they give you those letters, you have to sit in front of a peer audience of smart people who ask you hard questions. And then at the end of that, you get those letters after your name.
Of course there's a lot of work that goes into that, years and years of study and all of these different kinds of things. And I remember getting the passing grade at the end of that, the end of that defense and feeling like [inaudible 00:08:40]. Because I had thought about it like, oh, this is going to be this huge deal. I'm going to be a PhD and my first PhD in my family and all of these crazy things. And then I'm like, [inaudible 00:08:50]. It was so uninspired at the end of that.
And then of course I felt kind of stupid for being like, no, this should be a really big deal, but I don't know how to feel happy about that. Because now I'm like, okay, now what? What's the next thing that is on my horizon to achieve success? Whatever that ended up looking like. And if you'd asked me at that time, I had literally no idea what success actually entailed. But it did entail doing more stuff, more work of some kind.
Dr. Seena Haines:
And everyone has a similar story, whether it's the PhD, tenure, achieving tenure, for me it was the residency and other, other milestone achievements in life, they all fall short of providing permanent happiness. We have other joy choices in life, but yet we keep striving for the belief that these milestones of achievement will lead to permanent satisfaction. Just we're not engineered, we're not encoded in that way.
Meagen Rosenthal:
Right. Could you provide, because I appreciate the distinction that you're making between the fallacy that you talked about and this idea that we can't predict what is going to create happiness, so what's an example of us or me or you or any human being really bad at that prediction piece? I also, I think that distinction is really important, but I can't think of an example myself off the top of my head.
Dr. Seena Haines:
The predicting forecasting is, again, whether good or bad, actually, it goes in both directions, we think the idea of achieving something will provide that sustenance and that permanent or enduring satisfaction. When it's fleeting, it has a honeymoon period. It's not to say that we don't celebrate, but it's probably not enough, and then we are of the mindset that we think what we need to do is just keep striving for the next thing. Even in your comment, okay, I did this, I just accomplished this, what now? So we feel almost like we're languishing here in this space of not knowing what's calling for us next and not truly celebrating, savoring and recognizing all that it took for you to accomplish it. But we also do similar with things that you would perceive to be negative.
Talk to our students a lot about this, because they focus on grade currency. It's the idea of, well, if I fail that test and how horrible that is going to be, and that it would have some permanence on them. It's a scarlet letter that you apply to yourself to say, I can't come back from that if that was to happen or that will happen. You start telling yourself, you're forecasting it will. So that's how powerful our mindset is around what we perceive to be successful and even what we don't.
Meagen Rosenthal:
Do you think based on where we're going so far, do you think it's fair to suggest that maybe we have a faulty definition of success? Or there's a mismatch between what we think we know or understand about success and what maybe success actually is from a wellness perspective?
Dr. Seena Haines:
I think our view can be clouded. It becomes foggy because of these mental, sorry, cognitive filters that we all commonly wear and that are often built from our environmental influences. To that degree, yes, and we also get caught up in some of the other influences I mentioned, so not our direct environment, but the sphere of our environment. So when you think about who we surround ourselves with at work, what we're looking at in terms of social media and this idea of success and others and how things look like to us as an outsider. I think that that too, has an unhelpful and detrimental impact on our mindset in thinking about what success is.
Meagen Rosenthal:
Well, and let's dig in. You know that the season, the current season of the Mayo Lab Podcast is really focusing on this idea of stigma and the negative impacts that it could have on how we perceive ourselves, how we function within our family and our communities, circling out from there. Could you start by talking a little bit about what are some of the stigmas that you have witnessed in working with students and faculty and all of the spheres that you're engaging with folks around, specifically focused on stigma? And I think you alluded to one with that scarlet letter of, oh, I got a bad grade. And for clarification, our bad grade for our pharmacy students often are things like an A- or a B, not I failed a test, but I got a B. What are some of those other examples that you have seen in your work?
Dr. Seena Haines:
Well, there certainly are many types of stigma, as you and your listeners know, that exist. As a coach, I work a lot with self-stigma, which is what we say to ourselves, our thoughts, emotions, how we label our ourself. The idea of labeling ourselves in such a way that is hurtful, that produces feelings of guilt or shame, that we carry a high level of self-doubt, even though we're competent. So a student like you just mentioned, who performs really well has this self-stigma to think that they're not, or when they don't earn an A and they earn a B, the impact that has on them mentally.
