94: Joanne Greene - Lessons That Happen By Accident

As a high achiever, Joanne Greene would suggest she spent most of her life needing to be in control.   Finding value in productivity, and perfection over vulnerability, she preferred to be in the driver’s seat.  It wasn’t until Joanne was in a fluke accident, sustaining severe injuries that she discovered her true power.

Joanne never bought the adage “little girls should be seen and not heard.” She's used her voice on San Francisco radio and television, to explore the issues of our time with playful irreverence, candor, and compassion. With many decades of seasoning, in her memoir “By Accident” Joanne shares what she's learned from navigating family and career and moving through pain and loss.

No longer subscribing to unrealistic expectations, Joanne invites you to join her as a student of letting go and leaning into the unknown. 

Website: www.joanne-greene.com

Podcast: Podcast: www.spreaker.com

Transcript

Cindy Thompson - A Resilience Project Podcast

Building Resilience Among Humans One Conversation At A Time

EP94: Joanne Greene – Lessons That Happen By Accident

Cindy Thompson: Hello, friends. I am Cindy Thompson, and this is ‘A Resilience Project.’ This is a space where stories are shared and possibilities are discovered. I invite you to partner with me in cultivating resilience among humans, one conversation at a time.

Cindy Thompson: Some of us develop our resilience through several smaller events and challenges, while others learn from major life events.   In fact, we may not recognize that we are steadily building our resilience each time we survive loss, learn something new or adapt in times of change.  

The secret to is that resilience isn’t about getting stronger, it is about getting smarter!

 I like to honour that as humans we rely on any number of coping strategies to manage stress and discomfort.  Some of them serve us well, while others can add to our stress, cause additional discomfort and leave us feeling isolated.

 Unfortunately, it isn’t until we hit a wall or experience a life changing event that we might pay attention to patterns that are not serving us.  

 As a high achiever, my guest this week would suggest she spent most of her life needing to be in control.   Finding value in productivity, and perfection, vulnerability and interdependence were not in her frame of reference.  It wasn’t until Joanne Greene was in a freak accident that left her helpless and no longer in control of her circumstances that she discovered her true power.  

 With a long career in radio, television Joanne has expanded her creative gifts into writing her most recent memoir: By Accident.  Sharing her journey on how to let go, honour the cracks while finding beauty and possibility in the fragility, Joanne uncovers the value in releasing yourself from unrealistic expectations, while finding freedom in the unknown.  

Here is my conversation with Joanne…

Cindy Thompson:  Joanne, I am so grateful that you are joining me today on "A Resilience Project."

 Joanne Greene: I'm so glad there is "A Resilience Project."

Cindy Thompson: Me too. I feel like together in this conversation we are helping to cultivate resilience in others and inspiring people to realize the importance and the value of it. I am aware, over the last couple of years that I've been doing this, that some people come into awareness of their resilience practices very slowly with several events over their lives, while others might have a major event that happens, that is a bit of a wake up call. Which would you say has been your experience?

Joanne Greene: A series of wake up calls.

Cindy Thompson: Okay.

Joanne Greene: I would say I've always been someone who tends toward being a little on the anxious side. So, I think I very naturally developed some tools, even as a child. Using my imagination, singing to myself, talking to myself. And I think those are resilience tools as well. 

As I've told my kids when raising them, you are who you are. You come into this world with really a blueprint and there will be influences on you, but basically your job is to figure out how to be the best to you. If you have certain challenges, which we all do, it is in our best interests to get to know ourselves, to accept ourselves, and then to acquire the tools to allow us to best thrive.

Cindy Thompson: Mm-hmm.

Joanne Greene: There have been a number of times in my life where I have come up against challenges that were bigger than any I had been through before. When I was 17, I developed an eating disorder, and now we know what eating disorders are because they are very much mainstreamed. But in 1971, first of all, there was no term eating disorder. I absolutely needed to become very resilient so as not to die. It was a life or death situation then. That was my first encounter with learning some practices that I knew would benefit me. Doesn't mean I always did them, but I learned them. 

Maybe a couple years after that, I began doing yoga. And yoga has been a practice throughout my life. But now at this point in my life, I'm vigilant about it because I see the value. I would also say that I had a series of losses. My mother, my sister, and my brother all passed away within a four year period. And grief is unbelievably debilitating. It's also something that we'll all go through at one time or another. Learning how to move through that. 

