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Speaker 1: I think anxiety is what drives family violence. I think

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Speaker 1: what drives crime, drives gang membership, It makes people vote.

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Speaker 2: In idiots as leaders of a country.

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Speaker 3: Everyone.

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Speaker 4: Before we get into this week's podcast, we've got a

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Speaker 4: pretty cool announcement to make you are not able to

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Speaker 4: connect with us. We have a pretty cool little widget

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Speaker 4: that's on the website. Just go to poleteilor dot biz

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Speaker 4: Forwards Life podcast and near the top of the page

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Speaker 4: you'll see a little icon that says send a message

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Speaker 4: to the pole Teeler podcast. And so what we can

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Speaker 4: do with that you just click on that and then

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Speaker 4: you send us an audio message and we will get

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Speaker 4: the audio message night. The first thing I want to

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Speaker 4: do with using it is actually do and ask me

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Speaker 4: anything episode. So all you gotta do if you've got

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Speaker 4: a question that you want me to cover is just

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Speaker 4: go to Paul Taylor dot b is z Forward Slash

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Speaker 4: podcast and on start the recording, and then send us

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Speaker 4: a message about what you would like me to talk about,

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Speaker 4: and they ask me anything and leave your name. We

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Speaker 4: will call it out on the show. I'll get that

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Speaker 4: all put together. And the other thing you can do

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Speaker 4: is just leave us a message about what you like

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Speaker 4: about the podcast, what you don't like about the podcast?

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Speaker 4: I talk too much all of that sort of stuff,

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Speaker 4: and just give us some feedback and we will use

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Speaker 4: that to continuously improve.

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Speaker 3: So looking forward to hearing from you now I hover

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Speaker 3: the podcast. Steve Benolf, Welcome to the podcast.

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Speaker 1: Hello Paul, and hello to everybody listening as well.

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Speaker 3: It is very nice and you probably won't like this,

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Speaker 3: but just hear a bona fide the legend of psychology

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Speaker 3: being on the podcast. I mean, you are an author

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Speaker 3: of some amusing books, one of which I've got right here,

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Speaker 3: and we were just saying beforehand that's a very old

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Speaker 3: version of your classic Real Boys. I think you've sold

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Speaker 3: more than six million books.

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Speaker 1: Yes, yes, it's it's been astonishing and I've been I've

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Speaker 1: been around for a long time. Paul goes back. You know,

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Speaker 1: we're tooking forty years that I've been doing it, so

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Speaker 1: it's a slow burn.

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Speaker 3: And was the what was the driver to write to

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Speaker 3: start writing books?

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Speaker 1: My first psychologists job? I had, like probably like you,

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Speaker 1: lots of different jobs as a young guy looking for

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Speaker 1: a direction in life. But my first job as a

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Speaker 1: psychologist was in a family therapy clinic. Which was the first,

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Speaker 1: probably the first in Australia where we saw the whole

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Speaker 1: family instead of just the kid. And so people used

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Speaker 1: to take their child to be seen by the psychologists

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Speaker 1: as if that was like getting your car service. And

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Speaker 1: my Bonds was a pediatrician and it's said, no, we're

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Speaker 1: going to see the whole family. And it was wonderful,

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Speaker 1: and we had hundreds and hundreds. And it was in

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Speaker 1: a country town called lawn System, which was a working

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Speaker 1: class in those days, a mill town. Everyone worked at

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Speaker 1: the mill and so it was a tough place. And

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Speaker 1: what I quickly saw was that in particular the dads

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Speaker 1: loved their kids, but they just had such negative ways

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Speaker 1: of raising them, you know, belting them, telling them they

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Speaker 1: were no good. And I'd grown up in Yorkshire, which

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Speaker 1: was the I thought was the world capital of negative parenting.

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Speaker 1: It's not mal but you know, but I'm sure it

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Speaker 1: was the same in Ireland, and yeah, it was.

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Speaker 3: And it was there that dad was the disciplinarian.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, And and what I realized was that they were

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Speaker 1: doing their best and they and they loved their kids,

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Speaker 1: and it was just there was a like a rolling

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Speaker 1: tragedy to see that, you know, one generation destroying the

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Speaker 1: next basically, and so I thought, no, no good just

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Speaker 1: sitting in a clinic waiting for people to show up.

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Speaker 1: I've got to start writing this down, getting the word out.

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Speaker 1: And so my first book was called The Secret of

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Speaker 1: Happy Children, and it was just saying, you know, you

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Speaker 1: don't have to build kids or tell them they're no good.

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Speaker 1: You know, there's better ways to get them to cooperate.

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Speaker 1: And to our surprise, it did well everywhere because it

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Speaker 1: was the first parenting book that had cartoons in it

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Speaker 1: and stories, and you know, it was a good read.

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Speaker 1: But it sold a million copies in Germany because yeah,

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Speaker 1: because young German parents were really wanting, you know, a

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Speaker 1: whole different way of doing life, and there were there

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Speaker 1: were hippies now, and they wanted to love their kids

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Speaker 1: and they didn't want to go back to the authoritarian

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Speaker 1: what had happened to their country from authoritarianism. So that

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Speaker 1: got things started. And so then I realized, well, you

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Speaker 1: can help people with books, because people would be stopping

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Speaker 1: me in the street and saying, you know, like you'd

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Speaker 1: said yourself, you know it really it helped. And so

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Speaker 1: I realized that I still wanted to be a psychologist,

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Speaker 1: But I didn't want to sit in a clinic, and

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Speaker 1: so I would get out on the road and get

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Speaker 1: the message out and write easily read books about the

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Speaker 1: main what I saw was the main problems. And then

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Speaker 1: the next big problem, of course, was boys. A baby boy.

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Speaker 1: You know that someone draw a picture of a baby

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Speaker 1: boy and a baby girl lying in hospital together, you know,

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Speaker 1: wrapped up you can't even see what they are. And

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Speaker 1: I said, but the baby on the left has got

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Speaker 1: three three times a chance of dying before they twenty

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Speaker 1: one nineteen. Yeah, I see your face shocked with that. Wow,

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Speaker 1: nineteen times the chances of ending up in prison, three

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Speaker 1: times a chance of committing suicide, and three times a

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Speaker 1: chance of drug addiction. There's this massive risk factor that

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Speaker 1: just goes with being a boy, and that we had

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Speaker 1: to do something about that. And I talked to mums

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Speaker 1: and said, you know what went through you when they

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Speaker 1: first said to you, it's a boy. You know when

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Speaker 1: you the baby comes out. You know, in those days

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Speaker 1: they didn't have scans, you know, the hand a baby

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Speaker 1: and I say, it's a boy.

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Speaker 3: What happened?

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Speaker 1: What actually happens inside you? And most of them said

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Speaker 1: there was kind of like, oh, you know a boy,

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Speaker 1: you know, oh.

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Speaker 3: Crap, you know both huh, I'm happy.

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Speaker 1: But there's this little plenty in my guard as well

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Speaker 1: of you know, because this danger is a boy's life

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Speaker 1: has danger, I'd be frightened for him. And we thought,

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Speaker 1: that's you know, that's no good. We have to change that.

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Speaker 1: We want to get to the point where people say, wow,

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Speaker 1: it's a boy, how sweet? How you know, how wonderful

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Speaker 1: that it's the sun. And so the world clearly needed

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Speaker 1: more of They needed more good men and for mums

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Speaker 1: to not be afraid of boys and to understand their

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Speaker 1: differences and give them some really clear map. I'm really

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Speaker 1: big on having a map. You know, this is what

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Speaker 1: happens at four, this is what happens at seven. And

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Speaker 1: so you know, you know, all fourteen year olds are hopeless,

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Speaker 1: you know, don't.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, have you been setting in our host have you?

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Speaker 3: Because Oscar is now I fourteen, you know, don't panic,

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Speaker 3: it's it will it will pass.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, that's the story with that one pole.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, it's really interesting actually on that because Oscar, my

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Speaker 3: little guy, is now fourteen, he's not actually hopeless. He's

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Speaker 3: actually a really good kid. I think we brought him

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Speaker 3: up on his diet of stoic philosophy, which has helped.

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Speaker 3: But what I've noticed, particularly in the last six months,

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Speaker 3: so he's always been into his sport and it loved

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Speaker 3: exercising with me, But in the last six months, he

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Speaker 3: no longer wants to train with me. He wants to

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Speaker 3: go to the gym by himself and training his with

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Speaker 3: his mate, and he's creating his own training programs and

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Speaker 3: stuff like that. And you know, he's kind of got

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Speaker 3: into a bit of the bodybuilding type training. And I

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Speaker 3: was initially pushing back and going, mate, you're a sports guy,

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Speaker 3: you need to be doing sports specific stuff. But you know,

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Speaker 3: I just thought the other day, I need to let

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Speaker 3: him go. I need to let him find his own path.

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Speaker 3: Here he's in that where he's trying to find his

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Speaker 3: own path. There's all those dopaminergic neurons going off and

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Speaker 3: thebrill in and I just need to give them a

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Speaker 3: chunk of autonomy right here.

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Speaker 1: That's such a relief to hear that you've understood that, Paul,

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Speaker 1: because what we're saying in Racing Boys is, you know,

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Speaker 1: six to fourteen is the dad's time, and fourteen to

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Speaker 1: twenty one. They they're driven to look wider. You know,

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Speaker 1: dad never has all the ingredients for the man that

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Speaker 1: they're going to become, and so they have this strong

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Speaker 1: drive to bring in other, hopefully other terrific male mentors

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Speaker 1: to build their own kind of man. And if you

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Speaker 1: were a controlling dad or it was like a big

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Speaker 1: ego thing with you, you know, no, I'm going to

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Speaker 1: manage your sport or I'm going to measure creates. It's

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Speaker 1: always a recipe for disaster because it goes against their nature.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and so you've put you've built the foundation, and

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Speaker 1: now there's the time for easing back and letting them

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Speaker 1: just leave their own way.

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Speaker 3: And I'll just be there to pack them up when

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Speaker 3: a disaster.

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Speaker 1: Right, Yes, yes, you don't. You don't disappear, and I

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Speaker 1: mean their mom doesn't disappear when they're six either. You know,

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Speaker 1: you're right in there. But it's just this openness that yeah,

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Speaker 1: of course, you know, choose your sports, choose your training.

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Speaker 1: It's brilliant, brilliant plan.

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Speaker 3: And how has your advice because you've also written a

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Speaker 3: book on reaising girls, right, which is again being a

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Speaker 3: great seller. Has your advice to parents or your approach

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Speaker 3: been tweaked at all over the last you know, ten years, particularly,

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Speaker 3: you know, when we see the alarming rates of mental

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Speaker 3: health issues, particularly in teenage girls, with the rise of

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Speaker 3: social media and this upwards comparison phenomena that they get.

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Speaker 3: You know, as I often say, we're meant to be

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Speaker 3: brought up in villages, and even when me and you

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Speaker 3: we're young, we would go to school and we'd be

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Speaker 3: comparing ourselves to h a hand for our one hundred

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Speaker 3: other teenagers of our age, you know, yeah, yeah, and

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Speaker 3: you're trying to work out where you fit and all

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Speaker 3: of that. But na people are comparing themselves to the

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Speaker 3: best little her brush snapshots of thousands of people, and

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Speaker 3: often it's this upwards comparison, isn't it. They're seeing the

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Speaker 3: people who are doing the best, but they're only seeing

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Speaker 3: those little snapshots of it, and it really impacts on

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Speaker 3: self esteem, self worth all that. What's your advice to

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Speaker 3: parents around helping kids to navigate these challenges in times

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Speaker 3: that nobody's got a roadmap for right?

