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Speaker 1: We hope you'll enjoy this episode with Guy Winch. When
Speaker 1: you have a physical injury, you have to tend it,
Speaker 1: you have to cover the cuts with a band aige
Speaker 1: it does and even register when we sustain psychological wounds
Speaker 1: that there is an action that we need to take.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the one you feed Throughout time, great thinkers
Speaker 1: have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes
Speaker 1: like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you
Speaker 1: think ring true. And yet for many of us, our
Speaker 1: thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity,
Speaker 1: self pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't
Speaker 1: have instead of what we do. We think things that
Speaker 1: hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not
Speaker 1: just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent,
Speaker 1: and creative effort to make a life worth living. This
Speaker 1: podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in
Speaker 1: the right direction, how they feed their good wolf. Thanks
Speaker 1: for joining us. Our guest on this episode is Guy Wench,
Speaker 1: a licensed psychologist, keynote and Ted Talk speaker, and an
Speaker 1: author whose books have been translated into twenty languages. His
Speaker 1: most recent book is Emotional First Aid, Healing, Rejection, Guilt, Failure,
Speaker 1: and Other Everyday Hurts. Hi, Guy, Welcome to the show.
Speaker 1: Thank you very much for having me. I'm happy to
Speaker 1: have you on. I first came across your work on
Speaker 1: Paul gil Martin Show. Where you kind of came on
Speaker 1: and talked about some different approaches to handling emotional wounds.
Speaker 1: So I really enjoyed you there. I've read your book since,
Speaker 1: and I'm excited to dig into some of these things
Speaker 1: with you. So let's start like we normally do, with
Speaker 1: the parable. There's a grandfather who's talking with his grandson.
Speaker 1: He says, in life, there are two wolves inside of
Speaker 1: us that are always a battle. One is a good wolf,
Speaker 1: which represents things like in this and bravery and love,
Speaker 1: and the other is a bad wolf, which represents things
Speaker 1: like greed and hatred and fear. And the grandson stops
Speaker 1: and he thinks about it for a second, and he
Speaker 1: looks up at his grandfather and he says, grandfather, which
Speaker 1: one wins? And the grandfather says, the one you feed.
Speaker 1: So I'd like to start off by asking you what
Speaker 1: that parable means to you in your life and in
Speaker 1: the work that you do. Well. To me, I mean,
Speaker 1: it's a it's a very good parable for what actually
Speaker 1: happens to us psychologically in the day to day, in
Speaker 1: the in the minute a minute of our existence. You know,
Speaker 1: we have different drives, we have different needs, we have
Speaker 1: different instincts and um. Some of them send us down
Speaker 1: the wrong path or down a very damaging pat and
Speaker 1: some of them send us down a good part. Now,
Speaker 1: sometimes the ones that you know, the evil or the
Speaker 1: wolf that you know, is battling on the on the
Speaker 1: side of anger and jealousy and greed and resentment, that
Speaker 1: actually feels very true, that actually feels very compelling, that
Speaker 1: actually feels very very urgent. And so the good wolf
Speaker 1: in that sense, the one that would be about um,
Speaker 1: you know, humility or hope, um you know, or gratitude,
Speaker 1: feels much more disconnected and much more distant and much weaker. UM.
Speaker 1: That's when that's when we have to literally assert one
Speaker 1: over the other. For example, you know the issue of rumination,
Speaker 1: when we tend to kind of chew over um, distressing
Speaker 1: and angering things that happened to us. By by replaying
Speaker 1: these kinds of events in our minds, we're actually getting
Speaker 1: ourselves more angry and more upset and more resentful and
Speaker 1: more bitter. But it feels extraordinarily compelling to kind of
Speaker 1: replay those scenes over and over again. It's much harder
Speaker 1: to actually, you know, try and and assert acceptance and
Speaker 1: um and gratitude and perspective and the good things. Um So,
Speaker 1: I I do think that's the kind of battle that
Speaker 1: we take in the day to day. I think it
Speaker 1: has major imper paitions for our emotional health and for
Speaker 1: our general kind of sense and well being. Um but
Speaker 1: I think it's something that we all face on a
Speaker 1: daily basis. Yeah, your book, most recent book is called
Speaker 1: Emotional First Aid Healing, Rejection, Guilt, Failure and other everyday hurts.
