PART 1

[00:00:00]

[00:00:00] START

[00:00:00] Ross: Hi there, and a very warm welcome to Season five, episode 23 of People's Soup. It's Ross McIntosh here,

[00:00:06] Sarah: And, it probably started much younger than that, like when I, I work a lot with, parents, children, families, I, I tend to work with the whole system.

[00:00:15] Sarah: So those anxious adults in the workplace, their anxiety didn't suddenly start when they were in the workplace.

[00:00:23] Sarah: We don't teach children to tolerate stress and frustration. We don't teach distress tolerance. And when we don't teach that young, the trajectory doesn't get better. It gets worse. So if we don't teach that early on, as a young person moves along their developmental trajectory and they move into, teen years, adult years, that gets worse.

[00:00:49] Sarah: Not better.

[00:00:50] Ross: p Soupers. It is my honor to introduce you to Dr. Sarah Cassidy. What an absolute joy to speak to this pioneering, exceptional human. I was so captured by this conversation that I've decided to break it down into three parts. In part one, we get to know a bit more about Sarah. Her geographical history, her extraordinary parents.

[00:01:12] Ross: A bit about her career path, including what it was like to co own a bar in Chicago. we also start to explore her approach to the psychological well being of children.

[00:01:22] Ross: PEOPLE SOUP is an award winning podcast where we share evidence based behavioral science in a way that's practical, accessible, and fun to help you glow to work a bit more often.

[00:01:44] Ross: Let's just scoot over to the news desk because, in case you haven't heard, I've got big news. I'm delighted to announce that I'll be running an Act in the Workplace, Train the Trainer course in April and May next year. It'll be over four sessions in partnership with Joe Oliver [00:02:00] at Contextual Consulting.

[00:02:01] Ross: It's been a while in the planning and you'll find the link to all the details in the show notes.

[00:02:06] Ross: Also, it's a big news day, an update on the live summer series of PeopleSoup podcast recordings. First up is Dr. Sarah Swan, we'll be chatting live on 19th of July and we'd love to see you there.

[00:02:17] Ross: We'll be launching Sarah's book, Coping with Breast Cancer, which is based upon her lived experience her skill as a clinical psychologist and act. Tickets are free and you'll find the link in the show notes, so please do come and join us. Our second live guest will be Dr. Richard McKinnon, who will be talking about loneliness at work. So come and join us and hear all about his research on how we can connect and thrive.

[00:02:41] Ross: And that's on the 28th of July. Free tickets via the links in the show notes, folks. and finally, reviews are in for our last episode, which was part two of my chat with Dr. Heather McKee

[00:02:51] Ross: and bite sized habits. Jillian on Instagram said, Love this conversation. So good to hear a female expert on solid, compassion based behavioral theory related to habits. And of course, we all love Hobnobs. Looking forward to Heather's book plan. Ann Parkinson on Facebook said, Absolutely loved listening to this.

[00:03:09] Ross: It was a brilliant podcast. I resonated with so much of what you both said. Heather has a wonderful way of explaining things, and I always love your explanations and insights too, Ross. so much reflected the way I work and live in a compassionate and values aligned way.

[00:03:24] Ross: Well thank you to Gillian, thank you to Anne, and thanks to everyone who listened, shared and rated part two of my chat with Heather. Your support is what makes the PeopleSoup community so special, so please do keep listening and sharing and letting me know what you think. It can get a bit lonely sometimes here in podcast land.

[00:03:42] Ross: so, for now, get a brew on and have a listen to part one of my chat with Sarah Cassidy.

[00:03:55] Ross: Dr. Sarah Cassidy, welcome to People Soup.

[00:03:59] Sarah: Thank you so much for [00:04:00] having me, Ross. I really appreciate it.

[00:04:02] Ross: I'm absolutely delighted you're here. And why was I so keen to have you as a guest? Well, firstly, your incredible pioneering work. Secondly, because my work is with adults in organizations, and the number of times those adults come up to me and say, have you got this stuff available for kids? And I don't really have a coherent or that useful answer.