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Speaker 1: Yes, well, your starting point question was what's changed in

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Speaker 1: my thinking? And because with raising girls, even at the start,

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Speaker 1: we were saying, you know, don't have computers in bedrooms,

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Speaker 1: don't don't have social media accounts when you're when you're eight,

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Speaker 1: and so I think people are waking up to that now,

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Speaker 1: but we're still see horrendous levels of anxiety. And so

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Speaker 1: we're fixing a lot of the things around the sides,

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Speaker 1: but nonetheless anxiety. The new book that the Wild Creature

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Speaker 1: Mind Book begins with a mum waking up in the

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Speaker 1: middle of that actually hears the sound in the house,

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Speaker 1: stumbles down the hallway, suddenly realize it's her daughter, and

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Speaker 1: her daughter is on the floor of the bathroom, you know,

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Speaker 1: soaked in tears, shivering and sobbing. The name's Elie. She's fourteen,

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Speaker 1: and she's just crushed with anxiety. And this is something

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Speaker 1: that I've heard from hundreds and hundreds of you know,

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Speaker 1: I think probably millions of parents around the world of

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Speaker 1: experiences of having a charge just disintegrate, literally can't face

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Speaker 1: the day. And I got so concerned about this because

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Speaker 1: I was, I mean, Paul, I was ready to go fishing,

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Speaker 1: you know, I was ready to get in my kayak

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Speaker 1: and grow my veggies. But you know, there are six

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Speaker 1: million families who have used my books, and their kids

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Speaker 1: were falling apart, and so I couldn't walk away. I

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Speaker 1: had to try and figure out. It took three or

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Speaker 1: four years. What's the story? You know? I now think

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Speaker 1: that anxiety is the second biggest problem on the planet.

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Speaker 1: You know, climate change, of course is the biggest problem

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Speaker 1: on the planet, But I think anxiety comes second. And

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Speaker 1: it's not not unconnected with that.

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Speaker 3: But yeah, I was going to I was going to

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Speaker 3: say that. And also, many more females have anxiety than meals.

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Speaker 3: When you when you look at statistics, what's going on?

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Speaker 3: Is that? Is that a red herrying in the stats?

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Speaker 3: Are they more willing to open up? Or is there

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Speaker 3: something different in the physiology.

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Speaker 1: Let me shock you and your listeners, Paul, I think

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Speaker 1: that anxiety is just as common in men and boys,

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Speaker 1: but they show it in a different way. I think

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Speaker 1: anxiety is what I think it's what drives family violence,

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Speaker 1: for example.

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Speaker 3: I think it's what.

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Speaker 1: Drives crime, drives gang membership, it makes people vote in

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Speaker 1: idiots as leaders of country's you know.

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Speaker 3: We can last five days before the election.

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Speaker 1: R Yeah, and and and so mail anxiety shows.

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Speaker 3: Up in different ways.

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Speaker 1: Right, you've got it, You've got it.

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Speaker 3: Okay, interesting, So let's do a deep dive in just

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Speaker 3: around the advice changing because you've bopdeated your books, Has

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Speaker 3: there been anything significant that's changing other than really an

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Speaker 3: emphasis on regulating full use and social media use. I mean,

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Speaker 3: I think this US Surgeon General came out and said

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Speaker 3: this is real, This is very real, and we need

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Speaker 3: to do something about this. And you count wear it

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Speaker 3: for randomized control trials, like everybody gets it.

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Speaker 1: Yes, well, yes, that one is thoughted, I think, And

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Speaker 1: you're right. The other thing, which I think is now

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Speaker 1: needed is that and I'm actually going to put into

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Speaker 1: the next edition of Raising Boys is it completely new stuff?

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Speaker 1: And what that is is that we have to very

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Speaker 1: specifically and explicitly teach them how about how to treat women.

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Speaker 1: And my take on this, Paul, is because I think

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Speaker 1: what's happened there's a lot of there's a lot being

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Speaker 1: said about this, you know, the whole toxic masculinity business,

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Speaker 1: but I've moved past that. I think that when you

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Speaker 1: boil that all down in terms of a method of change,

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Speaker 1: all that people are doing is what I call sanctimonious

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Speaker 1: finger wagging.

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Speaker 3: Yes, yes, yes, I'm so glad you said it, because

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Speaker 3: I think it's become. It's been well intentioned, but it's

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Speaker 3: just not helpful because it's them. Boys are just confused, right, Like,

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Speaker 3: do I not be masculine at all? You know, what

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Speaker 3: is Is there any good masculinity? I don't think that's

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Speaker 3: I think you need to talk about ethics and how

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Speaker 3: to treat people and that and just get rid of

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Speaker 3: this inflammatory language. Es.

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Speaker 1: Yes, And I think part of the problem is that,

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Speaker 1: which was what we'd always been on about it, and

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Speaker 1: you're very strong on, Paul, I know, is that we

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Speaker 1: have to put good men in the lives of children.

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Speaker 1: And that does not mean having some guy show up

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Speaker 1: at your high school and give a speech. You know,

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Speaker 1: the whole consent movement now is all, well, you know,

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Speaker 1: someone will come to your school, they'll give the boys

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Speaker 1: a lecture, which again, you know, it's finger wagging. It

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Speaker 1: has to be that we get the men in the

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Speaker 1: school sitting in small groups with the kids, we get

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Speaker 1: bring a lot more of the dads into the school.

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Speaker 1: And schools are doing this. Some schools are doing this,

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Speaker 1: and they talk about you know, yeah, you can exploit

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Speaker 1: women and you can trash talk women. By the age

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Speaker 1: of thirty, all women will hate you. It's a losing path.

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Speaker 1: And there'll be girls that'll have sex with you and

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Speaker 1: they'll think you're cool, and it'll last for about two

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Speaker 1: or three years. Women will wake up to you. If

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Speaker 1: you treat people as objects, you're a creep. And women

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Speaker 1: recognize a creep when they see one. And so you

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Speaker 1: have a choice in the way you talk about girls

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Speaker 1: and think about girls and the way you behave around them.

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Speaker 1: Are you going to be a loser and a creep

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Speaker 1: or are you going to be someone who has actually

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Speaker 1: experiences the amazingness of being loved and befriended and have

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Speaker 1: the warmth and respect of women in your life. And

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Speaker 1: as a very clear fork in the road, and I

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Speaker 1: think if men who are got their lives together and

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Speaker 1: are you know, happily relating to women in their lives

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Speaker 1: or have related a man, doesn't matter, you know, it's

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Speaker 1: just going through life successfully, then the young men will

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Speaker 1: look at that and they'll see, Okay, that's what that's

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Speaker 1: what's strong. Healthy masculinity looks like. It's not creepy guys

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Speaker 1: on the internet flashing their jewelry.

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Speaker 3: It's not the lakes of Andrew Ti.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it called manrew hate.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, right, yeah. I mean really, what you're talking about

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Speaker 3: is giving them a good education in good character. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: And the mechanism of that is a lot to do

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Speaker 1: with role modeling. Yeah, because it's the right it's the

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Speaker 1: right brain. There's a way that a good man stands

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Speaker 1: in a way that he listens to you in a

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Speaker 1: way that and you can tell if you're with someone.

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Speaker 1: This is what I've been writing about in the news,

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Speaker 1: things that our right brain reads other people. If someone

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Speaker 1: cares about you, they settle when you know, if you're

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Speaker 1: a teenage boy, you know, and there's a man who's

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Speaker 1: teaching you or guiding you, you can tell whether he's

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Speaker 1: attentive or whether he listens to your point of view,

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Speaker 1: whether he hears out you know, your views, whether he

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Speaker 1: even has time for you or not. The big public

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Speaker 1: schools around Australia, I talk to the school principles. They

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Speaker 1: say that these fathers are hopeless. They manage their kid,

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Speaker 1: they pay for their kids, they hardly ever see their kid.

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Speaker 1: I was working in one of the big public schools

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Speaker 1: and they said, look, uber cars come to pick these

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Speaker 1: kids up to take them home. You know, the schools

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Speaker 1: are asking can they stay in the boarding school when

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Speaker 1: the family only lives three blocks away. There's this broken

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Speaker 1: tradition of fathering in the upper class corporate sector. If

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Speaker 1: you want to have a good childhood, you should be

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Speaker 1: neither rich or poor, because they you want to.

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Speaker 3: You know what, I love that. I saw some research

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Speaker 3: in the United States that the mental health of children

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Speaker 3: and particularly teenagers is often inversely proportional to the wealth

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Speaker 3: of the family as it gets to the higher levels,

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Speaker 3: because it's basically absent parents often and absent dad, but

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Speaker 3: sometimes both parents working really hard and outsourcing the upbringing

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Speaker 3: of children. And I think it's becoming a real, real issue.

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Speaker 3: I mean, there's obviously nurance under this conversation, right, there's

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Speaker 3: all of this. We need to get women in equal

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Speaker 3: leadership positions into the workplace. Equality of pay obviously is

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Speaker 3: a no brainer. But when we do get that, there's

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Speaker 3: so many families where both parents are working really, really

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Speaker 3: hard and doing very long hours. And I'm not talking

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Speaker 3: here about the families that have low sourcial economic status

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Speaker 3: that have to do that to put bread on the table.

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Speaker 3: I'm talking about high powered people. We're both working in

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Speaker 3: high powered jobs, earning shitloads of money, having a bucket

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Speaker 3: load of material stuff, but outsourcing the upbringing of their kids.

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Speaker 3: And basically all your kids want is time with you.

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Speaker 3: Really as they're growing up, we need.

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Speaker 1: In raising boys. Right from the very first edition, we

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Speaker 1: were saying, if you work a fifty hour week, fifty

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Speaker 1: five sixty hour week, you will fail as a father.

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Speaker 1: And it shook, It shook Australia. You know that that

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Speaker 1: was headlines. It was all over the place in magazine articles,

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Speaker 1: and we turned around a sector of that very many dads.

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Speaker 1: There were corporate dads going to fathering seminars and learning

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Speaker 1: you know that you can be different to your because

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Speaker 1: we based it on our own dad. You know, our

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Speaker 1: picture of what a dad looks like is that's a

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Speaker 1: walking wallet. Then we just think that's our job. And

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Speaker 1: what I you know, I think I turned around. You

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Speaker 1: see people walking, You see men pushing prams. Now you

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Speaker 1: see dads at the playground walking around with their kids.

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Speaker 1: It's not hard. I think part of it is just

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Speaker 1: letting him know. Look, all you've got to do is

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Speaker 1: hang about. Same with girls. You know, if dad takes

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Speaker 1: his daughter to Bunning's on a Saturday morning to get

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Speaker 1: a hot glue gun, and they don't just race home.

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Speaker 1: You know, they stop, they have a hot chocolate and

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Speaker 1: they have an ice cream. Then that girl gets the

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Speaker 1: message and it's like unspoken. It's the unspoken stuff, Paul.

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Speaker 1: It's like Dad hangs out with me, you know, Me

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Speaker 1: and Dad walk the dog three times a week together.

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Speaker 1: You know. It's like something in there, Like Dad seems

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Speaker 1: to like my company, So males like my company. You know.

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Speaker 1: So if a boy comes and he treats her with disrespect,

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Speaker 1: which they will, then she just thinks this boy is

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Speaker 1: an idiot.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, gotcha, because the messaging she's getting. But if Dad

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Speaker 3: is absent, that's saying a different mess yes, right, yeah,

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Speaker 3: that's right. It's really interesting just the way society seems

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Speaker 3: to be going, particularly in the Western world, with I

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Speaker 3: think a number of things play into it. I mean,

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Speaker 3: I'm not I'm not religious at all. I'm a recovering Catholic,

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Speaker 3: but you know, the breakdown of the church, but more

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Speaker 3: of the community that was associated with it, the morals

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Speaker 3: and ethics, and I don't I know, they don't own

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Speaker 3: morals and ethics, but I think that that is a

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Speaker 3: part of it. I think this drive of materialism and

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Speaker 3: keeping up with the Jones and working ridiculous ours and

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Speaker 3: you know, in Australia, we've got the biggest houses in

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Speaker 3: the world, you know, And me and my wife we've

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Speaker 3: put many conversations about this, like we could do lots

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Speaker 3: of other stuff in business, but we've said we're not

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Speaker 3: going to do that because we want to have balance

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Speaker 3: and we want to be around and we want to

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Speaker 3: be involved in our kids' lives. And I think it's

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Speaker 3: playing quite well, but that it really is important that

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Speaker 3: both parents are really engaged and involved in the kids' lives.