Speaker 1: And the basic idea behind it is that we all
Speaker 1: know how to do basic first aid on our bodies,
Speaker 1: you know, from a very young age, but very few
Speaker 1: of us know at all how to or certainly not
Speaker 1: teach our children how to do first aid on the
Speaker 1: emotional wounds that we all suffer in the course of
Speaker 1: of going about our day to day lives. And yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it's actually even more it's I think it's
Speaker 1: even worse. I think it's worse because it's not just
Speaker 1: that we know to do one and we and we
Speaker 1: don't know how to do the other. We don't know
Speaker 1: that there's a possibility to do the other. We don't
Speaker 1: know that we should do the other. I mean, we're
Speaker 1: aware on the most basic level that when you have
Speaker 1: a physical injury, you have to tend it. You have
Speaker 1: to evaluate whether it needs a you know, professional care,
Speaker 1: and if not, you have to do something to which
Speaker 1: you have to cover the cut with the band aide.
Speaker 1: You have to put an ice back on the sprain.
Speaker 1: You know, you have to you have to take some
Speaker 1: kind of action. It doesn't even register when we sustain
Speaker 1: emotional and psychological wounds that there's an action that we
Speaker 1: need to take, certainly, not that there's one that we
Speaker 1: could take, and certainly not what that might be. One
Speaker 1: things you also talk about in the book that I
Speaker 1: like a lot is that if we tended to these
Speaker 1: small wounds when they are a small wound, we would
Speaker 1: probably have less exacerbation of these things into full blown
Speaker 1: mental illness type problems. And I think that's that's true
Speaker 1: in many different ways. And in the first way, yes,
Speaker 1: things can in the same way that the physical wounds
Speaker 1: can become you know, infected quote unquote, um, there can
Speaker 1: be this ripple effect that happens even with small emotional wounds.
Speaker 1: Just you know, as an example, you know, somebody's on
Speaker 1: a on a dating website and they reached out to
Speaker 1: someone and that person, uh, you know, rejected them or
Speaker 1: rebuffed them, and their feelings got hurt, and they decided.
Speaker 1: And I hear this all the time. I'm not making
Speaker 1: this example up. Well, you know, I'm going to stay
Speaker 1: off that dating website for you know, for a few
Speaker 1: weeks or maybe a couple of months, because you know,
Speaker 1: it's annoying quote unquote is what they will say to themselves,
Speaker 1: as opposed to saying, yeah, rejection hurts, UM. So I
Speaker 1: got rejected, let me think about what I should do
Speaker 1: about it. And so they stay off the dating website.
Speaker 1: But they also stay away from dating because they don't
Speaker 1: want to get rejected again. And the more they do that,
Speaker 1: the less confident they are, and the more anxious they
Speaker 1: are about the next date they have, whenever that would be.
Speaker 1: And so they approach the next date, you know, full
Speaker 1: of dread and anxiety. They're not the best selves, and
Speaker 1: you know, and then they end up inviting the very
Speaker 1: rejection they were fearful of. And then now they're now
Speaker 1: they're really not dating, and now years of passing. In
Speaker 1: other words, you can just see how how how things
Speaker 1: um you know, can can grow and can snowball um
Speaker 1: from the small psychological injury not that that happens every time,
Speaker 1: but it has happened Number one and number two. There's
Speaker 1: a certain emotional resiliency that you can build by actually
Speaker 1: tackling these kinds of emotional wounds and addressing them, because
Speaker 1: it actually makes you feel better when you do, and
Speaker 1: then it makes you more confident about Okay, I might
Speaker 1: get rejected on the date, but I know how to
Speaker 1: handle that now, I know what steps I can take
Speaker 1: to make myself feel better. Or yes, I'll risk this endeavor.
Speaker 1: I'm afraid that I might fail that, but if I do,
Speaker 1: I know how to deal with failure. I know how
Speaker 1: to figure it out on how to you know, work
Speaker 1: around it and kind of tackle things with a renewed
Speaker 1: vigor the next time. So it builds emotional resiliency to
Speaker 1: kind of tend these wounds. And so I think it's
Speaker 1: helpful in in quite a variety of ways. Yes, So
Speaker 1: why don't we just jump into some of the wounds
Speaker 1: that you talk about, And I'd like to spend you know,
Speaker 1: really the remainder of the program talking about some of
Speaker 1: the basic things that people can do to treat some
Speaker 1: of these these wounds. So why don't we just start
Speaker 1: with rejection. The interesting thing about all these wounds, UM,
Speaker 1: and I think it's an important component is before you
Speaker 1: can start treating it, you really need to have an
Speaker 1: understanding of in what were you're injured. You know, if
Speaker 1: you wipe out on a skateboard, um, and I can
Speaker 1: assure you it's been a while since I've been on
Speaker 1: a skateboard or wiped out on one, UM. But if
Speaker 1: you do, the first instinct you have is let me
Speaker 1: check myself to see that I'm not hurt. Right, you're
Speaker 1: lying on the ground, you're let me let let me
Speaker 1: check this and flegs my legs and arms to make
Speaker 1: sure nothing's broken. So, you know, we have this instinct
Speaker 1: to let me see if something I'm hurt somewhere, and
Speaker 1: we have a tendency to know where to look for
Speaker 1: the injury that we might sustain. UM. When it comes
Speaker 1: to take to rejection, well what are you looking for? So, yes,
Speaker 1: you have hurt feelings, that's a very universal thing. Your
Speaker 1: feelings are hurt, But ay, what does that really mean?
