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hello and welcome to the true Hope cast podcast where we take a deep dive into mental Health's many physiological and

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psychological aspects this is the show for you if you're looking for information knowledge motivation and

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solutions and that's what we are all about here at true hope Canada and true hope Canada is a mind and body based supplement company dedicated first and

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foremost to promoting brain and body Health through non-invasive nutritional means for more information about us you can visit trueu hope canada.com today I

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welcome Dr Angelo Valente to the podcast now Dr Angelo is a Consulting Psych ologist who lives in Nashville Tennessee

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his firm the company psychologist helps companies hire the right people for their cultures develops Talent within

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organizations and coaches present and future leaders he also coaches individuals who want to live their best

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personal and professional life he's the author of you're making this way too hard find your easy way to enjoy life

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today we're going to be discussing relationships self-love and how systems around US influence us as well as

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talking about the dangers of social media talking about gratitude and also how stress plays a massive role in our

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lives enjoy the show okay hi and welcome to the show Dr Angelo how are you what

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is going well I'm terrific everything is going well how could it not be going

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well well with a positive attitude like that everything's going to be great so awesome um thank you so much for coming

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to the show and we're going to be discussing relationships self-love and how the systems around us in influence

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us in the day and but before we jump into that amazing topic would you mind just giving us a little bit of an

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introduction to who you are and what it is that you do sure um well I'm a

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Consulting psychologist uh in Nashville Tennessee uh I got my undergraduate uh

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degree from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland and my Master's in PhD from the University of Georgia in

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Athens Georgia go Bulldogs uh and I taught college for

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four years at Oklahoma City University taught psychology worked for a consulting firm for a couple years and

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in 1982 I set up my own consulting firm the company psychologist here in Nashville Tennessee and I help

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businesses uh build strong teams build strong cultures interview the right people for their uh for their unique

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culture I also work with leaders coaching them and Coach individuals who

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are looking to lead their best personal and professional lives wonderful so it sounds like you

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have a lot of interaction with human beings and looking to help them kind of get the best out of themselves and what

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they have around them to to do that with yes amazing well when I was checking out

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your profile and checking out your website and things which you know I'll I'll um provide links in the show notes so people can do that themselves as well

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but I was um attracted to your book that you've got and it's titled you're making this way to too hard um find your ease

3:02

uh easy way to enjoy life yes um so I'd love it if you could just maybe tell us

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a little bit more about that like why did you write it who's it for and you know what can what can people learn from something like that because the title

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grabed me do you mind if I show it to everybody that's absolutely fine beautiful it is you're making this

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way too hard find your easy way to enjoy life and if you'll notice at the bottom enjoy life is spelled unusually and NJ y

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LF and the reason I did that is because that's my license plate okay great NJ NJ

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y LF is my license plate I I've had it on every car I've had since 1991 and it's basically my philosophy of

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life and uh it's unusual enough where I get a lot of comments about it uh and I

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always tell people they say nice license plate and I say no that's a philosophy it's not a license plate so go forth and

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and Joy life right um so the I wrote the book

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because I see so many people today

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who appear not to be enjoying their life to

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the extent that they should they're either feeling stress from friends

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family professional they're setting expectations that may be unrealistic for

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them they're envious of other people they're anxious they're suffering from self-doubt

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and I don't think people were put on Earth to be miserable I don't think miserable is our Natural State I think

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we're put on this Earth to enjoy every all the beautiful wonderful things that

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life has to offer and we kind of have to be taught to be miserable and so what I

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what I'm hoping my book will do is unte the misery and reteach the

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joy interesting so it doesn't sound like it's um like a self-help book because I

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don't you know if someone was going to kind of write something like that they're going up against tens of thousands of other books it sounds more

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like a a guide to help people maybe rewire um learn habits from the past and

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you say like there's no way human beings would have survived 200 plus years if we

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were built to you know feel awful and not do well in the world like it's just

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we wouldn't we wouldn't be here so is it is it a self-help book or is it something different well I I say in the

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introduction to the book it is not a self-help book it's a self-acceptance

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book okay and there's a big difference I don't I think uh self-help books are

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great I've read a lot of them myself and I I mentioned in the book The how Win Friends and Influence People was written

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in the 1930s and I'm not sure anybody's written a better one since so the

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purpose of my book is really to help people to learn to love themselves take

6:12

care of themselves build better relationships take more control of their

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life and really find the things that give them joy and joy is a very