Gosh, when you think about resilience, it's really everything. How do you have a marriage without resilience tools? How do you have friendships? How do you function in the workplace with bosses of all varying degrees? These are life skills.

Cindy Thompson: Agreed. I often talk about my kids being one of my early resilience stories because there's such a learning curve, and if anybody's going to test us and make us really reflect on why we respond the way we do, it will be our kids. They're gonna push all the buttons. 

Joanne Greene: That's their job. I find in life that we often get the lessons we need, the opportunities to learn, are right there as long as we can see them and take advantage of them. And I joked about that, my second son, I wasn't an overly patient person and I had to learn to be patient! 

Cindy Thompson: Bless his heart. Another opportunity to practice. Joanne, when we first spoke, you had also suggested that you really had a desire for control in life, that you really were someone inclined to want to manage things and have as much influence over what was happening. Tell me about that part and what you' ve learned there.

Joanne Greene: In retrospect, I think that I always felt safer in control. For instance, I like to be behind the wheel of the car. I don't like to be a passenger. I felt like if I could control things, things would go my way. Now I wanna say, I think this is an illusion. I learned this over time. Control is very seductive illusion, but an illusion nonetheless. I think that some of it was really about wanting things to go my way and not trusting that I could roll with the punches if things didn't go my way.

Cindy Thompson: Mm-hmm.

Joanne Greene: I was in a serious car accident in 2012 and I went from being this hyper functioning person who controlled things to suddenly not being able to control anything. Having my control stripped from me, suddenly, without warning, and so fully, was devastating and forced me to develop many new skills.

Cindy Thompson: Hmm. Sometimes life has a way of doing that. It'll come along, and if we're not learning that lesson somehow, life or the universe, whatever people believe, will give us an opportunity to learn it in a much deeper way. You're hit by a car as a pedestrian, you had quite significant injuries. Tell us about that.

Joanne Greene: I was crossing the street. It was in broad daylight. I was in a crosswalk. A car stopped for me. I got directly in front of her and heard what sounded like an explosion and felt myself airborne. The reason it sounded like an explosion was because there was no sound of screeching brakes. It was just the sound of the smash. 

A truck had come at 50 miles an hour behind her. She was at a full stop. He slammed into her. She hit me. Thankfully, she was driving a sedan, which meant that I was hit on my hip rather than if she'd been driving an SUV, I would've been hit probably at my shoulder. So I flew up rather than going under the car where I most assuredly would've been killed. The car was then catapulted 50 feet down the street and I slipped off onto the street. I never lost consciousness. I was in shock at the beginning. I noted that I was alive. I remember that very distinctly.

That began my journey toward wholeness, and it was extremely traumatic. I had four pelvic fractures and all the soft tissue on the right side of my body was crushed. Also a concussion, but that was minor in comparison to the other injuries. Then the trauma of reliving the accident and having, being terrified of cars and going out into the street, but I was laid up for a very long time.

 The full recovery took a year and a half, and I'm happy to say it was a complete recovery. I have no residual damage, but I learned a lot about how to be still and how to relinquish control and how to trust that other people are gonna do it. It might not be my way, but it's gonna be a way. I was in no position to criticize how anyone did anything because I couldn't do anything for myself.

 Ultimately, I decided to write a book about all of this because I would hope that people can learn some of these lessons without being hit by a car.

Cindy Thompson: Great point. What stands out for me, Joanne, is that you had suggested there had been various events in your life that still were quite significant, as life will offer us, and yet there were still some lessons to be learned, and it's a reminder that we can have several resilience practices. But we have to keep building those practices because what served you up until that point, we're still leaving some gaps in your resilience practice.

Joanne Greene: I would emphasize the word practice because practice implies that it's something you're doing all the time. You're always getting better at it. You have to reinforce the behaviors. I love that word, practice. I would also say that our job is to continue growing throughout life. 

Just a really short story. My mom was 90 and I was trying to share with her that I was depressed. My sister was dying of cancer. My mom had one thing after another. I was in perimenopause, which means fewer resources to draw upon. My children were in their teens and early twenties and having all kinds of crises, and I tried to share with my mom that I was depressed and that I was going to go into therapy and take some medication per my doctor's recommendation. 