Speaker 1: And be where where are the actual injuries emotionally? You know,
Speaker 1: as it were, And so it's very important and and
Speaker 1: in in in my book actually divide every chapter into
Speaker 1: two parts. One art is discussing what the wounds are
Speaker 1: on the second part is what the treatments are for
Speaker 1: those wounds. And I think they're both very important. But
Speaker 1: we're talking about rejection. So there's several things that happened
Speaker 1: to us when we get rejected. And the first thing
Speaker 1: is it hurts. And this expression hurt feelings is one
Speaker 1: that is existing almost every language I think that we know.
Speaker 1: In other words, when you describe feelings in different languages,
Speaker 1: they don't always translate. This thing about hurt feelings related
Speaker 1: to rejection is very very consistent. And why that is
Speaker 1: is because it actually does hurt. Um They did studies
Speaker 1: with functional m R E. S um is. I'm just
Speaker 1: gonna mention more. IS's just I think it's really interesting.
Speaker 1: I hope that's okay. But they asked for volunteers, actually
Speaker 1: they paid them, but you know, they asked for for
Speaker 1: people to volunteer for the study and get paid for it,
Speaker 1: who had just experienced a recent heartbreak and then they
Speaker 1: had them lie in a functional fMRI machine and look
Speaker 1: at the picture. You know, that's the first thing I
Speaker 1: looked up when I read that study. I quickly skipped
Speaker 1: to the methods is how much do these people get paid?
Speaker 1: Because this is what they had to do. They had
Speaker 1: to stare at the picture the person who broke their
Speaker 1: heart and relive the breakup while and if anyone's been
Speaker 1: in an m R I it's incredibly noisy bang bang
Speaker 1: bang while that's going on around you. So yes, the
Speaker 1: first thing I did is I really hope. And they
Speaker 1: paid them decently actually for an experiment. Actually that was
Speaker 1: pretty that was pretty good. But but what they found
Speaker 1: and what was really compelling, was that when they looked
Speaker 1: at the at the slides of the slices of the
Speaker 1: brain and what's happening in the brain in that moment,
Speaker 1: they were indistinguishable for from what you see when people
Speaker 1: experience physical pain. In other words, rejection literally activates the
Speaker 1: same pathways in our brain as does physical pain. That's
Speaker 1: why we have that expression hurt feelings. We really hurt.
Speaker 1: It actually be hurt. And and as a proof of concept,
Speaker 1: they did the follow up study, which is really more
Speaker 1: cute than anything else. I'm not suggesting this is actually
Speaker 1: remedy for people. But they put people, two groups of
Speaker 1: people through a rejection experiment and they gave half of them.
Speaker 1: One group they gave like sugar pills, and the other
Speaker 1: group they gave thailan all pseudominicon um. And then they
Speaker 1: had them report on the emotional pain they experienced and
Speaker 1: the group and the group didn't know what they were getting,
Speaker 1: but the group who received the thailan all reported less
Speaker 1: emotional pain after the rejection. Yeah, that's real. I am
Speaker 1: not suggesting people go on dates packing tailan all um,
Speaker 1: because it's very pessimistic. Really, it's kind of hard on
Speaker 1: the liver. Maybe add though would be better. It's hard
Speaker 1: on the liver, and it's a little pessimistic. I think
Speaker 1: it's the worst thing. You know, you're like just just
Speaker 1: say the world and also of the pills. Um. But um,
Speaker 1: it is an interesting proof of concept. And so this
Speaker 1: knowing that your feelings are hurting for a reason is
Speaker 1: very important and is an eximple thing about rejection. When
Speaker 1: they put people through the experiments in which they it's
Speaker 1: a fake rejection, but it's the people don't know it's fake.
Speaker 1: They're getting rejected in the scenario these participants um, and
Speaker 1: then they tell them, okay, so look here's the thing, um,
Speaker 1: those people who seemingly rejected you, that they were our
Speaker 1: research assistants, there actually was no rejection happening, and then
Speaker 1: they ask people, well, how are you feeling now? Will
Speaker 1: their feelings still hurt? In other words, the amazing thing
Speaker 1: about rejection is even once you found you find out
Speaker 1: it's not real, it actually still hurts. So certainly, if
Speaker 1: it is real, and certainly if it's significant, it's going
Speaker 1: to hurt a lot. And that's important to know because
Speaker 1: when you don't know that and your feelings get hurt
Speaker 1: because someone who don't even care that much about rejected you,
Speaker 1: or someone who want that invested in, not alone someone
Speaker 1: you were, then your natural inclination is going to think, wow,
Speaker 1: I must be some kind of major loser, that this
Speaker 1: is really bothering me this much? What's wrong with me?
