Normalize Mental Health, Forge Habits of Hope with Lindsay Recknell
In this episode of Good Enough for Now, we hear from Lindsay Recknell, president and CEO of Paradigm Corporate Wellness, Inc. As a life-long learner, Lindsay strives to know more when the answers aren’t all there. When met with burnout from managing mental health and addiction on the home front, and overworking herself in high-demand jobs, she set out to research what was going on, and what she could do about it. She found hope.
Lindsay is on a mission to share the science of hope with others. She shares how to cultivate habits of hope in our lives that sustain us for the long run ultimately nourishing our level of success in all aspects of life. With hope, comes action, comes change.
Tune in to hear how Lindsay is bringing the hope she’s cultivated in her life into the sphere of corporate businesses, and in her podcasts to normalize the conversation around mental health so that we may all live more free and positive lives, together.
LISTEN NOW
three reasons why you should listen to this episode:
Learn how to create life-sustaining goals that cultivate hope and habit
Discover how organizations are normalizing the conversation around mental health in the workspace
Delineate the difference between hope and optimism
Highlights
Lindsay shares with us her decision to step away from her two podcasts, Hope Motivates Action and Mental Health for Leaders. One of which she’s been in production with since May, 2021 and the other of which she’s completed 12 seasons with, publishing episodes twice a week.
As much as she loved them and her audience loved them, it was time to step away.
Lindsay: But ultimately I was losing the joy in it. I was losing the reason for doing it. It wasn't giving me the return on my time investment and my financial investment to be frank. And so I've decided to put them at least on hold, but maybe indefinitely and see what kind of space that opens for 2023 as far as opportunity for time.
Lindsay’s goal when she started the Hope Motivates Action Podcast was to compliment the work she was doing so that the message of hope could spread and also, the science of hope.
Lindsay: There are not a lot of people in the world that know about positive psychology and more people need to know. And so I use the podcast as a platform to combine both knowledge about the science with how the science was in action in people's lives.
Lindsay didn’t realize she didn’t have hope until the day she felt hope and was acutely aware of it.
Lindsay: So I found the science of hope sort of by accident. I didn't realize I'd lost my hope until the day I recognized that I got it back. And it was this totally innocent, nondescript kind of moment where I remember very clearly sitting up straight and then kind of slumping down because I thought, oh, this feeling that I have, it has to be hope.
When met with burnout from managing mental health and addiction on the home front, and overworking herself in high-demand jobs, Lindsay set out to research what was going on, and what she could do about it. This is when she found the work of positive psychology and the science of hope.
Lindsay: And that's where I found the science of positive psychology, which has been around since the late 1990s, and is kind of the antithesis to traditional psychology. If you think of traditional psychology as the science of decreasing sadness, positive psychology is all about increasing flourishing. Instead of going from negative to neutral or going from neutral to positive.
Lindsay shares with us what the research shows on hope and its cognitive process that is directly tied to one’s success in life.
Lindsay: When I learned that hope was a cognitive process in our brain, I felt so validated… it's actually a cognitive process in our brain. And there are over 2000 research studies to support how health outcomes, life outcomes, success in school, success at work, success for kids, how your level of hope and there is a scientifically proven hope scale that can show where you are on that scale. But your level of hope is so tightly correlated to success in life.
Lindsay distinguishes her outlook on the difference between hope and optimism. They are not the same.
Lindsay: The difference being that hope without action is just a wish. So optimistic people as an example, don't have that action behind it. Don't have that desire to do something to get them to that future better than today. Whereas a hopeful person knows that it's not just gonna work out if we smile and wish for it to be hopeful, people will actually take the steps to get them to the place to solve the problems, to connect to their intrinsic motivation to drive them to that future better than today.
Lindsay shares her definition of hope and how it’s directly correlated to action and control.
Lindsay: My definition of hope is that the future will be better than today by taking action over the things we can control. And the keywords in there are future action and control.
Lindsay shares with us the Hope Theory Formula designed by Dr. Rick Snyder, a hope scientist.
Lindsay: … he came up with this formula called Hope theory. And it talks about goals clearly, which we know goals are, plus agency thinking, which is our intrinsic motivation to accomplish that goal, combined with pathways thinking, which is our ability to overcome the obstacles that are absolutely gonna get in the way. And so when you have those three things together, that's hope theory, and that is what drives that cognitive process in our brain.