She said, "You? What do you have to be depressed about? You have this, you're healthy, you have a great career. Your children are wonderful. You have a great marriage. You have nothing to be depressed about. Your sister has things to be depressed about."

Cindy Thompson: Wow.

Joanne Greene: This was not a new behavior on her part. And I went back to my therapist who said there is a way to help your mom understand that's not helpful. And we did some role playing and I went back and my mom was 90 years old and I said, "Mom, when I tell you that I'm depressed, I'm sure that makes you sad."

She said, “Yes.” “I'm sure you feel like you wish there was something you could do to make my pain go away.” She said, “I do.” I said, “That's all you need to say. I don't have a right to my feelings. I'm absolutely not choosing to be depressed. No one ever chooses to be depressed. If you just say, I'm sorry that you're feeling badly, that will be helpful to me.” And there she was at 90. She learned it. And for the next two years of her life, she never did that again.

Cindy Thompson: Hmm. What a gift that you could have that conversation with your mom and to have the courage to go back and help her learn what you needed.

Joanne Greene: She was my role model, and so I have vowed to keep learning until the day I die. And so when my sons say to me, you don't have to solve this problem, I'm just sharing what I'm going through with you. They're adults now, 37 and 40 years old. This is not yours to solve. I channeled that moment where I said to my mom, just hold, my pain, hold my frustration, and I now say to my sons, "That must be really rough."

Cindy Thompson: Hmm. Mm-hmm. It's like a gift you give them just to hold that space to hear it and not have to solve it. I love that in terms of the courage of conversations, the courage of leaning into relationships and investing in them so that people know how to help us.

Joanne Greene: It's very important to be clear, and sometimes we say too much or we hurt someone's feelings, and then you still have an opportunity to go back and fix it.

Cindy Thompson: Mm-hmm. Joanne, what are some of the practices that might have even helped you as you went into those injuries from the accident? 

Joanne Greene: Even as the accident was happening and I was literally flying through the air and smashing into the windshield of this woman's car, my entire self was going, " Really? Really? Now this? After everything I've been through?" And immediately upon asking that question of the universe or God, I said, "All right, let's do this." It was a reflection of the fact that I felt like I have been to hell and back, and I can do it, and I can do anything. I have an inner survivor. I have an inner survivor, not only because of what I've endured in my life at all of the various junctures, but because of my DNA.

My grandparents were immigrants. They left a country where they were being persecuted and came here with nothing, not speaking the language, having no skills in particular to be able to support themselves. That's deep in my constitution. And I think we all have that kind of thing to draw upon no matter where our ancestors came from. We can look toward the strength in our past, the role models we've encountered along the way. I have seen so many young people who come from very dysfunctional homes, but found role models and said, " Yes, that's the kind of thing I want." 

My daughter-in-law at age 15, she was a good friend of my sons, told me that she was gonna marry him one day and I joked and said, "Don't you think you should date first?" And she said, "Yeah, but not in high school. That would ruin it." We went on to talk about the reasons that she thought he would be a perfect husband for her someday, and she said, in addition to, he's smart, he's funny, he's great with kids, you and your husband are deeply respectful of each other. You are good friends. You work together. You laugh together. You adore each other. That's what your son knows, and that's what he will do. She had grown up in a home where she didn't get that, but she saw it in us and said, that's what I want and I'm gonna build a life like that.

 I think when we talk about resilience, we talk about being able to spot behaviors that you wanna emulate. Looking at people who are doing it right and saying what is it that they're doing, and how can I adopt some of those behaviors? Maybe that would work for me too. 

I had an inner confidence that whatever would happen and I feel this way today. I got this, I can do this. And it became my mantra throughout my recovery: I can do this. And the accident wasn't the last thing that happened to me that was traumatizing. There were three more things, which is why I had to write a book because it was like the hits just kept on coming and I kept having opportunities to practice these skills.

Cindy Thompson: I can hear it even in your language, as seeing them not just as challenges, but opportunities to practice and that your mindset already set you up for the ability to see the gifts within. 

Joanne Greene: Not necessarily the moment when you get the cancer diagnosis. I want to make sure I don't come off as someone who gets smashed in the head and goes, "Oh, this is great. Now I'm gonna learn how to deal with a head injury." No, no. It's not like that at all. You do get to feel sorry for yourself for some amount of time.

