Episode #33 Work Parent Thrive with Dr Yael Schonbrun

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This transcript is computer generated and may contain errors and not be an exact representation of the audio

Hi, this is Welcome to Self ™ Caring for the Human in the Therapist Chair, and I’m your host, Dr. Hayley D Quinn, fellow human, clinical psychologist, supervisor and trainer. Welcome to Self ™ is a place where you can come and learn ways to elevate your own care and compassion. A place to rest, be soothed, and at times maybe gently challenged to think about yourself and your practice. A place to remember that you are human first, choose the helping profession is just one of the roles in your life. My aim is that this is a place of soothing, comfort, nourishment, growth and nurture. A place where you can also welcome your self.

Hi, and welcome to another episode. It’s exciting to be back with season four, and this time with a guest interview are so excited when my next guest enthusiastically agreed to come on the podcast. I’ve been a fan of hers through the podcast she co-hosts and now her new book. So it means a lot that she’s joining me today. And I’m sure you’re going to get a lot from this episode. In this episode, we will be talking a lot about working parenthood. And I’m aware that not all of you are parents. And some of you may have reasons to choose not to listen into this episode. If that is the case, I hope you’ll tune in again for our next episode. I also think there’s plenty to learn from this episode if you’re not currently parenting. So if it feels right for you, please tune in. And I hope you enjoy the episode and find it helpful. It is my absolute pleasure to introduce Dr Yael Schonbrun. Yael is a psychologist and assistant professor at Brown University, co-host of the wonderful podcast Psychologists Off The Clock and author of Work Parent Thrive. Having chatted to Yael briefly online, recording this episode was the first time we met face to face. And oh my what a beautiful human she is. Her kindness and compassion shines through as she talks. And I thoroughly enjoyed our time together. I hope you enjoyed this episode as much as I have. And I’m sure you’ll find lots of great wisdom in here to

Yael, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. I was absolutely thrilled when you agreed to come on and chat with me. It’s really great.

Yael Schonbrun 2:51

I’m a fan and was excited you reached out. So thank you for honouring me with the invitation.

Hayley Quinn 2:57

Oh, that’s fantastic. So can we start with you telling us about yourself and your journey into the helping professions?

Yael Schonbrun 3:05

Sure. I have long thought of myself as a young budding psychologist, I think I always wanted to feel helpful to people, it’s maybe selfishly driven, because the most important I ever feel is when I have a positive impact on other people and I discovered psychology in college and research in college and was really on a research track for some years, actually, until I became a working parent. And then I really did a pivot in my professional life from academic researcher to somebody who translates academic science to audiences that are outside of academia. But I think in my heart of hearts, I’ve just always been somebody who’s interested in well-being and wants to be helpful. And I love science and I love using science and clinical practice to make people’s lives better and transforming the way that we sometimes see problems that feel like we can’t tolerate them into something that we can tolerate more effectively and even more joyously.

Hayley Quinn 4:04

Hmm, and you’re based over in the US, aren’t you?

Yael Schonbrun 4:08

Right, I’m in Boston.

Hayley Quinn 4:09

Yeah. So you have a clinical practice?

Yael Schonbrun 4:13

Yes, so I wear a lot of hats. I have a small private practice where I specialise in couples therapy and parent coaching. And I also co-host a podcast called Psychologists Off The Clock. I have a faculty appointment at Brown University where I mostly do clinical supervision over there with the trainees. And then I also am a writer, which is what I’m here to talk about, which is what I’m here to talk about the book that I just published, which is Work Parent Thrive.

Hayley Quinn 4:41

Yeah, fantastic. So many, many hats that you are wearing and juggling.

Yael Schonbrun

And I’m a parent of three as well

Hayley Quinn

My goodness. And I’m sure as well many of the people listening will know your podcast Psychologists Off The Clock. It’s absolutely brilliant. So for anybody that hasn’t actually listened to that, they absolutely should go do that, because it’s fantastic.

Yael Schonbrun 5:04

Oh, thank you. Thank you, that means a lot coming from you, because I love your podcast as well.

Hayley Quinn 5:11

So you’ve recently, as you say, released a book Work Parent Thrive. And there’s so many goodies in that book. And I’m sure we won’t get a chance to talk about all of them today. But one of the things you do talk about is this work family enrichment, and how you can use work and or family conflict to nourish enrichment. So could you also speak about locating enrichment in work and parenting? You talk about asking yourself questions to do that? So could you talk more about this and also maybe share some of those questions that you might ask yourself?