We ask Lindsay, what is the connection between positive psychology and hope to goal setting. Of which, Lindsay shares her “secret sauce” to setting sustainable goals.
According to Lindsay, if we turn our goals into habits, we will relieve our decision making process that’s hard at work every day. Thereby creating room for the things that matter.
Lindsay: I think the key though, the important thing is the lifestyle sustainability of the goals. I'm a believer that goals are not something that are sustainable most often. In general, if they are like a huge change in your life, a huge impact in your life, I'm not sure that cold Turkey, anything works as successfully as you know. Right. Taking steps towards the goal in sustainable ways, habit and routine is my secret sauce. Absolutely. The secret to all of my success is finding ways to habitualize and make those habits into routine. And I think that's really super key to goal setting.
So that takes away a decision-making process, which is an energy drainer. And so if you can sort of move a lot of those inconsequential decisions to your subconscious, it just frees up your decision-making powers for stuff that actually matters.
Lindsay shares with us her love for working with organizations to bring the conversation around mental health to the forefront. She is confident that the more often we converse about mental health in the workspace (especially) the more we will habitualized the topic and the okay-ness of it all.
Lindsay: But my favorite organizations are the ones that are trying to habitualize conversations about mental health at work and just make them as normalized as any other conversation we have.
Lindsay shares her belief on what helps the most when she or her clients are in need of hope and connection.
Lindsay: So I think the first key is truly connection. Fears are louder in the dark. I know for sure the positive impact of talking out loud. Sharing those stories out loud with other people had a huge impact on me. It took me over a year to tell anybody what was going on for us at home. But once I did it was like, what the hell was I waiting for?
Because once it's out into the world and you can sense the positive impact it's having on you to get that stress and energy out of your own body. And then you see the impact that it's having on other people who respond with compassion, who respond with support, who respond with resources and tools and professional introductions and things like that. And then you start to see other people who are in similar places that you are or are a little bit behind you in their recovery process and you can see the hope that you're inspiring in other people.
What Good Enough For Now means to lindsay:
Patience and grace. My mental health counselor said to me once when the tolerable becomes intolerable, that's when you'll make a move. And tolerable is okay. That has stuck with me for years because sometimes I think, well, I should do this thing or I deserve better, or whatever the scenario is. And I'm harder on myself than anybody else would ever be on feeling like I'm failing myself, or I'm failing other people, or whatever. But sometimes there's just other priorities that you're working on and that's okay. Until that tolerable becomes intolerable, you'll know when to make a move. That is that pivot point. I think that is that tipping point, you know, to use Malcolm Gladwell's words, it definitely has stuck with me and has been a huge driving force in that self-forgiveness, that permission to just be in those moments when they show up and when I need to feel like it's okay.
ABOUT
As the president & CEO of Paradigm Corporate Wellness Inc, Lindsay Recknell closes the skill gap for professionals, upleveling their careers by teaching them the mental health skills they need to know to feel knowledgeable and confident about mental health at work.
A CMHA-Certified Psychological Health & Safety Advisor, Lindsay works with Leaders & HR Professionals to give them the language to know what to say about mental health at work, how to help while considering the moral, ethical and legal considerations and how to make mental health-related decisions in the best interest of the company, their individual teams and, most importantly, themselves.
She also has a bachelor’s degree in Entrepreneurial Leadership and has started and grown four entrepreneurial businesses in the last 12 years. With 15+ years of experience in facilitation, speaking, leadership development, podcasting, and content creation, Lindsay ensures all content meets her exacting standards and is designed to engage and educate in the most impactful ways possible.
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Stephanie (00:04):
Welcome to Good Enough for now, a show that explores stories of transition, fall starts, unexpected U-turns, and moments of reinvention that happen as we move through life. I'm your host Stephanie Kruse. If you've ever wondered, is it just me? When life's best slave plans seem to go awry, takeaways from conversations with my guests can leave you with ways to stay grounded, feel a little less alone, and a little bit more together.
