Thriving Through Struggle and Suffering with Dr Sarah Sarkis

This episode of the Potential Psychology Podcast is brought to you by the Wellbeing Evidence and Horizons Conference, Australia's leading multi-disciplinary, evidence-based wellbeing and resilience conference. April 28 & 29, 2020. See you there! What do you do when life gets tough? Do you retreat? Avoid? Get angry? Self medicate? Exercise your need for control? Life throws us all a curve ball eventually and in this episode of the podcast my guest suggests that the remedy for life's difficult patches is not in avoiding what's hard but in wrestling with it and emerging a more complete individual. Dr Sarah Sarkis is a psychologist, a writer, and a performance consultant. She has a private practice in Honolulu and also works with The Flow Research Collective, a science-based peak-performance research and training organization doing some very cool stuff exploring and understanding the science behind ultimate human performance. Sarah blends psychoanalytic theory, positive psychology, existential psychology, neurobiology and functional medicine to bring an integrated approach to her clients' quest for wellbeing. She emphasises collaboration, partnership, and personal empowerment and she's not afraid of the occasional swear word. In this conversation Sarah and I talk about challenge, struggle and suffering and how they relate to happiness, resilience and being our best selves. Questions I ask Sarah include: •What is the role of struggle suffering and pain in our lives? •Why can't we fast forward through it? •We often wanted to diagnose or medicalise our suffering. What is your take on that? •What is the relationship between struggle, resilience and happiness? •What do you think is a more helpful way to reframe struggle and suffering? •What are your tips for thriving through life's tough moments? It's an upbeat interview with a passionate guest, filled with tips for making life's challenges a little easier. Join us to live, learn and flourish! For a full transcript, guest profile, expert tips and the resources mentioned in this episode, visit potential.com.au/podcast or join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/potentialpsychology/message