Speaker 1: How How you know, desperate am I? That this is
Speaker 1: bothering me this much? It's bother you because your brain
Speaker 1: is wired for it to really really bother you, not
Speaker 1: because of any reflection on you or your emotional fortitude.
Speaker 1: You know, your constitution, your appealability, none of that. But
Speaker 1: if you don't know that, then you're gonna go down
Speaker 1: a very wrong path of the wrong wolf and go
Speaker 1: to feeling really bad and really angry and really resentful.
Speaker 1: And if you do know that and you can steal
Speaker 1: yourself downe you know a better path. What would that
Speaker 1: better path for rejection look like? What are a couple
Speaker 1: of things that if you're feeling that sting, that pain,
Speaker 1: that you can do to treat it. So I'm going
Speaker 1: to give you one example. Now, Unfortunately, with rejection, what
Speaker 1: happens is, you know, our self esteem gets damaged because
Speaker 1: it's just not you know, it's not good for anyone
Speaker 1: self esteem to be rejected, even you know in the
Speaker 1: fake rejection, you just your your feelings that hurt, and
Speaker 1: your self esteem takes a hit. Now, the thing about
Speaker 1: the self esteem taking a hit is that the rejection
Speaker 1: usually causes ten of the hit your self esteem takes.
Speaker 1: What causes the rest of the eight is you. Because
Speaker 1: then we go into this very negative internal voice and start,
Speaker 1: you know, if it was in a romantic scenario, we
Speaker 1: look in the mirror and we start going through every
Speaker 1: single possible physical flow we have. Or you are not
Speaker 1: tall enough for are not rich enough for a London enough,
Speaker 1: or this isn't big enough for that too big, or
Speaker 1: this isn't wide and enough for that's too wide or
Speaker 1: whatever it is. You know, we go through the litany um,
Speaker 1: you know, with the assumption of if we were only
Speaker 1: better than that wouldn't have happened. But in the in
Speaker 1: in in preparing the grounds for if we were only better,
Speaker 1: we actually go through every possible way in which we're
Speaker 1: not adequate. Whether we're adequate or not. Now, that's what
Speaker 1: does most of the damage to our self esteem. So
Speaker 1: we need to do two things. We need to shut
Speaker 1: off that voice, we need to shut down that wolf.
Speaker 1: And then we need to actually do the reverse. We
Speaker 1: need to actually find ways to revive our self esteem.
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna give people one an example. You know
Speaker 1: that I suggest usual about rejection, and that is, if
Speaker 1: you want to revivee yourself esteem after rejection, the best
Speaker 1: way to do that is to remind yourself and very
Speaker 1: clearly what you actually do bring to the table, what
Speaker 1: you do have to offer in terms of the data relationship,
Speaker 1: you know, a significant other, what have you? And that means,
Speaker 1: you know, make a list of qualities that you think
Speaker 1: you have that are meaningful, that are important. You might
Speaker 1: be you know, funny and emotionally available, loyal and supported,
Speaker 1: you might be graded at back grubs. You know, you
Speaker 1: might you might be you know, very entertaining, you might
Speaker 1: be great within laws. Whatever it is that write down
Speaker 1: qualities that you think really matter in relationships that you
Speaker 1: know you have, and then choose one of them and
Speaker 1: write a brief essay, you know, a paragraph or two brief,
Speaker 1: but the paragraph or two about why that's important to people,
Speaker 1: how you've manifested it in the past, or or how
Speaker 1: you'll do that in the future, and why the person
Speaker 1: you'll be with will benefit from it. Now, it's important
Speaker 1: to write. People often tell me, oh, I did it
Speaker 1: in my head, and um, it doesn't work that well
Speaker 1: in your head, you know, I said to people, Look like,
Speaker 1: you know, if you look in the fridge and you're
Speaker 1: hungry and you go, I'm gonna imagine eating all of that,
Speaker 1: you're still going to be hungry. You actually have to do,
Speaker 1: um the exercise, not do it in your head. Write
Speaker 1: it down it. The writing actually co opts very different
Speaker 1: errors of your brain into the task and so it's
Speaker 1: a much more meaningful and deeper exercise when you write.