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Speaker 1: Yes, yes it is. But as I said before, I

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Speaker 1: think anxiety is a big feature in this. We get

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Speaker 1: frightened that we can't pay the bills, or that if

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Speaker 1: we don't go our private school there'll be too much

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Speaker 1: sexual harassment.

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Speaker 3: Ye miss, yeah, yeah.

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Speaker 1: And so so that's coming back around to your question.

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Speaker 1: Was what I began to look at is can we

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Speaker 1: lower can we break the back of the anxiety epidemic

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Speaker 1: because a parent who is anxious is not available to

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Speaker 1: their kid. And so I began to look at the

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Speaker 1: the whole science of how anxiety happens, why we are

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Speaker 1: prone to it, and how to disarm and not be

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Speaker 1: anxious even in the face of a horrendous world, so

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Speaker 1: that the in in the wild Creature Mind. What happens

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Speaker 1: with Ellie. She's lucky. She gets a therapist who is very,

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Speaker 1: very steady, and who teaches her about her own brain,

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Speaker 1: and as a result, her anxiety doesn't this will you

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Speaker 1: know shock people listening, Paul, is that it doesn't go away.

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Speaker 1: What it does, yes, it transforms, And basically what it

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Speaker 1: transforms to is incandescent rage. Because Ellie and her school

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Speaker 1: friends are being sexually harassed by some bigger boys every

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Speaker 1: day at the bus stop. They're holding up pornographic images

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Speaker 1: on their phones and pushing them at their faces. They're

433
00:23:37,160 --> 00:23:41,080
Speaker 1: commenting on their looks. And Ellie has assumed two things

434
00:23:41,119 --> 00:23:44,280
Speaker 1: that this is just how life is, and that there's

435
00:23:44,320 --> 00:23:47,520
Speaker 1: no point worrying her parents with it because they're got

436
00:23:47,680 --> 00:23:52,359
Speaker 1: enough worries already, And so she's sitting on this horrible experience.

437
00:23:52,359 --> 00:23:55,280
Speaker 1: It's almost every day now. The therapist helps her to

438
00:23:55,359 --> 00:23:58,880
Speaker 1: track her body signals. Her wild creature mind is what

439
00:23:58,920 --> 00:24:02,080
Speaker 1: we call this body see method, and what she discovers

440
00:24:02,160 --> 00:24:06,520
Speaker 1: is she's furious. She's just so furious, and in the

441
00:24:06,640 --> 00:24:09,240
Speaker 1: towards the end of the book, she takes action. She

442
00:24:09,440 --> 00:24:12,040
Speaker 1: talks to her friends, Her friends talk to their parents,

443
00:24:12,080 --> 00:24:14,720
Speaker 1: Their parents talk to the principle. There's this whole chain

444
00:24:14,800 --> 00:24:18,159
Speaker 1: of action that happens, and it's just a brilliant example

445
00:24:18,280 --> 00:24:22,439
Speaker 1: that we're not about sedating people. You know, does that

446
00:24:22,480 --> 00:24:22,880
Speaker 1: makes sense?

447
00:24:22,880 --> 00:24:26,199
Speaker 3: All? I'm going, yeah, I know that absolutely does. I mean.

448
00:24:26,240 --> 00:24:30,000
Speaker 3: Anxiety I've always thought is trying to tell you something, right,

449
00:24:30,400 --> 00:24:33,720
Speaker 3: and it's it's trying to tell you something about something

450
00:24:33,760 --> 00:24:37,480
Speaker 3: that you cur about. So let's dive into the book

451
00:24:37,480 --> 00:24:40,639
Speaker 3: your nearest books called Wild Creature Mind. So in this

452
00:24:40,800 --> 00:24:43,720
Speaker 3: you talk about the two different hemispheres everybody will have

453
00:24:43,760 --> 00:24:46,440
Speaker 3: heard of right brian left brain, and you talk about

454
00:24:46,440 --> 00:24:49,639
Speaker 3: the work of doctor Ian McGilchrist. You talk about the

455
00:24:49,720 --> 00:24:52,679
Speaker 3: vaguest nerve, my favorite nerve in the body. So just

456
00:24:53,119 --> 00:24:56,240
Speaker 3: give people a bit of an overview, a high level

457
00:24:56,240 --> 00:24:59,600
Speaker 3: of review about where did this idea come from, a

458
00:24:59,720 --> 00:25:03,080
Speaker 3: few that we've got two minds, and then what are

459
00:25:03,119 --> 00:25:07,399
Speaker 3: the right and left hemispheres tend to do generally? And

460
00:25:07,440 --> 00:25:10,800
Speaker 3: then we can sort of dive into the repercussion to anxiety.

461
00:25:11,440 --> 00:25:15,720
Speaker 1: Okay, now, what in McGilchrist let people know is was

462
00:25:15,760 --> 00:25:18,640
Speaker 1: the leading psychiatrist in the UK. It was the medical

463
00:25:18,640 --> 00:25:22,320
Speaker 1: director of the Maudsley Clinic and very much a heavy

464
00:25:22,400 --> 00:25:27,160
Speaker 1: hitter in looking at brains and particularly patients with damaged brains.

465
00:25:27,640 --> 00:25:30,400
Speaker 1: And when he left that job he realized that there

466
00:25:30,440 --> 00:25:33,359
Speaker 1: was something huge going on here. Now. In the seventies

467
00:25:33,359 --> 00:25:36,640
Speaker 1: there was stuff around about left and right brains. McGilchrist

468
00:25:36,880 --> 00:25:40,159
Speaker 1: showed that that was basically completely wrong, that the idea

469
00:25:40,200 --> 00:25:43,480
Speaker 1: that you're left is logical and you're right is the emotional. Yes,

470
00:25:43,520 --> 00:25:48,440
Speaker 1: it was taught in many a management seminar, absolute rubbish

471
00:25:48,760 --> 00:25:52,320
Speaker 1: because for one part, left brain is it has words,

472
00:25:52,160 --> 00:25:56,880
Speaker 1: it's good stuff, but it is massively prone to bias.

473
00:25:56,960 --> 00:25:58,959
Speaker 1: You give it, you throw it a slogan, you know,

474
00:25:59,000 --> 00:26:02,960
Speaker 1: like make America again or stop the butt, get Rexit done,

475
00:26:03,359 --> 00:26:06,880
Speaker 1: and the left brain just goes ooh okay on purpose.

476
00:26:07,280 --> 00:26:12,119
Speaker 1: So it's it's very defensive bias and prone to to

477
00:26:12,240 --> 00:26:14,640
Speaker 1: getting caught and in anxiety of course, it just goes

478
00:26:14,680 --> 00:26:18,120
Speaker 1: in loops round and around. Now you and I are

479
00:26:18,160 --> 00:26:21,359
Speaker 1: talking with our left brain. You know, I'm putting words together,

480
00:26:21,480 --> 00:26:24,200
Speaker 1: I'm shooting them across to you. Your your left brain

481
00:26:24,240 --> 00:26:26,720
Speaker 1: is shooting words back to me. It looks on the

482
00:26:26,840 --> 00:26:29,400
Speaker 1: surface like a left brain conversation.

483
00:26:29,280 --> 00:26:30,880
Speaker 3: Because the brokers as breath.

484
00:26:31,080 --> 00:26:36,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, I was smoking with the work it's

485
00:26:36,040 --> 00:26:39,800
Speaker 1: doing here. But in fact, what's really going on is

486
00:26:39,800 --> 00:26:43,480
Speaker 1: that our right brain is like a super computer, wise

487
00:26:44,040 --> 00:26:48,479
Speaker 1: profound animal system which is helping me to read the

488
00:26:48,520 --> 00:26:52,280
Speaker 1: pacing of your voice, your breathing rate, the expressions on

489
00:26:52,320 --> 00:26:55,919
Speaker 1: your face. It's doing that in real time without me

490
00:26:56,000 --> 00:26:59,760
Speaker 1: making any particular conscious awareness of that. Can we trust

491
00:26:59,800 --> 00:27:03,240
Speaker 1: it each other? It's coordinating the whole dance of how

492
00:27:03,640 --> 00:27:07,520
Speaker 1: an interview or a conversation goes on. It does all

493
00:27:07,560 --> 00:27:11,119
Speaker 1: the complicated stuff, you know, Can I trust this person?

494
00:27:11,480 --> 00:27:13,919
Speaker 1: Am I safe? Am I talking too much? Am I

495
00:27:14,040 --> 00:27:17,800
Speaker 1: listening enough? And so? Right brains are the part of

496
00:27:17,880 --> 00:27:23,439
Speaker 1: us which is wise and understands complexity, deals with complexity,

497
00:27:23,760 --> 00:27:26,720
Speaker 1: and life is complicated. And so you know, if you

498
00:27:26,800 --> 00:27:29,679
Speaker 1: can't you know, you could never write a manual for

499
00:27:29,800 --> 00:27:32,600
Speaker 1: how to dance, you know, because dance is kind of

500
00:27:32,600 --> 00:27:34,919
Speaker 1: a flow thing. You know, you can't write a manual

501
00:27:34,920 --> 00:27:36,680
Speaker 1: how to know when someone wants you to kiss them.

502
00:27:36,920 --> 00:27:40,400
Speaker 1: You know, you have to just be receptive and respectful

503
00:27:40,440 --> 00:27:43,960
Speaker 1: and yeah and so, but the problem is the right

504
00:27:44,000 --> 00:27:46,760
Speaker 1: brain doesn't have any words and so if it doesn't

505
00:27:46,760 --> 00:27:49,040
Speaker 1: trust somebody, you know, you're about to sign a deal

506
00:27:49,160 --> 00:27:52,320
Speaker 1: of buying a house or something, or you know there's

507
00:27:52,359 --> 00:27:54,760
Speaker 1: a boy come to take out your teenager daughter and

508
00:27:54,840 --> 00:27:57,720
Speaker 1: he's saying all the right things, you know, But if

509
00:27:57,800 --> 00:28:00,520
Speaker 1: your right brain is picking up, I don't feel good here,

510
00:28:00,800 --> 00:28:03,639
Speaker 1: it can't say that. What it does, it sends a

511
00:28:03,760 --> 00:28:06,800
Speaker 1: signal down the middle of your body, down the vagus,

512
00:28:06,920 --> 00:28:10,120
Speaker 1: nerve down that whole system into your organs, and it

513
00:28:10,119 --> 00:28:13,320
Speaker 1: gives you a little kind of twinge somewhere or a

514
00:28:13,359 --> 00:28:17,240
Speaker 1: little kind of sort of ye see that feeling. It

515
00:28:17,320 --> 00:28:20,160
Speaker 1: can be a throat feeling, it can be a bowel feeling,

516
00:28:20,240 --> 00:28:24,679
Speaker 1: you know, heart feeling. And everyone listening right now to

517
00:28:24,800 --> 00:28:28,959
Speaker 1: this podcast is having reactions in their body. If you're

518
00:28:29,000 --> 00:28:32,199
Speaker 1: watching this or listening to this, you'll be feeling, you know,

519
00:28:32,600 --> 00:28:35,919
Speaker 1: is this exciting or is it rubbish? Or is it

520
00:28:35,960 --> 00:28:40,400
Speaker 1: a little bit unsettling. That's a physical sensation. And if

521
00:28:40,400 --> 00:28:43,960
Speaker 1: we learn and what indigenous people would do, or any animal,

522
00:28:44,040 --> 00:28:46,440
Speaker 1: you know, a panther or a bear or an eagle

523
00:28:46,880 --> 00:28:51,440
Speaker 1: constantly reads that sensus. What's the what's my next move,

524
00:28:51,520 --> 00:28:54,960
Speaker 1: what's the way to go? And it's a brilliant way

525
00:28:55,000 --> 00:28:59,120
Speaker 1: to guide you through your day, and we ignored it

526
00:28:59,160 --> 00:29:02,760
Speaker 1: for hundreds of years. And what Gilchris says, we became

527
00:29:02,800 --> 00:29:06,000
Speaker 1: a left brain society. We treat each other like objects.