Yael Schonbrun 5:45

Sure. So let me just start by defining what is work family enrichment, because most of us know what work family conflict is. And that is this idea that we are our most important life roles and for some people who aren’t parents, that can still be just your, you know, being a partner or a friend and having a job. Or if you don’t have a job that can just be you know, that fact that most of us inhabit multiple roles, and they kind of fight for our attention and our time and our energetic resources. And so that’s the idea of role conflict, that when I’m doing one role, I’m not doing the other. And that’s bad for the role that I’m not doing. Work. Family enrichment is the idea that our roles actually help each other out. And what I think is important to point out is that both are true. That we have finite time and energy and attention and resources that our roles really compete for. And also, when we’re in one role, we’re probably developing skills, for example, that can helpfully feed back into the other. So I think about work family enrichment in three distinct pathways. So the first one that I almost just described just now is this transfer effect, that when we’re in one role, we’re often doing something either taking a break from the other role or gaining skills that can hopefully feed back. The second pathway is what I call the stress buffer effect. And that’s the idea that most of us have roles that are more stressful than we’d like on certain days. And having multiple roles gives us an opportunity to step from a stressful role into a different role and have a potentially positive experience in that role. So for example, if I’m having a really tough day at work, getting to go home and give my six year old a hug, feels great and kind of takes the edge off a rough workday, or if my 12 year old has given me lip. Yeah, go to work and have respectful conversations. And we can do that deliberately. And this is where the science is quite helpful in teaching us how to do that deliberately. The third path is what I call the additive effect. And that’s the idea that psychologists talk about happiness in a variety of ways, including that happiness can really be found in in having a life full of meaning and purpose. And when we inhabit lots of different roles, we have more opportunity to cultivate meaning and purpose, and kind of spread our existential eggs in multiple baskets. And so it gives us a chance to craft more meaning and purpose in the broader scope of our lives by having multiple roles to dig into. And so these three pathways offers ways for our roles to help each other and to help us as individuals as well as to help our families and our workplaces. And so the questions that I often encourage people to ask is, in what ways are your roles helping each other out? In what ways are your roles for example, helping you to manage the stressful experiences in life? In what ways do your roles help you to amplify a sense of meaning and purpose? And by really digging into those kinds of questions and deeply reflecting on that, most people are able to identify ways that they have access to this idea of work, family enrichment. And what’s really surprising, and kind of fascinating is that until you think about it, until you ask those questions, you may not realise that you’re having experiences of work family enrichment. For this book, I interviewed dozens of working parents from really diverse family backgrounds and professional life backgrounds and a lot of people thinking, I never thought about it but now that you’re asking me, I’m thinking about it, and I can identify, and then later people would reach out to me and say, you know, ever since we talked about it, I’m actually experiencing it more, because I’m noticing it, and I’m paying attention to it. And I’m sort of giving it credit. And I’m sometimes reaching out for it when I otherwise might not have even known to do so. And so even just having this concept in mind can actually change our experience, even in the same old life that we live, we’re living.

Hayley Quinn 9:34

Yeah, absolutely. So instead of seeing it as all these things compete with each other, actually, they can complement each other. I was I was a single parent for many years and went back to uni at, well didn’t go back to uni, went to uni when I was a single mum and I guess one of the things for me when I think about it in this context is I was on my own at home with a small child all the time. So being able to go out to work or go to university gave me contact with adults. It was fun, you know, there’s some fun time at uni that it was kind of timeout from parenting. But then also things have been challenging and difficult I could go home and just play with my son and be with him and, and have that sort of balance as well. So I think I think it’s really interesting to look at it like that, isn’t that because at the time I, when I was thinking about your book and my experience, because my son’s now, you know, young adult, I was thinking Work, Parent Thrive, I think I was like, Work Work Parent Parent Survive, in the name of my book had I written?

Yael Schonbrun 10:38

Yes. And I think it can really feel like that. And I don’t mean to undermine the reality of that experience for anybody, I think there are days where you’re where you are work parent and surviving by a thread, you know, that happens, that is true. And at the same time, exactly, as you’re saying, even in what are challenging circumstances being a single parent and going to school or being a single parent and having a very demanding job, there are ways that we can access this enrichment that that makes the whole rigmarole a little bit easier to tolerate. And when we can recognise that without invalidating the challenges that are real and daily, then life can feel a little bit more tolerable and enjoyable. And that doesn’t mean that, you know, we don’t need more supports are more common sense policy in the world, and, you know, the gender expectations, things like that. But at the same time, we can use these tools from psychology to make the daily grind a little bit less painful.

Hayley Quinn 11:38

Yeah, absolutely. I think like you said before, when we have awareness, I mean, if I had I read your book, at that time in my life, whilst I did see some of that, I think that would have actually allowed me to see that more and perhaps draw on that more as well. And I think that sort of stress buffer effect that you talk about, would have been something that I’d be like, Oh, consciously, this is why I’m going to go do that, that’s going to give me ease from what I’m dealing with in the other context. So I think it’s a fantastic book that you’ve written, and it will be so valuable to so many parents.

Yael Schonbrun 12:10

Yeah, well, so far. I mean, it, the feedback has been great. But there’s just been a couple of messages that I’ve gotten largely on social media from parents who are in a tough transition point, I had one paediatrician parent who just had her third child message me and say that it changed the way that she felt about going back to work after having her third child. And for me, that’s like the most meaningful reason that I got into this profession, because I want to feel useful to people. And so it’s just been a really, such a satisfying feeling to see that people are appreciating this message and are taking it to heart and that it changes the way that both they’re thinking about working parenthood, but also that they’re engaging in it.