Speaker 1: So write those two paragraphs, um, and that will actually
Speaker 1: make you feel better because you're focusing and actually, these
Speaker 1: are all the things I do have to offer. The
Speaker 1: next person will be able to see these as the
Speaker 1: polk as the focusing on what you don't have. And
Speaker 1: so that's one exercise I really recommend people do um
Speaker 1: if they sustain a rejection. What I like about that,
Speaker 1: and you talk about in a couple of different places
Speaker 1: in the book, is that a lot of people turn
Speaker 1: to positive affirmation in situations like that, whether you know,
Speaker 1: around rejection or failure or self esteem. And it's these
Speaker 1: things that are like, you know, I'm beautiful and I'm capable.
Speaker 1: And what you talk about is that that doesn't necessarily
Speaker 1: work in a lot of cases, and in some cases
Speaker 1: can can make things worse. But what you're talking about
Speaker 1: is actually looking at the reality of let me find
Speaker 1: things about myself that I really do believe are good
Speaker 1: and let me put my attention on those instead of
Speaker 1: trying to convince myself I'm good in something that I
Speaker 1: don't think i'm good in. Right now, that that's exactly
Speaker 1: why the positive afformations don't work, because by positive aformation
Speaker 1: is usually I mean, I mean the general kind of
Speaker 1: statements of you know, I'm worthy or I'm going to
Speaker 1: find success, So I'm going to find great love. You know,
Speaker 1: the kinds of things you'll see, um, you know in
Speaker 1: refrigerator magnets and daily cannadas. But why they don't work
Speaker 1: It is because reciting to yourself in the moment I'm
Speaker 1: beautiful and wonderful in the very norment you're feeling very
Speaker 1: unbeautiful and unwonderful, is not compelling. In fact, it flies
Speaker 1: in the face of what your feelings are telling you,
Speaker 1: and in those moments, we are much more likely to
Speaker 1: reject that statement um consciously or unconsciously, and feel worse
Speaker 1: because of it. So the research actually says that people
Speaker 1: who use positive affirmations when their self esteem is low
Speaker 1: are more likely to feel worse as a result, and
Speaker 1: that the irony is that these positive affirmations are most
Speaker 1: useful for people who already feel great about themselves, which
Speaker 1: is when you don't need them. Um. The other thing
Speaker 1: that I'm suggesting is more of a self affirmation, because
Speaker 1: you're not affirming some general, generic positive quality. You're affirming specific,
Speaker 1: knowable things about yourself that you know are true. So
Speaker 1: they don't rub the wrong way against your belief system.
Speaker 1: They jibe with your belief system. You don't reject them,
Speaker 1: you can accept them. And therein lie is a very
Speaker 1: critical difference. And it's just a matter of you can
Speaker 1: used to look at the things that you do well
Speaker 1: and you're good at, or the positive qualities you have,
Speaker 1: or focus only on the ones that you perceive to
Speaker 1: be negative. And this is just sort of a shifting
Speaker 1: of that focus in those moments. Now, I don't want
Speaker 1: to say one thing because it's back to the parable
Speaker 1: for me, because that's why I really like the parable
Speaker 1: is because the more compelling urge, by far is to
Speaker 1: focus on all the shortcomings by far. So I'm not
Speaker 1: suggesting that, oh, just do the other thing instead, and
Speaker 1: that's easy. I'm suggesting to do the other thing instead.
Speaker 1: It's actually difficult, but it's really worthwhile. And I'll tell
Speaker 1: you something. When you put ointment on a cut that
Speaker 1: stings too, so it's not easy to do that either,
Speaker 1: Or when you rip a bandit off a hairy hand,
Speaker 1: you know, on whatever. I'm just saying, um, but but
Speaker 1: it's it's compel. It feels compelling to go down the
Speaker 1: dark path. Um, it's gonna just gonna make you feel
Speaker 1: much much worse. It's difficult to go down the down
Speaker 1: the correct path. But once you know it is the
Speaker 1: correct path, once you know that will actually make you
Speaker 1: feel better, people feel more able to you know, get
Speaker 1: themselves down that part because they and especially once you've
Speaker 1: done it a few times and you know, I do
Speaker 1: feel better, then it becomes easier to do excellent. Well,
Speaker 1: let's now talk about one of my former best friends
Speaker 1: who I try and stay on a less good relationship
Speaker 1: with these days, which is rumination. Hi. Um, So, first
Speaker 1: of all, what it is is when something upsetting or distressing,
Speaker 1: um happens. You know, your your your bus yells at
Speaker 1: you in the meeting, or you know a friend you
Speaker 1: know jokes makes a joke at your expense, and then
Speaker 1: the friends and everyone loves and you just can't get
Speaker 1: it out of your mind. Or it's a breakup sometimes
Speaker 1: conversation and you just keep replaying it in your head
Speaker 1: over and over again and again. Natural tendency, you know,
Speaker 1: we are natural inclination is to want to understand our experience,
Speaker 1: is to want to have you know, like like order
Speaker 1: what happens to us in our heads so that we
Speaker 1: have a clear understanding of it. So it has this
Speaker 1: illusion by replaying it, Um, that we're trying to figure
Speaker 1: it out. But there's a very critical difference between trying
Speaker 1: to figure something out and replaying it. And when you're
Speaker 1: trying to figure something out, you're literally trying to figure
Speaker 1: it out. You're not just replaying it. You're trying to
Speaker 1: see it from different perspectives. You're trying to understand, well,
Speaker 1: why did the friend make a joke at my expense
Speaker 1: for no reason? Maybe I had done something to them,
Speaker 1: or maybe the boss yielded at me in the meeting
Speaker 1: because I actually disagreed with him the meeting before, and
Speaker 1: therefore I can conclude I shouldn't disagree with the boss,
Speaker 1: or you know, maybe that you know, I'm replaying the
Speaker 1: breakup because I just can't believe that that happened. But
Speaker 1: I can't believe it because my perceptions of the person
Speaker 1: are idealized and I need to adjust to who that
Speaker 1: person actually is. And then little seem that we rather believable. Um,
Speaker 1: that's when you're trying to figure it out. And the
Speaker 1: thing that happens when you try and figure it out,
Speaker 1: as you you gain insight, you have conclusions, You see
Speaker 1: things from a different perspective. You you start understanding things.