But as a good friend of mine said to me, you can visit the pity pot, but don't be packing your bags and moving in. You get to cry and you get to feel through the pain or the grief or the loss or whatever it is, then you pull yourself up by the bootstraps and you take a look at what you're grateful for. That to me was probably the strongest tool in my toolbox. Was gratitude. My mom always said, and your mom probably did too, count your blessings. And we rolled our eyes. And the fact of the matter is, it works.

Cindy Thompson: Mm-hmm.

Joanne Greene: When you're counting your blessings, when you are literally enumerating all the things for which you are grateful, you can't feel badly for yourself. At the same time, it knocks it out.

Cindy Thompson: Yeah. I really appreciate your mentioning that because there's this balance of honoring and accepting what's just happened, because that is part of the resilience practice. But like you said, not unpacking there and landing there forever, but to give yourself a window to grieve or to honor some of the challenges in this moment, but at the same time, keep moving forward. And always be looking at it from that lens of, okay, what next? So what now?

Joanne Greene: Fear is a big one. I think fear trips us up so often. What if I never get better? What if I'm gonna be using a walker for the rest of my life? These were questions that floated through my brain, and then, this is another tool that I learned somewhere along the way, but before the accident: is that a thought or is that reality? Okay. What I just said, that is not a fact. That is me speculating. Worst case scenario, does that serve me? No. It's useless. I can go down that road. I can spin an entire story about the 22 complications that can happen. With this cancer diagnosis, envision myself losing all my hair and vomiting endlessly. But in fact, I don't know that I'm gonna need chemo. All I know is what I know, and what I know is I have to have surgery. That's all I know. So why don't I stay with that? Remain with the facts. Don't spin out with the fears.

Cindy Thompson: Hmm. That is really rich because if we trust in ourselves, like you said, you already had come into some of these events knowing that you can get through it. You have been acknowledging and remembering those strengths. You already have what you need to get through this next thing, so then you maybe worry a little bit less. But that's human isn't it? To just naturally be worried about what else is yet to come when you've had so many things happening to you.

Joanne Greene: Our minds just take off on their own. Monkey mind. I love that expression. It's the what ifs. It's the circular thinking. It's the downward spiral. We do this to ourselves as humans. But here's the thing I learned. I don't know if other people can learn it by hearing me say it or if they have to learn it on their own. But what I learned is you can control your thoughts. You can tell yourself what to think. It doesn't control you. 

 When your brain starts to do that, and it will, you can stop and say, is this the message I wanna be giving myself? If my friend or my loved one were verbalizing this line of thinking out loud, would I support it? No. I would say, wait a minute. What I was saying earlier - what do we know? What's gonna make you feel better here? You can make yourself feel better with self-talk, positive self-talk.

Cindy Thompson: Hmm. This is so good, Joanne, because the reason I like to interview people on their personal stories is we get to capture the learning you've been acquiring over the course of your life. I'm curious who your mentors have been, because I can hear some strong influences coming through in your learning.

Joanne Greene: I suppose I've been in therapy a number of different times in my life. Usually fairly short term. I think I learned a lot there. Spirituality through meditation. I meditate a couple times a week, at least, not every day, but more than I ever did before certainly. That has allowed me the opportunity to pause before reacting. It's given me that sort of extra breath. Mindfulness in general. Noticing what I feel, noticing what's around me. 

It's not so much individual people that have been mentors so much as it's been teaching. My faith, I'm a, practicing Jew and while I rejected it as a teenager and in my twenties, I came back to it later in my life and have made it a practice to continue to study and to continue to look to the wisdom of the sages. They can be in any tradition. I just happened to be Jewish because I was born Jewish, and there are many extraordinary traditions and teachings that I draw upon and always have. 

Things that might speak to me at one moment in my life would not have resonated at all at another point. There was one moment when I was recovering from the accident. A friend sent me a book of Psalms. This was a reinterpretation. A woman had rewritten psalms that would make them more palatable, more relatable to modern audiences. And I glanced at it at first and I was like, Psalms. Nothing like that had ever spoken to me before. I began to sob and cry because it's very much about resilience and it's clearly something ancient. It's Debbie Pearlman, who is no longer with us, but she wrote "Psalms for a New Day": 

Sit beside me, oh, eternal. Comfort my soul. Recall to me, my cherished memories to bring me forward through adversity, to stretch from then to now to beyond. Beckoning to a future you will guard. Walk beside me oh, eternal. Comfort my soul. Help me find the broken pieces, gathering them to my trembling hand, raw materials for my future life. Let me find your hand in this design. Wrap me in your healing light. Wrap me in your healing care.