Hayley Quinn 12:51

Yeah, I like to do touch on in the book. And you touched on then that this isn’t about kind of not acknowledging that some of the systems that we work with within the world, I mean, we you and I are in different countries, and many listeners as well, but within the world, that we have systems that do not support parents, we have systems that do not support people. And I think, you know, you make a point of saying that, you know, this isn’t to say, this is all on us to deal with this. These are still things policies need to change. There’s things that need to happen, but that stuff’s outside of our control, isn’t it? And when I guess when we think from a psychological perspective, we can’t change the things that are outside of our control. So we can focus on this, and what we can make a difference with.

Yael Schonbrun 13:37

Yeah, and I think about it in like a couple of ways. So firstly, exactly what you said, I do think that there’s the sort of outside in issues that psychological tools are not going to, at least in the moment, fix that they’re not your responsibility to fix, but also they’re just outside of our control in this moment. And then there’s insight out that can help us tolerate what is a little bit more skillfully, and and more tolerably. The other thing that I often think about is that the psychological tools help us conserve energy for the fights that really do matter to fight. So we need to fight for change. And that is something that we collectively can do, and we need to be doing and we are doing. But change is slow. Yeah. But it’s exhausting and slow work. So we need to use these tools to really clarify like what’s important, where can we make change, and also the appreciation of which part of the challenges of working parenthood, our systems that need to change and which parts are just fundamentally human that that no matter how hard we fight, we’re not going to change. And what I said in the very beginning of our conversation that I really think is true is that we are going to be pulled in lots of different directions and there’s no system that can do that. Sigmund Freud has this great quote that I love he he contributed a lot that we don’t appreciate. But there’s this one quote that I really love of his where he says “love and work are the cornerstones of our humaneness” and It is abundantly true. And if you’re working parent, or if you just have multiple roles in life, they’re going to pull on each other. And that’s not something that a system can or even should undo. Because that’s part of what makes a full life happy and meaningful. And we know that from research too, that the more roles we inhabit, the happier and healthier we tend to be. And it’s uncomfortable. Both are true. So the systems can’t undo that human part. But certainly, they need to be changed to make the working parent reality more humane. Yeah.

Hayley Quinn 15:31

You also talk about self compassion and connecting to your parenting wisdom. And I know I’m forever talking to people about you know, tune in slow down, listen to your wisdom. How important do you think these are? And could you give us an example of what this might look like for a working parent?

Yael Schonbrun 15:50

Yes, well, I love that you’re constantly counselling people to slow down because slowing down is really an important thing to do. Right? We run around with this. Yeah, it’s, it’s the best life hack. It’s so simple, it’s not easy. And I say this is somebody who knows this and is constantly rushing around, like my New Year’s resolution, is to do one fewer thing before I have to go on to the next thing, cuz I’m always trying to squeeze one more thing, and then I’m late, and then I’m stressed out, and then I feel chaotic and disorganised and not, you know, focused, anyway. But the definition of wisdom that I use in this book is an Aristotelian definition, which is this idea of doing the right thing at the right time with the right people in the right way. And when we are able to kind of tap into the moment into the role and into our values, and to do it in a psychologically flexible way, in an emotionally attuned way, in a way that allows us to be uncomfortable in the service of what’s most important to us, then we’re better able to do whatever we need to do in a very wise way. And so your recommendation to kind of slow down and tap into that parental wisdom is really spot on. And what I argue in the book is that inhabiting multiple roles actually helps us to increase our wisdom, because we gain a lot of the skills that are really useful in doing the right thing at the right time with the right people in the right way. Because we get more practice, you know, being emotionally attuned, doing perspective taking, being compassionate, appreciating what, what’s most important in this role in this moment, knowing that sometimes we need to be resilient, sometimes we need to grit sometimes we need to quit all of those skills, and those muscles of moving through the world, take a lot of wisdom and take a lot of practice. And what’s terrific if you inhabit a lot of rules is you get a lot of practice and a lot of rules. And the more that you do, for example, task switching or rule switching, the more proficient you get at it, the more that you practice taking on your child’s perspective, the better you’ll be able to take on the perspective of a prickly colleague. That’s kind of the transfer effect, the more that you appreciate that a stressful situation comes and it goes, the more that you can deal with a work, catastrophe and teach your kids that as uncomfortable as they feel when they’re really disappointed or frustrated with their sibling that that too will pass. So in all these ways, the more roles that we have, the more we build those skills of wisdom. And the more that we’re able to be wise and model that for our kids, but also be more effective in our work roles as well.

Hayley Quinn 18:29

Yeah, there’s so much to gain isn’t there when we were talking earlier, I thought you were just talking about prickly colleague, the thought, you know, if you can deal with a toddler at 3am having a tantrum, you could probably deal with anyone.