Speaker 1: There's a things fall into place. Um, when you're just replaying,
Speaker 1: there's nothing falling into place. You're just getting you know,
Speaker 1: annoyed and upset, you know, all over again. So the
Speaker 1: idea is to use self reflection in a way that's
Speaker 1: adaptive and useful and avoid it when it's not. But
Speaker 1: when it's not. And that's what rumination is. The world
Speaker 1: comes from what how cows chew? Cows considered. You know,
Speaker 1: it's ruminating when cows it because they chew over and
Speaker 1: over and over again and then they regurgitate from their
Speaker 1: stomachs and it's disgusting, and then they chew again. Um.
Speaker 1: And that's what we do, you know, like we we
Speaker 1: think about the bad things that happened. We we swallow
Speaker 1: it and we regurgitate it and we think about it
Speaker 1: some more. I mean, if you think about it in
Speaker 1: physical times, it's nauseating. But we do it and all
Speaker 1: the time. So, Um, the problem with it is that
Speaker 1: that can easily become a habit because the more you're
Speaker 1: chewing over that incident, the more you're deepening the groove
Speaker 1: and the more the needle. Using analogies of the nineteen seventies,
Speaker 1: but still, the more the needle is likely to go
Speaker 1: into that groove, and and it's gonna appear in your
Speaker 1: head more often, you're going to think about it more often.
Speaker 1: The urge to think about it is going to be
Speaker 1: more compelling, and again you're gonna think about it in
Speaker 1: just the same repetitive way without any new insight. And
Speaker 1: what that does is it every time you go there,
Speaker 1: you're increasing the stress hormones in your body. You are
Speaker 1: putting your body in a in a state of fight
Speaker 1: or flight um. And when that becomes habit, and you
Speaker 1: spend days doing this, and people spend days and weeks
Speaker 1: and months doing this, then over time you are literally
Speaker 1: people with a tendency to ruminate have a significantly elevated
Speaker 1: likelihood of cardiovascular disease UM than people who do not.
Speaker 1: It literally impacts you that strongly. And the other thing
Speaker 1: that it does is when you're distressed, all your thinking capacities, allowed,
Speaker 1: your ability to focus, to concentrate the problem solved, to
Speaker 1: be creative, all are impaired. And you're doing that to yourself.
Speaker 1: And the other thing you're doing to yourself is you're
Speaker 1: really increasing the likeihood of becoming depressed because you're spending
Speaker 1: so much time focused on everything that's wrong, everything in way,
Speaker 1: all the ways in which you're victimized or upset or marginalized. Um,
Speaker 1: that you're painting a world picture that's very inaccurate. That
Speaker 1: becomes your world. You just spend ten hours a day
Speaker 1: thinking of that incident, even though your world wasn't one
Speaker 1: of dark gloom and resentment and and rejection or people
Speaker 1: yelling at you in your head. It was. And so
Speaker 1: people have a tendency to become depressed much more easily
Speaker 1: because they're they're ruminating so much. And again, we don't
Speaker 1: ruminate about the good stuff, unfortunately, you know, we we
Speaker 1: don't spend ten hours thinking about I remember I told
Speaker 1: that joke and that was so funny. We'll think about
Speaker 1: that once or twice. But the joke somebody told it
Speaker 1: are EXPENSI will think about two weeks UM. So it's
Speaker 1: a real parliament. And it also sets us up when
Speaker 1: you spend so much time, you know, stewing instead of
Speaker 1: doing UM, then we we start to become more passive.
