Okay, so let me take you back just a few nights ago. My wife and I are heading out to our car.

We're going to go home from my son's high school basketball game. And we're about 30 minutes away and one of my daughter's calls.

And you can tell there is panic in her voice. Dad, mom, something really bad has happened.

And if you ever experienced this as a parent, you will know that your mind immediately goes to worst case scenario.

Somebody is hurt. They're hurt bad or a million other things pop instantly into your head.

And so we say, Mackey, anybody hurts? Everybody okay? And she says, no, no, no. And we ease up just a tiny bit.

So we press on. What is it? And my wife and I are still just staring at the phone.

On another note, one of the kids these days moments, apparently for many, a phone call is a video call. How are you supposed to just talk if you can't see the person? But that is for another podcast on another day. But she finally says, there's a snake in the pool and I'm freaked out. So I relax a little bit, sit back in my seat, and I start driving home. And I know that my wife will now be the manager of emotions for the next 30 minutes. My daughter had a cousin over, and we both families just got these new puppies. They were playing in the backyard when they spotted this slithery snake to swimming in the pool. And so for the next 30 minutes, we went through the rounds of empathy and how hard that must be in positive comments.

I'm really proud of the way that you're handling this of trying to provide a little bit of a riverbank to her rushing waters of emotions. You know, you're fine. The snake won't jump out of the pool, just hang tight. To which she Googled if snakes can jump out of pools. And apparently we were right. They can't. Or in in theory they can't. And in a simple exchange,

I really did start thinking of the power of using positive language, of compliments, of strength

building statements, but how at some point you almost feel like you have done your time in this

land of positivity, in this land of empathy, and you're fighting back, you just need to calm down.

Everything's going to be fine. To which for the record, and I think you know where I'm going with this, nobody stops instantly and says, whoa, whoa, wait a minute. What's this idea that you're suggesting? It had not even dawned on me to, what was it again, calm down? No, I mean, I like emotionally disregulating and feeling like I'm making a mountain out of a molehill, but this whole calm down thing, I think you might be on to something.

I'm going to have to try that out. No, you know, they don't say that. And really what happens is

people are in their amygdala, their fight or flight response, especially when you see this

creepy snake swimming in the pool. So that logical brain is gone.

And so they are not going to wait into the pool, grab the snake by the bare hands and put

it back in the field where he belongs.

But yeah, that didn't happen.

And as most of us know, telling someone to calm down doesn't calm them down or telling

somebody to, hey, relax or don't worry about it. Rarely elicits some sort of zen-like immediate meditative state from the person that was just told to relax. But we did get home and I grabbed a pool net and far more easily than I anticipated. I was able to scoop the snake up, put him in a box, and carry him to a nearby field where he slithered back to his family and no doubt hearing something akin to what were you thinking going to swim in those people's

pool from his spouse. But where is that line between empathy, empathy, empathy, and then more

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