I think self-stigma is very real, and we are shameful in a way that leads to more self-criticism or that we're deserving of criticism. We have a negative judgment of self. And there's the perceived stigma when you believe people around you are thinking that you have some negative trait or a certain trait that leads you to feel unaccepted, more of an out-group than an in-group mindset. I think perceived stigma is another that comes up quite commonly, and this impacts not just the individual, but the family and the community that you are part of.
For my example, as I was vulnerable to share, I could think back to my own childhood experience around weight and the stigma associated with that, my learning disabilities and the stigma associated with that, and how that stigma that I carried about myself or perceived others to think of me, how that influenced me in a way to lead myself down a path of unhealthy and unhelpful coping strategies. How that affected my relationship with my family, how that affected my relationship in the environment in my community, leading me to withdraw, leading me to isolate myself in a way that only became that circular or continuous loop of difficulty and hardship.
Meagen Rosenthal:
Well, and I think that one of the things I wanted to dive in on there for a second is, as we are engaging with other people who aren't us who might be struggling in these kinds of areas, what are some of the things that you have witnessed as part of your coaching practice or as you did as an individual where people who have good intentions are actually making that self-stigma and those negative spiraling thoughts worse in engaging with people who are struggling with that?
Dr. Seena Haines:
I think it's quite common in individuals that I coach and work with that they do have a very loud and proud inner critic. And the judge that we all carry has different accomplices or different voices. There's the master ringleader and then there's these accomplices, and there's ways to check-in on what that might be. So one of mine to share is I'm an overachiever. And here we are talking about success. What does my overachiever I call Gunner, what's Gunner pushing me towards? More towards than often away. And through that awareness, I can be more cognizant of what my judge and my accomplice is doing that is unhelpful.
It really is about understanding the voices, unhooking ourself from those voices, knowing the source of where that comes from, and only really through dialogue and reflection and using reframing practices can we think about how to step away from that, think about your core values and how that really needs to direct our path, not just any goal for the sake of achieving a goal, but the source of which should come back to your inner compass, I call the true north, and guiding people towards what that is first, so that the things that they are striving for is a reflection back of that. And our core values are not something we can accomplish.
Your core values, if I have a core value of health, which I do, and that's part of what got me to where I am today, I can't say that I've hit health nirvana. I have had weight loss. I've sustained weight loss. I learned and educated myself and through training the understanding of what quality nutrition is and how to put those practices to daily work. A goal might've been the weight loss, but my core value for health is saying that every day I have options and opportunities to live a healthier, more vibrant life. The core values to me are what is more meaningful and guiding people towards that, rather than focusing on one particular achievement.
Voiceover:
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Meagen Rosenthal:
Well, and I love that idea that you're talking about there with your core values. Because that idea of values and what our values are has come up a few times through this season. I know you and I have worked on this in the past, full disclosure, Seena was my coach, and we had a really lovely series of sessions together to help me work through some professional development goals and things of that nature. Could you talk us through, if somebody who's listening wants to get a foot, toe, step in this direction of working through some of these things, how do you start identifying what those core values are?
Because for me, at least anyway, I remember thinking about them and then you are prompting me to reflect on them, what I thought were my values weren't necessarily where I ended up landing after I started thinking about those ideas really carefully. I think that that is something worthy of digging into. Backing up, how do we start working on identifying what our core values are, if this is a direction or a journey that we want to engage on?
Dr. Seena Haines:
Oh, absolutely. Because to me, it is even for me, is my true north. I live my values in action every single day, and it helps me discern in life what I choose to do, whether it's work, in the work arena, in the non-work arena. There are lists of core values that one can certainly look at, and there's a reflective practice of examining them in totality and moving through our prioritization, so I can guide an individual. We might start with identifying 10 that speak to you, speak your truth in a most meaningful way of who you are, the essence of who you are and your ideal self and what really matters to you. And then we trickle it back. So if you start at 10, we try and wiggle it, and it's hard to move down to five, and I leave it at five, some leave it at three. I think five creates depth and breadth of who we are. And often moving from 10 to five is more feasible. And certainly you see some common themes and trends start to emerge.
But in complement to that, the other tool I often guide people towards and you'll see alignment is character strengths. These character strengths are values in action, it is an assessment. Probably people have heard of StrengthFinders. There's lots of personality assessments out there. I'm partial towards this one. Well first, it was certainly part of my coaching training, but there's actually more evidence to support the value of values in action or character strengths in action above StrengthFinders, which does surprise some individuals of how well researched the instrument and the assessment of its impact.
