Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Hi, I'm Francesca Rudkin. Welcome to season six of our New Zealand Herald podcast, The Little Things. And I'm Louise Eyrie. As you may well know, in this podcast, we talk to experts and find out all the little things you need to know to improve different areas of your life. We cut through all the confusion and overload of information out there to just try and help you simplify your life, really.
Well, hopefully. Yeah. And ours. Yeah, yeah, totally. Hey, can I ask you a quick question?
Have you got to have your hearing checked yet?
What? Sorry? God, that was a dad joke. That was such a bad dad joke. Anyway, no, I haven't.
No. I've just noticed a couple of things in the last few weeks. And I think over Easter, for some reason, we were watching the 6pm news, which we never sit down and watch. And we have some very, very good news readers in this country. We do. And we were sitting there and this story came on and the presenter said, a man and his corgis were arrested in the UK for damaging an Air Force aircraft.
And I was just sitting there going, why did he have his corgis with him? Was he trying to make some sort of... And comment on, you know, he's a supporter of the Queen or something. Just so bizarre that you take your corgis with you if you're going to kind of, you know, deface these, I don't know, it was so weird.
And I turned and I looked at my partner and he just looked at me and went, a man in his 40s? I just spent ages rifting on the fact that there was this article about a man and his corgis had gone and... I was thinking, corgis are too small to even catch. I know. So I'd done this huge rift on it. He's like, a man in his 40s. I'm like, oh, okay. So there were no corgis? I was like...
It's like, no, no corgis. Left the corgis at home.
Yeah.
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Chapter 2: How does criticism affect our mental health in midlife?
What message can I take from what they're saying?
Because if you're a parent who's dealing with what you might think a difficult, a difficult phase with your children or you're at work and you're not, things aren't going great at work and, you know, you're not really interested in maybe what your boss or, you know, someone senior has to say to you, it can be quite hard to stop and take that beat and take things on board.
Absolutely. And I think the professional environment is kind of a whole other category in and of itself, really. But I think that it's also OK with feedback to be able to say, particularly probably with family members more than a workplace, actually now is not the time. I'm happy to talk about this, but actually I'm finding myself getting quite upset right now about this.
Maybe we can come back to this. And so it's often useful when we think about giving feedback to strike when the iron's cold, as we say. that the worst time to give someone feedback is when you're in the midst of the argument. No one takes feedback at that moment.
But actually being able to then sit down calmly later, which is often the temptation then, of course, to avoid the topic, and then actually take some time to talk it through then.
But actually, doesn't that feed into other aspects of our lives and personal workplace? Like if you're pulled aside and someone has some comments to make about your performance and things, actually, isn't it good to go, okay, that's really interesting. Can I go away and think about that?
You know, you're immediately removing yourself from getting defensive or from getting angry or from, you know, getting upset. You can just give yourself an opportunity to walk away and think about it. I mean, it sort of works across the board, I'd imagine. Yeah.
I think so. And I think another great strategy is always sleep on it because that slows us down immediately, right? Hopefully, most of the time, we wake up more regulated the next day than we were the night before. I think in the professional environment, those categories still apply too, by the way.
I mean, I think one of the big problems which a lot of people find their way into therapy because of is sleep. is what I would call the mean boss, right? So, you know, the bullying problem.
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Chapter 3: What practical strategies can help us manage negative feedback?
So that's often really challenging to do on your own. What we need when we have that kind of self-critic is we actually need relationships around us with people who care about us and trust us, that we trust, that can start to give us feedback that contradicts that.
And I think also often when it's really one entrenched, that's when therapy and medication is required to actually, because it's mood driven, right? But if we feel it that strongly, then our brain considers our feelings to be facts.
So it's coming back to that whole, I might feel a certain way, I might think a certain way, but the reality could be quite different.
Absolutely. So it comes back to how do we get to the truth of the matter, right? Which is that actually we might have a really distorted idea about our abilities, which can sometimes motivate us to try harder, but a lot of times will actually just drive our mood into the gutter.
