# DTD 204
This is the Drive Time Debrief, episode 204.
Hey guys. Welcome back to the podcast. I'm Amanda. I'm Laura. And I'm Kendra. And this is part three of the fallout of me scrolling too much on TikTok. This is a discussion about random internet advice. So this time Kendra is gonna lead us.
Okay. So the first one I've got today goes a little something like this. "When you focus on the good, the good actually gets better." Yeah. I think this goes along with that negative mental filtering that, yes, that we constantly are so good at. Why? Because just like as physicians, we're trained to look at the bad, we're looking for the bad. We don't care what's going right with the patient. That's not why we're there. That's not why the patient's there. They wanna tell us. Actually they get mad when you tell them there's nothing wrong and you're completely healthy. Right? How many have experienced that?
But I think that definitely goes along with the fact that because we're trained that way and we're in that mode at work, it's very easy to bring that home. And I know I've noticed it, and as my kids have gotten older, it's almost cringey because I hear them saying the negative first. Like I hear them doing that negative mental filtering. "Oh, it's not gonna get better mama." I'm like, "But is that true? Is there an option for it to get better or is there an option for things to change?" Like you may not like them today, but what could be one thing? And I know that shifting to that attitude of gratitude has really helped. Because maybe you could just be thankful, you know, thankful for just something. And just that little shift I think puts you in that mindset that, "Oh, I'm thankful for this, and oh yeah, I'm thankful for this and oh yeah, I'm thankful for this."
And then as you start to condition your mind to the former rather than the latter, you tend to be able to then say, "Oh, well I'm glad that went so well. I'm glad" you know that becomes the first thing out of your mouth and then that can flip the script on that negative mental filtering. Yeah.
Yeah. We even have a whole section on this in our Wellness 911 course and here is the science behind it—if you really were to have to assess and attend to every single bit of stimuli that comes through your eyes or through your ears or through your sense of touch, you would be overwhelmed and incapacitated. And so there is a strategy that our brain has called selective attention, and you may be familiar with the famous Black Gorilla video or test that they did, where you're so focused on a task that you don't even notice in the middle of this video, a black gorilla that walks across the screen and you're dumbfounded because when you watch it back, you're like, "Oh my god. There is a giant gorilla that just walked through the middle of the screen and I was so focused counting the ball passes or whatever it was that you miss it."
So this is the thing is that you have a reticular activating system that's constantly on alert and it will feed you what you are asking it to show you. If you're trying to come up with a solution, it's on alert for a solution. If you are on alert for what's going wrong, which unfortunately we are so good at, it makes us so good at our jobs that we are constantly on alert for what is going wrong at the first moment that it goes wrong. That is such default mode for us sometimes, but then it's all that we see. And so I do like to think of it as like all it is, when you start to look for the good on purpose, you're not gaslighting yourself. You are simply changing the channel of the TV show that your brain is presenting to you for as long as you choose. And like at the beginning, sometimes you can even just ask it to do half of the time. Continue to focus on all the horrible things if you want to, if you like the result of that. Just ask your brain sometimes to change the channel or you just miss all the good that's out there.
I also think this works with giving people the benefit of the doubt. I know I was coaching a client the other day and I said, "What if you just paused and assumed good intentions?" And I know we worked on this myself in my own marriage counseling. What if you came to the conversation or even just stopped and paused and like maybe this person's multitasking at the time and they're not really avoiding you. They're just doing so many things at one time that it seems like they're not giving good customer service or whatever it might be. And the same like in marriage too. What if you just assumed, gave the person the benefit of the doubt that they're not trying to do whatever. And I wonder if even just that little bit of shift, like maybe you can't go all the way to like finding the good or even being grateful, but just a small shift like that too, that might be a benefit.
Okay. How about this one? A little negative, but "If someone is dumb enough to walk out of your life, let them walk." I mean, I personally like this advice. It's kind of worded in a strongly worded way, but there's 8 billion people in the world, right? Like grasping for scraps or crumbs in your life when they don't wanna be there. I don't know. I don't know that that's how you want to use your energy. I don't know. I've done it many times, especially when I was a teenager in relationships. And I don't know, me personally, it's never worked out well. Maybe other people it has, but that's been my experience.
There also is a tendency for people to push people away. Mm-hmm. Because they're afraid of connection or because of behaviors that you guys haven't discussed or there's a misunderstanding or something like that, so, mm-hmm. Yeah. So that's probably not a good 100%. No, it sounds self-protective, I think. Yeah. It probably matters which relationship it is too. If it's a casual friendship, then true. There's less, yeah. You know this is some of the advice that comes out that like, maybe you shouldn't apply it to every aspect of your life, but mm-hmm, it's worth considering. Mm-hmm.
