When Life Falls Apart: How To Break Old Patterns, Rewrite Your Inner Scripts, and Find Purpose | Dr. Suzan Song

Why "how am I feeling?" isn't always the right question, why resilience doesn't mean what you think it means, and how rituals can steady you.

Dr. Suzan Song is a Harvard- and Stanford-trained psychiatrist, humanitarian researcher, and adviser. For more than two decades, she has dedicated her work to building resilience in individuals and communities affected by adversity. She has a private practice in Washington D.C., is a professor of psychiatry at George Washington University, and is a sought-after speaker on the science of healing. Her new book is Why We Suffer and How We Heal: Using Narrative, Ritual, and Purpose to Flourish Through Life's Challenges.

In this episode we talk about:

• How a violent attack on her father shaped her life's work
• Why we recreate the painful situations we swore we'd avoid
• Why chasing stability causes so much of our suffering
• Three tools for hard times: narrative, ritual, and purpose
• How to spot and rewrite the scripts running our lives
• How people heal in countries with almost no therapists
• Why validation has to come before asking someone to change
• Why purpose is about being needed, not achieving more
• Why she thinks we've gotten "resilience" all wrong

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Additional Resources:

• Run, Run Pure Beauty

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