(00:41)
Lindsay Recknell is the president and CEO of Paradigm Corporate Wellness, Inc. Lindsay Renell closes this skill gap for professionals upleveling their careers by teaching the mental health skills they need to knowledge and mental health work. A Cmha certified psychological health and safety advisor. Lindsey works with leaders and HR professionals to give them the language to know what say about mental health at work, how to help while considering moral, ethical and legal considerations. How to mental health related decisions in the best of the individual teams, and most importantly, themselves. Also has a bachelor's degree in entrepreneurial leadership and has started and grown businesses in the last 12 years with 15 plus years of experience, facilitation, speaking, leadership development, podcasting creations, all engage the most impactful ways possible. Welcome, Lindsay.
Lindsay Recknell (01:43):
Thank you so, so much for having me.
Stephanie (01:45):
I'm so glad to have you. I cannot wait to talk to you because I was so inspired in looking at the work that you do around the psychology of hope. We all need a little bit of hope these days, <laugh>,
Lindsay Recknell (01:59):
Don't we ever.
Stephanie (02:01):
Woo. Tell me where you are in your life right now.
Lindsay Recknell (02:05):
Whoa, that's a big question for the very first one,.Stephanie, I have to tell you, um, where am I in my life right now? You know, I'm feeling quite opportunistic. Recently made some pretty big decisions in my business that took me a really long time to make. And so now I feel a whole lot lighter than I did even two weeks ago. And I mean, I should know this stuff. I work in this space, I talk about this, but it's made a much bigger impact on my physical body than I had anticipated it making. And it's freed up a whole lot of space in my head, also in my mind, to make a lot of plans for next year and kinda get re-engaged and re-motivated into what I want next year to look like.
Stephanie (02:48):
That is so timely because for me, as we are talking about this and as listeners are joining me, this will be season two when I have taken over the helm of Good Enough For Now on my own. So making decisions that lead to relief and opportunity I can definitely relate to. So tell me a little bit about the decisions you've made, how you were in the feelings and emotions of it before you made that decision, and what kinda helped you bridge to where you ended up.
Lindsay Recknell (03:21):
Yeah, you bet. So the big decision that I made is to stop publishing my podcast. I have two podcasts. One of them is called Hope Motivates Action, and I've been publishing it since October of 2019, I think. I dunno, I'm in season 12 of Hope Motivates Action <laugh>. My second podcast is called F and I have been publishing it since like May of 21. Call it. I am in season seven of that show. And I love them. I meet the most fantastic, interesting, inspiring humans that you, I mean, you do know you get to podcast also, um, especially My Hope podcast, which is not a professional podcast, it's not a business driven podcast, is entirely all about interviewing, inspiring people using hope to make transformation in their lives. So imagine the cool people I get to meet. And then on the mental health side, it was a really great opportunity to interview leaders and HR professionals who are doing the good work out there to raise collective wellness and make sure that the employee experience is really centered around the humans that work there. And again, really, really inspiring. But it's a crap ton of work. <laugh>.
Stephanie (04:38):
Oh boy, don't I know it?
Lindsay Recknell (04:41):
You know, and, and I had help. I have a post-production team, I have a social media content support team and they are awesome, awesome humans. And it was still a ton of work for me and I just found that I wasn't giving it enough of my energy over and above the minimum required for me to publish. It's a weekly show, so I publish two episodes a week, which means I'm recording at least twice a week plus guest management and finding cool guests and meeting with them ahead of time and doing all the editing and posting and all that good stuff afterwards. And I wasn't leveraging it to either of them, to their full advantage. And I struggled for a really long time about continuing or not continuing, mostly because people loved it. I loved it and people loved it. The listeners, I got such great feedback.
(05:31)
I mean, somebody emailed me yesterday and said that they never ceased to be amazed. And the last two podcast episodes were deep and important and super, super cool. And it just about made me change my mind <laugh> and didn't turn my decision around, you know? Yeah. But ultimately I was losing the joy in it. I was losing the reason for doing it. It wasn't giving me the return on my time investment and my financial investment to be frank. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> either. And so I've decided to put them at least on hold, but maybe indefinitely and see what kind of space that opens for 2023 as far as opportunity for time. I mean, that's giving me back easily five hours a week at the minimum.