Yael Schonbrun 18:43

Yeah, totally. That’s awesome. You actually more on the skills that you’ve got to manage that. It’s like, oh, actually, I’m really good at defusing situations and calming things down and coming up with good workable solutions. And sometimes at 3am, you won’t be and it will just go horribly wrong.

Yael Schonbrun 19:03

And that’s where self compassion comes in. Yes, sometimes we totally don’t live up to our better selves ideals, and that is okay, that is human. And that is part of how we learn and grow to and not only being forgiving, but also embracing those opportunities is experiences. Ooh, that was painful. But I needed to do that to learn and grow and so that I could do better and also to model for my kids that it’s okay to totally screw up. It’s okay to be a beast, and to apologise, in fact, that’s a really healthy and mature thing to do, even though it’s really uncomfortable.

Hayley Quinn 19:37

Yeah, absolutely. I think if you know if we reflect on the things that we learn in different situations, and I think this is part of the thing, isn’t it? We’re often so busy, that we don’t stop to reflect on the skills we’ve learned the capacity we have. We just moved from one thing to the next to the next. But I think if we can slow down and people aren’t too busy to slow down, it’s like Actually, I think about Kelly Wilson, whenever I think of this, you know, we’ve got a lot to get through, we need to go slowly. Yeah. And people were like, Haha, and it’s like, oh, actually know that you do get more done when you slow it down. And I think if we can actually take the time to slow down and reflect and think well, yeah, what have I learned by dealing with that difficult colleague? Or what have I learned by having to, you know, navigate all the people in the family and get all the things done, and be organised in running a household that I can transfer to work? Or what have I learned at work that I can, like you said before, teach my children about problem solving, or conflict or whatever it might be. I think if we can give ourselves that space and time, it gives you almost the confidence to move forward, knowing that you’ve, you’ve got more on board.

Yael Schonbrun 20:53

Yes, I think that is such a beautiful wisdom. And, again, it’s really hard to do, it’s simple, but it’s hard to do. And interestingly, there’s, there’s really powerful science that explains why it’s hard to do. That, for me is very empowering, because it explains this thing of slowing down this thing of peeling off what is less important, so that you can really invest yourself in the things that matter most to you, is not going to come naturally. In fact, our brains are not wired for it, we’re really good at doing more, and taking on more and pushing ourselves harder. And feeling like you know, when we get to x time period, that then will rest. But that actually isn’t healthy. And it doesn’t lead us to be most effective. And it doesn’t allow us to live in line with who we most want to be. And so what the prescription for that is to really practice exactly what you’re counselling, which is slow down, slow down and figure out what matters most to you and take take some time to reflect because only then are you going to do the things that matter most to you most effectively. Otherwise, you’re just going to kind of be racing through life in ways that don’t feel good, because they aren’t consistent with what matters most to you.

Hayley Quinn 22:04

And I think you know, it is a practice, isn’t it. And like any practice, you’re going to fall off. You’re going to, you’re going to forget, and then you’re going to get back on and you’re going to say Okay, today, I need to try to slow down again. And sometimes you will and sometimes you won’t. And that’s really normal part of the process, isn’t it because like you say, this does not come naturally to us. This is something we intentional about. And keep an eye on in my experience. Over time like most things, if you do keep practising, it does get easier and it can become more of a default, I find myself now more likely to stop and slow and reflect not all the time, of course because like everybody, I’ve got a pulse and I’m as human as the

Yael Schonbrun 22:54

over time, there’s so many interesting, fun, important things to do you have so many skills and interests. And you know, it’s hard to say no, it’s hard to decline things. And it’s hard not to just kind of go with the frenetic pace of life of everybody around you, it feels like you’re missing out on something if you don’t do it. But I don’t know, for other people, the cues might be different. But I think it’s helpful to know your cues when it’s time especially important to slow down and check your pulse and do that sort of clarification of what really matters most and what do I need to peel off? For me, I start to get headaches. If I don’t slow myself down, and I’m doing too much, I get a headache. And I hate those headaches. But there’s such an important cue to me that they are my notice of you’ve been doing too much. It is time to slow down. You’re not effective now. And you need to do less if you want to do the things that you care about, effectively.