[00:04:26] Ross: No, I do. And finally, if we're equipping the children of today with these skills, it will serve the workforce of tomorrow really effectively. So welcome. You'll be used to the podcast that I have a research department, so I'm gonna present back to you what they've discovered. So you can sit back and just reflect, but do be vigilant cuz sometimes they get things a bit wrong or sometimes they, they go off down sort of rabbit holes.

[00:04:54] Ross: So, so just be aware, but I th I think they've done a pretty good job.

[00:04:59] Ross: So, Dr. Sarah Cassidy has been working as an educational child and adolescent psychologist in private practice in Ireland for the last 20 years. She specializes in the assessment and treatment of learning emotional, behavioral, and neurodevelopmental difficulties in children and adolescents. Sarah is the founder and director at Smithsfield Clinic, ath Boy County Meath. You notice that the hesitation in my voice there, my pronunciations is ath boy,

[00:05:28] Sarah: Yeah, that points correct. Yes,

[00:05:30] Ross: And county me.

[00:05:31] Sarah: Yeah. It almost sounds like there's a D in there, but there isn't. But you did perfectly well. Yeah.

[00:05:36] Ross: thank you. Cuz that, that, that sounding like a D is, is kind of similar to some Spanish words. I got coached on that by a colleague from Dublin.

[00:05:44] Sarah: did very well. You did very well.

[00:05:45] Ross: you. And you're also the co-director of New England Center for O C D and Anxiety, the Irish Midlands

[00:05:52] Sarah: that's right.

[00:05:53] Ross: So it says, Sarah also lectures in psychology at May Youth University in Ireland, where her specialist research [00:06:00] areas include experimental and applied behavioral analysis, child and adolescent developmental psychology, counseling and educational psychology, and child and adolescent mental health.

[00:06:11] Ross: Sarah is a peer reviewed act trainer and trained psychologists, behavior analysts, educators, psychotherapists, mental health professionals, and allied professionals in both professional and postgraduate settings throughout Ireland and abroad. I will ask at some point during our chat a bit later on, how the hell do you fit all this in?

[00:06:31] Ross: But we'll come back to that. Sarah is an author She's currently writing several child and Adolescent Self-Help for Anxiety Books in the Tired of Anxiety book series, and we're gonna talk about the first one of those books a bit later on in this chat. She also currently has a Children's Act diary under Contract and is manualizing her children's mental health program for clinical issues, which is called a Mag PS program. She's a chartered member of the Psychological Society of Ireland and is now on their executive council. She's also a professional member of the American Psychological Association and has just recently completed a three-year term as the membership chairperson of the Association for Contextual Behavioral Science.

[00:07:13] Ross: Finally, she's a member of the Association of a Child and Adolescent Mental Health Ireland branch and co-founder of a May new university based research spinout campus company focused on increasing children's learning potential. And that's at Raise your iq.com using Relational Frame Theory. And we spoke to one of your colleagues in that area, Shane McLaughlin, about his research around the, uh, raise your iq.com.

[00:07:42] Ross: So I'll link that episode back to this one. If people are really interested in that. There's more. There's quite a, a richness of information about you, Sarah, out there. She is a popular invited guest at both parents and teachers' events as well as at scientific conferences, and she's well [00:08:00] known for her ability to break down complex scientific principles into digestible bite-sized pieces.

[00:08:06] Ross: She has worked with children and families with a wide range of mental health difficulties, but her specialty is children and families and explaining how to do difficult things in simple ways such that even children can understand them. She's also the mother of three children, though it sometimes feels like 100 children.

[00:08:24] Sarah: Very true.

[00:08:26] Ross: She has one husband and several pets. She has lived in lots of cool places, but loves rural island, which is home, and she wishes there are a lot more hours in every day.

[00:08:36] Sarah: All

[00:08:37] Sarah: true.