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individual thing I can't I can't describe what's going to make you feel joyful but you can yeah so that's that's

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my purpose is to to help people find that self-acceptance find that self-love

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self-care and Find the Joy that's there it's there they just have to find it

6:44

yeah I that's so different than a self self-help book because it sounds like you're providing individuals the ability to

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kind of internalize what's going on for them in their Sur in their surroundings and be able to find What happiness means

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to them what joy mean to them what does grace and gratitude and all these things like mean to them on a personal level

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because yeah it's going to be different for everyone right and that's really the whole point it's different for everyone

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so I'm not trying to write a prescription that a one-size fits-all

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prescription I even asked some questions in the book that only the individual can

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answer and the how how their Journey progresses kind of depends on how they

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answer those questions but you mentioned one word gratitude that I think is

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critically important I think if you learn to

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embrace whatever comes your way with a sense of gratitude you're you're well on

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your way to finding that self-love and that self-acceptance uh you could how

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you view a situation is everything not it's not it's not there's a c it's not what

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happens to you it's how you react to What happens to you but it really is true M and two people will be in the

8:06

same situation and one of them will react to it as a devastating setback that's going

8:13

to ruin their life for years to come and another person is going to view it as a challenge or an opportunity to grow and

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get better and maybe make something make lemon lemonade out of lemons but it just it really just

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depends on your perspective absolutely I've I've read a few self-help books none of them really

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kind of resonated with me I don't you know I think that if you objectively look look at some of the ones that are

8:39

out there they're not they don't really like hit home like you could it's like uh like the latest diet or something you

8:45

know you're kind of like motivated to jump into that for a couple of weeks but it's this external thing in this book or

8:52

this piece of paper or this blog rather than reading something that like that makes you yeah think into internally

8:59

about you and your life and your past and the future that you want and um the

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book that really really began to change my life in regards to my relationship

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with stress and anxiety and depression and judge being judgmental I found

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myself like super super judgmental in like my mid 20s and it just like super

9:21

unhelpful right and draining because it was like this constant thing but I think

9:26

it's important to you can judge the speed of a car coming towards you whether you can cross the street or not

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like you know you should have the ability to judge things but in the gym

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with other people and like their lifting weights and you know like this this whole like egotistical thing like I found that like just being like from a

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competitive footballer in my early days living in the UK that type of um

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judgmentalism was just super super unhelpful and I read a book that's sounds like it's very very similar to to

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yours in regards to like being a self-acceptance book a guide I'm grab it because I actually like was reading it

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this morning but it's called it's called a guide to the good life and it's um it's about it's about stoicism and it's not

10:08

really oh oh sure sto read Marcus Aurelius you'll get a lot of good stuff out of that 100% And like Marcus aelius

10:15

is is is quoted in here a lot this is by William Irving and this this book absolutely changed my relationship with

10:22

so many things that were just like holding me back massively unnecessarily there were without question like we said

10:27

like you said at the top of the show things that I had leared um that was

10:33

actually kind of like making me making me miserable right and and it was uh a

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book that helped me internalize what I was going through and I think like you

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can correct me if I'm wrong but this book and your book I feel like it simplifies lots of things within your

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life to get back to like a basic level to kind of forget a lot of this external nonsense that comes into our life that

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changes how we you know chemically emotionally physically feel

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and once you can begin to filter that noise can actually hear like how you're

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thinking how you're feeling and you can become much more um yeah internalized to

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like who you are in moments of the day well the the word you mentioned is a

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word that I use all the time and that's noise and there's more noise out there now than there's ever ever been yeah I

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mean you can drown it's a mixed metaphor I know but you can drown in the

11:36

noise because it's coming from the social media besides the normal places where it

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used to come from which is family friends your relationships your work I

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mean we're bombarded if we let ourselves we can get bombarded by noise uh 24 hours a day

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seven days a week yeah and you start to

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believe that this the noise that you're hearing actually influences your life

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actually has an impact on your life when it really doesn't I mean if you get into a

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discussion with somebody on Facebook or X or whatever platform you use you get

12:22

into an argument with somebody you're not going to change their mind they're not going to change

12:28

your mind you've wasted God only knows how many hours and made yourself stressed and

12:35

miserable and it has really no impact on your life whatsoever right it's

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irrelevant and we've allowed things that are irrelevant to become quote unquote