Speaker 1: And it was a piece of research I tend I
Speaker 1: think I used it in the book, but it's just
Speaker 1: very compelling to me is that when they looked at
Speaker 1: women who had a tendency to research, they founded an
Speaker 1: average women who had a tendency to research and found
Speaker 1: a lump in their breast waited on average two months
Speaker 1: longer to make an appointment with their doctor than women
Speaker 1: who found a lump in their breast and did not
Speaker 1: have a tendency to ruminate. And that's really dramatic, and
Speaker 1: it just goes to show that and I'm sure those
Speaker 1: women who are not spending two months not calling the doctor,
Speaker 1: that was spending two months talking to everyone and worrying
Speaker 1: about and obsessing about it, but actually just not taking action.
Speaker 1: Because that's what rumination does. It makes you passive and
Speaker 1: a miserable tenser. So what are some ways to work
Speaker 1: with rumination? You know, I've got a couple of my
Speaker 1: own favorites, but I'm interested in what you've got in
Speaker 1: the book. I actually get into some some more complex
Speaker 1: and detail things, because sometimes it's a real strong urge
Speaker 1: and you need some some deeper stuff to undo it,
Speaker 1: to dislodged. But here's a very simple one actually that
Speaker 1: anyone can do. Rumination is vulnerable to distraction. It's a
Speaker 1: rain of thought, derail the train, and if you derail
Speaker 1: the train, usually the research shows for roughly around a
Speaker 1: couple of minutes um, it's enough for that train to
Speaker 1: actually not get back on the track necessarily. Now it
Speaker 1: might jump back on the track ten minutes fake it
Speaker 1: will pop into your head. You can you have to
Speaker 1: derail it again. But the more you derailed, the less
Speaker 1: frequently that will happen. And to derail the train, it's
Speaker 1: it's not adequate to you know, close your eyes, squint
Speaker 1: and try not to think about it, because actually we
Speaker 1: know that has a rebound effect. When we try not
Speaker 1: to think about something, we're gonna you know, we're gonna
Speaker 1: start thinking about that even more so you can't. It's
Speaker 1: not about oh, don't think about that, don't think about that.
Speaker 1: It's literally get absorbed in something else, and what that
Speaker 1: something else is is completely arbitrary. Whatever works for you,
Speaker 1: you know, if it's playing a game on your phone,
Speaker 1: go at it. If it's starting to look through photo
Speaker 1: albums and get absorbed by that, go at it. If
Speaker 1: it's lasting a song and you're singing along with it,
Speaker 1: not one that reminds you of the incident, but engage
Speaker 1: your mind and it might have to be engaged somewhere else,
Speaker 1: and even two minutes will reduce that urge to obsess
Speaker 1: about the thing that's not useful to h I'm a
Speaker 1: recovering alcoholic can addict. It reminds me a little bit
Speaker 1: of dealing with cravings in the early day. Was you know,
Speaker 1: my approach was always just sort of change the channel
Speaker 1: completely and if you can, it'll pass. If you can
Speaker 1: distract yourself for five minutes or ten minutes, it it passes. Well,
Speaker 1: it's exactly the same, in fact, because I think most
Speaker 1: cravings are the same, you know, and with the craving
Speaker 1: can be for alcohol, the craving can be for you know,
Speaker 1: other substances. The craving can be to indulge a negative
Speaker 1: and unuseful thought. It's a strong urge and um so, yeah,
Speaker 1: and with any kind of craving, a distraction is usually
Speaker 1: a good thing. And yeah, two, three or four minutes,
Speaker 1: but even two sometimes can do the trip. But you
Speaker 1: meant and you had a couple of favorites. I'm just
Speaker 1: curious about what one of those might be. Sure one
Speaker 1: of them is where you start with the letter A
Speaker 1: and you try and think of something you're grateful for.
Speaker 1: Or that you appreciate and then you go to the
Speaker 1: letter B. Yeah, I mean the gratitude part is almost
Speaker 1: like the great it's the puzzle. Yeah, yeah, exactly. I
Speaker 1: do the same thing sometimes with songs, like all right,
Speaker 1: what's you know? I think of a song that I
Speaker 1: like that starts with the letter A, and then try
Speaker 1: and hear the melody in my head. Those are compelling
Speaker 1: enough that my brain remains occupied. Yes, that's a great
Speaker 1: example of one. And it's actually and actually I really
Speaker 1: like the two fold because you're actually doing something really
Speaker 1: you know, that isn't a hundred eighty degree different track
Speaker 1: or I didn't think about everything I'm annoyed about. Here's
Speaker 1: something I'm grateful for. Is great. So I like that
Speaker 1: Game of Lot. Yeah, it's it's certainly has been a
Speaker 1: big help to me. As I said, Rumination and I
Speaker 1: used to be really close friends. Now we only know
Speaker 1: we only talk once in a while. Great, and look,
Speaker 1: and it's and it's a habit. So like any habit,
Speaker 1: you can change, ye, and but you have to be
Speaker 1: mindful of the fact that it's important to change it.