That's really interesting. Yeah. So what do you do about it then?
Well, medication and therapy is kind of, if we genuinely believe those things to be true to the point where they cause depression, then medication lifts our mood. And interestingly, a lot of the antidepressants actually also enable our brain to be more flexible when it's learning.
So then the therapy comes in and helps us to hopefully learn some different mental habits and some different ways of understanding our story that shift that into, it's not that I'm bad, it's that I have come to believe myself to be bad for a story that makes sense to me.
Oh, that makes me feel a bit sad. It makes me think of that line, I can't remember what movie it is, at the end of it, I think it's some guy and he says, in life I've failed way more than I've succeeded, but blah, blah, blah. And I remember thinking, I remember watching and going, well, you've obviously had some really positive experiences in your life.
You know, like, you think of entrepreneurs who fail more than they succeed and so forth, but they end up ultimately being successful. It's like... Yeah, you really believe in yourself. And that must make an enormous difference in people's lives. Or do they just not know themselves? I don't know. I'm baffled.
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Chapter 4: How can we differentiate between constructive and destructive criticism?
Because if they're telling us to go away, it means that we're actually providing slightly more than they need and they get to be in charge of how much they take. So, you know, the daily text or the, you know, the phone call that's like, oh, you're calling again, mum. It's like, well, you're probably about right if that's the response that you're getting.
Oh, that makes me feel good. I do a bit of work at the university with Cure Kids and, you know, look at their state of the childhood health in Aotearoa. And, you know, we've gone up from one in five young people reporting serious psychological distress to, sorry, one in five from one in 20 children. So do you have any insights into what's going on there?
Such a complicated question, isn't it?
Because the thing that's really confusing, I think, with that research is that when you look, at least as I understand it, correct me if I've got this wrong or if it's been updated, but it's also true that Gen Z and Gen Alpha are smoking less, they're using drugs less, they're drinking less and starting drinking at a later age, their teenage pregnancies are down, initiating sexual relationships is later.
So it's kind of like they're doing all the right things.
I was going to say, I don't mean to be facetious but are they having enough fun?
Well that's a really useful question and I think one of the questions that naturally comes out of that which can easily skew into all sorts of unhelpful places is are kids missing the opportunities to build resilience along the way? You know, it's not that our kids are too sheltered these days because I think that lands the blame on them.
But is one of the outcomes of a digital world and a world that is actually largely safe, meaning that they're not getting the scrapes and bumps and bruises that builds that resilience? I mean, I don't know, but it's interesting to think about. And I think it's interesting to think about if that is the case, how do we actually enable them to have enough challenge to build that resilience?
Which might mean getting feedback from mum that your second half is rubbish.
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Chapter 5: What role does emotional regulation play in handling criticism?
Or cyclists. Or motorists. Because they're the wrong kind of people to even have that debate with. And they have no power anyway.
I'm sure you have, but you can point them at the research that says that arguing with people actually just reinforces their beliefs, not changes their mind.
That's long in the past, thank God.
Kyle, I'd like to firmly, calmly and compassionately thank you so much for your time today and your very balanced, sensible views about things. That was absolutely fantastic. Thank you so much.
Thank you, my pleasure.
Thanks, Kyle. How lovely is Carl? I loved the bit where he was describing the three different kinds of people that you might be faced with who are, you know, critiquing you or putting some, you know, negative thoughts in your head.
And I love the way you went from, hey, these people might be having a bad day, so let's be compassionate about them, to then, you know, they're a bit thoughtless, so a bit average, to literally, they are mean. They're a bit of a dick. Let's move on.
It's It's quite a... But we do love a... Broad. I do love a menu. Yeah, no, no. So it's given me kind of a something to go on.
There's not a lot of subtlety in it, is what I'm trying to say. It's kind of, you can quite easily kind of just nail that. I found that really interesting and I just think it's just a reminder when you hear something and someone says something to you and you can feel yourself bristle, you can feel it hit, you can feel it land, just to remember to take a breath, take a moment.
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