Ready to breathe a sign of relief? Welcome to Ask Dr. Jodi where you get trauma-informed mental health and relationship advice that you won’t hear anywhere else. Today, we’re exploring how to cope with the overwhelming emotional weight of world events, and I’m thrilled to be joined by my daughter, Lily. Together, we’ll share personal stories and practical tips, diving into how self-compassion, humor, and small acts of kindness can help you manage anxiety and feelings of helplessness. Join us for a heartfelt conversation on staying hopeful and grounded amidst uncertainty, with actionable insights to help you build emotional resilience. If you’re feeling burdened by the current state of the world, this episode is for you.
In this episode, Dr. Jodi and her daughter, Lily, open up about the collective weight many of us feel from constant bad news and global turmoil. They explore how this emotional burden impacts mental health, especially for sensitive individuals. Drawing on personal stories, Jodi and Lily discuss the challenge of feeling powerless amidst climate change, natural disasters, and political upheaval. Lily shares her struggles as a member of Gen Z, feeling caught between wanting to make a difference and feeling too small to effect real change. Together, they offer a candid look at how humor, avoidance, and small acts of kindness can help navigate these difficult emotions.
Rather than leaving listeners stuck in the doom and gloom, Dr. Jodi highlights ways to cultivate hope and regain a sense of purpose. They also touch on the importance of self-care, building community, and finding productive ways to manage feelings of helplessness. Whether you’re grappling with guilt or unsure how to help, this episode offers an open, heartfelt conversation about finding hope amid overwhelming uncertainty.
Thank you so much for tuning in today! I hope you found some comfort and inspiration in our conversation. Remember, you’re not alone in feeling the weight of the world, but you are more adaptable and capable than you might realize. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a review and share it with someone who might benefit from this message.
Thank you so much for listening! If you enjoyed today’s episode, please take a moment to leave a five-star review on Apple Podcasts and share it with someone who needs inspiration or help to heal!
[00:00:00] Dr Jodi Aman: Hey everyone, welcome to tonight's live. We're talking about coping with the weight of the world on your shoulders. And if you are a sensitive soul or if you are a human in the world right now, you know exactly what I'm talking about. I'm here with my daughter, Lily. Hi. Hi. And we're just, this is not really going to be a teaching episode.
[00:00:24] Dr Jodi Aman: We're just going to talk about what this is like. Sharing a little bit about our own experiences the last few weeks with so much bad news happening, so much terrifying things going on in the world. And just talking about what's come up for us. And then hopefully we'll try to not just leave you in the dread of, yeah, we're all feeling it.
[00:00:46] Dr Jodi Aman: What are you going to do about it? We're going to hopefully, you know, hopefully we'll inspire you a little bit with some things that you could do to to have some hope even in all the despair. It's been a, it's been a quite a time, right though?
[00:01:01] Lily: I know it has been, but everyone keeps saying that.
[00:01:05] Lily: I feel like you hear for every year they're like, it's getting worse, it's getting worse, but is it getting worse? Or is it because is it always like just terrible things happening? Because I feel like that, I feel like that is a narrative that is just like fear mongering. Like people are like, everything's getting worse.
[00:01:28] Lily: I mean, there's bad things happening, but I don't know. I think that's the most dreading thing. To hear is like a like a Gen Z or coming up into the world that the world's just like ending. Everything is bad. Tell
[00:01:43] Dr Jodi Aman: them about that clock at Union Square.
[00:01:46] Lily: Oh, yeah. There's a clock in Union Square that is counting down until, in Manhattan, that is counting down until global warming is irreversible.
[00:02:00] Lily: That's just plopped in the middle of Manhattan for everyone to see. And it's, it, when I got to college, it was six years. Which is already scary, and then now it's been, it's sick, it's like 400, 200 days or something, but it's terrifying. I actually can't handle it. I can handle it, but it is, it sure is scary to see those seconds clicking down because you, it feels like there's nothing you can do about it.
[00:02:26] Lily: See then you just ignore it and you're like walking by so much garbage I mean that's I feel like since moving to New York in the city. I just have come across I mean, you'll see, I'm rambling here, but you'll see like garbage and two different holes for garbage and recycling.
[00:02:43] Lily: And then you look underneath and it's one bin it feels so hopeless to have like good, I mean, there's just so much plastic And trash on the ground all the time that it feels like you're never going to make a dent ever.
[00:02:57] Dr Jodi Aman: Yeah. I'm like cleaning this place up. I feel like that when I go visit also, it's you know, the and by, by far, New York is not the only city that does this.
