hi everyone I want to welcome you to the green ocean weekly podcast this week is gonna be a little bit different there’s been a lot of things going on in our nation in our world in our communities because of the incident with George Floyd and it’s brought a lot of things up and we felt that it’s really really important to address that and so today we’re gonna kind of set aside our usual agenda of our  odcast and we’re gonna get a little bit more personal we’re gonna talk about that we’re really fortunate to have with us Ron Medved from the Pacific Institute he was going to be joining us and we were gonna be talking about fear which we’re still gonna do today but we’re gonna be looking at fear from a little bit of a different angle then we might have been planning on and so we invite you to join us  oday and participate we’d love to hear your feedback after our podcast today which you can share with us at facebook.com slash green ocean TV love to hear from you so sit back enjoy the conversation  nd we’ll see you soon and Colin of course you know in this interview was just facing like you know you must just be outraged all the time and and that’s exactly what just like yeah you know like you  now everyone everybody that I know we always have to just deal with that and as I was like listening to his story again you know I don’t have that same experience but I know some of the experiences  hat I had obviously I’m one of you know probably 1% of my school in terms of you know being Asian being a first-generation immigrant and you know growing up in Kent there weren’t a ton of Asians at the time you know and so something as simple as I was remember being on the chairlift and I was probably 14 you know I was skiing on the chairlift and somebody yelled out while I was on the ski lift  omething some good thing but you know calling me out and calling me a chink okay and so even at a 14 year I mean you’re skiing and during often you get that and the rage that immediately came just from a word you know a single word it was just infuriating and of course that little moment that emotion that rage has stayed with me my entire life and of course there’s lots of different other stories  nd emotions and things but I remember just like that’s just one small little piece right and and yet I’ve never had a police officer I was I’ve  never been concerned along that line I
don’t have to have the talk with my kids you know that you know the black community has to got to make sure that their kids understand and what have you and so um you know just trying to sit and  mpathize having conversation with my kids talking about you know the current situation yeah it’s just been part of you know the process of my home so I know like the whole what well that’s not  ecessarily what well but having dialogue with your kids about the current circumstance that’s happening it’s important you know having conversation is important and yeah so that’s that’s just some of  he things that I guess we’re going through right now it’s a it’s an interesting week and especially for this episode to talk about what went well right but I did have the conversation this morning and it’s a  ay of looking at things in that that because of the the koban 19 pandemic a lot more people are at home or a lot more people are unemployed right now but it also meant that with this incident with  eorge Floyd and everything that brought up to the surface there are so many more people available to attend protests tomorrow I’m going to be participating in the local community protest in my tiny little town of Mukilteo and I don’t anticipate there will be any challengers or problems or things of that nature but observing right is one thing just like kind of watching it on TV watching it on social  edia making judgments kind of from the outside but then to try to at least take a couple of steps a little bit more inward yeah you know hear hear stories go to you know dissipated something that’s  hat’s actually live and actually be the first time where were relatively close to other people on top of that but um you know what can we do to participate and try to again hear people’s stories and and really  ean in more so than just kind of like you know looking at it from you know just a screen perspective so I think just one of the things I guess you know I’m reflecting on right now because this is a time in  history really that I think we all have to acknowledge I just want to know what can I do how can I help how can I make a difference how can I make things better and I’m a mom and I’m a woman and  ‘m a nurturer you know and it’s like I just want to hug everybody you know it’s just and I know that doesn’t change anything and it doesn’t make a difference maybe but it’s just my instinct is to want to  ust I just want to I just want to love on people you know if I if I can just chime in you know what went well for me this week in the context of what we’re talking about here is I I got in touch with my  white privilige you know in a way that I hadn’t before and basically my story is you know I’ve always sort of left myself off the hook because I could say hey I was an NFL football player I was in a racially  ixed environment you know oftentimes I was the minority white guy you know and so I understand these  things you know I and I’m married to awoman of color and we’ve had talks over