12:50

important even though they're not important sure they become top of the mind let's say and it creates

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uh artificial Stress and Anxiety where none

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would have existed otherwise so it the kind of one of the

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points in my book is if you learn to take control of your life and make decisions that are going to be

13:18

beneficial to you you can filter out a lot of that

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noise and some people would say well that's selfish if you just but every

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everybody is selfish everybody is concerned about

13:35

themselves and it is a fact of life that nobody cares about you as much as you

13:41

care about you that's right so if you take care of yourself first you're going

13:47

to be in a much better position to take care of those that are those people who

13:52

are important to you and those things that are important to you absolutely yeah I I I I think it's important to

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note that when so many people were engaging on social media and yeah having conversations well conversations having

14:06

correct some sort of weird social media dialogue and it's interesting because like if those two people to be face to

14:12

face with actual like Humanity in the building right the things that are the things that are said and the tone like

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they would not exist because now we have this very unusual platform where this

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crazy wild Echo chamber where people can like say things they would never say to

14:29

to somebody's face no because well what one for example like a lot of things

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that you said on social media if you said to someone's face you could be risking you know getting punched in the face you're looking physical probably

14:42

justifiably well yeah I mean I guess I guess so for sure but like when you take that massive human element about being

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within the same energy distance of somebody looking somebody's eyes and you have that

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human connection with our senses is such a incredibly different um way that you

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communicate with somebody and this whole social media realm that we find ourselves in is is incredibly nuan it's

15:09

incredibly new to our ancient um biological system of which we've been

15:15

learn to communicate so we're not we're not I don't think we ever will but we've not evolved um biologically to deal with

15:23

this like new form of communication no you're you're 100% right and people hide

15:30

behind anonymity I mean you can create a profile and be anybody or anything you want to be

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yeah and you can interact with the entire rest of the social media world as

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that fictitious entity and I don't think that most

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people are inherently cruel no or insensitive

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or hateful at their core but if you have an anonymous

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platform you can spew out all of the things that you might think but as you

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said would never say to a person face to face and it has a tremendous negative

16:24

effect both on you and the person that you're communicating

16:29

with absolutely and it teaches people because like we've see kids from a very young age on smartphones on social media

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yeah they actually um begin to when they when they're using these platforms and

16:42

engaging in that in that type of communication they're not um they're not living in reality because yeah as I say

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you cannot say those things to other people and wouldn't yeah and yeah for

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sure they certainly wouldn't no and and people most parents don't raise their

17:02

children to say hurtful ugly things to other people and uh it's one of the it's

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one of the things that social media has given us an

17:17

outlet to vent our the worst versions of

17:25

ourselves and what of the the like button

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has caused suicides murders

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depression low selfesteem because people

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base a lot of their opinion of themselves on what

17:49

random people say about about them on social media and there's I have a

17:56

paragraph in my book called don't don't argue with idiots because it because it once you

18:05

quit playing the game you realize how stupid the game was

18:10

and that there's no winner in the game yeah I think that um I think that these

18:18

platforms have created you you use the word Outlets is what exactly what I was thinking about but like kind of like um

18:25

very uneffective therapy for people who are anxious who

18:30

are depressed who are stressed um and they can go online and they can like

18:38

dislike comment they can do all these things as not only just like a chemical dopamine hit which is g to make them

18:44

kind of feel good like in the moment but also like whe a lot of people don't have

18:50

outlets for their stress they don't have outlets for the anger or the Rage or the Panic that they feel and if they're able

18:56

to like go on to somebody's comment somebody's image and you know write something then that's kind of like

19:03

technically kind of getting that anxiety or that stress out a little bit but it's not obviously not affecting the root

19:10

cause of why that individual is is anxious or stressful in the moment that's the only way I can really foresee

19:16

because there are people who spend eight hours a day on like Twitter just like yes hit getting that dopamine hit

19:22

constantly looking for those interactions looking for those fights and I can only imagine that they're

19:28

looking for they're looking to fill this void that's within their I'm going to use the word Soul here and they're

19:36

unable to get that in the in their life so they have to go online to get this chemical hit or to deal with something

19:44

that's bubbling up inside of them that they're unable to internalize and work through themselves well I think social