[00:03:05] Dr Jodi Aman: Like we're all participating in this takeout culture that is constantly, you know, disposing of so much stuff daily. Yeah. I agree. And it, you know, it is overwhelming and walking past that clock you're right. It just makes you feel really helpless. And I feel like if we're not, if we haven't been in a hurricane zone, you know, we could check on our friends that are there.
[00:03:29] Dr Jodi Aman: We can make a donation. We could, you know, listen. So much of it is this helplessness. What can we do? And is that ever enough? Do you feel that kind of weight? Does it feel like,
[00:03:43] Lily: yeah, I can't even
[00:03:44] Dr Jodi Aman: fathom what I could do. And so how could it ever be enough anyway? And then you just makes you feel bad and guilty and.
[00:03:53] Lily: Yeah, but the guilt isn't necessarily, I think for most people I can't speak for everyone, but like instead of trying to face the guilt, it's there, but you just ignore it. And you make jokes especially TikTok. TikTok makes so many jokes out of really bad situations. And, which can be helpful, but it's like hard for someone that's, it's helpful for some people to cope with humor, but for people that aren't a part of it, that feels we're not getting the gravity of the situation and even if we were, I don't know, I guess it's good and bad if we hear things from far away that are happening like bombings and children dying and just you just don't know what to think of it.
[00:04:40] Lily: And then you hear like jokes about it. I mean, not that dark, but it's just like hard to fathom. Sorry, it's like really weird.
[00:04:51] Dr Jodi Aman: No, I mean it's really interesting. I mean, I think people have used humor since time immemorial to get through really hard times. And to the point that you made in the beginning it's always oh, it's getting worse.
[00:05:02] Dr Jodi Aman: It's getting worse. It's getting worse. I mean, throughout human history, I mean, It's been horribly full of violence and trauma, you know, forever, as long as we, you know, as long as written history and probably, you know, with the cave paintings, we could see that there was trauma before there was writing, right?
[00:05:22] Dr Jodi Aman: Yeah. And loss, because I guess it's a cycle of life, you know, but the you know, so there's so much, there's so much, it's is it getting worse? I think before COVID, it felt It was getting worse because our world is getting smaller and smaller. We could see things that are happening around the world and we've never been, you know, in the last, whatever, 50, 60, 70 years when we were never able to do that before TV and our screens, you know, we were there if there was a trauma, we were there or we heard about it secondhand.
[00:05:53] Dr Jodi Aman: We didn't see it and couldn't do anything about it. Yeah. It feels like it's getting worse because our world's getting smaller. We could see a lot more horrible stuff that happens. And also with news, the news cycle, like if it, do you ever hear that saying, if it bleeds, it leads? No. Oh, you never heard it?
[00:06:13] Dr Jodi Aman: So it's called, it's like they if something is if something is dramatic, the that's what they lead with on the news because they want people to read so that they could sell their advertising, right? That's how newspapers stay afloat, right? They want people to read their articles. So they make the articles as interesting as possible so that their advertisers have eyeballs.
[00:06:36] Dr Jodi Aman: And yes the whole point is to give the news and that's just how they sustain themselves. But you know, so it's called, if it bleeds, it leads. That means the more dramatic the story, the more prominent that story and the more they lead with it and talk about it. Yeah. And so we're getting this bombarded all the time.
[00:06:57] Dr Jodi Aman: And now that there's news on 24 seven and really on our phones, like all the time, we are getting more and it's heavy. So it feels worse. Right now is particularly. you know, it's particularly heavy this fall because of, you know, we've had two, it's in our face, we've had two hurricanes, there's the war in the Middle East, there's still the Ukrainian war that sometimes we just forget that's still going on, you know, then the election is kind of in our face and that, that's caused a lot of divisiveness in the U.
[00:07:28] Dr Jodi Aman: S. But to your point about the, I'm sorry, I keep talking, but your point about the laughter, sometimes I think we feel guilty and then we laugh. Because it's like we don't want to take ourself too seriously and it helps dissipate that guilt. Yeah, I guess there's, there, of course, there's some people that are like making fun of people that might not be good but sometimes if we're all feeling something and then someone like makes it explicit and we all get it, you know?
[00:07:55] Lily: Yeah, there is there is a nice part of that, but because there's also entertainment on TikTok, I think that it's hard sometimes to like, Not that it's good to have humor to cope, but if you are getting like entertainment videos and something funny and then something funny about something very real that's happening, like the hurricane, that's removed from me in New York.
