The Ring Theory by psychologist Susan Silk

is a uh clinical psychologist, Susan Silk, and she coined an expression, the ring theory. In a moment like this, I think it's so important. When I first read about it, it had a big impact on me, and I try to [music] share it when I can. And her her theory, the ring theory, is the following. Whoever is going through the crisis most acutely, the biggest victim, so to say, of it, it is the center circle. And then you draw a concentric circles around it. And a person has to be makom as makom, you have to know where you are. Are you at the center? Are you the victim? Are you once removed, twice removed, three times removed? And then here's the most important part. Once you can identify where you are and what your role is, her theory, what she says, and and it's so powerful and so important, she says, "Comfort in, dump out." Comfort in and dump out. That means to say that you don't call your child or grandchild in Israel who's running in and out of bomb shelters and say, "I'm so worried. I don't know how I'm going to get through this. I can't take this." To them, you comfort in. How are you doing? I'm in awe of you. I can't believe it. Tell me more. What can we do? We're going to have wool delivered to your door. We're going to take care of you. I don't stop thinking about you. And then you find somebody who's in a further out circle than you, and you dump out. You dump out. So, you have another person who's living in America. You have a cousin, you have a coworker, you have a neighbor. You want to tell them, "I have a child in Israel. [music] It's just It's all I think about. I'm so worried." So, a person has to draw these concentric circles and know who is the center circle and where am I on those circles. And then once you know that, you comfort in and you dump out. Because sometimes we we do the opposite. We sort of make it about ourselves instead of recognizing it's about the other person. >> [music] >> And we shouldn't project our experience on them. Whether our experience is we're calm and we're telling them, "Why are you so anxious?" or whether our experience is they're calm and we're wondering, "Why aren't you more anxious?" We shouldn't project onto them what we're experiencing and then it's creating some guilt or shame, but we should understand where's our role, where are we in this, and how can we comfort in while while dumping out.