Hayley Quinn 23:51

Yeah. As many of my listeners know, I live with chronic illness. And that was that was my will you are going to slow down now because you’re not. And that was a big slowdown. And whilst I manage that and manage it, well, a lot of the time now, I will notice flare ups in pain or fatigue. And that very much are my cues to say, are you taking on too much? Are you doing too much, or it’s just time to just settle down and sometimes that’s just literally for you know what, I’m just going to go make a cup of tea. I’m going to sit for five or 10 minutes, and then I’m going to get back on but it’s honouring not only your wisdom, but your body and your mind as well and sort of saying, Okay, you just need a breather. And then you can keep going and other times it might be you know what I actually need to not do much for the day and rest a lot. So it can be those moments of slowing down and rest. It doesn’t have to be stopping because I think people get fearful don’t they have but if I stop I won’t get everything done so you don’t have to completely

Yael Schonbrun 25:00

Stop, right? That’s where you move away from the black and white thinking into the grey zone of what feels more sustainable, and still allows me to keep the ball rolling on the things that matter most to me. So you’ve had to just generally slow down, I too, I’ve actually had to slow down because I was just hitting my burnout wall pretty much on a weekly basis for a while. And so I started adopting a practice of a Saturday, basically, I’m Jewish, so it’s like a Saturday rest. And I forbid myself from doing screen or work and really commit myself to resting and I commit myself to a nap on Saturdays. And it’s beautiful, it really has reduced the amount of weeks where I just feel myself hitting the wall, which as you’re saying, it’s not that it doesn’t happen. But I with that awareness and those kinds of practices, it reduces the regularity of the burnout, and helps me to protect my body in my mind, which helps me to engage better as a parent and as a professional, it much more effectively than when I was pushing myself hard. I mean, there’s this paradox, right? Exactly as Kelly Wilson says, like, we got it, we got a lot to get through, we need to slow down. If we want to be effective, we need to do less. That’s kind of a paradox that is so common in psychology where you know, exactly the opposite thing of what we’re compelled to do is probably to healthier thing to do.

Hayley Quinn 26:21

Yeah. Which I guess is that part of making it hard, isn’t it because it doesn’t cognitively make sense it’s like, true, but it’s like, you know, well, I invite people listening, try it, experiment with it, have a play around with it, and see what happens in your own life, take a moment to slow down or do one less thing, like Yael has said, do one less thing before you move on to the next thing.

Yael Schonbrun 26:48

Totally. The other example where this comes up a lot, because I specialise in couples therapy. And my private practice is slowing people down when they’re having conversations. People want to get to the let’s solve this, right? It’s so uncomfortable, and I’m so unhappy. And this isn’t working, we need a different solution. And I’m constantly telling my couples that I work with, slow down, because it’s not so clear what it is that you’re solving for, it’s not so clear that you’re on the same page, it’s not so clear that you understand the nuance and complexity of this problem. Yes, it’s incredibly painful. But unless you slow down and prevent yourself from solving it, you’re going to solve it, you’re going to solve in a way that just leaves you just as unhappy as you were, and maybe even more because now you’re frustrated. Because you put all this energy into solving the problem, you’re still feeling bad. But you didn’t get to the root of what it is that’s so problematic. And you didn’t get on the same page as your partner. So exactly what you’re saying is something that we do a lot in couples therapy, which is like slow way down, no problem solving, that is the solution. The solution is we hold off so that we can do it more effectively when we get there.

Hayley Quinn 27:49

Yeah. I’m sure there’s a lot of discomfort start well, that

Yael Schonbrun 27:53

totally totally, totally right. Can we rush ahead because it’s uncomfortable to be where we are.

Hayley Quinn 28:00

Because people don’t want to stop and be with themselves. So I think that there’s a big piece and certainly a lot in my work with people is this changing the relationship with yourself. So actually, you are more comfortable to be with yourself. And then slowing down becomes easier. In fact, slowing down becomes quite nice. It’s like greeting a friend. So I get to spend some time with you. Hey, how you going?

Yael Schonbrun 28:22

Yeah, and by the way, as a parent, I think that is something to teach our kids because they’re, you know, inundated with screens and entertainment and enrichment opportunities, and they don’t get much of a chance to just be with themselves. And we can start by modelling that for them. But we can also encourage them, you know, we’re, we’re just gonna be like, how are you feeling? Like, you know, you’re a good kid, like, Tell me tell me what’s going on? If it’s uncomfortable. That’s fine. Like, that’s acceptable here, too. We can love all of you even the uncomfortable parts.

Hayley Quinn 28:55

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. That’s lovely. So, writing a book is a mammoth endeavour, with so many opportunities for personal change and growth. What’s been your biggest learning through writing your book and having had despite having written the book? What do you find is your biggest challenge in being a working parent? Because I think sometimes people can kind of think oh, well, you know, Yael’s written the book now. so she knows she’s got the magic answer, and she’ll be she’ll be nailing it every day. And I’m imagining because you have a pulse of your human that maybe you’re not nailing it every day.