19:50

media has been one of the most isolating uh entities in the history of

19:58

the world world I mean when you see a

20:04

family a husband a wife and three kids sitting at the dinner table and they're

20:09

all on their phones it's gross it's gross it's disgusting yeah um some of my

20:16

Fondest Memories as a child were Sunday dinners at Grandma's house

20:22

yeah um and I think they're replacing real

20:27

human interaction action with something that's totally artificial and the the

20:33

way I describe it is it's like cotton candy you mentioned the dopamine it gives you a a a sugar

20:41

high but there's no substance to it you know if you're hungry you could eat cotton candy and it's going to satisfy

20:48

you for a short time but if you continue to eat cotton nothing but cotton candy

20:53

all day you're gonna die right absolutely

20:59

yeah you can see I mean there's lots of statistics and correlations between the introduction of social media and the

21:05

horrific rise in mental disorders suicides all these things like it's absolutely correlated and um yeah I I

21:14

think in certain smaller communities maybe not in like huge big cities but I think the the parents are becoming to be

21:22

a little bit more aware of the effect of social media on teens and hopefully

21:28

taking the right steps within their own home and within their kids you know my kids are two and five so they're quite

21:34

young but they obviously see people on phones they see me on my phone I do my best to keep it in my office but

21:39

sometimes it's just not possible and it must be super interesting for even like a baby to look at you looking at this

21:46

weird black thing in your hand ignoring the baby but looking at ignoring ignoring the baby um but also like what

21:54

is this weird thing that's getting my primary caregivers attention like a

22:00

thousand times a day like it must be a very mysterious thing and obviously as a small child you'd be attracted to that

22:06

because it's like yeah it's it's very very it's very very strange when I was when I got my first phone when I was 19

22:13

it was this brick thing it was awful was my dad's like old phone and it could do

22:18

messaging and it could um make phone calls and I barely used the thing to be honest because you know I was 19 and

22:24

like my friends live pretty close by and it's like I don't think my personality back then could have handled the access

22:32

and capabilities that a smartphone has today like I feel blessed that I wasn't

22:38

that wasn't my My Generation but I also feel sorry for these teenagers who I

22:45

think a lot of them probably when they're 12 13 14 only get into it because their friends have it or like

22:52

there so there other people and it ends up being like the latest pair of trainers or sneakers excuse me or latest

22:59

you know fashion wear and it ends up just becoming this accessory that really

23:05

really doesn't serve those young people where it's a key part of life where engaging commun communicating getting in

23:12

fights you know amending relationships all of these things need to be done in

23:18

person and if we're now transferring that to this weird device like we're

23:26

only gonna have like um we're going to we're going to create a new a new species of individual like

23:31

psychologically for sure the brains are going to change and if it gets worse and worse those parts of the brain that are

23:37

used to communicating you know one-on-one with individuals those will certainly Decay and we'll have this new

23:44

species of individual I couldn't agree more it's it's

23:49

dehumanizing is what it is and um I think

23:56

that when I when I was a little kid we went out and played as a group we

24:04

we' meet at the playground and we'd play sports or we'd

24:09

jump get on the jungle gym or the you know the playground equipment and we did

24:15

get into fights and scrapes and we'd uh we'd call each other names

24:22

and our parents would that was just part of growing up if

24:28

and the saying used to be sticks and stones will break your bones but words will never hurt you yeah but it we've

24:35

become a society where words people consider words hurtful yeah

24:44

which I think is ridiculous because one how you interpret a

24:51

word it makes all the difference you know um so some person

24:58

one person might be offended by a certain word and another person is gonna laugh at it and say that's the silliest

25:04

thing I've ever heard and the person who laughs at it's going to be much more emotionally

25:09

healthy than the person who gets offended by by whatever it is yeah it's

25:15

a it's a strange phenomenon I think about that a lot because we're obviously there's not a lot of countries left in

25:21

the world that actually have like free speech and oh I would argue there aren't any okay fair yeah no that's that's

25:28

that's fair enough I think we have amendments in the States but like there's you know it's it's like in the UK for sure like there are things you

25:33

can you can't say and you can be you can be arrested for them and it's I think people get a a um they misinterpret like

25:41

what free speech is and how important it is to create dialogue and to create

25:47

change but then like couple with that like we we've massively lost our ability to debate and to have conversations and

25:54

how we can um um come to an understand in with individuals I guess primarily

26:00

because a lot of these let's say conflicting topics are primarily engaged

26:06

through on social media like politics religion Etc um all the things you

26:11

weren't supposed to talk about at family dinners are about the only thing that

26:18

people talk about on social media yeah and it's like and they're really

26:23

really important topics and I think that like um I remember I remember my parents

