Abby Fox (Intro): Welcome to the Still Caring Podcast, presented by Stillwater Medical.

Joe Akin (Intro): Here, community is at the heart of healthcare.

Katon Lunsford (Intro): Through honest conversations and shared experiences

Abby Fox (Intro): we explore what it means to care for our health—

Joe Akin (Intro): and each other.

Katon Lunsford (Intro): Because better health takes a village and you're part of ours.

Joe Akin (Host): Welcome to Still Caring, where we believe that some of life's most important health conversations should be around the kitchen table, not behind closed doors. Today, we're going to discuss something that all of us have been through many, many times, and we're going to go through many more as life goes on, and that's transitions.

Whether your transition is going to school the first time when you're a little kid, going to college the first day, the first time you're leaving home, getting married, getting a divorce, your first career and your second career. What about if you're retiring or potentially you've become a caregiver for a loved one?

It doesn't matter what the transition is. Change is inevitable. How you deal with that change can have a massive impact on your quality of life, on your emotional and mental well-being. Today, we're joined by Dr. Linda Burks. She's a clinical psychologist with more than forty years of experience, and she has also written a book that we're going to discuss today, and it's Navigating Transitions: Embracing Change and Finding Purpose. Dr. Burks, welcome to Still Caring.

Host: Well, thank you for having me. It's my pleasure to be here. I'd love to start with your story. So, after 40 years, more than 40 years of helping people, what made you decide that now was the right time to write this book?

Linda Burks, PhD: Well, Joe, I'd always wanted to write a book, and I felt like, , not only in my personal life but professionally, there are changes that we go through, as you said, that are just part of life. Life is all about endings and beginnings. Nothing ever stays the same. Everything that comes into being will change.

And my very first transition occurred when I was in my mid-20s, when I went through a divorce. I had two young children. I only had a few college courses. And I didn't have a clue of how I was going to raise these children by myself as a single parent. So, I became clinically depressed, and my primary care physician referred me to a psychologist.

So, I went to see Dr. Julia McHale, who was a psychologist here in Stillwater. Many people may remember her even. And she literally changed the trajectory of my life. The day that I went to see her, I remember her asking me, and I'm sure she was not the first person, but probably the most important person I remember asking, what is it that I want in my life? I'd always focused on everybody else, taking care of everybody else, and what's everybody else want to do, and pleasing others, and all those things that we typically do. And so, to begin to think in terms of not only was it okay to think about myself and what was going to make my life happy and my children's, but also to think that there can be changes after a devastating ending.

And so, literally, the trajectory of my life changed seeing her, because I decided then I wanted to become a psychologist so that I could be a part of changing others' lives that were going through significant changes that we all experience. As you just went through, many of them are universal things that occur in all of our lives.

And I don't ever recall anyone ever calling my office when life was going great. Typically, people come to therapy when there's been some kind of a crisis, or they're going through some kind of life change. And so, the book is all about that. Not only how we navigate these transitions that we have in our lives, but the things that we learn about ourselves that will help us when the next transition occurs, because it will.

So, this transitional wisdom, I think, that we gain from these things that happen to us that we never thought maybe would happen. They're not part of our life plan. And certainly, when they happen, many times it feels like our life has just turned completely upside down, and we don't have a clue where we're going or what the future's going to be like. So, the book is all about that.

And after retirement in 2014, I thought about writing the book and had done some work on it already. But when the pandemic hit and I was sheltering at home like everybody else was, I decided that was the perfect time to start really in earnest writing the book. So, five years later, I was very excited when the book was finally ready to be published, and that was a whole different journey that I'd never been on. Never written a book before, didn't know how to publish. And so, another big learning curve for me.

But I feel like during the pandemic I realized that we were not only going through the pandemic, but I felt like we were having a monumental global transition almost, that the whole world in some ways was changing and maybe never be the same again. We were all just struggling to figure out how to get through it. And what do we need to do, not only to stay alive, but to learn things maybe about how life might be different for us.