Yael Schonbrun 29:36

So I didn’t know. I have to share that my 12 year old who’s he’s like a really funny guy. I love him so much. He likes to tease me that I’m the parenting expert who doesn’t know how to parent. He’s joking. He loves me and he thinks I’m a great parent, but he likes to tease me

Hayley Quinn 29:55

My son has a similar humour, I think and sometimes it’s like Ha ha ha ha Oh,

Yael Schonbrun 30:02

yeah, I take it in good fun because I know how much we love each other. Yeah, but I hope that I’m right. I learned, I learned so much from writing this book. I mean, what was so fun about the process, I think I am somebody who’s really embraced growth mindset. And I love learning. But all along the way, there were so many tidbits. So I’ll share one example, which is initially in a in a book proposal, I didn’t have a chapter called remember to subtract, that was a chapter that emerged through an interview that I did with a terrific researcher by the name of Leidy Klotz. And it really changed my frame of thinking. So his research shows that, as we, as I kind of already mentioned, that the human brain is really terrible at subtracting, it’s something that we just systematically overlook when we’re making life design choices, that we’re really good at adding things to our schedule, adding things to our closet, adding things to the cart, when we go through the shopping centre, we’re really terrible at removing them. And that is just a human brain wiring feature that is evolved in us for variety of reasons, recognising that is really important if you want to cultivate a life that has some space to breathe. But what is so interesting is that I had no idea about that I was going to write that chapter to be about, like benign, neglect this concept of benign neglect, that we can do less without harming our jobs or our children. And then when I read his book and spoke to him, I was like, No, we need to go further, we actually need to remove things to do a better job. And so that was a, you know, a totally novel idea to me that I had through the course of writing the book. And there’s many other examples of that. In terms of the things that I still really struggle with, I mean, mindfulness is a real challenge, especially when I’m doing a lot with work, I have a really hard time being very present with my kids. And so it’s this deliberate practice of, you know, recognising that it’s something that I struggle with, and actually engaging my kids. So my my six year old, he just this morning said, Mom, your New Year’s resolution was to do less phone, but I see you’re on your phone, like, I need to put that away, because it sneaks in, right? It sneaks in, and it does disrupt my connection with them. I know that and they know that. And I’m very deliberate about talking about it with them. Like, this isn’t good, it isn’t healthy, in part because I want to do better. And I it’s actually helpful to have the social accountability. And I make myself accountable by saying, you know, I’m really working on this, you know, call me out, if you see it, it’s not your responsibility. But like, if you see it, feel free to let me know. But also, because I’m trying to model for them that these devices are pretty addictive, and that they’re gonna have to contend with that too, as they, you know, grow into older people who have devices themselves.

Yeah. But also what you’re doing is you’re saying sometimes things are really hard, and you need other people to help you with it. It’s like if you see me as your responsibility, but if you if you want to call me out on it, that would be really helpful. Because sometimes, yeah, I can change is really hard for us, isn’t it, and we do need to reach out to other people. But I love as well that they can say, Hey, Mom, you’re doing it again, get off your phone.

In that case, I was actually texting with my 12 year old who was on the bus and wanted me to do something. So I said, You’re right. But this one’s okay. And I’m gonna put it away now. But, ya know, I think our kids can be very wise teachers, if we allowed them to be that doesn’t mean that they’re on the same level, you know, we still need to be parents, but there are things that they can teach us. And as they’re teaching us they can learn to and that’s another way that we can use enrichment in these, you know, roles that have tension, to our benefit and to their benefit.

Hayley Quinn 33:47

Absolutely. I think if you allow it, your children can be great teachers. Absolutely. Like you say, that doesn’t mean you’re not the parent, but just some of the stuff that they come out with, I guess, because they’ve not jaded to the right word. They’ve not been so so influenced by all the things that we can get caught up in as adults that you know, society tells us they have a little bit more of that sort of open mindedness. When when and just saying it as it is, which I think is really quite beautiful. The Spirit quite beautiful, open honesty.

Yael Schonbrun 34:27

Yeah, yeah. It’s like beginner’s mind. They haven’t adopted all the messages that then are kind of corrosive, but also they have no filter. So that makes it pretty funny.

Hayley Quinn 34:39

Absolutely. We spoke a little bit about this with the the additive effects and I speak about diversity of practice a lot in terms of kind of burnout prevention, not as in just doing more and more and more because obviously that could be a recipe for burnout but having diversity and I think that speaks a little bit to the additive effect that you speak to in your book. And how often how important do you see those varying roles as helping professionals? I guess where the parents are not in terms of to prevent burnout?

