Episode 437 - The Power of Holding Space: Emotional Support in Times of Crisis

Hey, everybody. Welcome to episode 437 of the Real Estate Sessions podcast. Thanks for tuning in. And thanks as well for telling a friend.We are down to the final three posts of my colon cancer journey from 2012 into 2013. I called this post Bumps in the Road. There were a few around this time.And the Deep Dive team does a great job breaking down this period in my journey. I hope this helps you or someone, you know, if they are navigating their own bumps in the road. Let's get started.

Imagine being so just utterly exhausted that the thing making you want to quit a literally life or death battle isn't, you know, agonizing physical pain.

Right.

And it's not the constant overwhelming nausea either. It is, of all things, a smell. Oh, yeah. Like the faint sterile scent of a medical room. So welcome to the Deep Dive.Today we are basically dismantling the whole Hollywood myth of resilience.

I love this topic. Because it's so misunderstood.

Exactly.We aren't talking about that cinematic version, you know, where a superhero just grits their teeth while some dramatic orchestral score swells in the background.

Right. The reality is much less glamorous.

Oh, totally. We are looking at the gritty, everyday reality of facing down a really long, grueling challenge.We're exploring what actually happens when you were just agonizingly close to the finish line, but both your physical diology and your own brain decide to hit the.

Brakes, which, I mean, that's an incredibly dangerous phase of any marathon, whether it's medical or, you know, just a personal goal. It's the moment where willpower officially just runs out and you are forced to rely entirely on the systems you've built around yourself.

So to explore this, we are looking at a really deeply personal piece of primary source material. We have a document from Bill Risser.

Yes.

And for those of you listening who are familiar with the whole podcasting space, you probably know Bill. He's the creator of the really successful show, the Real Estate Sessions.

Right. But this is from way before that.

Exactly. The writing we're diving into today predates all of that podcasting success. It's from his 2012 and 2013 blog series titled the Long Road Back, which.

Is such an appropriate title.

It really is. And it serves as this real time documentation of his journey with colon cancer.

And I think the value of this specific source material, like why it's so good for us to look at, is the complete lack of hindsight bias.

Oh, that's a great point. Yeah.

Because Bill isn't writing this from the safety of remission. Years later, just summarizing his own bravery, he is writing from inside the trenches.

Right in the thick of it.

Yeah. He's capturing the raw uncertainty of that exact moment.

So specifically, we are looking at post number seven in this series. He titled it Bumps in the Road. And at the point he writes this entry, he has already endured four grueling months of therapy.

Four months.

Yeah. Let that sink in for you listening for a second. Four months of systemic chemical treatment, and the first major bump he hits in this post.It isn't even a psychological one yet. It is a hard biological barrier.

Right. The lab work.

Exactly.He goes in for his regular lab work, and the results show that his platelets and his white blood cell count are, like, borderline low, which is actually.

A really critical threshold in oncology. And understanding the biology here kind of explains why it becomes such a massive hurdle for patients.

Okay, unpack that for us a bit.

Well, we often think of chemotherapy as this targeted sniper rifle, you know, taking out cancer.

Right.

But it is not. It is much more like carpet bombing. The drugs are specifically designed to attack fast dividing cells.

Because cancer cells divide rapidly.

Exactly. But here's a catch. The bone marrow cells that produce your white blood cells in your platelets, they also divide rapidly.

Oh, wow. So they get caught in the friendly fire.

Yeah, exactly. It's a condition called myelosuppression.

Yeah.

So the cancer might actually be shrinking, but the patient's entire immune infrastructure is basically collapsing, man.

And the doctors have to monitor that infrastructure really meticulously. Right?

They do. They have to.

Because of these low numbers, Bill's doctor allows him to proceed with therapy number nine. But she puts a hard stop on therapy number 10.She dictates this mandatory extra week off before that 10th round just to allow his bone marrow to regenerate.

Right.

And I want to look at the psychology of this delay, because to me, this sounds just agonizing.

Oh, absolutely.