[00:08:37] Ross: done so

[00:08:38] Sarah: They're actually very, very well, yes, very well.

[00:08:41] Ross: Excellent. Well, now we move on to the more sketchy details from them.

[00:08:46] Sarah: Hopefully they've not done. Too much research here.

[00:08:49] Ross: Well, they've gone onto the dark web, Sarah,

[00:08:53] Sarah: Sugar.

[00:08:55] Ross: but let me be clear for me, the dark web means going onto the second page of a

[00:08:59] Sarah: Okay. Okay. Good.

[00:09:02] Ross: so the more sketchy details. Whilst you now live in rural island, they've uncovered that you've lived in

[00:09:08] Sarah: Mm-hmm.

[00:09:09] Ross: Were intending to work in Peru after your psychology degree,

[00:09:12] Sarah: Yes, correct.

[00:09:13] Ross: and they think you bought a bar in Chicago with your brother.

[00:09:17] Sarah: I did. Yes.

[00:09:18] Ross: They found it difficult to track your location history, leading them to speculate. If you are a secret CIA agent,

[00:09:27] Sarah: I'll,

[00:09:27] Sarah: no,

[00:09:27] Ross: like Joanna Bourne.

[00:09:30] Sarah: I will not disclose.

[00:09:32] Ross: Absolutely, and that's exactly what I would expect you to say if you were Joanna born.

[00:09:38] Sarah: Yeah.

[00:09:38] Ross: And finally they came across some rumors that you're in talks with r t e to be a regular co-host with Patrick Keelty on the Late Late Show. Now, I'm not sure if you're able to comment on that, Sarah.

[00:09:52] Sarah: I can't comment. I can't, I was, I was making a lot of jokes about that around, around St. Patrick's Day that, [00:10:00] um, yes, that I was gonna be the next host of the, the late late show. But no, it is only a rumor. It is only a rumor.

[00:10:07] Ross: Well, do you know what happens when these rumors are put out there? RT might listen to this episode and go, Hey, that's a good idea.

[00:10:17] Sarah: there, there were a few fake photos floating around where we, we, we, we photoshopped, uh, myself and my very good pal, Dr. L Kirsten Photoshopped a few pictures of myself on the Late Late Show, uh, with a picture of my book and me sitting on the stage. I was actually a a visitor, on the show in the audience, and we photoshopped a, a picture of my book and I snuck onto the stage, uh, with a picture of my book on, uh, I wasn't actually, uh, being interviewed or anything on the show, so,

[00:10:47] Ross: Mm, well, you should be, let's, let's just get that maybe that's a starting point for you, becoming co-host is to be interviewed about your

[00:10:55] Sarah: yeah. Well, I was just sneaking onto the stage, you know, was, was just, was just a hoax.

[00:11:01] Ross: as my mom used to say, shy band's getting out,

[00:11:04] Sarah: Yeah. Yeah, I

[00:11:05] Sarah: suppose, that's, that's good wisdom.

[00:11:07] Ross: So Sarah, I've introduced a little bit, just a little glimpse of your career, but I'd love it if you'd tell us a bit more about the evolution of your career, your geographical locations, some pivotal moments in, in your life and career, just to help us get to know you a bit.

[00:11:23] Sarah: Well, um, yeah, geography is probably an interesting, an interesting point to start on. We moved an awful lot and so, so my history, when people ask me where I'm from, uh, I often don't know how to answer that question because, you know, I'd often say, you know, do you mean more recently because we moved so much when I was a kid and, you know, I, I grew up in Ireland, but I was actually born in Chicago. And my mother is, is Irish she grew up in Chicago. She's am American, but you know, born, born of two Irish immigrants. And so [00:12:00] she would've been back and forth to the states a fair bit and her parents were very much Irish and my father was an Irish immigrant, so they relocated to Ireland together. And I grew up in Ireland. but moved to Chicago then as a 12 year old. But we did a lot of moving around and that, I think that's very difficult as a kid to not really know where you belong.