And so, when my book came out last year, again, it was a time I felt like our nation and maybe even the world is still in a lot of chaos and confusion. We don't know sometimes about the future, what's that going to be like? So for me, I feel like the book was primarily written for individuals and the individual kinds of transitions that we go through. But I think it's applicable also for larger groups, larger populations, I would say, or communal kinds of transitions that we all experience.

So, I'm finding that the book is just used in ways that I probably never would have dreamed when I was writing it, and I'm very excited about it

Host: When I was reading it, the more I read, the more excited I became about it because I realized that so many things in my life are, you know, are right here. And it's really helped me in walking through a few of those things in my mind. Now, in your book, it's based on the idea that transitions are unavoidable, which I totally agree with. Why do even positive changes create so much stress for us?

Linda Burks, PhD: Well, I think that's a really good question, because sometimes we think it's just the bad things that happen to us that causes stress. But all of the good things that happen to us in our life require us to begin to think of life in a different way at this new stage in my life. And you mentioned things like graduation. So, a young person has to begin to think in terms of becoming independent, and how do I make a way in life, in the workplace, and relationships, and all the things that are new to a young adult. That's a huge transition.

When you get married, that's another big transition. Because not only do you have to incorporate another person into your life that has a whole different way maybe of viewing relationships, and values, and how you are in relationship with another person, and you have a whole new family you have to think about that may also have very different viewpoints about how to be married, and what are the roles and responsibilities. And when you have a baby, my gosh, your life is never the same after you have a baby. So, all these joyful events that happen in our life require us to rethink, "Who am I now? And what are my roles and responsibilities? How do I adapt? How do I renegotiate relationships perhaps that used to be this way and now it's this way? These positive and joyful events also create for us times when we have to rethink our lives.

Host: So in those positive situations, do you think it's the uncertainty or do you think it's just the change itself that creates the stress?

Linda Burks, PhD: I think probably it's a combination. I think none of us can anticipate the future. So even though, you know, we're really happy when we meet someone and fall in love, and we think life is just going to be great, and this happily ever after kind of illusion that we all have, after you get married, you know, the reality of that is that life is sometimes not always as we had thought. So, the change as well as the uncertainties that we don't know what the future's going to be like.

Host: From your experience, what are some of the biggest transitions that people really struggle with navigating?

Linda Burks, PhD: Well, because transitions in my viewpoint are all about endings and beginnings. So when we talk about an ending, we're talking about a loss. So, the significance of the loss, I think, has to play a part in the magnitude of that event. So, things like divorce, the loss of a marriage, and certainly the death of a significant person in your life.

Other kinds of losses, even retirement. Having to ask ourself, "Who am I now that I'm not a working person?" If a lot of your identity was about your work, then we have to ask that same question. And certainly, I think if you get diagnosed with any kind of a life-changing illness or event happens physically, medically, that's a significant kind of adjustment. So, there's life before the cancer and life after the cancer. There's life as it was before my husband died and after my husband died. So, those, to me, are the really significant kind of what I sometimes call traumatic losses, especially if they're sudden losses with a car accident, let's say, or a shooting or something that's very unexpected. Those kinds of losses typically are the ones that, really, you feel like the whole rug's been taken out from under you and you don't know what's happening or what's going to go on. So, those are significant ones.

Host: Right. So in our podcast, with Still Caring, one of the things that we're really trying to do is normalize conversations around mental health, because really what we're talking about is mental and emotional health. You know, you can put them together. One goes with the other. How do you know when we're experiencing a normal response to change and when it's time to seek out professional help?