528
00:29:06,640 --> 00:29:09,160
Speaker 1: We treat the world like a big mine and.

529
00:29:09,120 --> 00:29:13,200
Speaker 3: So to be consumed. Right. So this kind of gets

530
00:29:13,240 --> 00:29:18,800
Speaker 3: into the whole neurovisceral integration theory. Right. And I was

531
00:29:18,840 --> 00:29:24,120
Speaker 3: a bassel of under Kolk and they score so which

532
00:29:24,120 --> 00:29:26,560
Speaker 3: I have bought. Actually I think it's there, but I

533
00:29:26,720 --> 00:29:30,800
Speaker 3: haven't actually read it yet. But so is that all

534
00:29:30,840 --> 00:29:34,840
Speaker 3: wrapped up in this idea of the wild creature Brian?

535
00:29:35,080 --> 00:29:37,240
Speaker 3: Is that encompasses all of this stuff?

536
00:29:37,480 --> 00:29:40,200
Speaker 1: As always for my job is to make it simpler.

537
00:29:40,800 --> 00:29:43,520
Speaker 1: You know you haven't read your Vessel Badly cockbook. It's

538
00:29:43,560 --> 00:29:46,760
Speaker 1: it's on millions of shelves. The thing is that it's

539
00:29:46,800 --> 00:29:49,560
Speaker 1: not I think it's not as complicated. Can I give

540
00:29:49,560 --> 00:29:53,200
Speaker 1: an example or a working thing of this? Because I

541
00:29:53,240 --> 00:29:56,000
Speaker 1: want people to get something that they can use. It's

542
00:29:56,280 --> 00:29:58,840
Speaker 1: always my vow in a podcast or any interview to

543
00:29:58,920 --> 00:30:02,040
Speaker 1: try and give something you and take away. And I'm

544
00:30:02,040 --> 00:30:05,440
Speaker 1: a naturally anxious person. I'm on the autism spectrum. I've

545
00:30:05,480 --> 00:30:09,080
Speaker 1: been anxious for the first seventy years of my life.

546
00:30:11,240 --> 00:30:14,040
Speaker 1: But I didn't want to keep doing that, and so

547
00:30:14,320 --> 00:30:18,440
Speaker 1: when I started researching this stuff, I started trying putting

548
00:30:18,440 --> 00:30:21,160
Speaker 1: it into practice. And so if I'm lying in better nights,

549
00:30:21,160 --> 00:30:24,160
Speaker 1: if I wake up in the night and I'm feeling anxious,

550
00:30:24,200 --> 00:30:25,760
Speaker 1: which I used to do a lot because there was

551
00:30:25,800 --> 00:30:29,040
Speaker 1: many in my family, lots of things, health problems, lots

552
00:30:29,040 --> 00:30:32,840
Speaker 1: of things to worry about. I learned this sequence from

553
00:30:33,200 --> 00:30:36,200
Speaker 1: in mcgilchristen from some other people using these methods, that

554
00:30:37,000 --> 00:30:39,680
Speaker 1: the first thing to do is to say, Okay, I'm

555
00:30:39,680 --> 00:30:43,120
Speaker 1: feeling bad. Recognize that. And there's a form of words

556
00:30:43,160 --> 00:30:46,680
Speaker 1: that you use which is really important. And it's a

557
00:30:46,760 --> 00:30:49,400
Speaker 1: way that people used to sometimes talk in the past.

558
00:30:49,440 --> 00:30:53,040
Speaker 1: They'd say, like in a Jane Austen book, people would

559
00:30:53,080 --> 00:30:55,600
Speaker 1: say this. He'd say, Oh, there's something in me that

560
00:30:55,960 --> 00:30:58,200
Speaker 1: yearns for the sea. You know, there's something in me

561
00:30:58,280 --> 00:30:59,920
Speaker 1: that wants to give them a good smack of the man.

562
00:31:00,720 --> 00:31:04,320
Speaker 1: It's a it's saying it's not all of me. You understand,

563
00:31:04,480 --> 00:31:05,240
Speaker 1: it's not all of me.

564
00:31:05,600 --> 00:31:10,240
Speaker 3: I really like where you're going here to continue jumping

565
00:31:10,440 --> 00:31:10,760
Speaker 3: on top.

566
00:31:11,400 --> 00:31:15,480
Speaker 1: So what I would do is I'm in bed, I think, okay,

567
00:31:15,760 --> 00:31:18,320
Speaker 1: not I am anxious, because that is sort of so

568
00:31:18,440 --> 00:31:21,480
Speaker 1: all consuming, but okay, there's something in me that's anxious.

569
00:31:21,720 --> 00:31:23,880
Speaker 1: And then, and because it's two in the morning, I'm

570
00:31:23,880 --> 00:31:27,880
Speaker 1: not not in great shape mentally, clarity wise, but I

571
00:31:27,880 --> 00:31:31,600
Speaker 1: can manage this. There's something in me that's anxious. Where

572
00:31:31,960 --> 00:31:37,440
Speaker 1: is it? Because every bad state we experience it has

573
00:31:37,160 --> 00:31:41,400
Speaker 1: it's located somewhere, And so you go down in your

574
00:31:41,400 --> 00:31:44,520
Speaker 1: body and you look for it, and sure enough, I'm

575
00:31:44,520 --> 00:31:48,040
Speaker 1: feeling something in me is anxious, and it's around sort

576
00:31:48,080 --> 00:31:52,000
Speaker 1: of brown my tummy somewhere. And now, straight away what's

577
00:31:52,040 --> 00:31:55,280
Speaker 1: happened by using those words is you've created a kind

578
00:31:55,320 --> 00:31:59,600
Speaker 1: of a spaciousness. Part of you is noticing another part

579
00:31:59,600 --> 00:32:03,160
Speaker 1: of you, so you've already sprung free from being trapped

580
00:32:03,160 --> 00:32:08,240
Speaker 1: in it classic and then the next step is that

581
00:32:09,400 --> 00:32:13,800
Speaker 1: you use words to try and describe the sensation. So

582
00:32:14,000 --> 00:32:18,000
Speaker 1: you say, you know, okay, it's kind of a clenching sensation,

583
00:32:18,320 --> 00:32:21,320
Speaker 1: and you feel to see if that fits. Now, it

584
00:32:21,400 --> 00:32:25,200
Speaker 1: never quite fits exactly because as you pay attention to it,

585
00:32:24,920 --> 00:32:27,760
Speaker 1: it's the bodies and this is an incredible the way

586
00:32:27,800 --> 00:32:31,080
Speaker 1: our body might work. The sensation will begin to clarify.

587
00:32:31,440 --> 00:32:33,960
Speaker 1: It's like, as you notice that wild creature, it'll come

588
00:32:33,960 --> 00:32:36,520
Speaker 1: out of the bushes a little bit, and so let's say, oh,

589
00:32:36,600 --> 00:32:38,680
Speaker 1: actually I thought it was swirling, but it's actually it's

590
00:32:38,720 --> 00:32:41,080
Speaker 1: more of a kind of a clenching, and so you

591
00:32:41,120 --> 00:32:45,560
Speaker 1: try out the word clenching. And what's happening in neurological terms,

592
00:32:45,680 --> 00:32:48,560
Speaker 1: is your left brain is talking to your right You're

593
00:32:48,640 --> 00:32:53,800
Speaker 1: using language to kind of respectfully check in with the

594
00:32:53,840 --> 00:32:57,040
Speaker 1: signals coming from your right brain, and your right brain

595
00:32:57,240 --> 00:33:01,000
Speaker 1: seems to kind of appreciate that. It's like you're relating

596
00:33:01,000 --> 00:33:04,920
Speaker 1: more constructively to your own self. And so generally what

597
00:33:05,080 --> 00:33:08,200
Speaker 1: happens in my patients is that they experience that it

598
00:33:08,320 --> 00:33:11,160
Speaker 1: shifts and it'll go one or two ways. Either it'll

599
00:33:11,440 --> 00:33:15,000
Speaker 1: just dissolve because you've noticed it, You've got the message,

600
00:33:15,320 --> 00:33:18,440
Speaker 1: and your body is saying thank you for noticing. You're

601
00:33:18,480 --> 00:33:21,760
Speaker 1: in bed now there's no danger you can fall asleep

602
00:33:22,120 --> 00:33:25,600
Speaker 1: or else. It'll what sometimes happens if it's a strong feeling,

603
00:33:25,600 --> 00:33:28,760
Speaker 1: sometimes it'll have an upward movement and so it'll come oh,

604
00:33:28,800 --> 00:33:32,680
Speaker 1: it's coming up around my heart. Now, okay, just notice

605
00:33:32,720 --> 00:33:34,320
Speaker 1: that what is it in the heart. It's kind of

606
00:33:34,320 --> 00:33:37,040
Speaker 1: a fullness in my heart. What's happening now, Oh, it's

607
00:33:37,080 --> 00:33:39,560
Speaker 1: coming into my throat and oh, I just suddenly feel

608
00:33:39,600 --> 00:33:42,720
Speaker 1: tears pricking in my eyes. And there's a beautiful story

609
00:33:42,720 --> 00:33:45,280
Speaker 1: in the book about an ambulance driver who has this

610
00:33:45,400 --> 00:33:49,320
Speaker 1: happened in a therapy session and years of trauma comes

611
00:33:49,360 --> 00:33:52,719
Speaker 1: up into his un Suddenly in his mind, a single

612
00:33:52,760 --> 00:33:56,280
Speaker 1: word comes into his mind. It's Anita. And he just says,

613
00:33:56,320 --> 00:33:59,280
Speaker 1: it's Anita, and the counselor says, who's Anita? And it

614
00:33:59,320 --> 00:34:03,640
Speaker 1: was a little girl who died in his ambulance and

615
00:34:03,880 --> 00:34:06,440
Speaker 1: she'd been hit outside of school and he put her

616
00:34:06,440 --> 00:34:09,520
Speaker 1: in the ambulance and they've done the job just so well.

617
00:34:09,640 --> 00:34:10,120
Speaker 3: Got there.

618
00:34:10,200 --> 00:34:13,439
Speaker 1: They got there in eight minutes, chaos, and mom was there,

619
00:34:13,560 --> 00:34:16,520
Speaker 1: the cool kids were there. He told this little girl,

620
00:34:16,560 --> 00:34:18,640
Speaker 1: you know, we don't worry, we'll take care of you.

621
00:34:19,200 --> 00:34:22,640
Speaker 1: But her injuries were too huge and she didn't survive.

622
00:34:22,800 --> 00:34:26,160
Speaker 1: And he'd had dozens and dozens of incidents in his job.

623
00:34:26,440 --> 00:34:28,520
Speaker 1: Any one of those could have been kind of the one.