[00:12:24] Ross: Hmm.

[00:12:25] Sarah: so I felt I always had to do a lot of weaving in and out of different groups of different groups of people.

[00:12:31] I became a studier of people

[00:12:31] Sarah: And I think I probably became a studier of people as a very young kid because I probably had to figure out. From very early on what I needed to do to belong, or what I needed to do to fit in or to understand, you know, what's the culture in this group or what's the culture in this classroom? and that worked really, really well for me.

[00:12:58] Sarah: And, you know, I, I think I became a studier of people long before I was a psychologist. In fact, I was, I was probably a psychologist before I knew what the word psychologist meant, uh, long before I'd ever heard the word psychologist. my mother was also an academic long before her time.

[00:13:15] Sarah: and I would've been glued to my mother's hip for a lot of years. My mother, brought me to lecture halls. She got married when she was 19. And, so I was in the lecture halls of Manu with my mother, uh, taking notes for her because, you know, we didn't have a childminder. So I was sitting in the lecture halls with her, um, from the age of, maybe seven years old, and she used to say, take notes for me.

[00:13:39] Sarah: Of course, I think she was just trying to keep me busy, but I, I took the job very seriously and, um, took notes for her. So people often think that my first years in Minuth were when I was doing my PhD, but actually my first years in Minuth were, were taking notes from my mother while she did her, while she did her studies,

[00:13:55] Sarah: she went back to school after

[00:13:57] Sarah: having her five children. so she was [00:14:00] doing a, a degree in sociology and, and, um, philosophy. So, yeah, so, so my history is moving around a lot and I did my undergraduate degree in psychology in Chicago, and, um, then came back, moved back to Ireland, I was initially going to go to Peru. You mentioned that, because at the time I was living in Chicago and it was very, very expensive to do a PhD in Chicago.

[00:14:31] Sarah: And

[00:14:32] Ross: Hmm.

[00:14:33] Sarah: I, I didn't, I actually didn't really have the money to do a PhD and I wasn't a hundred percent sure what way I was going to do this. And I had been accepted to, the Jesuit Volunteer Corps.

[00:14:47] Sarah: In the States, and I'd been accepted to a placement in, it was in Peru It was like a, like an international volunteer corps, if you wanna call it that. And so the placement I was gonna go was in Peru, but I had just come back from living in Rome, on Erasmus year. And my granny was very ill. I was named after my granny, and she said to me don't go.

[00:15:11] Sarah: I had just been away for a year traveling around and studying and finishing my psychology degree. And I had this giant, giant backpack filled with all the things I owned and all the things I thought I, I needed. I, I actually never opened that backpack again. It's probably still under my mother's dining room table in Chicago. And, uh, so my gran said, don't go. Um, and she had deteriorated significantly in the year that I've been gone. And so I didn't go to Peru and instead I, and I never went to the, the Volunteer Corps in Peru. I, I was always kind of, sorry I didn't go, but instead I, I bought a pub with my brother in Chicago and we had a great time. I learned a lot about human behavior then and, uh, you know, fell in love. got pregnant, [00:16:00] um, moved back to Ireland. And, um, had a rather, uh, tumultuous, uh, love affair with the, father of my first child. We, we did not last. That relationship didn't last.

[00:16:14] Sarah: So I, moved back to Ireland with him and I wound up, um, going back and doing a PhD and working in the Eds psych system in Ireland. And, you know, there's a, there's another whole story there, but I went back and did a, did a PhD then,

[00:16:32] Sarah: and there's a long there, there's probably 40 episodes in, in, in all that story.

[00:16:35] Sarah: But

[00:16:36] Ross: well maybe we're thinking of a, a spinoff series here, Sarah.