Yeah. I wonder if you know, reflecting back on my life and the people that have walked out, I think lessons learned from those seasons where someone came into my life in a season where maybe I wasn't able to give my all to that relationship. I was maybe distracted by something else that was consuming a lot of my life, and so they walked. But I will say, it seems to come full circle. I know, you know, my best friend of 40 years, we had a falling out in high school, but I mean, we reconnected, you know, so I do have faith that if there's a season where they walk, if it was truly meant to be, or there was even just an already established relationship there, it seems to come back around. It may be just for that season, whether that other person was going through something or you were, and then that season it just required a lot of your attention and you weren't able to nurture that relationship.
So, you know, there's been many lessons learned and people that have walked out of my life that I look back and I'm like, "Oh, thank God." In the middle of that you were like, "Oh, that was probably good for me. I probably did not need to be in that dysfunction." 'Cause when you're in it, you don't recognize it as dysfunction. You're like making excuses left and right. So there are a lot of lessons learned.
Something I've come to recognize too is that it depends on the phase of your life. It depends on what they're going through as well. Sometimes relationships are not meant to go the distance. Sometimes there is such a thing as a season and it comes to a close, and that's not anything that's gone wrong. That just wasn't one of the lifelong relationships that you were supposed to have. And I think you can have peace with some of that when rather than trying to make it into something that really was never the purpose of that relationship to begin with.
I like this exercise where you write down a list of all of the things that you want, but the rule is every other one has to be something that you already have. Like there are so many things in your life that the younger version of you would be like, "Oh my gosh, we made it. We have all of these things. I have a home that I live in. I have the job that I wanted. I have kids" and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. When you tend to think about what you want, most of us are thinking about lack—the things that we don't have yet. So that's why I do like the exercise of having that sandwich where you already have so much that you set out to accomplish. I love that. That is really good. Yeah.
So also the next one is a good one too. Especially when we talk about the past version and the future version of you. "The right doors won't open for you until you are the version of yourself that's supposed to walk through them." I have learned the same lesson over and over. Yes. This is possibly true. I'm trying to think of how it might not be true, but definitely sometimes once the thing has happened, I'm like, "Ah, yeah, I wanted it to be easy. I wanted it to come with no effort. I wanted it," and that just wasn't the way that it was gonna be. I don't know. What do you think?
Yeah, I think too, I think about missed opportunities in my life or disappointments from like not making the team or not getting that first job. Or maybe, you know, people who've applied several times to get into med school or a residency or whatever. I think about the end story or the next chapter and you know, they eventually got in or they got a residency that, you know, maybe wasn't their first choice, but looking back, "Oh wow, that was a great place to train," or whatever it might be. I think about that in the way it showed up in my life for maybe, you know, a missed opportunity where I didn't get the scholarship or I didn't get the job, or I didn't get the whatever. But then the next phase after I'd gone through a period of growth or picked myself back up, you know, that next step, I was like, "Oh, this is why I needed to be a year or two older, wiser, whatever you wanna say." Or "This is why I needed to do, you know, the extra whatever." And so that's when I think about this, was those missed opportunities where you're like, "Wow, I felt like I was a strong candidate, but maybe not this time."
I also like it too, just because it didn't work out the first time, that's not a reason to give up. I do like the idea anyway. It feels more true to me that if you weren't ready this time, it circles back around and circles back around and circles back around. I don't like the idea of like you had one shot and well just give up now. Right. That doesn't seem useful to me. No, I agree, and I think that's almost always true that those opportunities will circle back around. Yeah, maybe even more applicable than the ones you were thinking of. So here we are. Yeah. Sometimes that door needs to stay shut so that you get on the path that you're supposed to be. I wonder, yeah, we do like to go back to these doors a lot sometimes. Yeah, that's true.
Okay, so we'll wrap this up with one more. "You'll always face situations you think you can't overcome, but every time you do—still alive." Yeah. Yeah, I've made it so far 100% of the time. They can't stop the clock. Yeah. I just love—Amanda will appreciate this. Like, our Oklahoma Sooners man, they have this new sweatshirt that says "Hard to Kill." I mean, we have persevered this whole season. God love us. But I sometimes wonder that we're hard to kill and—yeah, we tend to fall apart in the playoffs, but yeah, we don't go down without swinging.
Hurts a little bit. I'm sorry you brought that up. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. It's a little too soon, but I will tell you, I thought about this. I'm like, "Okay, we did go into several games being the underdog on the road and came out on top." So I'm like, I don't know. Maybe—I do like the memes that are like, "Lord, I've grown enough. I don't need to do more challenges. I'm good." Yeah. I appreciate those for real.
Well that until I start scrolling obsessively again wraps this three part series of random internet advice. I'm sure we will have parts four, five, and six sometime soon, knowing me, but yeah, and if y'all have any good experiences with random internet advice, please send them to us. We'd love to talk about it on air. You can email us at [email protected]. Yeah, keep it coming. We'll check it out on our own time. And we definitely love to do more episodes just like this.
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Thanks for spending time with us today, and until next time, you are whole. You are a gift to medicine and the work you do matters.