624
00:34:29,120 --> 00:34:33,360
Speaker 1: But his wild creature mind, that right hemisphere feeds straight

625
00:34:33,400 --> 00:34:36,680
Speaker 1: into the hippocampus. It can track all your memories. It

626
00:34:36,840 --> 00:34:40,480
Speaker 1: sorts them, brings them to the fore. Anita was the

627
00:34:40,480 --> 00:34:43,640
Speaker 1: one that had got to him. But he had never

628
00:34:43,680 --> 00:34:46,680
Speaker 1: known that before, and so once he and the therapist

629
00:34:46,800 --> 00:34:49,880
Speaker 1: knew what it was, it was about forgiveness. It was

630
00:34:49,960 --> 00:34:53,640
Speaker 1: about you know, sometimes you can't help someone even though

631
00:34:53,680 --> 00:34:57,320
Speaker 1: you promised you would. And I can feel myself tearing

632
00:34:57,400 --> 00:35:03,759
Speaker 1: up to Stephen remembering that, Paul. It's so huge. But

633
00:35:03,840 --> 00:35:06,919
Speaker 1: our bodies are so wise, and if we use these

634
00:35:06,960 --> 00:35:09,600
Speaker 1: body tools, we can get all the way back from

635
00:35:09,640 --> 00:35:14,320
Speaker 1: down here into the right hemisphere, into the memories, whereas

636
00:35:14,320 --> 00:35:15,799
Speaker 1: our left brain would have been going. You know, we

637
00:35:15,840 --> 00:35:18,920
Speaker 1: could have been a thirty to fifty one hundred counseling sessions,

638
00:35:18,960 --> 00:35:23,640
Speaker 1: going round and round and round, cognitive behavior therapist telling us,

639
00:35:23,680 --> 00:35:27,239
Speaker 1: you know, don't be silly, you know nothing wrong. We're

640
00:35:27,239 --> 00:35:29,560
Speaker 1: now releasing some of those old methods are just so

641
00:35:29,719 --> 00:35:34,960
Speaker 1: disrespectful of the gravity and the depth. And so people

642
00:35:35,080 --> 00:35:37,680
Speaker 1: like me and Bessel vander Kolk and all over the

643
00:35:37,719 --> 00:35:42,000
Speaker 1: world people are saying, use the body, use the right hemisphere.

644
00:35:42,320 --> 00:35:45,319
Speaker 1: We can get people better five times faster if we

645
00:35:45,520 --> 00:35:49,960
Speaker 1: just use their own built in what every animal has.

646
00:35:50,160 --> 00:35:53,440
Speaker 1: You know, you shudder or you shake, or you cry,

647
00:35:54,160 --> 00:35:56,920
Speaker 1: or you just all of a sudden just let go

648
00:35:57,120 --> 00:35:59,680
Speaker 1: and your body comes back together again and you're just

649
00:35:59,760 --> 00:36:03,360
Speaker 1: not anxious anymore. We can we can break this problem.

650
00:36:03,600 --> 00:36:07,680
Speaker 3: It's interesting. What I really like about that number one

651
00:36:08,320 --> 00:36:12,600
Speaker 3: is that increased interroception, right, which I think is pretty

652
00:36:12,640 --> 00:36:15,080
Speaker 3: key in all of this. But the fact that you

653
00:36:15,160 --> 00:36:19,160
Speaker 3: said that there's something in me, because what I hear

654
00:36:19,719 --> 00:36:24,440
Speaker 3: so often in these days is it's my anxiety or

655
00:36:24,480 --> 00:36:27,960
Speaker 3: it's my depression, like it's a part of them, it's

656
00:36:28,000 --> 00:36:32,400
Speaker 3: a permanent part of them, And I think that's really

657
00:36:32,480 --> 00:36:37,799
Speaker 3: not helpful because people then they're actually part of their

658
00:36:38,000 --> 00:36:41,960
Speaker 3: whole self concept gets wrapped up in this stuff, whereas

659
00:36:42,000 --> 00:36:44,640
Speaker 3: you're just like, there's something in me right now.

660
00:36:44,719 --> 00:36:47,200
Speaker 1: Yes, I mean it has roots back into Buddhism and

661
00:36:47,239 --> 00:36:51,520
Speaker 1: all kinds of traditions, and even with like I'm interested

662
00:36:51,560 --> 00:36:55,000
Speaker 1: in a course in getting less violence and aggression in

663
00:36:55,239 --> 00:36:58,040
Speaker 1: the world and in families. Then for a person who

664
00:36:58,360 --> 00:37:02,719
Speaker 1: when someone is angry, they generally completely just flood with that.

665
00:37:03,520 --> 00:37:05,880
Speaker 1: If you can say, you know, there's something in me

666
00:37:06,120 --> 00:37:10,040
Speaker 1: that's angry, and go to it and focus on it,

667
00:37:10,120 --> 00:37:12,799
Speaker 1: quite often, it turns out it's actually it's kind of

668
00:37:12,800 --> 00:37:15,480
Speaker 1: in your tummy, and it's fear instead. And there's a

669
00:37:15,520 --> 00:37:19,640
Speaker 1: thing called alexiphymia, which is a condition of not having

670
00:37:19,680 --> 00:37:24,200
Speaker 1: any interception and about in wild creature mind. In the book,

671
00:37:24,600 --> 00:37:27,600
Speaker 1: nine out of ten people get it. By the time

672
00:37:27,600 --> 00:37:29,480
Speaker 1: they've got through the book. We've come at it so

673
00:37:29,520 --> 00:37:32,080
Speaker 1: many different ways that they can read their body really well.

674
00:37:32,080 --> 00:37:34,440
Speaker 1: That was how we structure the book. But one intent

675
00:37:34,520 --> 00:37:38,560
Speaker 1: people have alexithymia, which is not it's not something wrong

676
00:37:38,600 --> 00:37:42,239
Speaker 1: with their nervous system. It's just they have absolutely no

677
00:37:42,360 --> 00:37:45,680
Speaker 1: idea what you're talking about with anything below the neck.

678
00:37:45,960 --> 00:37:47,920
Speaker 1: So you have to start with, you know, how do

679
00:37:47,960 --> 00:37:50,600
Speaker 1: you know you're hungry? And they'll sell because it's dinner time,

680
00:37:52,040 --> 00:37:56,040
Speaker 1: you're seeing hard no no clock, no watch, you're in

681
00:37:56,080 --> 00:38:01,040
Speaker 1: a space station. How do you know you're hungry? They say, oh, well, actually,

682
00:38:01,080 --> 00:38:03,240
Speaker 1: you know, there is a bit something down in my tummy,

683
00:38:03,239 --> 00:38:06,120
Speaker 1: you know, where there's some things that feel like hunger,

684
00:38:07,280 --> 00:38:09,520
Speaker 1: some things that feel like first, how do you know?

685
00:38:09,560 --> 00:38:11,959
Speaker 1: And you've had too much to eat? Because I've worked

686
00:38:11,960 --> 00:38:14,120
Speaker 1: with men who've said, you know, the first they know

687
00:38:14,160 --> 00:38:17,920
Speaker 1: they're angry was they've decked somebody. And there's that little

688
00:38:17,920 --> 00:38:19,160
Speaker 1: awareness of themselves.

689
00:38:19,239 --> 00:38:23,799
Speaker 3: Yeah, this alexothymia, is there any I don't know that

690
00:38:23,840 --> 00:38:28,520
Speaker 3: whether there's been studies done, whether there's any history of

691
00:38:29,280 --> 00:38:31,719
Speaker 3: trauma in people who've had that, Like, is it a

692
00:38:31,800 --> 00:38:34,120
Speaker 3: reaction to shut down?

693
00:38:34,960 --> 00:38:37,920
Speaker 1: I'm enjoying talking to you, Paul, because you've got you've

694
00:38:38,000 --> 00:38:41,759
Speaker 1: thought quite very deeply about some of these things. And absolutely,

695
00:38:42,239 --> 00:38:44,200
Speaker 1: if all your body has ever given you is pain,

696
00:38:44,680 --> 00:38:47,040
Speaker 1: then of course you'll shut it down. And if if

697
00:38:47,040 --> 00:38:50,280
Speaker 1: you talk to people who survived torture and survived sexual

698
00:38:50,280 --> 00:38:52,960
Speaker 1: assault and sexual abuse as children and so on, they

699
00:38:52,960 --> 00:38:58,960
Speaker 1: have developed a very handy skill which you have, yeah, association. Yeah,

700
00:38:59,040 --> 00:39:02,359
Speaker 1: not even in their body. I remember working with someone

701
00:39:02,440 --> 00:39:05,440
Speaker 1: who they would be as a child that took the

702
00:39:06,040 --> 00:39:07,879
Speaker 1: way they were treated was so horrible. They could take

703
00:39:07,920 --> 00:39:10,600
Speaker 1: themselves and put themselves in a hole in the plaster

704
00:39:10,800 --> 00:39:13,120
Speaker 1: of their bedroom all and that was where they lived.

705
00:39:13,280 --> 00:39:16,919
Speaker 1: They could locate their whole self in the in the

706
00:39:16,960 --> 00:39:19,200
Speaker 1: hole in the wall and only come back out again

707
00:39:19,400 --> 00:39:21,719
Speaker 1: when it was safe. And what happens, of course, is

708
00:39:21,760 --> 00:39:23,960
Speaker 1: after a while, you just don't feel your body. And

709
00:39:24,160 --> 00:39:27,759
Speaker 1: that's where we're saying, because Wild Creature Mind is not

710
00:39:28,239 --> 00:39:30,799
Speaker 1: is not a self help book. What we're saying, it's

711
00:39:30,840 --> 00:39:35,080
Speaker 1: a help each other book, because sometimes you'd need someone

712
00:39:35,080 --> 00:39:39,279
Speaker 1: who can is so safe. This is you know, I'm

713
00:39:39,320 --> 00:39:41,680
Speaker 1: looking at your face as i'm talking about this, and

714
00:39:41,960 --> 00:39:46,240
Speaker 1: your eyes, and you're very, very attentive, and you're very present,

715
00:39:47,080 --> 00:39:50,799
Speaker 1: and so someone would feel with you like he's with me,

716
00:39:51,960 --> 00:39:55,359
Speaker 1: and there's a steadiness there. And if you're with someone

717
00:39:55,400 --> 00:39:57,240
Speaker 1: who's steady, you know, if it was a woman client,

718
00:39:57,360 --> 00:40:00,680
Speaker 1: they'd probably need a woman therapist to This is kind

719
00:40:00,680 --> 00:40:04,279
Speaker 1: of a mothering sort of theme of this person is

720
00:40:04,320 --> 00:40:07,600
Speaker 1: so steady that they can protect me and they can

721
00:40:07,800 --> 00:40:10,880
Speaker 1: be with whatever crap and comes pouring out of me.

722
00:40:11,000 --> 00:40:14,440
Speaker 1: They won't be rattled. And only when that's available is

723
00:40:14,480 --> 00:40:17,960
Speaker 1: it possible to start to go slowly back into your

724
00:40:18,000 --> 00:40:20,719
Speaker 1: body and feel safe to go there. And one of

725
00:40:20,760 --> 00:40:23,120
Speaker 1: our worries was we talked to lots of kids who'd

726
00:40:23,120 --> 00:40:27,520
Speaker 1: been to psychologists when we were writing Wild Creature and said,

727
00:40:27,560 --> 00:40:31,480
Speaker 1: what are your chances of getting someone like that like

728
00:40:31,600 --> 00:40:34,440
Speaker 1: Elligott in the story, And they were telling me maybe

729
00:40:34,480 --> 00:40:35,080
Speaker 1: one in ten.

730
00:40:35,719 --> 00:40:39,240
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is massive. There's Learly, a psychologist at Harvard.

731
00:40:39,280 --> 00:40:42,799
Speaker 3: She's written a book called Dopaminition, and she said she's

732
00:40:42,920 --> 00:40:47,640
Speaker 3: become very critical of mainstream psychology and psychiatry that's become

733
00:40:47,760 --> 00:40:52,520
Speaker 3: so tech boxy that she find herself sitting in with

734
00:40:52,640 --> 00:40:56,640
Speaker 3: patients and they're talking and she's going, which of the

735
00:40:56,719 --> 00:40:59,680
Speaker 3: boxes in the DSM did I put this person in?

736
00:41:00,239 --> 00:41:02,799
Speaker 3: And then she realized she'd lost all the skill of

737
00:41:02,840 --> 00:41:06,239
Speaker 3: the therapist, which is about connection. Right that you know,

738
00:41:06,280 --> 00:41:08,920
Speaker 3: the warrant of the relationship, as you will know, is

739
00:41:09,040 --> 00:41:12,880
Speaker 3: the biggest thing in the success of not only therapy

740
00:41:12,920 --> 00:41:14,839
Speaker 3: but medical interactions as well.

