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Ep125: How to deal with stress and trauma with Ryan O’Connor

It seems that so many people and teachings tell us that if our lives were perfect, we'd be happy all the time and that is what we should aim for.

But we're human and, as humans, we're designed to experience a full range of emotions from absolute joy to total despair and we can't have one without the other.

If we had Christmas every day, it would soon lose it’s sparkle and attraction. one of the reasons Christmas is so special is because it comes but once a year.

If we never experience total despair and we never have that reference point for just how bad things can get, then our experiences of happiness aren’t going to feel as strong. It’s that up and down, the wavering between the highs and the lows that allow us to actually live life, and instead of trying to avoid the lows, maybe we should actually welcome them. Not out of some sadistic pleasure but because they give us a reminder of how good things can be. 

How would life be different if we stopped making ‘negative’ feelings such as anger or sadness wrong and instead accepted them as a necessary part of our existence?

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About Today’s Guest Ryan O'Connor

Award Winning Actor, Director and Playwrite

Co-founder and executive director of Someone New Theatre Company, the winner of the 2019 Grace Marion Wilson Trust Award for Playwriting, and an acclaimed actor and director throughout NSW and Victoria

Ryan J O’Connor is a Geelong-based writer of original, alternative plays and prose.

He also has a thriving business that creates Dungeons and Dragons maps and characters.

He is also an excellent baker, a trained stage-combatist, a terrible gardener, and a moderately talented poker player.

He does his best writing while trying to avoid his responsibilities, but loves to tell ‘alternative’ stories: romantic comedies about Death, coming-of-age stories about old men, and science-fiction tales about mythological creatures, just to name a few.

Connect with Ryan:

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