Like, imagine you are running a marathon. You are at mile 24. Your feet are bleeding, your lungs are burning, but you have mentally paced yourself for a very specific finish line.

You can see the end.

Right. And then a race official steps onto the track, grabs your arm, and says, mandatory pit stop.You have to sit on this bench for an hour before you can run the last two miles.

That's a great analogy.

For most people, that sudden loss of momentum would be psychologically devastating.

It really would be, because it shatters the cognitive timeline the brain has built, you know, just to endure the suffering.

What do you mean by cognitive timeline?

Well, the brain relies on the promise of the finish line to justify the current pain. So when you move that finish line, when you push it back, the brain often just rebels.

But the crazy thing is, Bill's reaction in the blog is completely the opposite. He writes, I am totally cool with that. Yeah, he actually seems thrilled.How does someone in his position not just spiral into total frustration over a delayed finish line?

What we're seeing there is a highly effective use of cognitive reframing.

Oh, okay.

Bill immediately recategorizes the delay. It's no longer this obstacle imposed upon him. He basically turns it into a resource that he can utilize.

Oh, interesting. How so?

He lists the benefits in his writing. He views it as a necessary breather before the final quarter of the race. It becomes this extra week of feeling physically strong.He even notes he can actually enjoy a cold beer or two without that immediate metallic taste from the therapy.

Oh, that's such a human detail.

It is. And most importantly, it gives him a new, definitive target date. April 12th. That's the day his final pump is scheduled to be removed.So he shifts his focus from the delay itself to the biological advantage the delay provides.

So he finds agency in a situation where he, like, realistically holds zero actual authority.

Exactly. The doctor made the call based on his blood work, but Bill decides how he will experience that reality.

That's incredibly powerful. But the physical toll isn't just about what the chemotherapy is doing. Right.It's about what else the body throws at you when you are already compromised.

Right, because things don't just stop.

No, they don't. Because right around this exact same time, a routine schem scan reveals a completely new problem. A nodule on his thyroid, which introduces.

Just an immense burden of dual diagnosis. Anxiety.

Yeah, I can't even imagine.

Your brain has already allocated all of its available coping resources, like all of its emotional bandwidth, to fighting the colon cancer. The system is at maximum capacity.

Right?

And then, out of nowhere, a secondary.

Threat emerges, and he gets referred to an endocrinologist and has to undergo a biopsy. And Bill describes it very casually in the post as, you know, jabbing two needles into the neck.He calls it creepy, which, I mean, feels like a massive understatement. It sounds terrifying.

It is totally invasive and uncomfortable. But the physical sensation of the needle is actually secondary to the psychological terror of it all.

Really?

Yeah.You are asking a patient who is already completely exhausted to sit in a waiting room and wonder if they're about to face a second, entirely different form of cancer man.

Well, thankfully, the results come back benign, which is huge. Yeah. And Bill's written reaction is essentially just awesome. Another bump passed. He just mentally files it away and keeps moving forward.

He's remarkably stoic about it.

He is.But the irony of surviving those tangible medical hurdles, you know, the low blood counts, the terrifying biopsy needles, is that it often depletes the exact reserves you need for the intangible hurdles.

Absolutely.

Like the physical body survived the delay, but that sudden vaccination is exactly when the psychological demons have room to creep in. Which brings us to the night before therapy number nine.

Yeah.

Yeah.

This is perhaps the most vulnerable moment in the entire blog series.

It really is. Bill describes it as his toughest moment yet. And the setting is just completely mundane.He and his wife, Cindy, are just sitting at home watching television.

Right. He is safe. He's comfortable.

Yeah. And out of nowhere, an absolute tidal.

Wave of exhaustion catches him, Just completely overtakes him.

He turns to Cindy and verbally declares that he does not want to go to his next treatment. He is completely done.

Yeah.

And he lists his reasons. Right. He is tired of the fatigue he knows is coming. He is tired of the physical burden of carrying a chemo pump around his waist for 48 hours.And then he specifically mentions that he is sick of the smells of therapy.