[00:16:41] Sarah: the life and times. Yeah, but

[00:16:43] Ross: what Sarah did

[00:16:44] Sarah: What's, well, I actually studied addiction for a while because I, I did have, um, you know, there, there probably are a lot of side stories there, that led me into studying addiction for a, a brief period of time. I, Had been studying troubled teens, and I had always been interested, obviously, in psychology and, um, and working with troubled teens and working with, with challenging behaviors.

[00:17:06] Sarah: you know, my own dad had had a really, really difficult upbringing. My own father was the 13th, the 14 children, and he would've grown up under extraordinarily difficult circumstances. Like when, when I look back on my dad's life, what always really strikes me, actually, my, my dad is, an extraordinary man.

[00:17:25] Sarah: An absolutely extraordinary man. And, um, My dad would, would, would be your, your kind of stereotypical, walk to school three miles uphill both ways.

[00:17:34] Sarah: You know, I had no shoes on my feet, but like my dad literally had no shoes on his feet and, you know, had no food on the table. And like, it's a miracle that the man survived. But actually what's what's really miraculous to me is when my father talks about his childhood, um, like he tells stories with laughter and with fun and with curiosity and, he would've really taught us from very early on how important it is to work hard and how [00:18:00] important it is to persist and, the importance of curiosity and the importance of, looking under the bonnet.

[00:18:06] Sarah: And if somebody is having a difficult time not to judge them and like you don't know what it's like in their home and you don't know how hard it might have been for them. And that would've really been instilled in us nearly from the day we were born. Like, you don't know what's happening.

[00:18:21] Sarah: And I think in some ways, that might have been a thing that would've led me to maybe living with somebody that didn't treat me with respect. You know, cuz I would've said, oh, well, you don't know what, what it was like for them growing up.

[00:18:33] Sarah: And that might have been what led me to live with somebody that, um, struggled with addiction themselves. so, for a time when I was living with somebody that wasn't treating me with respect, I probably would've lived with them for a lot longer than you would think. You know, uh, a woman who was educated and intelligent and.

[00:18:51] Sarah: has a degree in psychology and has, you know, owned her own business and, has always been, you know, an academic and an intellectual. but actually, you know, if you've, if you've grown up in a home where, your parents are always telling you, you should give people another chance and you should try to understand what's going on for somebody, sometimes those things happen together, but, um, at that time I would've said, actually, I need to understand what's happening here.

[00:19:17] Sarah: And so for a time I thought, maybe I'll study addiction and maybe I will try to understand what was happening for this person. And so, for a time I did study addiction I thought I might go down that road, uh, but I didn't. Uh, I, I wound up, working, in the ed psych system and, um, Trying to understand what was happening for children and adolescents.

[00:19:40] Frustrated with ed psych system in ireland

[00:19:40] Sarah: And I was very frustrated with the Eds psych system in Ireland. things are, were not really being done. I feel the way they should have been being done. we do a lot of assessment and we don't do a lot of treatment or we've got a, a real lack of intervention and it's kind of assessment, assessment, assessment, but there's no, [00:20:00] there's no real intervention or there's, there's no real kind of, um, fruitful intervention.

[00:20:05] Sarah: And, uh, so that, led me to do my PhD. and we came up with some, some excellent intervention. I'm still doing a lot of that research with Maynooth and with, colleagues in the states I mentioned, Dr. Brian Roach, but also Dr. L Kirsten in New York, and, colleagues of the uk, Ian Tyndall and, and, and Shane McLaughlin is still doing that work and some colleagues in gen as well.

[00:20:25] Sarah: Um, Jamie Cummins. So there's a lot of that work being done, but, but also in that therapy space, the mental health stuff and, I lecture, um, in Manu and, and in a lot of other places, and you mentioned of course, my, my private practices, I, I work with kids and I see these kids an hour a week and like you mentioned the intro by the way. Thank you for the beautiful intro. I've been lucky to have these amazing parents that, um, you know, I got out of a very difficult, situation interpersonally and, went back to college and, you know, went back and did my PhD and continued my studies and continued my research and, continued to do all, all this other work that I've kind of had the privilege to have, had great teachers and, ha have had access to all this education and privilege.