Linda Burks, PhD: Okay, that's another really good question. Thanks for asking that. Because, again, endings are all about loss, so there's going to be a lot of grieving. So, sadness, mood changes so that you experience a sad mood. Also, just daily events. If there's been a loss, let's say, of a family member, adjusting to that loss of that person in your life all the time. So, your daily functioning sometimes changes. And most people that go through a transition will have the signs of grief. So, there'll be sadness, sometimes shock even in the beginning, and denial. Those are normal kinds of feelings to have when you're going through any kind of a loss and experiencing grief.

If the symptoms begin to prolong so that they are affecting your daily functioning, so that it makes it harder for you to get through your normal daily activities, going to work, just performing daily chores around the house even. When you begin to notice changes in your sleeping habits, either not being able to sleep, go to sleep, or waking up in the middle of the night and can't go back to sleep, or sleeping all the time, having trouble getting out of bed and just wanting to be in bed and sleep all the time. Or changes in your eating habits so that you might lose a lot of weight because of loss of appetite, or you might eat a lot in order to comfort yourself with food. So, weight gain and weight loss. Concentration and attention, being able to focus on things that you need to, even, you know, concentrating to read the paper or watch television. Memory sometimes gets affected, so all your cognitive abilities.

When the symptoms reach that point, when it's affecting your daily functioning and all these kind of normal ways that we cope with sleeping and eating and being able to cognitively function, and certainly if you have any thoughts of wanting to harm yourself or not wanting to be alive, those are times that you seek professional help.

Host: And I love the subtitle of your book, the finding the purpose part. How can one of life's hardest seasons actually become one of its most meaningful? How is that possible? How does that work?

Linda Burks, PhD: Well, I think it works because I feel like transitions are sometimes our best teachers. They take us to a place maybe we've never had to go before. And so, we learn things about ourselves that maybe would not have been possible if we had not had the kind of crisis that we're dealing with. So, those are transitional wisdom that I think that we gain from going through transitions. And, as for myself, that's how I found my purpose.

Host: So, you talked about purpose. Now, your purpose ended up being pretty grand. I mean, going and becoming a psychologist, helping these peopleall this time. But for most people, or I should say many people, purpose doesn't have to be huge and grandiose like that, does it?

Linda Burks, PhD: No, it does not have to be at all. In fact, I think anyone can have in their life a sense of what makes life meaningful for them when they know the things that make them happy or make them feel that their life is being purposeful. So, it could be small acts of kindness, you know, where you have a talent for something, let's say like cooking. So, somebody that you know that you care about has surgery or is going through cancer treatment or something, you can take them meals. And, you know, you can take people for their visits to their doctor if they're not able to drive themself, or just calling people or texting people and letting them know that you're thinking about them.

So, small acts of kindness, I think, are purposeful. All those things. You know, being a volunteer at the food bank or the hospital in delivering Meals on Wheels. All those things are a way that you can find meaning and purpose in your life that are not grandiose. All of us can do those things.

Host: Right. I think most all of us unfortunately know someone who's going through a difficult transition. What do you think is the best thing that we can do for them? And I know their transition, you know, there are all sorts of transitions going on. But what do you think we could do to help them? And along the same lines, and maybe even more importantly, what are some things that we should not do or say to someone that's going through a difficult time?

Linda Burks, PhD: Okay. That's a good question. I think, when you have been through tough times yourself, it allows you to be more compassionate and empathic. And I think it's real common for people not to know sometimes, you know, what to say or what to do when someone's going through a difficult time in their life.

But all the platitudes sometimes that people say or we hear, you know, those are probably not real helpful. But they're ways that we use as a way of, "I don't know what to say or do here, so I'll just say, ' Geez, I hope you get through this,'" Or, you know, things like, "The good die young," or all these things that, you know, really probably are more hurtful than helpful.

But it's just simple acts of kindness and compassion. And I think when you've been through some tough times, you understand that it is important to speak up. Ask that person, "How are you doing? Is there anything that I could do to help?" or "I'm here for you if you need me." Our community, I'm very proud of Stillwater, and I'll share this with you.