That specific detail is so important.

See, I have to stop and push back on this particular detail, because when we as outsiders imagine grueling medical treatments, we naturally assume the hardest part is the pain.

Right. The physical toll.

Yeah. We assume it's the needles, the toxicity, the sheer physical agony.Like if I am getting a literal poison pumped into my veins to save my life, I do not care if the clinic smells like rubbing alcohol or lavender. Pain is king.

You'd think so. Yeah.

Are you telling me his brain is prioritizing the sterile scent of a medical clinic over the physical agony of the treatment?

Yes. Yes, it is. And it all comes down to evolutionary biology and the sheer caloric cost of anticipatory dread.

Wait, caloric cost?

Yeah. You have to remember where Bill is in that specific moment. He is on his couch. He is not in physical pain. Right.Then the cognitive load that is breaking him isn't a current physical trauma. It is the dread of a known future trauma.

Just the knowledge that he has to voluntarily walk back into the fire.

Precisely. To override your own survival instinct requires a massive amount of energy.

Okay, but what about the smell? Specifically.

Right.So regarding the smells of therapy, the olfactory bulb, which is our sense of Smell is directly wired into the limbic system, specifically the amygdala and the hippocampus.

And those do what?

Those are the emotion and memory centers of the brain. Scent actually bypasses the logical, rational prefrontal cortex entirely.

Oh, wow. So you don't even think about it, you just feel it.

Exactly. Evolutionary biology designed it this way so early humans could detect a poisonous environment and flee before they even felt pain.

That makes so much sense.

So when Bill thinks about the smell of the clinic, his brain isn't just neutrally recalling a scent. It is triggering a full body visceral alarm bell of nausea and exhaustion before the medicine ever even enters his system.

Wow.

He is fighting his own brain's desperate biological desire to avoid a known threat.

Think about the last time you listening right now procrastinated on something you deeply dreaded. Like a difficult conversation or maybe a major presentation.

Yeah, we've all been there.

It wasn't the actual task that exhausted you. It was the psychological tax of knowing you had to do it. The dread drains your battery before the event even begins.

Exactly.

Now multiply that baseline dread by a thousand. For Bill, it completely makes sense why he hits the wall on the couch rather than in the clinic.

It's the anticipation.

Right. So he is completely out of cognitive energy. He has stated out loud that he wants to quit. Enter his wife, Cindy.

This is such a pivotal moment.

It is. Because how do you respond to someone you love when they are fundamentally broken in that moment?

We are about to see an intervention that relies entirely on emotional intelligence rather than, you know, brute force.

Yeah, because our natural instinct, if someone we love says, I want to quit, is to become a cheerleader. We want to forcefully fix the negativity.

We give a speech.

Exactly. You can't quit. Look how far you've come. You're a fighter. Or we argue the logistics. It's not that bad. It's just one more round.

Right. We try to aggressively inject our own energy into them to basically jumpstart their engine.

But Cindy doesn't do any of that. Bill pours out his exhaustion, his dread of the smells, the pump, everything. And Cindy just sits there and listens.

She offers zero resistance.

None. She doesn't argue. She doesn't plead. She doesn't tell him to be strong. She lets him completely empty the tank.

Yeah.

And when he is finished venting, she calmly asks him a single simple question. Are you going to the center in the morning? And Bill just looks at her and says, yes.

It's amazing.

It is stunning. Why does that work better than a motivational speech?

Well, it works because of the mechanics of self determination theory.

Okay, tell me about that.

Humans have a fundamental psychological need for autonomy. If Cindy had given him a forceful motivational speech, or if she had pleaded with him, she would have been applying extrinsic pressure.

Oh, I see. She would have given his brain something to push back again.

Exactly. He could have argued with her. You don't know what it's like. You aren't the one carrying the pump.

Right.

And that argument would have escalated into a confrontation, draining even more of the precious little energy he had left.

That makes total sense.