741
00:41:15,160 --> 00:41:18,200
Speaker 1: That's exactly right. And and you can't teach that in

742
00:41:18,239 --> 00:41:21,239
Speaker 1: a university training. It's a it's a bit of a

743
00:41:21,360 --> 00:41:24,080
Speaker 1: it's a difficulty. I mean today you can train as

744
00:41:24,080 --> 00:41:29,239
Speaker 1: a psychologist in online courses. And so we've lost the

745
00:41:29,239 --> 00:41:32,279
Speaker 1: plot here, and so somehow we've got to get back

746
00:41:32,320 --> 00:41:35,680
Speaker 1: to the providing people who have got the basic humanity,

747
00:41:36,040 --> 00:41:40,920
Speaker 1: the time, the presence, the calmness to really hold these kids.

748
00:41:41,480 --> 00:41:44,400
Speaker 1: And it's because it's hard to get to a therapist,

749
00:41:44,440 --> 00:41:46,279
Speaker 1: and when you get there, you don't want it to

750
00:41:46,320 --> 00:41:49,040
Speaker 1: not work. A half of all men who go for

751
00:41:49,160 --> 00:41:53,640
Speaker 1: counseling never return after their first session. It's a manner,

752
00:41:54,160 --> 00:41:56,240
Speaker 1: a whole different you know a problem again.

753
00:41:57,280 --> 00:42:02,319
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, at least I'm seeing experience. I'm gonna get

754
00:42:02,320 --> 00:42:05,719
Speaker 3: your opinion on this, right. You may or may not

755
00:42:05,800 --> 00:42:09,719
Speaker 3: have an opinion. But I have done four different sessions

756
00:42:09,920 --> 00:42:14,200
Speaker 3: of breath work, right, because I'm interested in breathwork. So

757
00:42:14,200 --> 00:42:15,920
Speaker 3: a number of years ago I did a session with

758
00:42:16,000 --> 00:42:19,480
Speaker 3: a guy called Dan Brulet, who's a very famous breathing coach,

759
00:42:19,560 --> 00:42:22,239
Speaker 3: taught Tony Robbins horw to breathe and it was a

760
00:42:22,239 --> 00:42:26,680
Speaker 3: full daut session and the last star we did something

761
00:42:26,719 --> 00:42:33,520
Speaker 3: called holotropic breathing, right, which is this deep breath, rhythmic, cyclical,

762
00:42:33,760 --> 00:42:37,320
Speaker 3: big breaths in and out, and there's lots of music

763
00:42:37,400 --> 00:42:42,200
Speaker 3: going on, but this continuous deep breathing for forty to

764
00:42:42,280 --> 00:42:45,680
Speaker 3: fifty minutes. And I've recently done a couple of sessions

765
00:42:45,719 --> 00:42:48,120
Speaker 3: down here in the Morning's Financial with a great guy

766
00:42:48,200 --> 00:42:52,520
Speaker 3: called Barney, and in all of those sessions there have

767
00:42:52,640 --> 00:42:59,440
Speaker 3: been people who have had emotional breakthroughs, like significant emotional

768
00:42:59,480 --> 00:43:04,000
Speaker 3: breakthrough And I'm just wondering what that for me. As

769
00:43:04,040 --> 00:43:09,280
Speaker 3: you're talking, there's a way of through the vegus nerve

770
00:43:09,360 --> 00:43:13,719
Speaker 3: then facilitating that connection in with their body, but it

771
00:43:13,760 --> 00:43:16,239
Speaker 3: is it is that There's been so many people in

772
00:43:16,280 --> 00:43:19,720
Speaker 3: those three or four sessions that have actually come out

773
00:43:20,200 --> 00:43:23,440
Speaker 3: and said, you know, I remember this thing. Our tears

774
00:43:23,480 --> 00:43:27,200
Speaker 3: were streaming down my face. There was some woman remembered

775
00:43:27,239 --> 00:43:31,320
Speaker 3: her childbirth, but people talking about how they felt really

776
00:43:31,440 --> 00:43:36,439
Speaker 3: healed and open and self. Were any idea what could

777
00:43:36,480 --> 00:43:38,719
Speaker 3: be going on? Because I find it fascinating. I mean,

778
00:43:38,760 --> 00:43:42,040
Speaker 3: I'm very lucky. I don't have any past issues or

779
00:43:42,080 --> 00:43:44,160
Speaker 3: stuff like that, so I've just been in the breathing

780
00:43:44,200 --> 00:43:47,719
Speaker 3: for being in the breathing. Any idea what was.

781
00:43:48,040 --> 00:43:48,840
Speaker 1: Going on here?

782
00:43:49,600 --> 00:43:49,880
Speaker 3: Again?

783
00:43:49,960 --> 00:43:53,000
Speaker 1: I'm going to do it. You turn here, shuck, you

784
00:43:53,239 --> 00:43:56,319
Speaker 1: pull again, because I would have real concerns about that.

785
00:43:56,760 --> 00:43:58,640
Speaker 1: And there along the lines of yes, of course you

786
00:43:58,640 --> 00:44:02,440
Speaker 1: can get people having traumatic memories come up through doing

787
00:44:02,960 --> 00:44:07,279
Speaker 1: forth breathing exercises. The real issue is the integration of

788
00:44:07,320 --> 00:44:12,360
Speaker 1: those and the pacing and the sequencing of what comes

789
00:44:12,440 --> 00:44:15,640
Speaker 1: first and what you heal in which order, and so

790
00:44:15,920 --> 00:44:19,800
Speaker 1: I regard you know, there are some fantastic breathwork practitioners

791
00:44:20,280 --> 00:44:24,160
Speaker 1: and there are an awful lot of undertrained, ill equipped

792
00:44:24,200 --> 00:44:27,919
Speaker 1: ones because it's a very Byron Bay kind of a thing.

793
00:44:28,360 --> 00:44:30,960
Speaker 1: You know, we had a workshop people were crying all

794
00:44:31,000 --> 00:44:31,680
Speaker 1: over the show.

795
00:44:31,920 --> 00:44:34,600
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, no, no, no, I know, but it's different

796
00:44:34,640 --> 00:44:37,840
Speaker 3: to the VIM half type stuff which I've seen a

797
00:44:37,840 --> 00:44:39,680
Speaker 3: lot of, and the ones that I've been in have

798
00:44:39,719 --> 00:44:43,000
Speaker 3: been very skilled and interesting. The way they set the

799
00:44:43,080 --> 00:44:46,160
Speaker 3: whole thing up as well and talk to people, taught

800
00:44:46,239 --> 00:44:49,520
Speaker 3: people through the experience I thought was very very good.

801
00:44:49,640 --> 00:44:53,440
Speaker 3: But sorry, So do you think that there is then

802
00:44:53,680 --> 00:44:57,920
Speaker 3: that is is creating that connection, that body breing connection.

803
00:44:58,440 --> 00:45:01,200
Speaker 3: What do you think's going on there that people will

804
00:45:01,320 --> 00:45:03,960
Speaker 3: just open up so much, well breathing.

805
00:45:04,440 --> 00:45:07,160
Speaker 1: I mean, it's You're right in the sense that you

806
00:45:07,200 --> 00:45:11,000
Speaker 1: can get emotions happening, you can get memories coming to

807
00:45:11,080 --> 00:45:14,319
Speaker 1: the surface. It's just that I just want to put

808
00:45:14,360 --> 00:45:17,759
Speaker 1: on the record a cautionary note. Yeah, because it's in

809
00:45:17,800 --> 00:45:22,839
Speaker 1: a group, it's unpredictable. There's a time limit to how much,

810
00:45:23,040 --> 00:45:24,560
Speaker 1: you know, are you going to be there for that

811
00:45:24,600 --> 00:45:26,680
Speaker 1: person for the next two years if they need that,

812
00:45:27,600 --> 00:45:31,759
Speaker 1: And I would rather respect the brain's own sequencing of

813
00:45:31,960 --> 00:45:35,640
Speaker 1: what it surfaces and when in terms of the safety

814
00:45:35,920 --> 00:45:38,879
Speaker 1: that you know, when people feel safe, then things will come.

815
00:45:39,120 --> 00:45:42,160
Speaker 1: I'd rather do that than kind of dynamite the roadblocks

816
00:45:42,760 --> 00:45:43,960
Speaker 1: and so.

817
00:45:43,480 --> 00:45:47,719
Speaker 3: So you know, it's it's a nuclear problem.

818
00:45:47,960 --> 00:45:52,480
Speaker 1: Yes, And so I've been a psychologist for more than

819
00:45:52,760 --> 00:45:55,880
Speaker 1: forty five years. I have a strong sense of ethical

820
00:45:55,960 --> 00:45:59,239
Speaker 1: responsibility and that's what I would bring to this conversation.

821
00:45:59,480 --> 00:46:02,000
Speaker 3: So not we're not We're not encouraging people to go

822
00:46:02,080 --> 00:46:05,879
Speaker 3: out and do those things. I was just so fascinated

823
00:46:06,000 --> 00:46:10,719
Speaker 3: by what was actually happening with these pinkles that I'm like,

824
00:46:10,760 --> 00:46:14,359
Speaker 3: what is going on like that? I mean, that's got

825
00:46:14,520 --> 00:46:19,360
Speaker 3: to be some sort of in vegous nerve integration or whatever.

826
00:46:19,800 --> 00:46:22,080
Speaker 3: I just had a loss to explain it from a

827
00:46:22,080 --> 00:46:25,799
Speaker 3: physiological That's why I look at it through that physiological lens, right,

828
00:46:26,120 --> 00:46:27,880
Speaker 3: And maybe that's a very limited lens.

829
00:46:28,120 --> 00:46:30,960
Speaker 1: I mean, best of vander Kolk is totally and the

830
00:46:31,000 --> 00:46:35,879
Speaker 1: whole somatic psychotherapy movement is really blossoming. And because yes,

831
00:46:35,960 --> 00:46:39,160
Speaker 1: your body does hold on to memories. We tell the

832
00:46:39,200 --> 00:46:41,680
Speaker 1: story of Peter Levine in the book, who was in

833
00:46:41,719 --> 00:46:43,560
Speaker 1: a car crash and his arm it was just kind

834
00:46:43,600 --> 00:46:46,399
Speaker 1: of going like that because the windscreen of the car

835
00:46:46,640 --> 00:46:49,240
Speaker 1: was coming at him and he's lying on the ground,

836
00:46:49,239 --> 00:46:51,480
Speaker 1: you know, going like that because his arm had remembered

837
00:46:51,680 --> 00:46:54,560
Speaker 1: what to do at the time. It's amazing it is

838
00:46:54,600 --> 00:46:58,680
Speaker 1: it's amazing stuff. Yes, there is so much that we

839
00:46:58,760 --> 00:46:59,759
Speaker 1: still do not know.

840
00:47:00,160 --> 00:47:03,080
Speaker 3: And now you talk in your book about the difference

841
00:47:03,160 --> 00:47:08,040
Speaker 3: between the felt self and feeling give us a bit

842
00:47:08,080 --> 00:47:08,640
Speaker 3: of an idea.

843
00:47:09,200 --> 00:47:12,200
Speaker 1: It's like the progression we've made as a culture in

844
00:47:12,520 --> 00:47:15,799
Speaker 1: my lifetime from feelings were seen as something wrong with you.

845
00:47:16,160 --> 00:47:19,759
Speaker 1: If a doctor cried, you know, after you know, went

846
00:47:19,800 --> 00:47:23,400
Speaker 1: on holiday after a year of uninterrupted being a surgeon

847
00:47:23,480 --> 00:47:26,120
Speaker 1: and cried on his holidays, he think he was having

848
00:47:26,160 --> 00:47:28,920
Speaker 1: a nervous breakdown, where we would now say he just

849
00:47:29,000 --> 00:47:31,480
Speaker 1: accumulated so much he just really needed to let go.