Yael Schonbrun 35:22

Yeah, that’s a great question. And one thing that when sort of bit of wisdom that I really love, so we all, we all know that the body needs to rest and the mind needs to rest. And if you’re somebody who is occupied in a lot of demanding roles that can feel really impossible, like how do I rest? You know, I work really hard. And then I come home and my kids need dinner, and then my babies up all night, how do I rest? And that is an important question. And science has some nifty answers. Because we do need to rest right, the heart beats 24 hours a day only because it rests between beats. So the hardest, the people who occupied the most demanding multiple jobs need the rest the most. But unfortunately, you know, a trip to Tahiti probably isn’t in the cards if you’re right in the thick of it. And it used to make my blood boil, especially when my kids were particularly young, and I was feeling really burned out that people would say, well, you need to really unplug and take a vacation. Like, it just wasn’t possible. We don’t live near family, my husband has a full time job. And you know, our kids were young and needy. So I needed to find a different way. One body of research that was really transformative for me is the research on Psychological detachment, which is basically a fancy word of saying turning fully off. And what the research shows is that when we’re able to step fully away from one role, that we rest that part of our brain and our body that gets depleted from occupying that role. And what’s more, this is the coolest part of the research is that it doesn’t mean you need to step into a restful role, it means you just step into a different role. So the paradigm shifting study that I often cite is this study that was conducted in the late 90s. With in Israel with Army reservists. And what they did, what the researchers did was they followed employees at a company, half of whom were reservists and who were called into active duty. And what they found was those that were called into active duty, experienced less work burnout than those that were not called into active duty. So this is kind of a startling finding, because what it means is that people who went to war had less burnout, which is pretty bananas, if you think about it, but what the reason for that is, is that they were able to psychologically detach, because they stepped into another role that demanded a lot of their attention that was different, and the role that they had stepped away from. And we can use that as working parents or as people who occupy different roles of whatever sort they might be by using that opportunity. And that pressure to step from one role into another. So at the end of a workday, I have to go pick up my kids from daycare or from school. And that might feel frustrating, because I have so much work to do. But also, I’m really tired from my workday. So the pressure to really fully step into that role and put my phone down and listen to my six year old story is actually really restorative from my work life. And I think you had mentioned earlier in our conversation that when you were a single mom attending school, used to have this experience of okay, I’m really tired from the parenting role. Now I get to go to school and talk to adults and have this really invigorating, you know, dynamic conversation. And now I get to go back to my kid with a sense of restoration rejuvenation that’s come from taking a break from the parenting role. And the reverse is true too. So we can take, we can really take advantage of the pressure between roles to fully psychologically detached to really deliberately turn off that role. And again, the science on this is really helpful, because guilt can really interfere with that. So if I drop my kid off, and he’s crying, and I go to work, if my mind is constantly wandering over to how bad of a mom I am for abandoning him, and how sad he must be, that’s really going to interfere with my ability to recharge my parenting battery. And in fact, and this is true for most kids, not all but like my kid probably got over it two seconds after I left and is having a fine day. But I’m going to come back feeling exhausted because now I worked a whole day but also it was really my energy was totally fractured because I kept my mind kept wandering over to him. So we can respond to our guilt that is really toxic in many ways, but also because it fractures our attention in these ways that don’t allow us to fully psychologically detach and notice it and say to ourselves, you know, this is an opportunity for me to return to parenting or work depending on which role you’re in more fully and, and more in line with the best kind of parents that I can be if I bring myself fully back into the role that I’m in right now. So be where I am so that when I go back to the role that I’ve stepped away from I have more to give it and that really gives us permission In fact, encouragement to really turn off whatever role we’re not in knowing that it helps us in the role that we stepped away from to do. So. It also helps obviously, the role that you’re in to be more mindfully present.

Hayley Quinn 40:11

Absolutely. And I think if we can offer that compassion to ourselves, yes, this is hard, it is hard to leave a crying child or whatever the situation might be. And it’s going to be really beneficial. If you focus in on what you’re doing now, because you’re going to return is that more present committed parent when you when you get back as well. And I think, you know, my parenting role has changed. Obviously, I’ve got a young adult now. And, but I think about that in terms of that diversity and changing roles, where it’s not me going from my clinical practice to coming home and parenting. But even when I change from parent, I do client work, and I do supervision, I obviously do my podcast, and I do some other work as well. Even just shifting from the client work into something else like this, or I sometimes design houses. So that’s very different. And that allows me to Yes, I mean, they couldn’t be more different.

Yael Schonbrun 41:10

I need your help.

Hayley Quinn 41:13

With pleasure, I love it. It really helps to switch off from the type of cognitive load that is involved and the emotional load that’s involved in doing client work, to when I’m doing something very creative, so that when I switch back to doing that, there is more of me to be present again. So I think even if people are not parents, because I’m aware that you know, many people listening may not be parents. This doesn’t just apply does it to this work parent role. It can be, you know, work to work or work to partnership, or work to whatever else is going on caring for parents, perhaps or whatever it is that’s going on in people’s lives.

Yael Schonbrun 41:57

Yeah, and you just said the word creativity. And I just want to give a nod to the research in that domain too. Because exactly what you’re saying like stepping from one role to the other helps to prevent burnout gives us a sense of a break from whatever role that we’ve stepped away from research also shows that it increases our creativity. So and an interesting ways. I mean, you might not be thinking about house design, when you’re podcasting, at least not consciously. But the default mode network, if you’ve been struggling with, like, you know, where we’re going to move the kitchen cabinets here or there, your default mode network actually keeps working while you’re asking a podcast guest questions. And actually, you have more creative thinking, it’s called divergent thinking, when you’re not consciously focused on whatever thing you’re trying to creatively problem solve. But that only works if you’re not consciously thinking about it. So by having those different roles to step into, and a little bit of pressure to fully step into them, you can get more creative. And what the research shows is that when the tasks that we’re working on, are, if the content is dissimilar, so in research that they do in laboratory studies, they switch people from a verbal task to a spatial task. And when the tasks are dissimilar, our creative thinking actually is more creative than when it’s a verbal task to a verbal task. So different kinds of roles actually help us and the science on this is interesting, because what it suggests is that if you’re stepping from house design into podcasting, the part of your brain that would think about house design is more free, because you’re doing something that’s really dissimilar. Whereas if you were doing one house to another house, the part of your brain that works on house design would be occupied. So actually having different kinds of roles that require different parts of your creative mind to to work is quite helpful. So exactly as you’re saying, it doesn’t have to be work in parenting, it can be any kind of role, but then the roles being different is not a problem. It’s a benefit.