[00:21:14] Sarah: But, um, when people come to me in, in my clinics and, in lecture halls, they have access to that. and you know, they, they have privilege or they have people around them or adults, you know, you mentioned that, that you work with a lot of adults, but they have adults around them that are able and knowledgeable or have access to money or resources that can bring them to somebody, like me or like you and can say, you need this, you know, you need to know how to do this thing.

[00:21:47] NOT EVERYBODY HAS THAT

[00:21:47] Sarah: Not everybody has that, and, rates of mental health distress are really high. They're really high. And there are kids, let's say for example, like my father growing up as a kid, he didn't have the [00:22:00] likes of me or you in the background or the likes of, you know, my mother.

[00:22:04] Sarah: That was, bringing a kid to a lecture hall and saying, Hey look, education is important. look how important it is. And so when I was looking at writing books that myself and Lisa Coyne are writing, I was thinking about, all these kids that don't have access and that maybe will never make it to a private clinic or, you know, cannot understand the scientific principle.

[00:22:31] Sarah: And there's so much out there in the world that's so incredibly difficult and, yeah, I'm, I'm going on a mad tangent here, Ross. But, um, it, it, it's just that there, there's so much to me, there's so much out there that's, that's so in incredibly difficult. And, sometimes I suppose I feel the weight to that like that.

[00:22:53] Sarah: Um, How do we bring that to kids that are, are in these incredibly difficult circumstances?

[00:23:00] Adults in the Workplace

[00:23:00] Ross: And when, when we look at the data from adults in the workplace,

[00:23:04] Sarah: Yeah.

[00:23:05] Ross: some of the data from from Paul Flaman's research is that 40 to 50% percent of adults in the workplace are experiencing borderline clinical levels of psychological distress. That blows my mind, and it also makes me get up every morning

[00:23:23] Sarah: yeah,

[00:23:23] Ross: with, with some really strong purpose.

[00:23:27] Ross: But if they are the parents of children and they're noticing their kids are anxious and they're dealing with their own anxiety and distress, it probably leads them to. Perhaps sort of berate themselves even more, punish themselves even more as I, I'm a bad parent because my child is anxious and where's the support.

[00:23:46] Ross: I absolutely agree. It's, it's a crisis and I don't think it's being recognized as a crisis.

[00:23:53] Sarah: it, you're, I think you're a hundred percent right. And then the other really important point that I [00:24:00] think sits in underneath what you're saying is that, that's multilayered. So where did it start? Like none of that is a separate system to me. So like those, those parents or those adults that you're talking about, their anxiety didn't start when they were adults.

[00:24:19] Sarah: And, and it probably started much younger than that, like when I, I work a lot with, parents, children, families, I, I tend to work with the whole system.

[00:24:28] Ross: Mm hmm.

[00:24:30] Potential Audiogram

[00:24:30] Sarah: So those anxious adults in the workplace, their anxiety didn't suddenly start when they were in the workplace.

[00:24:38] Sarah: We don't teach children to tolerate stress and frustration. We don't teach distress tolerance. And when we don't teach that young, the trajectory doesn't get better. It gets worse. So if we don't teach that early on, as a young person moves along their developmental trajectory and they move into, teen years, adult years, that gets worse.

[00:25:04] Sarah: Not better.

[00:25:06] Ross: p supers, what we've just had there is, is Sarah just doing exactly what you are well known for doing is. Breaking down the, the complex to a digestible concept and realizing the layers there in, in the whole system. So thank you for that. It's, it's a joy to hear you describe it that way.

[00:25:25] Ross: It's alarming, but it, it's a joy and yeah, I, I, I'm not sure where I'm going now. God, how big is your mug?