[00:08:25] Lily: Then I treat that almost Oh, that's just something that's not here. It's like watching a sad show, like it's sad, but then I don't, I can't comprehend that it's happening in real life. And if I do, if I sit down and think about it, then I'm like really sad. And that doesn't, is that productive? I don't know.
[00:08:45] Lily: But I do avoid it. Because I don't know what else to do. That's a good point.
[00:08:48] Dr Jodi Aman: Is it helping anybody for you to be sad?
[00:08:52] Lily: No but then the alternative for me as like a college student, I could donate, I could spend like a little time picking up trash, but that feels like really helpless.
[00:09:07] Lily: So then I just, I don't know, it just feels like what, I know that everything you do, like everything counts, but it is hard when you're like trying to figure out everything, like your first world problems are. get in the way. And that's horrible. It genuinely is horrible to say, but it's true. Like when you, it's if even a first world problem enough is like counting, sorry, a first world problem counts as like getting to work on time or something, or getting to school on time.
[00:09:39] Lily: Like we have a privilege to be able to do that safely. And that if you I can't just spend all day crying and then I can't go to school. And so there's like a middle ground, I think.
[00:09:52] Dr Jodi Aman: Yeah. So being able to function and I'll talk about some of my experiences too, but being able to function, you know, towards your goals still is important.
[00:10:04] Dr Jodi Aman: And even if it's like first world problems, like though, you know, having goals, setting goals and continuing on your goals, not blowing up your life is important and how to keep your nervous system okay so that you could do that. Because really what you're doing is preparing to be a citizen in this world.
[00:10:23] Dr Jodi Aman: that hopefully makes the world a better place in your small corner. So maybe you wouldn't do big things like negotiate peace, but you would be doing little stuff like creating a community of people around you that are good people that care about other people and help other people. But that, so maybe it's small.
[00:10:43] Dr Jodi Aman: What we do to make a difference is, and I guess the question is it important to do something than to do nothing? And is it okay if you're doing something and making choices and keep thinking about that and rethinking that making sure you're consciously doing what you want to do for yourself, for the earth, for your community.
[00:11:05] Dr Jodi Aman: Is that okay? And when does that guilt be like, is that enough though? Like people are still suffering. I mean, that's the heaviness I think that a lot of people feel. We try to ignore it sometimes and maybe we could. But it's it's still like heavy. I think it still affects us in really stressful ways.
[00:11:23] Lily: And I feel like it, it's scary to try to help because then you realize how much you can't do really. If I completely ignore it. It's easier to not realize like how helpless you are, which sounds sad, but
[00:11:42] Dr Jodi Aman: I see what you're talking about. So if you try to do something like it's in your face, how helpless you are and that makes you feel worse and it's not helping them.
[00:11:50] Lily: Yeah. And then you have to have small goals. Like you, you have to build up in ways in your small corner, as opposed to trying to do like a goal that maybe isn't realistic, like world peace right now.
[00:12:06] Dr Jodi Aman: Yeah, like if, yeah, or yeah, I know sometimes it's hard to figure out like what to do in our small corner and what, like how, like when we talk about self care, because really it doesn't mean that we have to be selfless because that doesn't make sense either.
[00:12:23] Dr Jodi Aman: If we are, we're totally selfless and we don't take care of ourselves, we like run ourself into the ground. Then we're nothing for anybody. Yeah.
[00:12:29] Lily: Yeah.
[00:12:30] Dr Jodi Aman: And then maybe we've become like a burden to other people, you know? Yeah. Last week I went to a concert last week and I didn't know a lot of the songs cause it was a concert my husband liked.
[00:12:41] Dr Jodi Aman: And so really it was in my head for hours and hours because you don't do anything else at a concert. But listen, the music was great. I loved it. But I was. You know, I'm so busy all the time, always doing something or multitasking. And so to be just with my thoughts for hours, and it was Tuesday night before the hurricane was supposed to come through, Milton was supposed to come through Florida.
[00:13:06] Dr Jodi Aman: And I was like, what's this all about? You know, when we get in, I mean, even me, I mean, even me, I'm human totally. But. I feel the heaviness of what's the point? What is this all about? Of course we get into those ruts and even like a heaviest person could get in the rut.
[00:13:25] Lily: Yeah. And,
[00:13:26] Dr Jodi Aman: Yeah. And then the, then I had several nightmares last week.
[00:13:29] Dr Jodi Aman: Like I really was under About Mullen specifically? No, it was, I guess, because it was more like an apocalyptic nightmare scenario, but I don't remember the details of it. I just remember waking up and just feeling like I could go into a full panic attack right now. I knew I could, you know, and and so I, you know, I don't know.