Cindy Thompson: Hmm. It's gorgeous. 

Joanne Greene: At another point in my life, I would've been like, "Ya, ya." But at that moment, it was the precise message. You can find help in all kinds of places. Friends who I would never have thought would be the person who would really comfort me. Then other friends whom I adore, but they have so much energy that they came into the room like a whirlwind, and I felt unsafe because my body was so broken. You have to be open-minded and open-hearted.

Cindy Thompson: Agreed. I think of it like building blocks, even as I listened, Joanne, that your early life experiences gave you some tools that you were ready to accept and integrate into your life, and then whether it was when you had an eating disorder or at different stages of grief, when you had all the losses within a short span, you just kept adding to that toolkit as opposed to, "Oh, I have enough. I'll just rely on what I have." But to see it as something we are always building on and recognizing that we are ready to hear different things at different times in our lives, and to learn from those around us. It makes me wonder about that sort of need to be independent when you were younger rather than relying on the wisdom of others and letting others teach you and share their wisdom at this stage. Do I hear that distinction?

Joanne Greene: Yeah, I was an accident. The title of my book is actually "Double Meaning." My parents were in their forties. They had a 13 year old and an eight year old, and then I was a whoops baby. I never quite felt like I fit in to my family. Also my mother, my sister, and my brother were all very linear thinkers. They were math majors. My mom was a bookkeeper. They were very black and white. They were all Scorpios, all three of them. 

 I was this imaginative, creative, color outside the lines only kid. I was more like my dad, but my dad had a neurological disorder from the time I was five. And so he was really compromised.

I really felt alone many ways, and I was on a continual search for intimacy and just didn't get enough of what I felt I needed and acted out in all sorts of ways. I think that may be what you're hearing between the lines is I always was optimistic. I wanted to be an actress because I didn't know who I was and I wanted to embody all these other people

Cindy Thompson: Mm-hmm. Do you feel like you're the most Joanne now than you ever have been?

Joanne Greene: 100%. Absolutely. People talk about aging and how difficult it is to age. My siblings didn't have an opportunity to age, and I am so fortunate that I am getting to age, that's number one. And number two, I earned all these wrinkles. This is a time in my life where I'm more secure than ever before in terms of who I am and what I know to be true. And my values are really cemented in. 

And I can choose people to surround myself with who make me laugh and make me think. And make me grow. I think this stage of life is the best. Also, I'm lucky that I'm healthy. I have to always say that. I have faced a lot of medical stuff and right this minute I am in great shape.

 Super grateful for that. I think that people need to really embrace retirement, of course, I'm busier than I ever was. On the one hand I call it retirement, and the other hand it's a joke. 

Cindy Thompson: If you could say something to your younger self. And you can pick the phase of life. What would you wanna say to that, Joanne? 

Joanne Greene: I think I really said oh, you know what? This too shall pass. It was another one of those adages like count your blessings that I would roll my eyes at when my mom would say it. She always said it. This too shall pass. It was like, " When?" But in fact, in the moment when you're suffering, but you have the sense that you're gonna get through this one way or another. Be it a work challenge, be it a physical challenge, be it depression, nothing stays the same. Change is constant, and so whatever it is, all things must pass, like George Harrison said. And things do, and breathe through it.

Cindy Thompson: Hmm. Great advice. Sometimes we feel like there's a book inside of us and we just gotta put it down, but that experience of sitting with your thoughts and putting it to paper, I'm curious what that journey has been like for you and what you discovered about Joanne along the way.

Joanne Greene: I'm a short attention span kind of gal. My career was in radio broadcasting where you write it, you say it, it's gone. Nobody gets to pour over it and make sure the grammar was okay. It's just out there in the ether, and I'd never written anything long form and really very little for print publication over my career, but I'd always been a writer. 

It was an absolutely daunting process. I think I do , so much that I'm not a perfectionist in making sure that my end product is perfect before I go on to the next thing. I didn't have a choice with this. I stuck with it. I had copy editors, proof readers, developmental editors. 