[00:25:37] Sarah: It's

[00:25:40] Ross: Suddenly that loomed up. I was like,

[00:25:44] Sarah: need a,

[00:25:45] Ross: the, I thought there was some sort of spaceship landing or something. Um, let me try and get, get my head back in the game.

[00:25:57] Sarah: sorry. Sorry.

[00:25:59] Ross: [00:26:00] it's superb to hear you talk about your parents and what you've learned from them and how generous they were in giving you freedom and being amazing role models for you. How were you as a, a child and an adolescent?

[00:26:15] Sarah's Childhood

[00:26:15] Sarah: Actually, I was a very difficult child, uh, an incredibly difficult child. My parents wouldn't tell it like that, but I remember. And, uh, my, my mother has, rose colored glasses permanently affixed to her face. And I, I want those rose colored glasses for my, but it's, it's, it's really interesting because, I'm not sure I appreciated my parents.

[00:26:42] Sarah: I know I didn't appreciate my parents. Uh, I, I, I know I didn't when I was younger, and I'm hopeful that my own children would appreciate me more as they get older because I, I, I really know with all my heart how much I appreciate my parents now. but yeah, they were extraordinary. They are extraordinary human beings many, many, many years before their time because my dad would've grown up in a, under very, very difficult circumstances.

[00:27:10] Sarah: And he never ceases to amaze me like all the things that he went through and, you know, almost escaped unscathed and, and managed to, be the kind of a man that would have, brought us along with him to work and would've, you know, taught us a lot of really, really valuable life's lessons.

[00:27:29] Sarah: And, taught us the value of hard work and taught us the value of kindness and compassion. Um, even though, I mean, his mother would've been an amazing human being and, and a kind and generous person, but he literally grew up, hungry and poor. And, it's amazing how he, he managed to come through all that.

[00:27:46] Sarah: And my mom was, again, would've, just taught us really amazing things. Um, teaching us kind of like philosophy and, uh, you know, I read long before I went to school and, [00:28:00] um, was encouraging us to travel and to read and, um, I knew about feminism and philosophy and, eastern religions, it was mad the things we knew, um, that weren't on the radar for other people.

[00:28:14] Sarah: so yeah, no, we, we really were, shaped into some pretty marvelous human beings. Um,

[00:28:19] Sarah: but, um, and, and I think we, were very, very lucky, but, but we didn't know it, you know, I don't think we knew it. Um, but, I I also think kind of, moving around a lot was a blessing and a curse.

[00:28:32] Sarah: I never really knew what home was. and that's definitely been a blessing and a curse for me. there's been probably a, a strong sense of that in my, in my work too. the concept of home is a, is, um, an interesting one for me and the concept of safety and I think establishing that psychologically for the, children and adolescents and, and adults that I work with, that's, that's a really important one.

[00:28:54] Sarah: And I think it's an important one where anxiety is concerned, is trying to understand that, and, and it's absent for a lot of people that experience anxiety. It's, it's understanding that, concerning that concept of safety

[00:29:05] Ross: Hmm.

[00:29:05] Sarah: and home.

[00:29:06] Ross: Yeah. I'm really interested to hear you describe how you moved around a lot and how that kind of made you always an, an other, someone who had to develop new relationships into different systems or different cultures.

[00:29:19] Sarah: Yeah.

[00:29:20] Ross: And that's and feels like that's when your, you started to hone your noticing skills, your observational skills, and then completely different context.

[00:29:30] Ross: But a bar in Chicago,

[00:29:32] Sarah: yeah,

[00:29:33] Ross: learning about human behavior in, in that environment

[00:29:37] Sarah: yeah,

[00:29:38] Ross: gives you a, a thorough grounding, I would imagine.

[00:29:41] Bar in Chicago

[00:29:41] Sarah: yeah. That was an interesting, yeah, I mean, a hilarious good time, but, but, uh, like it was incredibly hard work and, um, I was also like, I mean, I would've also always been quite a hypervigilant person myself, and that, was probably [00:30:00] to my detriment, so, In other ways because I never really let myself relax.