[00:13:51] Dr Jodi Aman: That's
[00:13:51] Lily: weird to hear. I mean, I don't hear that much from you.
[00:13:54] Dr Jodi Aman: Yeah. I mean, I mean, you know, I had anxiety. I wrote my books about anxiety. I know. I wrote my stories in the books and that kind of stuff. But in my other book, you want anxiety zero. I mean, that's why I started talking about anxiety because I suffered so bad with panic attacks, but this was like before you were born.
[00:14:13] Dr Jodi Aman: It was like 20 years before you're born, you know, but I experienced it for a really long time, but sometimes something is really heavy in the world or some really horrible traumatic thing happens I could, I, you know, I have a bad night because I'm human.
[00:14:32] Lily: Yeah. Because everyone does.
[00:14:33] Dr Jodi Aman: Yeah. And it doesn't mean like my anxiety is not cured or, you know, I'm suffering.
[00:14:39] Dr Jodi Aman: It's like I'm having a regular human response to that situation. It's so awful. I'm human, but like then, you know, then you have to do your stuff like, okay, I need to rest. I needed to like sleep in an extra hour or so to recover from that experience. And I know that might've left me. less time or energy to do something for somebody else, but I don't know.
[00:15:02] Lily: It's your spoons. Have you ever heard of that? You know, your spoon? Of course you have. But basically the spoons are, if you don't know, are like how much, actually I don't really, it's, I think it's like how much bandwidth you have. I don't feel like I should be telling this story. It's usually used for
[00:15:23] Dr Jodi Aman: people with chronic pain or chronic illness or something.
[00:15:26] Dr Jodi Aman: So many spoons in a day, very few, right? And so they have five. And if you spend it on some things, you have nothing left, but really, we all have spoons. Maybe people, obviously some people have more bandwidth than other people. And at different times we have different bandwidth. That means like the energy you have to like function and do things or, you know, explore or dream or create, right?
[00:15:52] Dr Jodi Aman: That the energy you have for all of that's in your life, that's like your energetic or energetic or emotional bandwidth. So yeah, it's there's a limit. to that. And there's some things you could do to build yourself up, build that emotional bandwidth up. And if you've had a loss or you've had a trauma or if you had a history trauma, it does affect your bandwidth.
[00:16:15] Dr Jodi Aman: That's not, you know, forever. You could heal that. And and but it does, it's so effective. It's effective. Like our world affects and we affect our world. So if we're trying to build our bandwidth up and trying to be better, even if we're just, even if all we could do in our small corner is be a little bit kind to some people who we know could use a little extra loving, that makes a difference.
[00:16:42] Dr Jodi Aman: And I'm not trying to whitewash it and be like, that's all you have to do is just be nice. And then you don't have to worry about anything else. No, I think it's important for us to think about things and try to be the one that helps or, you know, leave every place you go a little bit better than, you know, You found it.
[00:16:58] Dr Jodi Aman: I like that idea.
[00:17:00] Lily: It's I don't even learn about some to be honest, I sometimes avoid because I mean, TikTok is not a reliable source. And admittedly don't do as much research on some world issues because I don't want, because I know that I'm not going to be able to help it. And so I'd rather just not hear about all the death, which is good.
[00:17:26] Lily: So you're honest. Yeah, sometimes you can take your space from it, but I think that another way to just help is to get educated about it. Even if I don't even if I'm not signed up for news alerts of what just in? But I could, I wish that, and I think a goal for me is to have more history knowledge about everything.
[00:17:50] Lily: And if it's something like the hurricane that doesn't have history necessarily, I
[00:17:57] Dr Jodi Aman: don't know. Sometimes it does because sometimes it's the like inequitable infrastructure that, that causes, you know, so sometimes history does make a huge difference in that kind of those kinds of things. And, you know, I mean, when I was your age or when I was in high school, even I didn't care about history.
[00:18:13] Dr Jodi Aman: It was so boring. I couldn't get it. It doesn't make any sense. Now it's so interesting. It's like a story.
[00:18:20] Lily: Yeah I have trouble with history. No, I, for some reason, I never treat it like a story. It's always, it like goes in through one ear. It, I can't really form it. I don't know. I never understood history.
[00:18:34] Lily: Yeah. I mean, my brother, your
[00:18:36] Dr Jodi Aman: uncle's a history teacher and he brings history alive. I think so much of our family when we're talking about things it really is so helpful and it's like interesting when he talks about it, but he also talks about that phenomenon of young people or the way it's taught or the way these textbooks are don't hit young people.