To write a book and be able to say, yep, that's it right there. Now could I rewrite it 12 more times? Of course. I'm proud of the shape it is in now. I signed off on it. As we speak, at the printer. I've completed the audiobook, the ebook is coming out. It's all gonna happen, and I can't believe that I kept my attention span on one project for five plus years and saw it to completion. 

Partnered with all sorts of other people to make it happen. I don't know how to design a book cover. My husband is my producer and he recorded the audiobook. It's five and a half hours. It's a whole book. It's crazy, but I feel proud that I've captured so much about my loved ones who are no longer here. My brother and sisters' children and grandchildren and future generations can read about them and know how extraordinary they were and know a little bit about the lives that they led.

Cindy Thompson: Hmm. It's like a legacy. It's like another child that you are birthing at this time, and to reflect some of the experiences in your life and maybe what you'd want them to know.

Joanne Greene: Absolutely. You know me when you read this book. I have no secrets. I have born my soul.

Cindy Thompson: Wow. When I think about that person who really needed control to be able to be that vulnerable, to put it all out there, that sounds like a lot of growth that's happened over time that allowed you to actually be prepared for this.

Joanne Greene: Yeah. Why keep things to oneself? It's all about stories. I think that's how we learn. If I can share my story and it can benefit one person out there, one person. And it already has. I had a friend who had a surgery and she was having a really hard time accepting the way her husband was taking care of things. I let her read an early version of the book and she said, "Oh my God, you helped me so much. I was able to just say, okay, whatever he's doing, it's good enough. It's good enough."

Cindy Thompson: Hmm. So good. I am curious, if control tries to show up today, what is the one area that you have the most difficulty letting go of?

Joanne Greene: Good question. Eating and spending money. The little tiny vestige of the eating disorder is that now I have a whole paradigm. It has to be healthy I don't eat meat anymore. There's a lot of control around food. 

And the other is money I didn't grow up with very much. There was always a feeling of scarcity. At any point my dad wouldn't be able to work and we wouldn't have enough money. And then my husband's and my careers were in broadcasting, which is the least stable industry in the world. You could lose your job at any moment for any reason or no reason. This sense of scarcity and knowing when to be freer and spend money. I think those are the issues where control comes into play in my life.

Cindy Thompson: Hmm. If it's feeling too scratchy, what's the indicator you notice first?

Joanne Greene: If I realize that I'm not even allowing myself to figure out what I would want to order on the menu, or when looking for clothing, because I think somehow I should only buy it if I'm getting a bargain.

 It's more like telling myself, if I buy this thing, if I indulge in this way, if I book this trip, is this gonna really make a difference in my life? If I spend this money, if I eat this hot fudge sundae? The answer's always no. That's where I just let it go. I love that song from "Frozen" that Elsa sings. "Let It Go, Let It Go."

Cindy Thompson: Mm-hmm. 

Joanne Greene: It's my favourite song.

Cindy Thompson: I bet it is. Joanne, just for the listeners to hear that this is an ongoing way in which we live our lives, it's not one and done just because you are at this stage of life. As human beings, we are battling fears, we are battling challenges. Even if in the absence of anything major like a car accident, we will create challenges for ourselves. We will create our own storms that will just bring along that bit of tension when life is almost going too smoothly.

 I really appreciate your willingness to share some of the ways in which it still shows up for the listeners to hear that, even for yourself, who's written this book, who has been practicing, who has these great practices, it is ongoing and something you need to be mindful of too. 

Joanne Greene: Cindy, isn't this why we have children, so they can point out our flaws?

Cindy Thompson: Yes! Who knew that's why we had children!

Joanne Greene: They see them so acutely. 

Cindy Thompson: Yeah, maybe it's payback.

Joanne Greene: I guess.

Cindy Thompson: You have been giving us several resilience practices all the way through this great conversation. I'm curious if there's anything you would've liked to have mentioned that we've missed. 

Joanne Greene: Humor. Laughing is key. Surround yourself with people who make you laugh. Read funny things. See funny movies. Laughter is the best medicine. Yeah, it's true. 

Really important. Nature. Get out in nature. The natural world is so healing. Take a walk. Human beings, were not created to sit in chairs. We were meant to be moving. Get out there. Have experiences. Appreciate beauty. See art. Listen to music that you love.

Cindy Thompson: Mm-hmm.

Joanne Greene: Drink water. Fight racism. There are so many things.