the years about what prejudice is and  how she experiences it so see I’d let myself off the hook you know but what what helped me this week was what you guys are talking about which is the stories I  aid attention to people’s stories in and I saw so many black men for example telling their stories on social media and what what got through to me was the fact that yeah if I could pulled over by a cop  ou know I might have some anxiety about you know are my license tags you know up-to-date or you know maybe I was speeding and maybe I wasn’t but I i I’ve never feared for my life yeah and I think  he the the the breakthrough for me was you know developing that that deep empathy and I’ve been actually once I’ve felt it you know I’ve been nurturing it this week is it what does it what does it mean  o fear for your life you know I’m a social activist kind of guy I mean I’ve always been that way but if you sort of get down below the down below the skin level and and feel what the psychologists call primal empathy you know the the primal empathy you know that’s where the real good can come and that’s where the real change can come I think it’s only probably been about three or four years since   either listen to either it was either Renee Browns TED talk or it was an excerpt from a book but I’m pretty sure was Brene explaining you know in her definition the difference between empathy  nd sympathy and the whole idea of sympathy is like you know if if somebody you know somebody care about falls into a ditch they’re in a deep hole and you basically are above that hole saying oh my  osh I’m so sorry you fell into that hole and what can I do for you how can I bring you some food or bring you some water oh I’m so sorry you’re down there and that’s sympathy empathy is you go down into the hole with them and so it’s it’s beyond leaning it I guess from over I was saying earlier it’s it’s going deeper I’m being right there only when you can experience that with them or as much as  ossible that’s more empathy and um this week as looking through Facebook and I’m seeing as wrong with saying the stories those were very powerful right and fortunately I didn’t come across anything  hat was insensitive or knowing that I wasn’t maybe looking enough for some of those things on my on my feed but I will tell you that the most annoying parts were the ads you know and this week of the weeks right there has been focused in terms of life you know what this is not the time to be running ads you know selling stuff you know and you know just as business as usual you know if you’re a  erson in business and again it’s a really hard situation because it’s kovat as well right and people are just trying to you know get back into you know the order of things and you know will get their life  ack together and you know not even make a profit but just try to break even you know there’s so much of that going on but when all of a sudden you know you’re in a mindset and you know in a kind of   reflective place and then we’re also pushing out ads by this you know we you know sell that click here it’s just you know we there’s times where we got to be people first right humanity first and and  here’s just this is just one of those rare times in history where we can be more reflective really focusing on and we talked about growing our skill set all the time and you know I think a skill set is something like empathy that’s that’s probably a learn thing right I mean that’s we can we can grow on that that’s not just one of those things that just either have it or you don’t right you can work on  hat right well I’ve been I’ve been reading more about it this week for sure and yeah with empathy you know I think they they say back in the old old days kind of the the times when we were hunter- atherers you know there was there was you know we were all in it together and we were all sort of you know we there was a empathy there that is referred to as a primal empathy you know we have this  eed to belong and we have this need to belong because it’s tied to our survival and we take care of each other and then as civilization progressed that story you know is we bit we began to have to divide  nd and get into specialist work and to farm and we we started having to divvy up what we thought was a finite set of the good things or things to eat so competition came you know came in there and  hen we kind of lost our lost our touch with with our primal empathy and so now we’re sort of forced in a way to sort of get back in touch with that because starting with the pandemic we’re all in it together this is something that’s unprecedented in our life right so we’re all sort of vulnerable you know to it you know in the same way now we have the civil unrest or the social unrest in the country  nd each of us in our own way kind of feels vulnerable to that and you know many people are having moments of empathy that that they haven’t had before and then you know what we haven’t even     ally started to experience well some people have but sort of sort of the economic impact of all of this you knowa lot of people have lost their jobs and and life search is really disruptedtheir work life is  eally disrupted a lot of people feel like the worst is yet to come you know and God help us if we have a second wave and and so we’re all in that together to the economy we’re all we may not have ever een an economy you know quite like this the way after it all plays out you know we kind of talked about this a little bit before the show that this is something