[00:18:55] Dr Jodi Aman: Like they don't get it as a story.
[00:18:57] Lily: Yeah.
[00:18:58] Dr Jodi Aman: And when people are older. So it is some kind of phenomenon that history, the way it's taught, is not interesting. And then later people are interested and like anthropology is interesting or like sociology and like how people work and you know, that kind of culture is so interesting.
[00:19:18] Dr Jodi Aman: Who knew then I'd be a social worker when I hated social studies. One more thing before we end here is that was watching this video. I put it in the blog that goes along with this. So if you are listening on the podcast or if you're on YouTube or LinkedIn or Facebook or wherever you're watching this you could come on over to my blog and the link is below.
[00:19:38] Dr Jodi Aman: I put this video with Robert. Putnam is the author of Bowling Alone, and he talks about social capital. So how our relationships is like capital means like value, right? It has value. And how our relationships are so valuable and how joining things or being, doing activities with other people is so valuable.
[00:20:06] Dr Jodi Aman: valuable in terms of our health, in terms of our economics, because, you know, we have more opportunities, that networking is so much more important than what your degree is, who you know, who you're making connections with. And you know, people live longer when they're with other people. And I think we're so socially isolated.
[00:20:25] Dr Jodi Aman: And there's one thing I was thinking about, there's one thing that the, you know, these kinds of situations do bring people together. But we're not used to it as much as we have been in generations past, you know, with everyone knew their neighbors and now people are just meeting their neighbors, you know, during these kind of catastrophes.
[00:20:44] Dr Jodi Aman: But but seeing people, you know, coming together is bringing, does bring some hope and and even sometimes like people who are not in the city who's affected, you know, in Rochester will fill a bus and send the bus down with supplies. You know, we've done that many, over my lifetime, that's happened tons of times when there's a disaster in another part of our country.
[00:21:06] Dr Jodi Aman: You know, somebody's organized a bus and we load it with things and it sends it down. It feels like you're doing something, you know? Yeah.
[00:21:14] Lily: Yeah.
[00:21:14] Dr Jodi Aman: But that social capital, I think is really making me think today how important it is to, if there's nothing else to do, what would be good for you and for everybody in the world is if we joined more groups.
[00:21:31] Dr Jodi Aman: If we were with people in person more often, it would probably change the course of the earth and maybe stop that clock. You know, if we were, we came together, first of all, there'd be more tolerance. So there'd be more equity. If we came together in communities, there would be more earth care. If we came together in communities, maybe we'd cook and eat instead of getting taken out all the time.
[00:21:55] Dr Jodi Aman: I don't know. I don't know. But, I think that's one of the most important things that we could do to really change the world. That's what I'm thinking.
[00:22:04] Lily: Like even just a club or does it have, does, is it okay if it's, or does it have to have a theme of like earth club?
[00:22:13] Dr Jodi Aman: No, it can be anything you join really.
[00:22:16] Dr Jodi Aman: I mean, You know, the personal is the political. So if you're joining something, you're together with people, like you're making a difference to, even if it's just like that one other person leaves that meeting happier because someone acknowledged them or thanked them or something like that, like then they go home and are nicer to their family, you know?
[00:22:34] Dr Jodi Aman: So like the ripple effect. Or some of these, you know, When people come together, they decide to get together and do something. So they may create something that solves a problem, or they might be like, we should get together and go to the boss and tell him that we need more, you know, time off. You know, people get together and, you know, quite often they do stuff like civic minded.
[00:22:57] Dr Jodi Aman: Civic mean like they're making a difference in their community.
[00:23:02] Dr Jodi Aman: So it could just be a book club, or it could just be like going out to dance together or hanging out at a pub, you know, it doesn't have to be like meeting for, to, you know, for rights.
[00:23:17] Lily: Yeah. But it's also okay to have a night out.
[00:23:21] Dr Jodi Aman: Oh no. I'm saying those things are just as good is what I'm saying.
[00:23:24] Dr Jodi Aman: Exactly. Oh, I see. Yeah.
[00:23:26] Dr Jodi Aman: That was nice. Nice talking to you, Lily. Nice check in. Nice check in. Thank you so much for joining in the conversation. We're on every Monday at 8 p. m. Sometimes Lily joins us. Sometimes we have a guest or sometimes you get me all by myself, but every Monday at 8 p. m Come hang out with us. If you feel the weight of the world on your shoulders, you are not alone and you have so much adaptability and ability and capability and you are so much more than you know that you are.
[00:24:01] Dr Jodi Aman: And so stick with us and we'll show you exactly how. So we'll see you next Monday. Bye.