There's 24 character strengths that you'll learn from top to bottom where you are, but they follow virtues. Even if you think back to stoicism and the wisdom of ancient Greek and Roman philosophers that talk about virtues in life. That again, ideal self in your character, and I have clients or people I'm working with do that, and we look at the mirror together. And then from there, how does the core values the foundation, you think about a house, the foundation of who you are, guide you towards the vision of self, guide you towards your ideal self and what it is that you hope for yourself in some forward thinking, future thinking, vision setting practice, which for some might be six months from now or a year from now. I have worked with people who are looking even beyond very, very future focused. That is the roadmap.
I mean that vision statement, people might liken it to developing a personnel mission statement, but it's still that roadmap of which we then have conversations that take us from that back to how do we move potentially back, if it's further forecasting, six months from now what it is that you could be doing, three months from now. And you probably remember this. Coming back to what does that mean week to week. Where the goals come from, but the goals were rooted back to the values.
Meagen Rosenthal:
Right. No, and I think the other thing of this... I remember going through that process, and I also remember that it was hard to do and something that I was grateful to have a partner in working through that. Because it is hard to reflect in that kind of way and see outside of yourself while also seeing deep inside of you and who you are and what your values are, to have somebody to reflect back to you and ask you tricky questions. Is that really what you think? Because that's not connected to this other thing that you told me about over here. And to really noodle through that was a really valuable process for me.
And then bringing it back, as you said to those, what are you going to do this week? What are you going to do next week? What are you going to do in six months, three months, six months? And really have it be connected to tangible, measurable outcomes. Because I think oftentimes, at least for me in the past working through wellness goals of this nature, it was really easy to make it pie in the sky. Like, oh, well, future Meagen, well, it'll be fine. She'll get there. But not really making that daily effort, as you talked about in the direction of what those goals look like.
I think this comes back to, in my mind at least anyway, and you can tell me if this is a little kooky, but comes back to our definition of success. Is this idea that it's achievable, and like you said, health nirvana. It is going to be perfect health, and you're going to get there and it's going to be just [inaudible 00:25:58], angels and all of those kinds of things singing in the background, when in fact it's just daily work and effort, which feels way less sexy, but is actually connected to probably better outcomes?
I'd love for you to talk a little bit more about that piece of it, because a disconnect between what we see oftentimes on social media and the perception of wellness and all of those kinds of things versus maybe the reality of doing this stuff every single day.
Dr. Seena Haines:
Well, I think when we have a mindset of, I have an attitude to be healthier. What can I do to be healthier? It is not necessarily limited to about weight. That may be one piece, and that is meaningful to us for numerous reasons. We think about chronic disease and its impact when we know what a 10% weight loss can have, and you've talked about that with your listeners already. There is a health implication and there's ways to live healthier that isn't limited to one particular goal. How wonderful is it that we have the freedom and the expansiveness to design an experiment? I choose the term experiment, actually, with clients over goals because of what goals does already to our mindset, and pivot ourselves to think this experiment could lead to this experiment, and I can decide when this has become more of my way of being, to move on to something else, all umbrellaed under this core value I have to live a healthier life.
I think it affords us more freedom, more creativity, the opportunity to use our strengths in ways that can end up headed towards or within this core value that is our compass in life, but to know there's multiple ways that we can achieve this. Sleep is another facet. We know that much of what we do is very interconnected, but when we have such a fixation on an outcome of one particular goal and as if that's the only thing that matters, we're losing sight of so much more. The process of learning,
Meagen Rosenthal:
Right. Well, and I think-
Dr. Seena Haines:
Learned when we fail.
Meagen Rosenthal:
Right. Well, that's exactly where I was going with this, is that I love the reframing of this as experimenting with our wellness, whatever that that is, connected to our core value. As you said, is that how many times, and I know many of our listeners have experienced this too. How many times have you started a wellness thing, whatever that is, eating better, exercising more, getting more sleep, drinking your eight glasses of water today, whatever that thing happens to me at that moment in time, and have failed at it. And then you have to have that conversation with yourself. I was like, well, I'm off the wagon for my diet this week, so if I have seven more cupcakes, [inaudible 00:28:55], no big deal. That's it. I'm done.