Stillwater's a very caring community. And Oklahoma, I feel like is also. When the Oklahoma City bombing occurred, that was a time that I felt, for myself, I learned more during that traumatic event about what it's like to be in the presence of someone that has truly experienced a trauma.

And from that, as we all know, the Oklahoma Standard was the result where we, you know, became the standard of how you treat one another when there are those kind of monumental events. And I participated in doing some of the death notifications after the bombing. And for me, that was life-changing to be a part of that.

And then, Stillwater, you know, we had the OSU Homecoming event where Stillwater Medical played a huge part in that communal kind of event that we all experienced. And we got the name of Stillwater Strong, which I feel like is not just, you know, a nickname. It's who we are. And, you know, last year, we experienced the wildfires, and again, our community came together and helped one another and cared for one another during that time. And it's those kinds of things that we can do. We can just be there for one another, not only if it's a personal crisis that someone's going through or if it's one, you know, that all of us are experiencing. So, just little small acts of kindness, our purpose.

Host: Right. So, I've heard a lot of people say, and I've said this many times myself, that I just want life to get back to normal. But the reality is that many times there is no back to normal, is there?

Linda Burks, PhD: No.

Host: So, how do we learn to embrace the new normal without losing hope?

Linda Burks, PhD: Well, and indeed, when there is an ending, like I said, there was life before the cancer and there's life after. And those are the things that nothing will go back to be the old normal after a major change like that. And so, I think when you have been through transitions, as we all go through, even just the universal ones of graduating, getting married, and having children, retirement, all those kinds of things that we experience that are difficult, but we make it through it pretty good most of the time. So if there is, you know, other events that happen that are more monumental, we have already been through some things that hopefully we have learned some skills of how you get through it. And that can give you hope.

I have been through some tough times before, and these are the things that I did that helped me and that I learned. And so, I know some things I can do, even though this one now is even bigger than maybe some of them in the past. But I've learned some things that I can do that I know I can help myself, and that I can get through this.

So, transitional wisdom is what I call things that we gain, like courage and resilience, and a sense of confidence in yourself, maybe that you'd never had before. So, those are things that we learn that can give us hope. Because I've been through some tough times, and these are the things that I know about myself, and I know what I can do to take care of myself. And so, you can have hope that things will be different. That's not going to go back to the way it was. There'll be a new normal, and that's kind of what the book is about, too, is I guess I call it kind of this middle place sometimes of where we have to do the hard work of sorting through, you know, what is it I need to let go of? What are the things that maybe have not been so helpful in the past and what are the things in the future that I've learned that maybe I can do differently, or that I have a vision for myself that will be a new beginning for me?

And so, the book has all these skills in it that I would talk about with my clients so that everything that's in the book are things that are skills that people can learn to help themself, that will be things that are part of who they are then, so that they know these are the things that I have learned. These are tools that I have, or ways of coping that I've learned so that I know I can get through this. And it gives you then a sense of hope.

Host: Right. So, there's so much information and knowledge in this book. So if someone read your book and there was only one thing that they could take away, what is that one thing that you would have them keep?

Linda Burks, PhD: One of the big things is to just normalize transitions, that this is part of life. Everything in life is about endings and beginnings. And so, when these things happen to us, they don't become so big and scary for us that it just immobilizes us. And that you can learn ways to help yourself.

And so, one of the things that I really hope people take from the book are things that they can do to take care of themself, because taking care of yourself is critical. And learning how to get through them, how to help yourself and take care of yourself, the things that you learn about yourself that are gifts of wisdom that are going to be there, those are precious. And the appreciation then that you have for life, I think, changes also.

Host: So Dr. Burks, in your 40-plus year career, you have helped people through some of the most tragic events imaginable. So, what is something that they've taught you about living well? Because I'm sure you've picked up things from them along the way.