Cindy Thompson: There's lots of things we do have control over in our lives, and that is our wellbeing. If we just focused on that and the things that help us feel better.

Joanne Greene: This is a big one. Take care of other people. Make that phone call. When something pops through your mind about somebody who's in chemo or somebody who's recently lost a parent, call them. You will feel better. Send a text if you don't wanna call, just reach out, give back.

Cindy Thompson: That's a really good final reminder there. On one of your practices that you have learned to trust. So as we get ready to close, Joanne, what is one word that would describe you today?

Joanne Greene: Optimistic, my cup is overflowing.

Cindy Thompson: It's a message of hope. You've been through a lot. You didn't let it crater you, and you just kept rising. You just kept pressing on. And you are now able to enjoy a beautiful phase of life that you didn't know would come. You didn't know what that would look like, and we can't always anticipate tomorrow, but it's a great message of hope.

Joanne Greene: I am very well aware that at any moment the tide could turn. I'm gonna milk it as long as I can and say yes to the joy, say yes to the good experiences, the adventures. I'm gonna take risks, but within reason because I don't wanna be injured and break more bones, and Lord knows I will. But I'm gonna know that these are the things that make me feel whole and full and grateful, and no matter what happens to me in my life, I can still practice some of these rituals. 

Cindy Thompson: Fantastic. I've had this opportunity to experience your energy, to get a little bit of that vibe that makes up Joanne Greene, that has carried you through all of those events in your life. I am really grateful to be able to be in conversation with you today, to be able to share this with others and share that a little bit of that sweet charisma that you have within you that we get to share with many.

Joanne Greene: Wonderful. And in addition to the book, I have a podcast that's just three minutes in length called "In this Story... with Joanne Greene" and they're micro memoir, very short essays from all different parts of my life. Another podcast that I do is called "All the F Words."

Cindy Thompson: Hmm, I'm glad we got that in. I have no doubt they're gonna want to follow you and learn more. So thank you for being here today, Joanne.

Joanne Greene: Thank you so much for having me, Cindy, and thanks for the work that you do. I think it makes the world a better place.

Cindy Thompson: My pleasure.

Cindy Thompson:  One of the quotes that will stand out for me in this episode is that we sometimes get the lessons we need.  

 Joanne has had a lifetime of building blocks in growing her resilience, but as she mentioned, the accident became one of the lessons she needed to learn at that time.  Even though we are all resilient, what served us for a time may not have the tools we need for a new challenge we have never faced before.  

 Whether it has been her eating disorder, depression the losses or the accident, Joanne has been on Journey to Let it Go!  

 With so many great suggestions for skills we might want to add to our practice, I decided to pull the takeaways into a few themes:

 1)    Mindset:  Checking on the mindset you have when faced with an adversity, Joanne suggested choosing a Mantra, one that is strength based and encourages you.  One of her mantras was “I can do this”. 

-To remember that you CAN control your thoughts.  Decide how you want to think about this event and how you would like to respond.

- Because fear is likely to show up in uncomfortable circumstances, you can filter some of your worries by asking yourself if that is a thought or a fact?

 2)    Look to your role models: draw on the practices of those who are doing it right and ask yourself how you can adapt some of those behaviours. 

-         Surround yourself with people who make you laugh.

-         Say yes to Joy:  watch a funny movie, listen to music; find ways to tap into those things that bring you joy.

 3)    It is ok to have a pity party for a short time, which allows you to acknowledge the reality of the situation.  The key is to not land there for long.  Keep moving forward and remember what you are grateful for even in the darkest of moments.  

 4)    Communicate what you need to those around you.  Remember they can’t read your mind.  Find ways to have those courageous conversations.  This too is a practice, so it is ok if you don’t always get it right.  You can always go back and fix it, so start somewhere.

 I hope you will check out Joanne’s Memoir By Accident as she reveals some of the lessons, insights and memories of her lived experience so far.  As suggested by Joanne we accept the adversities as opportunities or an inconvenience, is up to us.  

 Inspired by this great conversation Here are two questions and a quote for you to consider. 

 1.      When you are faced with a new challenge, or unexpected adversity what would you like your mantra to be?

2.     Who are the mentors in your life that you can learn from?  If you currently do not have someone in mind, I invite you to be intentional in pursuing someone and inviting them to be in your circle.  Plan a time to meet for coffee.