850
00:47:31,600 --> 00:47:34,000
Speaker 1: That it was good that he was crying, and we

851
00:47:34,080 --> 00:47:36,960
Speaker 1: know now we talk to our kids about their emotions

852
00:47:37,280 --> 00:47:39,560
Speaker 1: two thirds of the time. That's all they need to

853
00:47:39,600 --> 00:47:41,600
Speaker 1: tell us that they're sad and be sad, or tell

854
00:47:41,640 --> 00:47:44,360
Speaker 1: us that they're angry with another kid at school. It

855
00:47:44,480 --> 00:47:48,120
Speaker 1: helps to tune into your feelings. The new layer that

856
00:47:48,160 --> 00:47:51,760
Speaker 1: we're adding in is when the feelings don't go away,

857
00:47:52,160 --> 00:47:55,960
Speaker 1: when our anger goes around and around, or our fearfulness

858
00:47:55,960 --> 00:47:58,560
Speaker 1: goes around and around. Is to push down to the

859
00:47:58,600 --> 00:48:01,880
Speaker 1: next layer, which is the sense of felt sense. So

860
00:48:02,040 --> 00:48:05,399
Speaker 1: if your parents listening to the podcast then you're talking

861
00:48:05,440 --> 00:48:07,600
Speaker 1: to one of your kiddies and they're upset, and you're

862
00:48:07,600 --> 00:48:10,160
Speaker 1: sitting with them, and you're really settled in to really

863
00:48:10,280 --> 00:48:13,439
Speaker 1: hear what's going on. Say to them, I can see

864
00:48:13,480 --> 00:48:16,080
Speaker 1: you're feeling bad. Where does it live? Where does this

865
00:48:16,160 --> 00:48:19,200
Speaker 1: bad feeling live in your body? And they'll they'll know,

866
00:48:20,360 --> 00:48:23,040
Speaker 1: they'll tell you, you know, it's in my tummy. It's like

867
00:48:23,080 --> 00:48:26,759
Speaker 1: a black lump in my tummy. And you don't try

868
00:48:26,760 --> 00:48:29,960
Speaker 1: and change that. You just steady them with it. You

869
00:48:30,040 --> 00:48:32,000
Speaker 1: just say, Okay, there's a black lump in your tummy.

870
00:48:32,040 --> 00:48:35,840
Speaker 1: You can feel it really black there. What's it wanting

871
00:48:35,880 --> 00:48:40,120
Speaker 1: to do? What's it doing now? Or what's it wanting

872
00:48:40,160 --> 00:48:44,359
Speaker 1: to say to you? And just these gentle inquiries. And

873
00:48:44,400 --> 00:48:49,120
Speaker 1: it'll always move our body when we give it full attention,

874
00:48:49,280 --> 00:48:53,080
Speaker 1: will always start moving doing what it's trying to complete.

875
00:48:53,560 --> 00:48:56,680
Speaker 1: And so the little boy in the book who's upset

876
00:48:56,719 --> 00:49:00,560
Speaker 1: with his sister goes from feeling angry with her to

877
00:49:00,719 --> 00:49:05,120
Speaker 1: realizing that he wishes she was little again so that

878
00:49:05,160 --> 00:49:07,600
Speaker 1: they could play together. She's sending it to a teenager

879
00:49:07,600 --> 00:49:09,440
Speaker 1: and she doesn't want to play with him anymore, and

880
00:49:09,520 --> 00:49:12,480
Speaker 1: so he's real you know, it's just such one of

881
00:49:12,480 --> 00:49:15,600
Speaker 1: those life griefs that just is you know that she's

882
00:49:15,640 --> 00:49:18,360
Speaker 1: growing up and she doesn't want to hold hands with

883
00:49:18,440 --> 00:49:20,879
Speaker 1: him at the swimming at the ice skating rink, and

884
00:49:21,239 --> 00:49:24,319
Speaker 1: you can't fix that. It's just, you know, it's just

885
00:49:26,400 --> 00:49:28,600
Speaker 1: but at least now he knows. And in the in

886
00:49:28,640 --> 00:49:30,600
Speaker 1: the it's a true story and in the book, the

887
00:49:30,680 --> 00:49:33,400
Speaker 1: boy said, anyhow, Mom, I got to get to school,

888
00:49:33,600 --> 00:49:38,799
Speaker 1: and so you know, he's he's got there now, and

889
00:49:38,239 --> 00:49:42,759
Speaker 1: he's he's okay with it. But that method your question,

890
00:49:42,840 --> 00:49:46,480
Speaker 1: it was. The method is go below the feelings to

891
00:49:46,520 --> 00:49:50,080
Speaker 1: the felt sense, and it will often be very helpful.

892
00:49:50,520 --> 00:49:52,560
Speaker 1: And you'll be in your felt sense too. You'll be

893
00:49:52,719 --> 00:49:55,040
Speaker 1: sort of feeling, you know, oh I feel so sad,

894
00:49:55,080 --> 00:49:57,439
Speaker 1: but I hear this, and so your child will sense,

895
00:49:57,520 --> 00:50:01,600
Speaker 1: you know, there's a resonance between parents child that they're

896
00:50:02,280 --> 00:50:08,360
Speaker 1: regulating each other. And it's very magical and beautiful physiological,

897
00:50:08,760 --> 00:50:11,560
Speaker 1: evidence based thing that humans do.

898
00:50:12,239 --> 00:50:18,000
Speaker 3: I'm almost in desper when I think about just how

899
00:50:18,440 --> 00:50:26,880
Speaker 3: we are medicalizing feelings. We're medicalizing childbirth, we're medicalizing emotions,

900
00:50:27,640 --> 00:50:33,160
Speaker 3: and this approach is very different. What's your thoughts on this?

901
00:50:33,160 --> 00:50:37,360
Speaker 3: This seems to be movement in some branches of psychology

902
00:50:37,480 --> 00:50:41,800
Speaker 3: where any bad feeling can be medicated and bad emotions

903
00:50:41,840 --> 00:50:46,239
Speaker 3: can be medicated, and then people wanting to get rid right,

904
00:50:46,360 --> 00:50:49,480
Speaker 3: to get rid of bad feelings, to get rid of emotions,

905
00:50:49,480 --> 00:50:51,879
Speaker 3: to get rid of anxiety. We're kind of coming back

906
00:50:51,920 --> 00:50:52,440
Speaker 3: to this stuff.

907
00:50:52,480 --> 00:50:56,120
Speaker 1: Well, this has a long tail, Paul, because when I

908
00:50:56,160 --> 00:50:59,000
Speaker 1: was seventeen, my mum was going through the minopause. Then

909
00:50:59,160 --> 00:51:01,680
Speaker 1: she found me really hard work, and I found her

910
00:51:01,840 --> 00:51:04,960
Speaker 1: really hard work. And she went to the doctors and

911
00:51:05,400 --> 00:51:09,680
Speaker 1: was prescribed a valium variant of vailium. And she and

912
00:51:09,719 --> 00:51:13,000
Speaker 1: I looked it up, you know what had been prescribed,

913
00:51:13,080 --> 00:51:16,359
Speaker 1: because we were mates as well as antagonists half the time,

914
00:51:16,520 --> 00:51:19,000
Speaker 1: and we found that valium was, and this was nineteen

915
00:51:19,680 --> 00:51:23,840
Speaker 1: sixty nine or something, was the most prospect which the

916
00:51:24,360 --> 00:51:28,400
Speaker 1: prescribed drug in the Western world. It was like this

917
00:51:28,640 --> 00:51:32,880
Speaker 1: lid on feminism, but it's like, you know, let's just

918
00:51:33,040 --> 00:51:37,080
Speaker 1: medicate the massive unhappiness of the whole female gender. We

919
00:51:37,200 --> 00:51:41,719
Speaker 1: got the Women's movement and people got really pissed at

920
00:51:41,760 --> 00:51:45,000
Speaker 1: the life that was being put onto women. And my

921
00:51:45,120 --> 00:51:49,920
Speaker 1: mum benefited from that, my sister and her generation. You know,

922
00:51:50,000 --> 00:51:55,239
Speaker 1: I've got daughters and granddaughters, and that changed, but it

923
00:51:55,760 --> 00:51:59,239
Speaker 1: still has. The drug companies. They aren't quit.

924
00:52:00,280 --> 00:52:01,920
Speaker 3: There's a lot of a lot.

925
00:52:01,719 --> 00:52:04,160
Speaker 1: Of money and drugs. They'll keep coming back, you know,

926
00:52:04,200 --> 00:52:07,520
Speaker 1: they'll be advertising to the doctors. You know, anxious kids

927
00:52:07,560 --> 00:52:11,200
Speaker 1: coming in. Haven't got time just to see them, twelve months,

928
00:52:11,320 --> 00:52:14,400
Speaker 1: twelve months waiting list. You put them on these And

929
00:52:14,560 --> 00:52:17,080
Speaker 1: I'm not saying there isn't a part for this, but

930
00:52:17,400 --> 00:52:20,640
Speaker 1: it's a thing to buy you some time. Use that time,

931
00:52:21,480 --> 00:52:25,120
Speaker 1: get into counseling, gets you know, have a look at

932
00:52:25,160 --> 00:52:27,520
Speaker 1: what your body is doing, because your body is not

933
00:52:27,640 --> 00:52:30,520
Speaker 1: your enemy. It's not something you have to to deaden

934
00:52:30,840 --> 00:52:34,040
Speaker 1: or dull. It's something you have to set free.

935
00:52:34,200 --> 00:52:34,439
Speaker 3: Yeah.

936
00:52:35,040 --> 00:52:38,200
Speaker 1: The title of the book originally was Make Friends with

937
00:52:38,239 --> 00:52:42,200
Speaker 1: your Wild Creature Mind, and they told me that was

938
00:52:42,200 --> 00:52:46,600
Speaker 1: too long. But that's the message is whatever's happening something

939
00:52:46,640 --> 00:52:51,520
Speaker 1: inside you, be patient and attentive and give it some space,

940
00:52:52,360 --> 00:52:55,360
Speaker 1: and it will always have something to tell you, and

941
00:52:55,400 --> 00:52:59,719
Speaker 1: sometimes it'll be a life changing, transforming thing and you'll

942
00:52:59,760 --> 00:53:00,640
Speaker 1: never look back.

943
00:53:01,200 --> 00:53:06,239
Speaker 3: There seems to me to be benefits here, not just

944
00:53:06,280 --> 00:53:10,480
Speaker 3: for people who are struggling with mental health and emotions,

945
00:53:10,520 --> 00:53:13,600
Speaker 3: but for all people. I think we, as you say,

946
00:53:13,680 --> 00:53:18,040
Speaker 3: we've become very detached. I mean, I've had experience in

947
00:53:18,080 --> 00:53:23,520
Speaker 3: the Amazon jungle with Matsis Indian tribes and they they

948
00:53:23,680 --> 00:53:27,720
Speaker 3: think very differently than we do. They are so much

949
00:53:27,760 --> 00:53:30,759
Speaker 3: more in touch with their bodies and in touch with

950
00:53:30,920 --> 00:53:34,200
Speaker 3: nature in general. And I think that and we look

951
00:53:34,239 --> 00:53:37,680
Speaker 3: at the Aboriginals, and you know, the longest community here

952
00:53:37,719 --> 00:53:40,640
Speaker 3: in the world in the Aboriginal streamers, who are much

953
00:53:40,680 --> 00:53:44,000
Speaker 3: more in touch with both their body and their nature.

954
00:53:44,160 --> 00:53:48,200
Speaker 3: So I presume that the techniques and the stories in

955
00:53:48,239 --> 00:53:52,560
Speaker 3: your book are applicable for everybody who just wants to

956
00:53:52,640 --> 00:53:55,640
Speaker 3: get a better sense of what it is to be human,

957
00:53:55,680 --> 00:53:57,239
Speaker 3: and not just I.