Versus an experiment, which requires us to assess what went wrong, to think about what sequence of events led us to maybe the outcome we didn't want to achieve, and then reflect backward on that and say, okay, if I'm going to experiment and try to get to the outcome again, because we know experiments fail all of the time, that's the scientific process, then you have permission to reengage in that process without feeling like you're a bad person because it didn't go well the first time.
Dr. Seena Haines:
Exactly. And what I try and... The mental muscle fitness that I work with is to first say, and you might recall this, when we revisit any particular goal, the first thing I ask is, what went well? Because our nature will say, well, here's what I didn't do. Or Here's how I [inaudible 00:29:50] up. And that is still part of the learning, but it's not where our mind should be first. Because there's always something to pull forward. There's a past strength, a past experience, something that will trigger what went well to help massage... If it's still important enough, and most often it is, and you're confident that this is meaningful to you in this core value, then we can come at it from a different tactical approach together.
Meagen Rosenthal:
Right. Yeah, I totally do remember that. I feel like I need a booster shot of... I'm getting that booster shot by extension right now. But I feel like, no, that way of thinking is incredibly helpful to engaging in these kinds of activities because you're right. Our default is like, oh, I suck and I'm terrible. And that really is paralyzing in terms of making next steps to move forward, because if you're suck and you're terrible and you're not worthy of achieving whatever objective goal, core value alignment that you're looking for, then that makes it really hard to move forward with any kind of sense of purpose in that way.
Dr. Seena Haines:
Well, and the other thing I would just quickly say that your comment just is, the core values are what's important to you, and it's what intrinsically motivates us, which is far more, leads us to enduring practices and rituals when we believe they're helpful than anything extrinsic. It's not about someone else saying, "Seena, you should really lose some weight." I can appreciate that when I heard that, but it was my own core value that drove me, that continues to drive me intrinsically, and that's what leads to sustained behavior.
Meagen Rosenthal:
I think that's a really great observation too. Because what is a core value to you is not necessarily a core value to me, and that everyone can and should have different core values. And how a core value manifests, even if we had the same core value of health, you and I, how health manifests itself to me is not how health would manifest itself to you. And so to assume that someone else's, I'm thinking particularly of social media, someone else's version of what health looks like in that space, isn't necessarily what's right to me.
And if I'm not in alignment with my own personal core value around that topic, then we're not going to be able to see sustained wellness long-term because I'm out of alignment with what actually matters to me. I might not care at all about weight or outward appearance types of issues, that might not be a concern to me, but eating well or being able to run after my dogs or to do some other piece of that could be really much more important to me. And then if I'm not focusing on that piece of it, then I'm not going to make the time and effort, as you've talked about, that these activities require to sustain them for the remainder of my life. There's not an end goal for these journeys.
Dr. Seena Haines:
That's correct.
Meagen Rosenthal:
I love it. This makes so much sense. Thank you for working through all of this. What are some other things that you can think about from all of the clients that you have worked with around this path and this process that we can start doing? We've talked about identifying our core values. We've talked about working through tangible, short and short, medium long-term kind of goals and things that you're working towards. What are other things that we can do either for ourselves or in our families and our communities to be making this better for everyone?
Dr. Seena Haines:
I have some scattered thoughts on this, but I will try and land the plane. I think as humans, as a society, what we consider success. Can we move away from material wealth, or status, or possessions, all the things that we get caught up in, that won't lead to sustained happiness, but we get caught up in the trap of it, so I think what we associate with success. And what if when we meet someone new, we don't ask the first question out of the mouth, well, what do you do? I think it falls into that. What if we said, "Hey, Meagen, what do you do for fun or to relax?" what kind of conversation would we have with people that build relationships and helps us think about other aspects of life that reflect your core values and therefore our life domains, which is an extension of that, what we choose to do with our time in a meaningful way.
I think we also struggle with work is one container. And for students too. Your work is your education and training, and that is a container of our lives, but as individuals, family units and communities, we're more than that one container. And so how do we make time and space and intention around other valuable and important life experiences?
I've gotten on the play bandwagon. I bring this up in all my coaching experiences now, is to inquire and actually I get in and assess what people do for play in their lives because it's often sorely lacking. Yes. It's about, talk to me about your childhood and what did you used to do for play? And that's an amazing experience to be with someone and hold that space and learn about. Their whole body language changes, their face lights up, laughter the other sources of medicine for our soul.