26:29

my grandparents and uncles and stuff you know we'd sit at the kids table on Sundays or at Christmas or whatever and

26:36

the adults would be on the adult table first of all you wouldn't go and pest to the adults right it was there was there

26:41

there were clear boundaries there and they would have conversations and it would get heated but at the end of it it

26:48

was like hugs handshakes all let's have a beer yeah let's have a beer and it's

26:53

like the reason we've got so many incredible things within our um cultures

26:59

now is because conversations like that were had and you know they go all the way up to the you know parliamentary

27:05

debate and just this you can just look at the state of them all over the world in regards to like our world leaders

27:12

can't have a conversation can't and can't debate things and can't um handle

27:17

not being right and see and and seeing perspect perspectives from the other

27:22

side like we like we can't do that at the highest level let alone you know no

27:28

and what what's happened is I could say something espouse a point of view and

27:37

you might disagree with that point of view now you would label what I said to

27:46

you as hate speech it's what it's hateful because I dis I said something

27:52

that you disagree with so you find it hateful it might be disagreeable but not

27:59

hateful when I was teaching this is in the late 70s uh and I was in Oklahoma which is

28:07

fairly conservative uh but there were very different points of view especially uh

28:14

we I had set a lot of uh Native American uh students because Oklahoma

28:21

had a big Native American population and before every the first

28:26

class of every semester I would say in this class I don't know

28:32

how it is in your other classes but in my class you are free to express any

28:41

point of view you would like as long as you're prepared to defend

28:48

it and defending it doesn't mean calling everybody else hateful sure right so if

28:55

you have if you have a well-reasoned point of view you might be able to change somebody

29:00

else's mind nobody's interested in trying to change somebody else's mind

29:05

with a reasoned argument anymore they just want whoever yells the

29:11

loudest seems to carry the day and that's not the way that you

29:17

build a well-informed well

29:23

reasoned population yeah and there's no way we have that type of um policy within

29:32

classrooms or especially universities universities are terrible I I couldn't I

29:38

would get fired in five minutes if I was trying to teach at most universities now

29:47

because if I have a strong opinion about something I've done my research and I'm prepared to defend it yeah and if

29:55

somebody disagrees with me that that's fine let's have a discussion about it I'm not going to call you hateful you

30:00

might call me hateful but I'm not going to call you hateful um so no I wouldn't last very long because I I believe in

30:08

the the free exchange of ideas and that seems to be a principle that has gone away absolutely

30:16

yeah we if you're not having discussion and free roaming ideas within a classroom setting you are you've got

30:24

specific rhetoric or specific ideology talking point basically yeah and it's

30:29

like that's no that's that's not going to inspire or motivate young individuals

30:35

who you know I guess used to go to universities and colleges to have their minds challenged and opened rather than

30:44

just like putting so many things into into a box where you just come everyone

30:49

comes out the same I guess and you know some people survive it or don't the the saying is that universities

30:59

used to teach people how to think and now they teach people what to think and

31:04

there's a if they're teaching you what to think it doesn't require you really to think at all

31:13

no you know the Arista tilian method of learning was is by asking questions well

31:20

the professors if the professors act like they have all the answers there's no reason for them to ask questions

31:26

that's right yeah it's not it's not a great environment and you know there are some

31:31

amazing thinkers out there right now who primarily talk through kind of like podcasting that have left the university

31:37

settings and have been you know shouting from the hills about this massive issue

31:43

within educational institutions for a long period of time so um yeah it's quite clearly a problem from you know we

31:50

could call them captured institutions I guess but just to go back to the

31:55

conversation we were having about people or unable

32:01

to come to an understanding or have conflicting ideas conflicting thoughts

32:08

about specific topics and how now that just turns into yeah some some you

32:14

you're spewing hate speech right and I just think about it how how how have so many individuals come to a point where

32:21

what somebody says to me or to you makes you so volatile with emotion

32:28

that all you can kind of go to is is hatred and anger rather than sitting

32:34

back and actually listening to what somebody's saying and I I just I feel like we have this and it's all connected

32:41

with social media for sure that we have this massive lack of emotional

32:46

regulation and emotional control and there's so many different aspects that that comes from like you know we here at

