A woman walked into my therapy office.
She collapsed in the chair across from me.
Dark circles under her eyes told me she hadn’t slept in days.
She looked exhausted.
I asked her my usual opening question: ‘So, what’s brought you here today?’
She started to cry.
This turned into heavy sobbing for 20 minutes.
She sat and she cried.
Her whole body shook.
Her shoulders rolled forward.
She hunched over in the chair.
I didn’t speak.
I didn’t tell her to stop.
I didn’t reassure her.
I simply handed her Kleenex after Kleenex
and moved the garbage can a little bit closer.
At one point, she finally looked up at me,
tears still streaming down her face, her eyes bloodshot,
and she simply said, ‘I’m sorry’.
I still had no idea why she was here or what the problem was.
So I asked her, ‘Close your eyes. Take a deep breath’.
(Inhaling deeply)
(Exhaling deeply)
We did this together for a couple of minutes.
She was able to then tell me her story in detail.
She was able to describe everything that was going on.
I listened intendly. I gave her my full attention.
And when she finished, I leaned forward,
and I said to her in a soft voice,
‘You are not crazy.’
This brought on another round of tears, more heavy sobbing.
Again, I handed her Kleenex.
This time, she looked at me and she said, ‘Thank you.’
Pure relief.
I told her at this point that I was glad
that this second round of crying was far less long,
because at this time my Kleenex box was starting to run out
and my garbage can was starting to run over.
At this point, she finally smiled, and she had a chuckle.
To change crazy people’s lives,
it’s not easy.
Although I told her she wasn’t crazy
and she needed to hear this, I don’t like you saying this word.
I don’t like you saying the word ‘crazy’ in this context.
‘Crazy’ is a word that does damage.
‘Crazy’ is a word that has an old meaning.
It has a bad reputation. It means: ‘mentally deranged’.
That’s not accurate.
Some people think ‘deranged’, ‘crazy’ means insane.
If we think back to a movie long time ago,
‘One flew over the cuckoo’s nest’ starring Jack Nicholson,
that was the epitome of ‘crazy’, that was insane.
That was cuckoo.
From that point forward, Jack Nicholson, he became the poster-boy for ‘crazy’.
I think maybe he still is.
(Laughter)
This understanding of ‘crazy’ creates fear,
creates embarrassment.
And when this happens, we keep our struggles to ourselves.
We silently struggle with what goes on in life.
Silence is dangerous.
Silence does damage.
Silence produces people in my office.
I think it’s time that we take ‘crazy’ and turn it on its head.
I don’t want to use ‘crazy’ as a diagnosis or a label.
I don’t want it to be used
in trying to assess mental ability or capability.
I think it should be a reflection of our current reality.
Something more positive, something more dignified.
I think it’s time that we can do that.
‘Crazy’ is almost a new normal. It is what’s going on in people’s lives.
And everybody’s ‘crazy’ is a little bit different.
Your ‘crazy’ might be your family.
Your ‘crazy’ might be a relationship at work.
His might be relationship.
Mine might be public speaking.
(Laughter)
I’m not here as a celebrity or a professional athlete
to promote mental illness,
even though you might think I’m famous
or I was in the weight-lifting division of the Olympics.
I wasn’t.
I’m here to reassure you that ‘crazy’ is okay as we go through life,
that ‘crazy’ for short amounts of time are okay.
So when we think about work, family, and relationships,
they are all really busy.
And each one of these can be punctuated with times of seemingly crazy moments,
heightened emotion.
[Crazy]
That’s life.
That’s reality.
That’s normal.
So maybe our ‘crazy’ is our new ‘normal’.
Think about it: maybe in those multitasking nightmares,
where we’re on double duties
caring for somebody that’s sick, or elderly, or multiple kids,
or feeling dog-tired, pulled in every direction,
we haven’t had a moment to ourself.
Or think of those times during life changes,
when you may be in menopause or midlife, or going through separation,
not feeling like you are in control,
maybe feeling like you haven’t had a moment to yourself,
and you’re not sure how to battle this invisible demon,
exhausted from not sleeping.
Or think of those periods where it’s just busyness beyond belief.