I think it's about getting more expansive, knowing that through play, we get the benefit of the cognitive boost, we get the benefit of relationships, we find flow, mastery experiences, which can have a dividend back on the work container of our life, but these are things that we can quiet our inner judge about to drop some of the feelings of embarrassment that carries us in not feeling that we can be vulnerable, that we can exercise more self-compassion, that leads us to be more compassionate with others and better empathy. That part of our brain where empathy lives is not when our emotions are hijacked.
We hijack our emotions about ourselves when we get caught up in what we think we're not doing and the success that we're not achieving. So getting into the side of our being that operates from more peace, more groundedness, better clarity. And yes, it can impact work and productivity, but that's not the primary purpose, and it helps us step out of this success spiral thinking that we're all patterned to be doing.
Meagen Rosenthal:
No, I love that. And when you talked about play, my mind immediately went to, and this has been a recent thing, I didn't even know this existed, but they have Legos. When I was younger, Lego was what we played with. All of it. It was amazing things, cities that we built. Anyway. They have Lego for grownups now. People of my generation that had Lego when we were little, introduced to our first one, they have Lego for grownups. So you can build these super crazy complex things and thousands and thousands of pieces of Lego, but it's so much fun. It felt silly, honestly, the first few sets that we got to play with again. But it is seriously so much fun to get back into that again and just sit for hours and just put the thing together, and then you have a tangible house or whatever you've built at the end of it to kind of feel that sense of accomplishment.
So much of our work in an academic setting is you see the output of it, maybe never, or it's so far down the line from what you do day-to-day that it's really hard to see and feel like you're making progress towards something. So anyway, I was smiling as you talked about that because I was like, that's exactly what I was thinking about.
Dr. Seena Haines:
It could have been a shared experience with someone doing this. There's that tactile part, research around getting our hands into the matter and what that does for problem solving and clarity of thought, so many juicy benefits by taking however much time you did to play a little. Stay engaged, employment, the essence of you was coming right there.
Meagen Rosenthal:
Right, right. No, I love it. That is so awesome. Well, so we've covered, as we always do in these shows, a silly amount of ground, but all really, really good stuff. What have we not touched on yet? Because all of our guests get the questions before we talk with them for this show, what is something that we haven't talked about yet that you think our listeners would find beneficial or find insightful from our conversation today?
Dr. Seena Haines:
I actually think I want to share a poem.
Meagen Rosenthal:
Oh, okay. Please do.
Dr. Seena Haines:
And I think it will resonate with your listeners. I know you have many parents listening. Someone may know this, but I think it really hits to the trap of feeling like we have to be extraordinary in our lives, that constant hustle to holism mentality. I'm going to read this poem. It's called Do Not Ask Your Children to Strive, and it's by William Martin. Here's what it says, there's wisdom here.
Do not ask your children to strive. Do not ask your children to strive for extraordinary lives. Such striving may be admirable, but it is the way of foolishness. Help them instead to find the wonder and the marvel of an ordinary life. Show them the joy of tasting, tomatoes, apples, and pears. Show them how to cry when pets and people die. Show them the infinite pleasure in the touch of a hand, and make the ordinary come alive for them, and the extraordinary will take care of itself.
Meagen Rosenthal:
That is a beautiful way to end this episode. Thank you so much, Dr. Seena Haines, for taking the time to join us here today on the Mayo Lab Podcast, and we look forward to having you all back here again for our next episode. Have a good one everyone.
Dr. Seena Haines:
Thanks very much, Meagen and everyone.
Voiceover:
Thank you for joining us on this episode of the Mayo Lab Podcast. The Mayo Lab Podcast is produced by Dr. Natasha Jeter, Dr. Meagen Rosenthal, Alexis Lee, Slade Lewis, and Hannah Finch. This podcast was recorded at Broadcast Studio in Oxford, Mississippi. The show was mixed and mastered by Clay Jones, and our original music was composed by Slade Lewis. The Mayo Lab Podcast is brought to you by the William Magee Institute for Student Wellbeing. For more information on the Mayo Lab Podcast, head over to the mayolab.com and follow us on social media @themayolab. If you enjoyed listening to the Mayo Lab Podcast, we'd love for you to subscribe, rate, and give a review on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you are listening to this podcast.
This podcast represents the opinions of Dr. Meagen Rosenthal, Alexis Lee, and their guests on the show. This podcast is not intended to be a substitute for the medical advice of a licensed counselor or physician. The listener should consult with their mental health professional in any matters relating to his or her health, or the health of a child.