32:53

true hope Canada you know we we focus on body brain nutrition to make sure the

32:58

brain and body is provided with the necessary nutrients to make the necessary chemicals so you're able to think and free sorry think and feel in

33:07

specific ways that you know we would like to contribute to be like normal thinking and feeling and we have people who suffer from significant

33:13

psychological disorders where they take our product and their brain is actually getting the necessary ingredients to

33:19

make the right chemicals so it's able to function properly and we have a massively nutrient deficient culture but

33:27

yeah also like why are we so quick to to just like get emotional so so fast

33:34

without actually like being able to sit back and listen to what people are saying well as a psychologist I can tell

33:42

you my thoughts on that are that they're being rewarded for

33:47

that they're being reward sorry they're being rewarded for that em their

33:53

emotional response right is and as you know

33:58

you get more of the behavior that you reward so if their peer group or the

34:06

people in power are rewarding you for your

34:12

response you're going to respond that way because you want the reward that makes sense um and if you if a kid's

34:20

yelling if you have a young child you have a two-year-old and a 5-year-old well at some point if they

34:27

haven't already the two-year-old probably might throw a tantrum over something right

34:36

well if you reward that tantrum by picking the child up or giving the child

34:43

what they're having a tantrum about what Behavior are you rewarding the Tantrum my kids who are 50

34:52

and 46 now um and we have fun to

34:57

discussions about it sometime my my 46-year-old said you have no idea what it was like to be raised by a

35:03

psychologist but he says it he says it laughingly that's funny um but if if one of my kids was throwing

35:11

a tantrum I would pick them up put them in

35:17

their room close the door and say whenever you're done I'll come get

35:24

you and if they scream for three hours fine let them scream for three hours

35:29

they get tired they'll quit and eventually they got to the point where they realize there are other better ways

35:36

to get what they want than throwing a tantrum yeah I think yeah I mean those

35:43

those Tantrums a very normal part of obviously being a small individual who

35:48

who does yeah and it's fine it's all it's all good but it's it's a huge learning opportunity for those

35:54

individuals and also the parents and siblings involved that you know we have to Lear know we it's a very normal part

36:01

of our Evolution and our biology to learn how to deal with the emotional states that come up for us you know

36:07

because but we a lot of people now as adults they don't have that Abit they

36:13

don't have that ability they just get to they get to rage and anger like in like it's a it's it's a reaction rather than

36:20

this like response well I I think in some ways we we might be as a species

36:27

de evolving because I think one of the things that

36:34

differentiates humans from other animals and we are animals at one level is the

36:42

ability for our intellect to overcome our emotions or to override our

36:49

emotions to control our emotions through our intellect right and we seem to be

36:56

losing that capacity I mean if you if you can

37:03

react uh there's a poem that one of the lines of the poem is if you can keep your head around when others are losing

37:10

theirs you'll be a man my you know the song that the poem that ends you'll be a man my son right but but that's one of

37:16

the characteristics of an evolved human being is the ability to keep their

37:24

rational head when things are kind of going to crap

37:29

around them and we seem to be losing that

37:35

capacity I think that if you were to look back like historically at us as a

37:41

species and um how we actually were able to evolve and

37:48

actually come to a point where we can have those like rational conversations you can see the the significant amount

37:54

of progress we would have had as as civilization and as Nations and as communities as you say like we're going

38:00

backwards with that and I just think that so many people are living in a constant stress response and you can

38:06

just you can just you can just see that you know like it's a pretty standard thing like we have a m we on this show

38:12

we've had so many um amazing psychologists and therapists around like trauma and like these individuals are

38:18

just getting busier and busier and busier because so many people are just like constantly in this the stress response and there's so many things in

38:24

our external World social media phones being one of them but like is engaging this part of our nervous system that was

38:31

you know only really primed to work for a couple of minutes to be able to fight run or freeze from an enemy but we have

38:38

this engaged constantly and where yeah as you said like if we are spending the

38:45

majority of our time in that nervous system State we are without question going to biologically change and in my

38:53

opinion de evolve to be even more worried and even more concerned and we know that like if you

39:00

are constantly in that fight or flight response like your body can only deal with the biochemical necessity of that for

39:08

for a long only a short period of time and then and symptoms M symptoms manifest disease manifests and we have a