The expectations, the demands, they keep coming in,
they’re non-stop.
The stress that you have and that feeling of always being behind
never goes away.
The woman in my office,
her husband had passed away 16 months earlier.
They had been married for over 30 years.
Her new normal, her ‘crazy’ was trying to figure out how to live alone
and how to manage some pretty big financial debt.
These situations are tough times,
and we need to make them acceptable.
And using ‘crazy’ is an acceptable word to describe them,
because they are normal, they happen all the time.
So how do we know that ‘crazy’ has arrived?
We know because we have this edgy little feeling,
this inkling that something is not right.
We’re feeling just a little bit off.
And it might be subtle but we all know it’s there.
And it’s a psychological signal.
It’s an early warning sign telling us that what we’re doing isn’t working right,
that we need to do something differently.
Often times, this edgy little feeling
is accompanied by a little voice in our head.
And voices in your head are okay.
My husband says that he’s had a voice in his head for a long time.
He told me lately that it used to sound like his mother’s,
but more recently, it started to sound like my voice.
(Laughter)
Yeah.
So, although I’m trained to listen to people’s problems
and their times of ‘crazy’,
and I’ve heard hundreds of these stories,
I’m not immune to my own ‘crazy’, the feeling, the voice.
I’m married to the RCMP.
I think that alone qualifies my as crazy.
In the RCMP, we move often.
‘Crazy’ is: moving.
Moving is stressful.
In the RCMP, moving is like stress on steroids,
because we’re expected to go to our new location
and buy a house in five days.
Yeah, you land on Monday and you’ve bought a house by Friday.
Now that’s crazy.
That’s beyond crazy.
There was one point in one of our moves,
it got so crazy that we ended up selling a house, buying a house,
and moving in 19 days.
I think I started to look a little bit like Jack Nicholson on that one.
So when we have these problems, these situations, these challenges,
we need to acknowledge them,
we need to acknowledge the ‘crazy’ in them,
because when we do that, that puts us in a position
that empowers us to create change.
And when we can create change, that’s when we make a difference.
So, how do you create change?
Often times, it gets in our way because we’re not sure what to do,
we are baffled on how to go about doing this.
So, I want to dial down change.
I want to make it simplistic.
I want you to think of it as being one simple thing that you do,
one simple thing that you do differently.
So change can often mean something like Google, Google resource.
Find an expert.
It might be reading an article that’s relevant,
that has a suggestion in it for you.
It might be seeking new ideas, different perspectives from others.
It might be asking for support.
It might be seeking advice.
And when we create these small changes,
what we do is we momentarily interrupt ‘crazy’.
We create a moment in time
where we can manage our ‘crazy’
as well as create further change.
The lady that came in my office,
her first change was looking up at resources.
She phoned me.
That was it.
That opened up the opportunity, when she came into my office that day,
to create further change.
When she showed up in my office, she showed up saying,
‘I can’t do this anymore.
I can’t live like this anymore’.
We did a bit of work and when she left my office, she was saying,
‘I won’t live like this anymore. I won’t do this anymore’.
It was wonderful.
She loves saying those words ‘I won’t do this anymore,’
and we both laughed because she added a fist pump to it:
‘I won’t do this anymore’.
This awakened a long hitting confidence in this woman,
it was beautiful.
She had found the ability to manage her ‘crazy’.
She was ready to have influence again,
make choices and rebalance.
That sobbing resigned woman that had walked into my office
was standing taller
and brighter.
And the work that we did that first day was minimal but powerful.
She shifted. She had this new attitude, a ‘can-do’ attitude.
And this ‘can-do’ attitude is very common in the new psychology.
It’s called: ‘Positive psychology’, great name.
Tough name!
Positive psychology is existing in stark contrast
to mainstream psychology which is very problem-focused.
Positive psychology likes to think and look
at people’s strength, the good things in life.
It doesn’t want to focus on problems, or weaknesses, or mental disorder.
Positive psychology looks at our strength and the good life.
And it believes that we can achieve it.
So it’s based on the premise of things like:
‘Most people are happy’,
‘Most people are resilient’,
‘The good life can be taught’.