 Quote:  Writer Jeanette Winterson on the process of life: 

"We live in a society that peddles solutions, whether it's solutions to those extra pounds you're carrying, or to your thinning hair, or to your loss of appetite, loss of love. We are always looking for solutions, but actually what we are engaged in is a process throughout life during which you never get it right. You have to keep being open, you have to keep moving forward. You have to keep finding out who you are and how you are changing, and only that makes life tolerable."

Remember friends adversity is inevitable, but resilience is a practice.

 Cindy Thompson: Thank you for listening to this episode of ‘A Resilience Project.’ We would not be doing this podcast without you. If you or someone you know has an inspirational story or is helping to build resilience in their community, please e-mail me at cindy@aresilienceproject.com. In fact, e-mail me either way. I would love to hear from you. My hope is to feature an episode periodically on your letters of resilience. I'm very interested in hearing your story of how you have tackled hard things and what worked for you. With your permission, I hope to share some of these stories along the way with our listeners. Also, check out my website, aresilienceproject.com to learn more about our amazing guests.  

Your presence here is important because together we are cultivating a village of resilient individuals. You are creating a space for their stories to be shared and a sacred space for learning to occur. I also have a favor - I would love for you to go to your preferred podcast platform, rate and review the podcast so that we will know how we're doing. I also would like to express my gratitude to the amazing team of volunteers that have jumped on board to support this project. You will find each of those beautiful people on my website on the team page.  

As you go about this week, I invite you to think about one way that you can continue to grow your resilient muscle. What is one thing you can start with today? See you next week.

 HELPFUL RESILIENCE INFORMATION

Definition of Resilience

Capacity to cope with and recover quickly from setbacks, difficulties, and toughness; to adapt well to change; and keep going in the face of adversity.

Types of Resilience - how the body deals with change and recovers from physical demands, illnesses, and injuries. 

Physical Resilience how the body deals with change and recovers from physical demands, illnesses and injuries.  

Mental Resilience ability to adapt to change and uncertainty.  

Emotional Resilience ability to regulate emotions during times of stress. 

Social Resilience community resilience – ability of groups to recover from difficult situations.

Areas of Life or Situations That Require A High Level of Resilience:

·      Resilience in Adoption

·       Resilience in Adults

·       Resilience in Anxiety - Depression

·       Resilience in Body Image – Eating Disorders

·       Resilience in Change

·       Resilience in Children

·       Resilience in Chronic Illness

·       Resilience in Death & Dying

·       Resilience in Divorce

·       Resilience in Immigration

·       Resilience in Non-Profits

·       Resilience in Marriage

·       Resilience in Parenting

·       Resilience in Post Secondary Education

·       Resilience in Pregnancy

·       Resilience in Racism

·       Resilience in Relationships

·       Resilience in Suicide

·       Resilience in Teens

·       Resilience in Trauma 

·       Resilience in War

·       Resilience in the Workplace

 Traits, Qualities and Characteristics That People with Resilience Possess:

·         They are authentic

·         They adapt to change and see it not as a challenge, but an opportunity

·         They make commitments and keeps them

·         They feel in control – strong internal locus of control

·         They have close and secure attachment to others

·         They set personal or collective goals

·         They become stronger with the effect of stress

·         They learn from past successes and mistakes

·         They view themselves as survivors – Survivor mentality

·         They have a good self-image

·         They are confidence in ability to make good decisions

·         They have a sense of humor

·         They have an action-oriented approach to life

·         They have patience around people

·         They have optimism in face of uncertainty

·         The have Faith or some belief in a higher power

Ways to build Resilience in People

·       Create more purpose and meaning in all that you do

·       Develop a good support system – supportive network circle that they can engage for help

·       Maintaining positive relationships

·       Work towards developing good communication skills.

·       Develop the capacity to make realistic plans and to carry them out

·       Maintain a well-balanced routine lifestyle of diet and exercise

·       Practice emotional regulation to manage your feelings, impulses and emotions 

·       Practice good problem-solving skills to rationally develop solutions

·       Find ways to help others

·       Set time aside for journaling

·       Develop new skills to respond differently to situations. ... 

·       Turn setbacks into opportunities for growth. ... 

·       Maintain a healthy perspective. ... 

·       Maintain Proper sleeping habits

·       Practice meditation

Organizations that promote and support Resilience

Resilience Quotes