Linda Burks, PhD: Absolutely. Yeah, I think my clients were my best teachers. As they have taught me how resilient, I guess, that human beings can be. That we are capable of changing. But what I learned is that we are capable of change, and that we are very resilient. When you personally have been through your own difficult times, it gives you that sense of resilience also. And, you know, everybody's life is going to be different, and they have their own unique experiences and their own events that sometimes, you know, we all wonder, "How in the heck did they ever get through that? I don't know if I could, but it's amazing," you know? So, I have always just been amazed by the courage and the resilience that is part of being human, especially when you feel that your life is meaningful and has purpose. And I know that to be true.

People that probably are the most suicidal ones are ones that don't have a sense of purpose and meaning in their life. When life becomes hopeless, they are the most suicidal. If there is a way for them to see their life as being meaningful and having purpose, it can give them a sense of, "I can get through this then, because my life is important, and I have a way that I can find purpose."

I talk in my book about The Blue Zones, which is a book that was written by Dan Buettner about people that live to be 100. And one of the things that people that live to be into their hundreds and plus years is that they have a sense of purpose. And that is simple things, like, you know, setting the table for the family, or holding their great-grandchild, or taking care of the sheep still, whatever.

Host: Yeah, I was going say feeding the dogs, feeding the cats.

Linda Burks, PhD: They still have purpose and meaning even at that age. And that's what keeps people alive.

Host: Yeah. Well, Dr. Burks, before we wrap up, every guest on Still Caring is asked to provide a challenge to care for our listening audience. And it doesn't have to be complicated. It could be a small thing. But it's just one of those things that we ask that you say, "Here is something that I challenge the listening audience to do to either help themselves or help someone that they care for." And with that in mind, what would your challenge to care be for people?

Linda Burks, PhD: My challenge to care would be primarily to take care of yourself. Be compassionate toward yourself. If you are in the midst of some kind of a crisis or a major life transition, you need to take care of yourself and see your life as important. And be sure that you take care of, you know, other people also. If you know someone that's going through a tough time, then take some time and ask them, you know, "Is there anything I can do for you?" But being compassionate toward yourself and compassionate toward other people, I think that's the best lesson that we could learn.

Host: And, you know, I think sometimes it's easier for people to be compassionate towards others potentially than towards themselves. So, I very much appreciate that because I've seen people that they're so tough on themselves and I always think to myself, "Just cut yourself some slack. Give yourself a break." And, you know, it's not all on you. There are others around you.

Linda Burks, PhD: That's right.

Host: Okay. Before we let you go, want to real quick talk about the book itself. So if someone wants to continue to learn more about your thoughts, ideas, and your experiences and, you know, get your guidance, where can they get your book? And what do you hope they'll take away from it?

Linda Burks, PhD: Well, my book's available for sale on Amazon or through the publisher. Emerald Lake Books is the publisher. You can also get it at your local bookstore. So if you have a bookstore that you, you know, want to get a book, just order it from Amazon or from the bookstore. I have copies, and I'm glad to be available to talk about my book. If there are groups or if there are organizations that I might want, you know, to be a speaker and bring my books, I'd just be thrilled to do that.

Host: Okay. Well, that sounds great. Well, Dr. Burks, thank you so much for taking the time. Thank you so much for writing the book. Really enjoying it. I've talked to you before. We are going through some transitions of our own, and this is really helping me out.

And thanks for reminding us that we're constantly going to be going through transitions, and I think the big part is that we don't have to do it alone. There's always people around us. Find your people and let them help you through it. And thank you for helping us continue the mission of Still Caring, and that is taking these sometimes difficult conversations about mental health, physical health, emotional wellbeing, and making it something acceptable to have, you know, a discussion around the table for coffee. Talk about it with your friends. That's what we're trying to do. That's where we think we can help the most. Make these discussions something that we can have in public, not behind closed doors.

I want to thank everyone for joining us. Thanks for taking the time to listen to us. And until we talk again, please take care of yourself and take care of those around you.