When someone is in a state of severe distress, their prefrontal cortex, that logical part of the brain, is already compromised. If you push them, their natural defensive mechanism is to push back harder.

Yeah.

What Cindy intuitively understands is that the motivation to continue the treatment has to be intrinsic. It has to come from him.

So instead of being a tow truck trying to violently drag him out of the mud, which honestly might just rip the bumper off, Cindy acts like a set of traction boards.

Oh, I love that analogy.

Right. She just lies there quietly, offering no resistance, giving his tires something to grip so he can slowly drive himself out of the rut.

That is a perfect way to visualize it. By simply holding space. By being a nonjudgmental receptacle for his frustration, she removed the friction.She lets the emotional storm run its course without adding wind to it.

And the cool thing is, Bill actually realizes what she is doing in real time. He writes about this brilliant moment of self awareness where he connects her behavior to how she raised their child.

Yes. He recognizes it as the exact same tactic she has used with their son since he could talk.

That's hilarious. Honestly, it is.

But it's a highly effective de escalation technique. When the child is overwhelmed and irrational, you let him have his say.You let him get the frustration completely out of his nervous system without turning it into a battle of wills.

Right.

And inevitably, once the emotional spike drops, the logical brain comes back online and the individual realizes what they actually need to do.

It is incredibly humbling, you know, to realize that the most profound life saving support you can offer someone who is suffering might just be shutting your mouth, truly letting them be completely irrational, letting them complain, and just holding the space. Cindy knew the yes was still inside him, buried under a temporary avalanche of anticipatory dread.

She knew she didn't need to force it.

Right. She didn't need to surgically implant the yes into his brain. She Just needed to give him a safe, quiet environment to dig it out himself.Which leads to this absolutely beautiful reflection from Bill in the source text. He writes, now, she was doing the same thing with me. There's no way I could have gotten this far without her. So onward we go. Three more.We will make it together.

That word together fundamentally redefines the nature of the marathon he is running.

It really does. And I think that is the ultimate takeaway for you listening. Today we started this deep dive, exploring resilience as a gritty, everyday reality.But what Bill Risser's journey really illustrates is that resilience is almost never an isolated solo act.

Never.

We culturally mythologize the lone warrior, you know, the stoic individual who pushes through the pain by sheer force of solitary will. But true, sustainable resilience is an ecosystem.

It really is.It is deeply intertwined with the environment we create around ourselves and the emotional intelligence of the people we choose to let into that environment.

Yeah.

Bill's physiological endurance was remarkable.His ability to cognitively reframe a delayed therapy schedule into a biological advantage, his ability to brush off the terrifying uncertainty of a thyroid biopsy. Those internal mechanisms got him incredibly far down the road. Yeah.But when the internal mechanisms finally jammed, when the smell of the clinic threatened to break his resolve, it was Cindy's quiet, strategic understanding that kept him on the path.

It makes you rethink your entire approach to the heavy burdens in your own life. Honestly, both how you process them and how you help others carry them.

Absolutely.

Think about how you handle your own medical or professional bumps in the road. When your timeline gets derailed or when an unexpected threat emerges, do you spiral into the loss of control?Or do you search for the cold beer and the extra week of strength?

And critically, what kind of safety net have you built for the moment you inevitably hit your own mental wall?

Because it will happen.

Right? Because if the challenge is significant enough and the timeline stretches long enough, you will hit a wall.

You will smell whatever your version of the clinic is, and every biological instinct you have will scream at you to quit. And the difference between stopping forever and taking that necessary next step often comes down to the person sitting next to you on the couch.So I want to leave you with a final thought to mull over today. Think about the people in your life who rely on you.When someone you love comes to you absolutely exhausted, emotionally empty, and ready to walk away from something important, what is your immediate instinct?

It's a tough question to ask yourself.

It is. Are you rushing in like a tow truck trying to forcefully fix their problem with the loud, aggressive motivational speech?Or are you brave enough to just sit in the quiet, act as the traction board, hold the space without judgment, and trust them to find their own way back to yes?