John R. Miles

And I don't even think at the time I really realized it was happening because it's one of those things.

The responsibility starts building up and you realize it, but then after that, especially when you have kids, it subtly becomes more and more additional burden, but it's slight burdens that are increasing or you realize that all of a sudden it's become overwhelming.

How do you think when this is happening, it impacts how people experience energy day to day?

Before we continue, I want to pause for a moment because one of the themes in today's conversation is something I've been researching deeply for my upcoming book, The Mattering Effect.

What Corinne and I are talking about, this feeling of depletion, of being stretched too thin, of doing everything right, but still feeling like something is missing, is a loss of mattering.

When we feel like we don't matter, or that what we're doing doesn't matter, or that we've optimized our lives around things that don't truly reflect who we are, it creates a quiet but powerful form of disconnection from ourselves, from others, and from meaning.

The mattering effect is about understanding how that happens, and more importantly, how to reclaim it.

Because when you restore a sense of mattering, everything changes.

how you show up, how you make decisions, and how your life feels.

You can pre-order The Mattering Effect now at thematteringeffect.com, available October 6th.

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Now, let's return to the conversation with Corinne Lowe.

Corinne, I want to use that oxygen mask theory here for a second, because in my book, when I describe mattering, I describe it like oxygen.

To me, there are certain things that psychologically we need safety, we need love, and I feel like we need to have the need to matter.

And if that need to matter is like oxygen and finally we're cut off from it,

I think it's the same thing that you're alluding to with the oxygen mask.

We start getting depleted of it and all of a sudden it then starts having unimaginable consequences that we never imagined.

And when I was talking to Gordon Flett about this, I was asking him about loneliness and burnout and hopelessness and rising anxiety.