that you know I really struggle with these  ituations and that you know quite honestly I am the problem right the the middle-aged white male you know Americanborn and so how do I feel that empathy you know how do I get down in the hole  nd like it’s page pointed out while we were talking about it how do I do that without being condescending or you know because I I do I do see the problem you know and I do I do recognize that that you  now that there has to be change but what is what is my part in that how do I connect there is actually a little quote that I had kind of saved for today because we were going to be talking about fear and  nd also just facing that fear and in facing challenges and things and it’s from James Baldwin and it’s not everything that is faced can be changed but nothing can be changed until it is faced and that’s  hat we’re all dealing with right now and I I really am so excited about all of us facing something and we’re all in this together and we are gonna get through it and I do believe in the good of people and I  o believe that most people the vast majority people are good and want to see change Jason I think I’m one of the things that you mentioned is like oh I’m the problem because you know white middle- ged you know man you know that type of thing and you know I think we’re all kind of on this common ground that it’s about those who are just silent when we basically kind of recognize that oh there’s  uff going on  right now and we just stay silent oh well just oh we’re just gonna again observe from the outside and so I think you know like seeking what it is that we should be doing um and can be  oing  ndand learning from this and and again like boy we’ve got kids if we can teach our kids to say pause right now listen see what’s happening let’s learn together that’s I think I think that’s probably some  f he best things that we  can do and and just having that dialogue being you know open to that conversation at least is a starting place from from my perspective and but again that’s just um yeah III likewhat Rahm was saying that’s like oh it’s an optimistic statement we just need to get back to even some of that primal empathy I mean we do have that care right you know for wonder there’s something deep down built into that that that is there and we just need to go ahead and maybe remove some of these additional layers that have been built up over these generations right not being  ilent is and that’s and that’s awesome i and i got opinions right and I remember you know and this is my dog is that you know the Kaepernick’s situation right and when he first started taking me and so  any people did not understand that and it turned into this whole thing that had nothing to do with the situation and all of a sudden it became somehow anti-military or anti-flag and I remember you  now and I would explain to a lot of my friends I’m like that’s it’s got nothing to do with that he’s not disrespecting he’s just using adifferent platform to bring you know  some awareness that something  hat you know a lot of people just don’t understand and I wanted to I wanted to share what he was doing like on Facebook and things but I was scared of the backlash you know I don’t I didn’t want everybody to tell me I was the entire military or whatever I mean that’s a big deal right and so jeez like not you know that trying to not be silent is also a challenge so well I actually I think this this is a  reat segue because the original point of having Ron join us today is because um the mindset of fear and that that part chase that you’re talking about right now is just like oh what will my friends think  f  e right what will my sphere of influence think of me will they misunderstand me fear is something that prevents us from doing a lot of things right the things that we know that we’ve got to do is some  f the things that we need to change you know for example doing video starting a podcast or you know reaching out to the people that we care about letting them know about you know housing updates  nd things of that nature so I mean that was the original intent about discussing fear but right now it’s just like taking a stand you know when we believe in something or we’re trying to explain  omething  nd I don’t want to be misunderstood or misinterpreted or I don’t want backlash that’s all fear I’ve done some reading and I’ve done some thinking about this and I’ve come to one important  oint is that I think that we need to have a better appreciation of the difference between fear and anxiety okay fear and anxiety fear is said to be a pecific observable danger and fear makes people run for  over all right you know the the fight-or-flight response you know we go on to high alert you know there’s something that’s happening you know that’s that’s dangerous and causes fear and and I would  ontrast that to things that we could we label this fear but are probably better labeled as giving us anxiety for example the fear of rejection you know in a sales situation I can I can get anxious about that  kay I can get anxious about that and being anxious can can immobilize me you know is almost as bad as fear you know the fear of Technology I would say t’s more like the ink the anxiousness about  echnology fear of video I says anxious I I get anxious about video and I get anxious about even my business I can get anxious about my business it’s not like I’m I’m face-to-face with a growling danger  hat