958
00:53:57,200 --> 00:53:59,440
Speaker 1: Don't think anyone has read the book with as much

959
00:54:00,040 --> 00:54:03,960
Speaker 1: exception of totality of it, Paul, because we put it

960
00:54:04,000 --> 00:54:06,720
Speaker 1: as a range of It's like a spectrum. It starts

961
00:54:06,760 --> 00:54:09,760
Speaker 1: off with first just playing first aid. You know, you're anxious,

962
00:54:10,000 --> 00:54:12,920
Speaker 1: How can you get through the night? And it goes to, okay,

963
00:54:13,200 --> 00:54:15,960
Speaker 1: there's damage that you've rough, things have happened to you

964
00:54:16,000 --> 00:54:18,359
Speaker 1: in the past. How can you start to unpack those

965
00:54:18,800 --> 00:54:21,640
Speaker 1: and heal those? But the third step is this is

966
00:54:21,680 --> 00:54:24,319
Speaker 1: a different way of being in the world. And McGilchrist

967
00:54:24,520 --> 00:54:27,239
Speaker 1: says this. He says, a healthy person is in their

968
00:54:27,320 --> 00:54:32,640
Speaker 1: right hemisphere eighty percent of the time. Now, Indigenous people,

969
00:54:33,040 --> 00:54:35,719
Speaker 1: they walk through the forest, they're not running through their

970
00:54:35,719 --> 00:54:41,400
Speaker 1: shopping list. No, no, no, it's like open the feeling

971
00:54:41,400 --> 00:54:44,000
Speaker 1: of being and for people watching and listening, you know

972
00:54:44,080 --> 00:54:47,080
Speaker 1: you're in your right hemisphere because it feels open. It's

973
00:54:47,200 --> 00:54:50,319
Speaker 1: like a soft, open awareness. And this is what I'm

974
00:54:51,040 --> 00:54:55,640
Speaker 1: slowly learning, is to be talking to you or being

975
00:54:55,680 --> 00:54:58,600
Speaker 1: in my family or going about my life. But I'm

976
00:54:58,840 --> 00:55:02,560
Speaker 1: aware of my body all the time and can feel

977
00:55:02,760 --> 00:55:06,080
Speaker 1: the softness of my tummy, and can feel my shoulders settle,

978
00:55:06,200 --> 00:55:10,239
Speaker 1: and feel my breathing coming and going, and so so

979
00:55:10,320 --> 00:55:13,480
Speaker 1: it's a lovely kind of rich experience. And maybe I'm

980
00:55:13,520 --> 00:55:16,319
Speaker 1: a bit slower, you know. I'll sometimes often say, look,

981
00:55:16,360 --> 00:55:18,320
Speaker 1: I just I just need to have a bit of

982
00:55:18,400 --> 00:55:21,000
Speaker 1: a sit with that a bit before I can answer

983
00:55:21,000 --> 00:55:23,440
Speaker 1: that question. And you can see now I'm kind of

984
00:55:23,480 --> 00:55:26,560
Speaker 1: just slowing down as I'm doing it. But it's a

985
00:55:26,600 --> 00:55:30,680
Speaker 1: way of being that's that's actually very responsive. You know

986
00:55:30,800 --> 00:55:34,040
Speaker 1: those guys in the Amazon jungle, you know if some

987
00:55:34,160 --> 00:55:37,439
Speaker 1: iver twig snaps, you know, one hundred meters to the right.

988
00:55:37,760 --> 00:55:38,759
Speaker 1: They're registering that.

989
00:55:39,440 --> 00:55:42,960
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, and I know about it. Yeah, absolutely, walk

990
00:55:43,280 --> 00:55:47,000
Speaker 3: walking through the jungle of those guys, oh experience.

991
00:55:47,200 --> 00:55:49,799
Speaker 1: And as a result, they feel very comfortable in their

992
00:55:49,840 --> 00:55:53,560
Speaker 1: own skin and part of nature, which if we don't

993
00:55:53,600 --> 00:55:56,360
Speaker 1: solve being part of nature, we've only got another fifty years.

994
00:55:57,280 --> 00:55:59,720
Speaker 1: It's a serious as.

995
00:56:00,080 --> 00:56:03,480
Speaker 3: Like it's a fascinating conversation. I am aware of your time, Steve.

996
00:56:04,000 --> 00:56:07,600
Speaker 3: Just saw a couple of questions off topic, slightly off topic,

997
00:56:08,080 --> 00:56:11,520
Speaker 3: how is your decade of for a while going.

998
00:56:11,400 --> 00:56:15,440
Speaker 1: For people watching and listening. When I turned seventy, it

999
00:56:15,560 --> 00:56:17,400
Speaker 1: occurred to me, and you give me this, giving me

1000
00:56:17,480 --> 00:56:20,400
Speaker 1: this kindly big grin. It occurred to me, that's not

1001
00:56:20,520 --> 00:56:24,760
Speaker 1: just another decade, it's the last decade of last decade

1002
00:56:24,800 --> 00:56:29,320
Speaker 1: of functionality anyway, and that's got to make a difference.

1003
00:56:29,680 --> 00:56:33,520
Speaker 1: And I describe in Wild Creature this experience I had

1004
00:56:33,680 --> 00:56:39,680
Speaker 1: on a silent retreat, a meditation retreat, of suddenly feeling

1005
00:56:39,719 --> 00:56:43,160
Speaker 1: an ache in my side of my heart as walking

1006
00:56:43,200 --> 00:56:45,439
Speaker 1: through the bush and it's just seen a gum leaf,

1007
00:56:45,480 --> 00:56:47,600
Speaker 1: and I just felt this ache in my heart and

1008
00:56:47,640 --> 00:56:49,880
Speaker 1: I paid attention to it, and it was like a

1009
00:56:50,960 --> 00:56:53,960
Speaker 1: like this opening happened Off. There's going to be a

1010
00:56:54,000 --> 00:56:59,200
Speaker 1: world without Steve Bidoff in it, and I'm I was

1011
00:56:59,360 --> 00:57:03,360
Speaker 1: sort of seeing my own gonness and and then of

1012
00:57:03,400 --> 00:57:05,879
Speaker 1: course coming back. But it's not yet, you know, I'm

1013
00:57:05,880 --> 00:57:11,279
Speaker 1: not dead yet. But it made me very have not

1014
00:57:11,280 --> 00:57:16,800
Speaker 1: made me very, very intensely interested in I don't I

1015
00:57:16,800 --> 00:57:20,560
Speaker 1: don't mind being dead, but I very much care about

1016
00:57:20,600 --> 00:57:24,960
Speaker 1: what I do with the time remaining. Climate change comes first,

1017
00:57:25,400 --> 00:57:27,800
Speaker 1: you know, the kids that are going to live after

1018
00:57:27,840 --> 00:57:30,840
Speaker 1: we're gone are going to live in a healthscape unless

1019
00:57:30,880 --> 00:57:34,000
Speaker 1: we can change that. That's first. Second one is my

1020
00:57:34,080 --> 00:57:36,640
Speaker 1: friends and family. How can I love them and care

1021
00:57:36,720 --> 00:57:40,480
Speaker 1: for them to the very end? It was a complete reverse.

1022
00:57:40,520 --> 00:57:42,240
Speaker 1: I I'd better go on a cruise. Of course, they

1023
00:57:42,320 --> 00:57:45,440
Speaker 1: mightn't get the chance again, Well it was you know,

1024
00:57:46,080 --> 00:57:48,560
Speaker 1: you will not see me on a golf course. I

1025
00:57:48,600 --> 00:57:51,720
Speaker 1: will certainly be, you know, enjoying the world and going

1026
00:57:51,760 --> 00:57:58,280
Speaker 1: slowly and happily appreciating my life in Tasmania. But my

1027
00:57:58,640 --> 00:58:02,040
Speaker 1: concern of an elder is to make things work for

1028
00:58:02,120 --> 00:58:05,520
Speaker 1: the next generation, and so how can I I don't

1029
00:58:05,520 --> 00:58:08,000
Speaker 1: even know the answer to that, Paul, I just I

1030
00:58:08,080 --> 00:58:09,800
Speaker 1: don't know, But I know that that's what I have

1031
00:58:09,880 --> 00:58:10,120
Speaker 1: to do.

1032
00:58:10,840 --> 00:58:14,280
Speaker 3: Yeah, look, i'll give you an opinion here. There's a

1033
00:58:14,800 --> 00:58:17,160
Speaker 3: I don't know if you've read the book From Strength

1034
00:58:17,240 --> 00:58:22,560
Speaker 3: to Strengths by Arthur C. Brooks, absolute brilliant book, who

1035
00:58:22,680 --> 00:58:26,400
Speaker 3: talks about the first curve and the second curve of

1036
00:58:26,440 --> 00:58:30,160
Speaker 3: your life, and the second curve starts in the fifties

1037
00:58:30,160 --> 00:58:33,120
Speaker 3: and a lot of people struggle with that move from

1038
00:58:33,160 --> 00:58:35,959
Speaker 3: the first curve to the second curve, and he really says,

1039
00:58:36,120 --> 00:58:39,520
Speaker 3: you know, and that's where midlife crisis happens because all

1040
00:58:39,520 --> 00:58:42,560
Speaker 3: of a sudden you're not as important and that anyway,

1041
00:58:42,800 --> 00:58:46,400
Speaker 3: he said that his belief is that on the second

1042
00:58:46,440 --> 00:58:51,640
Speaker 3: curve of your life, your major role is to disseminate

1043
00:58:52,040 --> 00:58:55,880
Speaker 3: all the knowledge that you have acquired over the years

1044
00:58:56,400 --> 00:59:00,000
Speaker 3: to other people to help them to actually get through

1045
00:59:00,120 --> 00:59:03,800
Speaker 3: their first curve really well. And I think you're a

1046
00:59:04,040 --> 00:59:08,200
Speaker 3: testament to that with your your work that has touched

1047
00:59:08,320 --> 00:59:12,560
Speaker 3: millions of people, that has helped a huge amount of parents,

1048
00:59:12,560 --> 00:59:16,680
Speaker 3: including in our house, to help people through that first curve.

1049
00:59:16,840 --> 00:59:20,040
Speaker 3: So it is really just about you know, doing that,

1050
00:59:20,240 --> 00:59:20,800
Speaker 3: doing the leader.

1051
00:59:20,800 --> 00:59:21,280
Speaker 1: Stop here.

1052
00:59:21,320 --> 00:59:24,240
Speaker 3: That's great that you've got a book. Eight Again, when

1053
00:59:24,240 --> 00:59:26,760
Speaker 3: you're at your seventies and year, so I would just

1054
00:59:26,920 --> 00:59:30,280
Speaker 3: encourage you to continue to disseminate.

1055
00:59:29,800 --> 00:59:32,360
Speaker 1: It that knowledge because we're all I'm just going to

1056
00:59:32,440 --> 00:59:37,080
Speaker 1: take that graciously and and and that's you know, sweet

1057
00:59:37,120 --> 00:59:40,000
Speaker 1: of you to say so, and and lovely to hear.

1058
00:59:40,200 --> 00:59:46,280
Speaker 1: And it's it felt like a Shambali clock. Something was something,

1059
00:59:46,440 --> 00:59:48,480
Speaker 1: there was a grace that came into it somehow, And

1060
00:59:49,000 --> 00:59:51,360
Speaker 1: I'm glad it's it's helped. If it's helped anyone, I'm

1061
00:59:51,400 --> 00:59:52,640
Speaker 1: really really grateful.

1062
00:59:52,840 --> 00:59:55,600
Speaker 3: Thank you. Bloody hell hasn't helped anyone, it's helped so

1063
00:59:55,680 --> 00:59:59,600
Speaker 3: many people. So on behalf of the world in general.

1064
00:59:59,240 --> 01:00:02,720
Speaker 4: Steve, andarticularly for parents, and and now with your new

1065
01:00:02,760 --> 01:00:04,760
Speaker 4: book on behalf of people.

1066
01:00:04,600 --> 01:00:09,600
Speaker 3: With with anxiety who are struggling. A heartfelt thank you.

1067
01:00:09,400 --> 01:00:15,240
Speaker 1: You're really welcome. Thank you,