39:16

seriously sick culture oh AB absolutely Str you you can't live in a constant

39:22

state of stress but what you can do is

39:27

learn to filter out the real

39:33

stressors from the self-induced stressors okay if you're if

39:40

if somebody walks up to you puts a gun to your head and says give me all your

39:46

money or I'm gonna kill you your physiological response to that is going

39:53

to be stress and it but it but you there's a reason for that stress you

39:58

should feel stressed but if somebody says to you on

40:05

social media you're an idiot for thinking this

40:10

way what's the harm in that what is what actually has that person done to you

40:19

nothing yeah right a good but but if you buy into it I think a lot of the stress

40:27

that people feel is artificial stress it doesn't

40:33

have to be that way yeah I think a lot of people don't like responsibility in

40:39

any shape or form and I think that we've been taught incorrectly that we have no

40:45

responsibility over our emotions or emotional state like we've got no this this happens I get angry like that's

40:52

that's just me that's biology that's just the way things work but I think once people recognize that they've got a

40:57

lot of responsibility in how they engage in the world and within themselves yeah I just think people don't really like

41:04

that having responsibility of respon responsibility is a two-edged

41:10

sword it it requires some work on your part taking responsibility but it is

41:16

also freeing in a lot of way because it means that you have control over your life and

41:23

control over how you're going to react to situations and one of the sections of my book I talk about developing an

41:29

internal locus of control where you believe you control what happens to you

41:34

rather than letting external forces control what happens to you and I think we've given in to those external

41:43

forces and and we feel like we're out of control but we're really not un unless

41:51

we give that control away voluntarily

41:56

that's right we always have more control over a situation than we think

42:01

we do if you're very very stressed at work and wellow there's nothing I can do

42:06

about it sure there is you can

42:12

quit you can start start your own business you can get asked to get

42:17

transferred to another department you could I mean there's a hundred things you can do but some of those might seem

42:24

unpleasant to you so you choose not to do those you'd rather be stressed by your current situation we always have

42:32

more choices than we think we do yeah I want to I want to pull this back to gratitude because that's a key word that

42:38

we spoke about earlier and I think that all these external factors that cause people so many stress they massively

42:45

Cloud our ability to recognize there are so many things to be grateful for and we

42:50

do 2024 we have so many things in our lives that make our life amazing and

42:57

make our life comfortable yes that we no longer really see as something to be

43:02

grateful for because it's a given like a like a house uh a job food all the water

43:10

like sleeping in a bed like all these things are like you know hundred years ago like not everyone had these things

43:16

like it was pretty pretty tough back then but like now we're so comfortable with these fundamental things that we

43:23

require as human beings that we forget to be grateful for those and I think that once you can slow down the

43:29

externalities and you can get back to fundamentals and recognize that you should be or you should be absolutely

43:36

grateful for so many things and we have a practice at home where we we talk about the things we're grateful for

43:41

before we eat and um I think that not many people think about that these days

43:46

because there's so there's so much noise Sur just just clouding out that very simple fact that life is pretty good for

43:54

for a lot of people well you mentioned that you're in Canada and I'm I'm in the United States and the the poorest of the

44:03

poor in Canada and in the United States have it better than 80% of the rest of

44:11

the people in the world I mean most most people in Canada and most people in the

44:18

United States can find something to eat yeah

44:23

they can find some kind of shelter can find some clothing they have

44:30

shoes they can find the the the the basic survival needs can be met by the

44:37

vast majority of people yeah so once you get past those survival

44:44

needs you know maso's hierarchy of needs you can start thinking

44:50

about social needs self-actualization needs self-esteem needs but the the

44:56

gratitude is things to be grateful for can be

45:01

found everywhere if you if you waake like you mentioned if you wake up in the morning

45:08

and you got a good night's sleep because you weren't worried that some wild

45:13

animal was G to come and eat you or some bomb wasn't going to drop on you then you're in pretty good that's

45:20

something to be grateful for absolutely I mean if you can eat a nice breakfast

45:26

that nutritious and it doesn't it's not spoiled or contaminated by anything

45:34

that's something to be grateful if you have good friends and if some anybody

45:40

who has one or two or three really really good friends that they know that

45:46

they can count on should drop down on their knees every day and thank God that

45:52

that's how grateful they should be because so many people have chosen

45:58

could have more friends than they do but they've chosen to isolate themselves for one reason or another if you have a

46:06

spouse or a significant other that you have a good strong relationship with that's something to be

46:13

grateful for if your children are healthy that's something to be grateful

46:18

for if the Sun's shining outside and there's there's flowers and trees and there's relatively clean air um that's