[00:30:04] Sarah: And, um, you know, in working with a lot of anxious people, I really understand anxious people because I've always probably been an anxious person, although I didn't name it, you know, I, I wasn't always, like I, I, I never named myself as an anxious person. I, I wasn't aware things that I called hard work or perfectionism.

[00:30:22] Sarah: I, I always considered those skills. I, I didn't realize actually that, you know, they, they might have been things that that harmed me in other ways. But yeah, I mean, working in the bar in Chicago was, um, I only realized that some of the things that I was doing in the bar in Chicago were problematic when I was pregnant with my first child, Patrick, because I all of a sudden realized like, actually this kind of a lifestyle that I'm leading, like, you know, staying up, all night to, make sure the pub is ready for the next morning.

[00:30:53] Sarah: Like, I'm not gonna be able to work these kind of hours. Whilst, breastfeeding a newborn baby like this, this is not healthy. This, this kind of a life is, is not gonna be healthy for also managing the needs of, of a small baby.

[00:31:08] Sarah: the actual managing of a pub and the needs of so many different people and customers and, watching, there are a lot of rules too in running a pub in Chicago where um, if somebody has too much to drink, you're not allowed to actually let them over the threshold of the pub.

[00:31:24] Sarah: Cause then you're legally responsible for them. So you're constantly watching. And yeah, it's really interesting. Uh, and I mean, you really have to, because if you lose your, if you lose your, um, alcohol license, you can never own another pub in, in the city. And they're actually a lot more responsible in some ways, around that in, uh, in the city of Chicago anyway.

[00:31:46] Sarah: So there was a lot of really interesting things there too. but you're constantly hypervigilant, so if, if you wanna talk about anxiety, um, there's a, a huge amount there. And you never know when an inspector is gonna come in and, um,

[00:31:58] Sarah: the checking of IDs [00:32:00] is a constant thing. So if somebody even looks under the age of 30, you have to check their ID and you can't over serve somebody and you have to check the ID of every single person in the party.

[00:32:09] Sarah: There's a, there's a ton of different things going on there.

[00:32:13] Ross: Good Lord. I mean, I just can't even contemplate that as, as someone who is, who's quite an anxious person and I, and hypervigilant, I'd just be exhausted.

[00:32:24] Sarah: was exhausting. Yeah, it was exhausting. Yeah. Yeah. That's it. Part one of three in the bag. Thanks so much to Sarah for being so open and generous in all that she shared. and for being a right hoot too. Thanks also to my producer, Emma. You heard me, P Supers. I've only gone and got myself a producer. Emma is a recent psychology graduate, full of ideas and highly skilled on the post production desk.

[00:32:53] Ross: you'll be hearing more from Emma as we go along. We love to get your reviews and you can send them on the socials, or even on Whatsapp, we're that modern here. All the details are in the show notes. If you like this episode of the podcast, please, could you do three things? Number one, share it with one other person. Number two, subscribe to the podcast and give us a five star review. Whatever platform you're on, and particularly if you're on Apple Podcasts, the Apple charts are really important in the podcast industry.

[00:33:21] Ross: And number three, share the heck out of it on the socials. This will all help us reach more people with stuff that could be. I'd love to hear from you and you can get in touch at people soup dot pod gmail.com. On Twitter, we are at People Soup Pod on Instagram at People dot Soup.

[00:33:38] Ross: And on Facebook we are at People Soup Pod. thanks to Andy Klan for his Spoon Magic. And Alex Engelberg for his vocal. Most of all, dear listener, thanks to you. Look after yourselves. Peace supers and bye for now. I'm not sure where I'm going now. God, how big is your mug?

[00:33:59] Sarah: It's[00:34:00]

[00:34:02] Ross: Suddenly that loomed up. I was like,

[00:34:05] Sarah: need a,

[00:34:06] Ross: the, I thought there was some sort of spaceship landing or something. Um,