Stephanie (06:19):
At a minimum. Yeah, I'm sure.
Lindsay Recknell (06:20):
And I work on this business 30 ish hours a week. That's, you know, almost 10% of that time. It's 40% of that time. Anyway. It's a lot. So I was a big decision because like I say, I've been publishing these for, well, I'm 200 plus episodes deep.
Stephanie (06:35):
Yeah. One of the things that caught my ear when you were talking about it was yes, you are creating something that benefits others in the world, you're proud of it, you're able to talk to these amazing people. Clearly listeners are, it doesn't seem to be the thing given the investment of time, and maybe if I might put this in lack of return on that investment financially, maybe even for you.
Lindsay Recknell (07:03):
Totally.
Stephanie (07:03):
What was your goal when you started it?
Lindsay Recknell (07:06):
When I started My Hope podcast, it was to compliment the work that I was doing and continue to do. I think Hope has a PR problem and I aimed to solve it. And the podcast went a really long way to spread more hope into the world and truly to share the science of hope, to share the science of positive psychology, of which the field of Study of Hope is a part of positive psychology. There are not a lot of people in the world that know about positive psychology and more people need to know. And so I use the podcast as a platform to combine both knowledge about the science with how the science was in action in people's lives. And then the mental health podcast, I started it as a sales and marketing tool, as an awareness tool, as a opportunity for me to bring thought leadership into the workplace mental health space. Also to learn from these leaders who are doing the thing. You know, lifelong learning is one of my top three values. And getting to know these phenomenal people that are doing cool things out in the world was a huge motivation for me personally, just to learn. And it was a way for me to share with others my sort of style and personality and things like that so that they would hire me to do more work.
Stephanie (08:20):
<laugh>. Right, right. A marketing tool, as you mentioned. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So it's, you know, come and take a sample of who I'm, what I'm about, and what this work that we could do together could look like. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So I would imagine that you aren't done teaching the rest of us about positive psychology.
Lindsay Recknell (08:38):
Nope, sure aren't.
Stephanie (08:40):
So where do you go from here, taking a pause on the pod? Are there new avenues with which you're gonna share your voice? Or are you doubling down on all the things you already have been doing?
Lindsay Recknell (08:52):
It is about the tool for sure. And so I'm going to focus in 2023 on guesting, on other people's podcasts, exactly what you and I are doing right now. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. I've got three interviews scheduled this week. Awesome. I get to meet cool people from the other side of the microphone mm-hmm. <affirmative> and get in front of other people's audiences and talk about mental health at work, talk about the science of hope. And so I'm gonna try that strategy and see how we go from that perspective.
Stephanie (09:20):
Yeah. I imagine there are quite a few people listening to this conversation saying, well, this is great, know about how Lindsey her decision, but I'm not podcaster myself. I can't relate. However, I think that there must be many, many other decisions you've made in your life. I know that I certainly have. Where I might have been putting energy into an effort that started out really great, full of hope to use your word. Um, maybe it worked out okay, but at some level I just realized this is taking more energy than I am able to give, or what I'm getting back from it isn't serving me in other places. Can you talk a little bit about how positive psychology and hope works for people in those other examples in their lives similar to yours when you kinda look at energy and positivity and hope and optimism and put some pragmatic decision making skills to that to move forward?
Lindsay Recknell (10:20):
Absolutely. So I found the science of hope sort of by accident. I didn't realize I'd lost my hope until the day I recognized that I got it back. And it was this totally innocent, non-descript kind of moment where I remember very clearly sitting up straight and then kind of slumping down because I thought, oh, this feeling that I have, it has to be hope. All of a sudden I have this idea for the future, I have this zest for the future, but I slumped down because I thought I'm a reasonably intelligent human being. How did I not know that I'd gotten to this place where I wasn't feeling hopeful and I was going through the motions status quo, you know, going to work, getting groceries, putting on pants, all of the things that we need to do as adults. But it was just that it was going through the emotion.