46:27

something to be grateful for there yeah if you know I've got I've got a cute

46:32

little dog that I really love my dog and when my dog comes and jumps on my lap

46:38

and licks my face I'm grateful for that because it's a pretty cool thing it's

46:43

simple great things to be grateful for don't have to be huge they can be simple

46:50

things and I just yeah sorry yeah please carry I was just going to say like when you begin to feel your fill your day and

46:58

your thoughts and your feelings with gratitude you the the frequency of the

47:05

sensation feeling of gratitude is very very different from anger and you know you can you there's there's YouTube

47:11

videos there's research papers on the research of this and you just begin to

47:17

become a stronger individual and once you do that once you do that once you do that on like a micro level it becomes

47:22

like this new Incredible addicting thing to be a part of well when you start to

47:27

feel grateful you'll find yourself instinctively smiling

47:34

mhm I you don't nobody's telling you a joke you it's just you feel so good yeah

47:41

about what you feel grateful for that you break out into a smile yeah and

47:46

smiling is feels better looks better is better for you than the

47:55

anger uh clenched fists clenched teeth crying I me good cry is good every once

48:02

in a while too but but you know what I'm saying it just feels better on your body it LO it

48:11

creates you know you mentioned the dopamine hit I think feeling gratitude is going to give you a

48:17

serotonin hit more than a dopamine hit and that lasts a lot longer that's right

48:23

now it's super interesting I I think that people have got so many things at their fingertips that they don't

48:29

recognize that they can start to start feeling amazing like I know I know a few people who once they they'll go watch a

48:36

a funny movie and their jaw pain disappears or their back pain disappears because they're they're biochemically

48:41

changing it's very very fascinating it's very interesting and when I was reading

48:46

this this stoicism book for the first time this is before kids but um there had some interesting practices around

48:53

appreciation and it was like go and spend one night of your week go sleep in

48:58

the garden and then the next night and the next nights beyond that you are going to appreciate and be super

49:04

grateful that you have a bed and you have a bedroom and you have a house and they just yeah I'm a kind of I'm a type

49:10

of person that likes to try to practice those types of things because they they they stick with me and it's a very strong Mo motivator to wake up to

49:18

gratitude rather than going into a you know subconscious stress pattern

49:24

sure well we chatted about a lot of different things so we were going to be talking about um we were going to be

49:31

talking about self-love and relationships but and the systems that influenced us and we've definitely jumped in and out of that topic um and

49:38

we've spoken more about like the The Perils of social media I guess power of gratitude and you know the the vital

49:46

importance that you know recognizing the external stresses have on our mental and

49:51

physical lives um so I'd love to get you back on the show to kind of d dive in a

49:57

little bit more about about relationships and self-love and maybe talk about some practical ways in which

50:02

people can you know um begin to uh create

50:08

beneficial aspects around those topics so I hope You' be I hope you'd be willing to come back absolutely anytime

50:16

just send me an invite I'll be there beautiful beautiful well we're gonna wrap this up just by if you can just let

50:21

us know where people can connect with you and I'll make sure those links are in the show notes for people to uh to to

50:27

get hold of you and learn more sure my website is Angelov

50:37

valenti.es reach angelo.com I'm on Facebook I'm on Instagram I'm on Tik

50:44

Tock I'm on Twitter X now and on LinkedIn uh Angelo

50:50

Valente PhD on LinkedIn I'm not hard to find you could buy my book on Amazon you

50:55

could buy it from my webs ite Angelov Valente dcom it's also available on Audible if you'd like to hear my my

51:03

reading of my book um that was a fun experience um so I'd love to hear from

51:10

you and I really appreciate the opportunity to visit with you today beautiful well Dr angel I really

51:16

appreciate your time today and your insights I absolutely love it when we go off topic from like what's been like kind of predetermined I think that just

51:23

makes for a organic natural conversation and um I think a lot of people are going to benefit benefit from this

51:30

conversation have inspiring thoughts of their own on these topics So yeah thank you so much again for coming on to the

51:36

show I really appreciate it thank you beautiful well that is it for this episode of True Hope cast the official

51:43

podcast of true hope Canada um again like the show notes will be filled with links in regards to the couple of books

51:49

we've spoken about today as well as how you can connect with Dr Angelo but that is it for this episode we'll see you

51:56

next week we [Music]