that is what I would associate with fear so if we can maybe have a little discussion about that and if we can say that yeah my premise is that if we can make a difference between fear and anxiety we we can approach anxiety we can treat anxiety we can we can have remedies for anxiety sometimes that we that we don’t have for fear fear we have to we have to face and we have to suffer you’re with me  n that yeah do you think that fear is more based in potential danger to oneself versus just worrying about something that hasn’t happened yet which may be more anxiety yeah exactly that’s exactly what what I’ve been reading that’s what it’s been saying mmm-hmm it’s more of a specific you know in your face danger I’d always kind of thought fears being like kind of my thought about the past and  nxiety being my thought about the future right like what’s going to happen so like when I think about what’s going to happen or what if or you know this is not gonna work out the way I think it is or whatever that’s anxiety to me yeah yeah of course you know then my goal is to try to live in the moment right now how about you Howard you know a lot of times we have this association or people think well we procrastinate because we’re lazy right and it’s rarely laziness right that is right procrastination rather it’s kind of one of two paths one is because of anxiety we’re anxious about it we’re  fearful about it there’s something at that space right so I’m you know I don’t want to deal with that so I’m going to avoid anxiety right because we don’t want anxiety therefore by avoiding it I’m procrastinating so that’s one the other one which is a healthier love look procrastination so there’s a positive procrastination which I remember sharing it I thought was fascinating and what it is is  ometimes our brain hasn’t quite figured it out yet right yeah aside that says oh I don’t know that what the next step is and because it’s such a big thing I can’t figure it out or peace out what I need to do  ext therefore I’m gonna put it off you know and so because it’s too big I don’t have a specific clear next step so I love this I love this distinction right because often times we generalize it to it’s all fear but   like the fact that we can kind of separate out true fear and anxiety because there’s nothing more maybe some strategic and tactical ways to tackle on an anxiety you know kind of challenge if we can  ind of get a an understanding of fierce fear and anxiety and anxiety there are lots of strategies for anxiety you know and we can talk about you know we can talk about them you know the first one being  elf-talk one of the ways that we feed our anxietywe feed it is through our self-talk  through her careless self time okay and all of us are familiar with you know the psychology of self-talk and how you  now we talked to ourselves and it’s recorded in the neuron structure of the cell of our brain and it’s as good as a real experience you know when we get good at self talk because we’re vividly imagining  hrough our self talks or are we vividly imagining the wrong thing you know and so there there there’s a whole sort of way to address anxiety just through understand having a better understanding of  elf  alk you mentioned another thing that’s I’m finding I’m I’m I’m using a lot and talking about and writing about these days in the current crises is that let’s let’s bring things back inside of today okay  ou know I’m I’m anxious because I’m anticipating something out in the future that I that I’m worried about or I don’t have control over or that I don’t know but if I stop and think about it for a second it’s next week next month you know that what I’m worried about okay let’s come back let me bring myself back inside of today what can I do about it today what what do I need to do today you know to   ort of take care of business and you know there’s a calming effect you know just by again you use the word breaking and down Howard and breaking things down and saying okay today is today what   an I do today andand so there’s there’s more and more  strategies like that where we’re actually we use our mind you know to get control of our the anxiety we don’t have to waste days worrying we can  e productive if we have our days organizedin a constructive way I make a lot more  outbound calls these days to people thatcheck in and see how they’re doing No maybe it’s because we’re socially isolated but I’m also I mean I had I was on a couple calls this morning you know calling a couple of old friends and seeing how they’re doing and and just checking in on them I just feel that there’s a  ave of that kind of thing that’s been happening not just in the last week but in the last you know couple of months especially you know with the challenges that we’ve all faced you know it’s it’s almost  rite to say we’re all in this together there but think about the profound the profound statement of that that we’re all in this together it’s actually a beautiful thing when you think about it we want to  hank you again for joining us today we appreciate that you have chosen to spend this time with us that you’ve chosen to open your hearts and open your minds and listen to some different stories and  ow you can take what you’ve learned today and maybe be the change that you want to see in this world so thank you again do share your feedback with us at facebook.com slash green ocean TV and  ntil  hen we look forward to seeing you again soon