(11:11)
And I'm a AAA personality. I dunno if you could tell that by now, but <laugh>, you know, I'm always going for the next thing. I'm always striving towards goals and I needed to figure out what the heck had happened and how I could stop it or realize when I was sliding into that burnout before I got to that place. And it was burnout. We were struggling with mental health and addiction at home. I was working multiple jobs for demanding folks and it was just a lot. So I started to read and research and talk to people. And that's where I found the science of positive psychology, which has been around since the late 1990s, um, is kind of the antithesis to traditional psychology. If you think of traditional psychology as the science of decreasing sadness. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> positive psychology is all about increasing flourishing instead of going from negative to neutral or going from neutral to positive.
(12:04)
And within positive psychology, there are virtues and characteristics of which one of those is the science of hope. And when I learned that hope was a cognitive process in our brain, I felt so validated. I mean, we know intuitively what that feeling is, right? We know that zest for the future, that bubbly, anticipatory feeling, but it feels kind of fluffy and cosmic woowoo. But it's actually a cognitive process in our brain. And there are over 2000 research studies to support how health outcomes, life outcomes, success in school, success at work, success for kids, how your level of hope and there is a scientifically proven hope scale that can show where you are on that scale. But your level of hope is so tightly correlated to success in life Hmm. By these studies. It's just so, so cool. And like I say, you know, hope has a PR problem and I aim to solve it.
Stephanie (13:09):
Thinking about the PR problem, one of the things that's gotten some press is toxic positivity. <laugh>. Right. Just smile. It'll be ok. Help me understand how that is different than hope?
Lindsay Recknell (13:27):
I absolutely love this question. I love when people ask me this question because I believe that toxic positivity is more related to optimism than it is to hope. I believe. And keep in mind, this is only my definition from my understanding of the research that hope and optimism are different. The difference being that hope without action is just a wish. So optimistic people as an example, don't have that action behind it. Don't have that desire to do something to get them to that future better than today. Whereas a hopeful person knows that it's not just gonna work out if we smile and wish for it to be hopeful, people will actually take the steps to get them to the place to solve the problems, to connect to their intrinsic motivation to drive them to that future better than today. And so toxic positivity and optimism are highly correlated in that way for me. And I feel like you can absolutely be both an optimistic and a hopeful person, but if you're an optimistic person, you're not always a hopeful one.
Stephanie (14:39):
Hmm. So it's the action,
Lindsay Recknell (14:42):
It's the action piece,
Stephanie (14:44):
Right?
Lindsay Recknell (14:45):
Yeah. So my definition of hope is that the future will be better than today by taking action over the things we can control. And the keywords in there are future, action, and control. There's a scientist, Dr. Rick Snyder, and he's a hope scientist. And he came up with this formula called Hope theory. And it talks about goals clearly, which we know goals are, plus agency thinking, which is our intrinsic motivation to accomplish that goal, combined with pathways thinking, which is our ability to overcome the obstacles that are absolutely gonna get in the way. And so when you have those three things together, that's hope theory, and that is what drives that cognitive process in our brain.
Stephanie (15:29):
There's been a lot of conversation around factors for success like resilience, grit, you know, some of those things. Does hope in and of itself help people learn how to be resilient? Is it a conduit to those?
Lindsay Recknell (15:47):
They're interdependent. So you can be a resilient person and a hopeful person. Resilience and grit are both feels a study within positive psychology as well. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So the science of resilience is all about how you come through hard times, what it feels like on the other side of trauma or adversity and how you perceive that adversity as you're going through it. So if you perceive that adversity as a trauma, as super stressful and negativity and you tend to ruminate on it mm-hmm. <affirmative>, that's a different response than if you see it as a challenge and something to grow through and something to survive, so to speak. And you know, sort of have a more positive outlook towards resilience. Your hope level will be a good predictor of your response through adversity.
Stephanie (16:42):
Okay.
Lindsay Recknell (16:43):
But they're not the same thing, if that makes sense. Yes. Similarly with grit, Angela Duckworth will tell you all about grit in her books. Yes. And she's a positive psychologist. You know, resilience and grit are often related as well, but resilience is about, yeah. That ability to come through hard things and grit is kind of the, I don't know, intensity and longevity of your focus or drive to do the thing.