One of the basic premises of positive psychology
likes to think that what is good in life
is not simply the absence of what is problematic.
So when I think of this,
maybe happiness isn’t just the absence of ‘crazy’.
Maybe ‘crazy’ is easier to understand
if we were to think of it on a continuum.
Maybe at the starting point of this continuum,
it’s when life’s situations aren’t going the way that we like,
At the other end of the continuum might be:
things are a little bit out of control, and definitely not going the way we like.
Maybe we need ourselves a ‘crazy’ meter.
Maybe we need something that’s going to measure our ‘crazy’
on a scale of 1 to 10.
Two might mean ‘crazy’ is manageable, things are going okay.
Seven might mean our ‘crazy’… Ooh! It’s amping up a bit.
Maybe it’s time to make change. It’s a little overdue.
Quite possibly.
And everybody’s ‘crazy’ is going to be different.
And we respect that because we embrace that.
So, if we look at this crazy meter, how do we do this?
We look at the continuum to figure out where’s our tipping point.
What is in the middle? Is it a happy medium?
No, it’s a tipping point.
The tipping point in the middle of the continuum
is the opportunity for change.
It’s the opportunity where we create this.
I had a tipping point not long ago.
I had a health scare. A lump was found in my lung.
I got on this merry-go-round of the medical system:
stress, chaos, worry, seven months of it.
It was nuts, it was crazy. I think I was going crazy.
Finally I hit my tipping point one day.
I was sure I was a 4 or 5 on the crazy meter
but I hit my tipping point one day.
I decided that that’s the day I was going to create change.
I got angry that day and I started to look for other options,
other alternatives, asking for other experts.
What I uncovered was surprising,
and I found some great options, unexpected answers that helped me.
So finding that tipping point is very important,
and amplifying it at that moment is a motivator for us.
Because what we want to do is we want to create that change.
So when we look at the crazy meter, I want you to ask yourself:
‘Today, are you ready to embrace “crazy”?’
I’d like each one of you to close your eyes and take a deep breath with me.
(Inhaling deeply)
(Exhaling deeply)
Do this again and ask yourself:
‘Have I got a life situation unfolding?
Have I got a “crazy” going on right now?
Where am I on that crazy meter? What do I need to be doing?’
And if you have a number,
and it doesn’t matter if it’s high or low,
it’s important that you recognise it and embrace it,
because that’s your opportunity for change.
So, if you are in that multitasking nightmare, the double duties,
your change, keep it simple. It’s not deep.
It might be trying to say ‘no’ just once.
It might be blocking off a little time for yourself.
If you are in menopause, you might want to research an expert.
Try cutting something out of your diet.
If you are going through that busyness beyond belief,
you might just want to go have a coffee.
Turn off the phone for 15 minutes.
If you are in midlife,
please, don’t buy the sport’s car.
Don’t go and have the affair. Nuh-uh! Not a good idea.
Maybe try buying a crossword puzzle book.
It might work. Definitely, it’s going to be cheaper.
(Laughter)
The woman in my office, she came in.
Her change: she was going to be walking 10 minutes a day.
And she did. This led to her finding a walking group.
So now, the bigger picture: she gets out on a regular basis.
She has new friends and she feels supported.
That’s the difference.
So although a seemingly insignificant and small change,
it can have a big impact, it can have big power to it.
And so, no matter what your number is on this crazy meter,
any change you create will improve it, maybe by 1, maybe by 0.5,
but it will improve.
By virtue of our desire, our greed to feel less stressed,
to feel better, to be more happy,
what we’re going to do is to look for other places
to create the change.
And when we create one change, it’s going to become contagious.
You’re going to create one and want more,
so you’re going to create another one.
The confidence that comes
with creating change is so powerful.
So I ask:
Stop fighting to avoid ‘crazy’.
Don’t let it silence you.
Embrace your ‘crazy’.
It’s part of life. It’s normal.
And everybody is with you on it. We’ve all got our ‘crazy’.
But let your ‘crazy’ be your opportunity to speak up,
to speak out,
and let it energise you to create change.
(Applause)
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