Hayley Quinn 43:47

Yeah, yeah. I think that’s the pieces now. I mean, I recommend everybody get your book and and read that because that’s going to really help understand these concepts, and it’s setting it so nice, easy read to your writing style. I’ve bought books in the past I think we all have where you read. It’s hard to read them. This is hard work. And for me, I I’m not that kind of reader. I like things to just flow nicely. And I did find that with your books I’d certainly recommend people pick up Work Parent Thrive. So excuse me, if you were only able to give one piece of advice. What would you most want our listeners to take away from our conversation today?

Yael Schonbrun 44:33

The most important advice that I have is the most general advice because it captures more advice giving your capture at all. And that is to develop a growth mindset around tension between roles. In other words to see discomfort sort of the the opposition between roles is an opportunity Unity rather than a hindrance as something that you can take advantage of, rather than something that is exclusively painful and something to be eradicated because, again, it can’t be eradicated. But there are benefits, just like we think about the symbol yin and yang, right, they sort of pressed against each other, but they’re not actually an opposition, they’re complementary. And so the more that we can find ways that our discomfort can serve us, the better we can take advantage of the ways that our roles press against each other. And the more tolerable the discomfort will feel, because we can recognise like, it’s uncomfortable, and we can have lots of self compassion, especially for those crummy days where like, There’s nothing good gonna happen. But at the same time, we can look for opportunities for benefit to emerge, even in a discomfort. So in other words, you know, my hope for people is that they develop the working parents version of a growth mindset, which I call a work family enrichment mindset.

Hayley Quinn 45:58

That’s beautiful. So this next question, I ask all my guests and I, it’s my favourite. If you could meet your 80 year old self, what do you think she would say to you?

Yael Schonbrun 46:13

Probably say you should have slowed down and taken Hayley’s advice. Take Hayley’s advice and slow down. Yeah, I actually think that that’s true. I think it’s true. It’s such good advice. It’s really hard for me to do. And I will say it’s it’s it’s, it’s I’m really privileged. It’s because there’s so many things I want to do I get so excited. I love parenting. I’m obsessed with my kids. I’m fascinated by research. I love reading. I love talking to people on my podcast. I love writing. I love seeing patients. So it’s really an embarrassment of riches. That’s the problem. But I think that I would enjoy it more and do a better job and feel better about what I was doing. If I took your advice and slow down.

Hayley Quinn 46:58

There’s still time. Yeah, well, you’re nowhere near

Yael Schonbrun 47:02

a couple of years. Yes, yeah, I got some years to work on that.

Hayley Quinn 47:07

So finally, if people want to find out more about you or get in touch, where can they find you and engage with your work? And I’ll put some links in the show notes for people as well.

Yael Schonbrun 47:17

Awesome. Thank you. Well, you if you love Hayley’s podcast, which you I’m sure you do, you can also hopefully enjoy our podcast, which is called Psychologists Off The Clock. It’s offtheclockpsych.com And then my writing website is workparentthrive.com. And then you can find me on the social media channels by looking for my name Yael Schonbrun.

Hayley Quinn 47:39

Fantastic. Yeah, it’s been an absolute pleasure. I’m sure that people will get a lot out of this episode. I’ve really enjoyed it. So thank you so much for coming on and sharing so much wisdom. It really, really has been a pleasure.

Yael Schonbrun 47:55

Well, you are just a treasure and I’m so grateful to have had the opportunity to connect with you. Thank you.

Thank you for sharing this time with me today, I hope your time here was helpful and supportive. If there has been something in this episode that you have found helpful, I invite you to share it with another person you think might benefit. I’d also love it if you would like to leave a review wherever you tune in. Reviews really help to increase awareness of podcasts, meaning I can spread helpful information more widely. All reviews are welcome and much appreciated as I know they take time out of your day. If you’d like to be notified when the next episode airs, please use the link in the show notes to join my mailing list. Music and editing by Nyssa Ray, thanks Nyssa. I wish you all well in your relationship with Your Self and may you go well and go gently.

Episode Links

Yael’s Website: workparentthrive.com

Twitter: https://twitter.com/DrYaelSchonbrun

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/yaelschonbrun/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yaelschonbrun/

POTC website: offtheclockpsych.com

Book on Amazon

Link to essay in WSJ

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