Stephanie (17:15):
Makes sense. And I think about goal setting and ways to move forward on goals we have in life. Talk to me about resolutions. You know, you hear a lot of conversation, obviously the most famous thing, people talk, I'm gonna go back to gym, I'm gonna work out, I'm gonna lose 10 pounds. There's my New Year's resolution. I'm not gonna drink alcohol as much. You know, it's usually health focused, you hear, should we even have resolutions? How does positive psychology and hope play a role in achieving the next kinda level we wanna get to?
Lindsay Recknell (17:50):
Ooh, such great questions. I'm a huge believer in goals. If you wanna make your resolutions or your goals on January 1st, fill your boots. I like to make my goals on my birthday, my choice. Some people like to make their goals in September, it's like fall, new Years, you know? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, whenever you make your goals do, if you are a goal setting kind of person, awesome. Love it. I think the key though, the important thing is the lifestyle sustainability of the goals. I'm a believer that goals are not something that are sustainable most often. In general, if they are like a huge change in your life, a huge impact in your life, I'm not sure that cold Turkey, anything works as successfully as you know. Right. Taking steps towards the goal in sustainable ways, habit and routine is my secret sauce. Absolutely. The secret to all of my success is finding ways to habitualize and make those habits into routine. And I think that's really super key to goal setting. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So if your goal is to go to the gym, awesome. I would not suggest you say you're going to go to the gym for an hour and a half every single day because that's not, that's not sustainable. Highly likely that's not sustainable
Stephanie (19:10):
For most people. Yeah.
Lindsay Recknell (19:12):
<laugh>. But if you commit to going to the gym every day, you can, then it gives you a little bit more flexibility. It gives you a little bit more grace. It allows you to make it a priority. But if your kids are up the night before and you can't get your butt outta bed, okay, give yourself some grace for that. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. But if you can find a routine, so I get up really early in the morning because I like to work out really early in the morning cuz there's nothing else I could be doing but sleeping the chances of something else interrupting that time are low. And so I've established that as routine and my brain knows that I just worked out at 6:00 AM I don't have to think about it anymore. So that takes away a decision-making process, which is an energy drainer. And so if you can sort of move a lot of those inconsequential decisions to your subconscious, it just frees up your decision-making powers for stuff that actually matters.
(20:08)
Like in my case, food, I really like food or you know, which connections to make or which book to read or something like that. It actually takes eight calories to make a decision. And so when you're at the end of your day and you think back on your day and how many decisions you've made in a day, no wonder you're exhausted. So if you can find ways to move a lot of those activities to your subconscious by making them into habits and routines, you'll free up all of that energy and then you'll have the motivation to go to the gym because you're not exhausted.
Stephanie (20:43):
I love that. I hate getting outta bed early to work out, but when I'm working out early, I don't mind it. Cause it's in my subconscious apparently.
Lindsay Recknell (20:51):
<laugh>. Yeah.
Stephanie (20:52):
That's amazing. I don't have to make any decisions about it. There's no interruptions. Ok. You completely unlock this for me. Thank you. I dunno how quickly I'll be able to turn morning riser, but I'll, so when I work, you do, as it translates into the workplace, I know you work with leaders, you work with organizations to think about mental health and wellness there and how to turn some of this into perhaps, if I might say habits and rituals, routines. Tell me about some of the unique challenges when you think about applying your work to the workplace.
Lindsay Recknell (21:32):
I love that you connected it to habits and routines because that is my whole fundamental goal is I just want to make mental health conversations as normalized as any other conversation that an organization has. And I believe that the only way to do that is to just have them all the time to create psychologically safe workplaces where you can feel comfortable to say on your lunch break, I'm going for a run or I'm going to see my counselor and feel like you can get the same response from your colleagues. Mm-hmm.
(22:03)
<affirmative>. And I don't believe that mental health is one and done. You know, I love when organizations bring me in to do a lunch and learn. Awesome. It's getting us started on that pathway. But I super love when organizations buy into my annual subscription where I get to come in once a month for 12 months because then the organization, they expect it. It's just in calendars. People show up, they know what to expect. All of a sudden it's habit and routine and we're just getting to have these conversations every month. So I'm absolutely here to meet an organization wherever they are on that mental health maturity scale. But my favorite organizations are the ones that are trying to habitualize conversations about mental health at work and just make them as normalized as any other conversation we have.
Stephanie (22:54):
Yeah. I, I think bringing what's behind the decisions we make or the ways that we behave into the conversation about what's working for us or is a challenge for us, just destigmatizes all of it. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. It's just allowing us to show up, you know, for each other, wherever we happen to be. I love that. So you mentioned at the beginning conversation know, needed hope until you, when we think about going through challenges, whether it be, you know, I know you had a challenge in dealing with addiction and recovery in your household. You know, everybody's got some challenge that they find themselves dealing with. What are some practices that you find that either helps you or your clients give you space to connect to hope in those moments?
Lindsay Recknell (23:59):
So I think the first key is truly connection. Fears are louder in the dark. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, and I know for sure the positive impact of talking out loud. Sharing those stories out loud with other people had a huge impact on me. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, it took me over a year to tell anybody what was going on for us at home. But once I did it was like, what the hell was I waiting for? <laugh>,
Stephanie (24:28):
<laugh>.
Lindsay Recknell (24:29):
Cause once it's out into the world and you can sense the positive impact it's having on you to get that stress and energy out of your own body. And then you see the impact that it's having on other people who respond with compassion, who respond with support, who responded with resources and tools and professional introductions and things like that. And then you start to see other people who are in similar places that you are or are a little bit behind you in their recovery process and you can see the hope that you're inspiring in other people. I remember the day that my husband said to me like, you know, you need to tell our story. I'm like, whatcha are you talking about? He was like, just write a book. No. OK <laugh>. Um, he says, but the, the point was that he's as if you can tell our story cuz he's not going to, if you can tell our story and have it positively impact one family, one community that will lessen the impact on them. He says it'll, all of this will be worth it. And I just like, I can just see him in my head telling me that story. And it is the huge driver for me on continuing to share my story, continuing to share his story with permission because hope is contagious. And if other people can feel a little bit of relief from knowing that they're not alone and that other people are going through the same thing, that connection is huge.
Stephanie (25:53):
I completely agree. Thank you for talking about that. I do think there is always that moment when you're going through a difficult time where you think there is just no one else in the world that can possibly relate to what I'm feeling. Right. The cold loneliness of whatever journey you're on. And it's hundred percent true that when you share, I mean I have experiences in my life, when you share what's kinda and not great and hard, you are surrounded by people every time. So I'm so glad that you talked about that. So here's my last question. When you think of the phrase it's good enough for now, what does that evoke for you?
Lindsay Recknell (26:40):
Hmm. Patience and grace. <laugh>, my mental health counselor said to me once when the tolerable becomes intolerable, that's when you'll make a move. And tolerable is okay. That has stuck with me for years because sometimes I think, well, I should do this thing or I deserve better, or whatever the scenario is. And I'm harder on myself than anybody else would ever be on feeling like I'm failing myself or I'm failing other people or whatever. But sometimes there's just other priorities that you're working on and that's okay. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> until that tolerable becomes intolerable, you'll know when to make a move. That is that pivot point. I think that is that tipping point, you know, to use Malcolm Gladwell's words, it definitely has stuck with me and has been a huge driving force in that self-forgiveness, that permission to just be in those moments when they show up and when I need to feel like it's okay.
Stephanie (27:53):
Thank you for that. I'm gonna think about that one. Tolerable to intolerable. That's a good one. I can see why that stuck with you. <laugh> so good. So although your podcast won't be continuing for now, we know that people can listen to you there. Where else can people find you?
Lindsay Recknell (28:11):
I have two websites. So my personal empowerment work, which is all about positive psychology and the Science of Hope, is called expert in hope.com. So you can find me there for sure. And then my corporate work is paradigm corporate wellness.com.
Stephanie (28:25):
Great. I will link all of these in the show notes and make sure that, you know, people wanna learn more about you and connect with you. Easy to
Lindsay Recknell (28:33):
Find. Amazing. Thank you very much. I really appreciate that. Thank
Stephanie (28:36):
You so much.
Stephanie (28:42):
Thanks for listening. The best way to help people find the show is by wording. So please share. It also really helps if you leave a five star rating and review. You'll find show notes at good enough for now, pod.com, and you can connect on Instagram at good enough for now, pop or to me at underscore s Cruise. That's underscore. S K R U S E. See you next time.