Speaker 1: And it actually takes efforts change. Like any habit formation,
Speaker 1: it actually takes a period of intense you know, you know,
Speaker 1: you have to like really be on it for a
Speaker 1: while until you you know, actually change it completely. Um,
Speaker 1: but very very worthwhile. Yeah, I think that's such an
Speaker 1: important thing to remember with a lot of this stuff
Speaker 1: that we were talking about what you just said there,
Speaker 1: which is that I think a lot of people and I,
Speaker 1: you know, I certainly have at times had a tendency
Speaker 1: to try something one time and when it doesn't have
Speaker 1: miraculous results, then just go, well that doesn't work, versus
Speaker 1: recognizing that these aren't magic pills. But there are things
Speaker 1: that have done consistently and over time and on a
Speaker 1: regular basis can make a real difference. But they don't.
Speaker 1: You know, it takes multiple effort on a lot of
Speaker 1: these things. You know, that's a good point. Let's just
Speaker 1: make this point so people can be dire clear about it.
Speaker 1: So let's say you try to derail the train, and
Speaker 1: you try to distract yourself and you've got maybe through
Speaker 1: A and B of the of the alphabet gratitude game
Speaker 1: and then went right back to it. Um, So what
Speaker 1: do do you look at that as a fadure? Was
Speaker 1: a success? So to me success because you're trying something new.
Speaker 1: You got through A and B terrific to me. The
Speaker 1: failure would be I should do the gratitude game. Now
Speaker 1: let me think more about how that person annoyed me.
Speaker 1: That would be a failure. So, um you know you
Speaker 1: really have to and and let's say you've got to
Speaker 1: e now for two weeks in a row, and now
Speaker 1: you slide back and only got to be once. That's
Speaker 1: our habits happen. You know, sometimes you slide, but there's
Speaker 1: a general trend towards the new habits. So you know,
Speaker 1: be you know the ideas, be, be compassionate with yourself
Speaker 1: and you know, be encouraging, focus on your successes. Um It,
Speaker 1: it'll be too harsh on yourself if you're not changing
Speaker 1: all at once. No one does. Yeah, it's very much
Speaker 1: like meditation in that way. Right, my brain goes off
Speaker 1: of what that thing I'm back into ruminating and then
Speaker 1: I just go, oh, wait a minute, I was supposed
Speaker 1: to be doing this, bring my brain back. And you
Speaker 1: know that that goes back and forth exactly with mindfulness meditation.
Speaker 1: You never judge the fact that you have to bring
Speaker 1: that's right back. You just do exactly. So in the book,
Speaker 1: you talk about self esteem, you know, wounds to our
Speaker 1: self esteem, and you say a few things in there
Speaker 1: that I thought were particularly interesting before we get into
Speaker 1: more detail. One was you talked about how, you know,
Speaker 1: incredibly high self esteem is not necessarily the goal, right,
Speaker 1: that too much self esteem turns into narcissism, So there's
Speaker 1: a there's a healthy level. And then the other thing
Speaker 1: that I thought was interesting is that you talk about
Speaker 1: these wounds to self esteem, but you said that, you know,
Speaker 1: most programs to improve self esteem simply don't work. Yes,
Speaker 1: well that's a very unfortunate thing, but it's kind of true. So, um,
Speaker 1: what what happens is that, um, when when people participate
Speaker 1: in you know, self esteem workshops or weekends or what
Speaker 1: have you, and they asked them to rate at the
Speaker 1: end of the workshop, well, you know, did this help?
Speaker 1: Most people will say yeah, I feel better. But but
Speaker 1: when they actually do research and they have people said
Speaker 1: that actual questionnaires before and after, it turns out you
Speaker 1: feel out the question are exactly the same way it
Speaker 1: actually so it didn't help. But what you're distorting is
Speaker 1: you're remembering yourself as being in a much worse frame
Speaker 1: of mind before. So now I feel like there's I
Speaker 1: must have improved. Um. But here's why most self esteem
Speaker 1: programs don't work. They don't work because self esteem t
Speaker 1: two things need to happen. First of all, you know,
Speaker 1: a program that's a general thing is you know, in
Speaker 1: the same way with the positive deformations, the generalities don't
Speaker 1: necessarily stick with you. You. The way to build self
Speaker 1: esteem is to become um you know two things, A
Speaker 1: more aware about what your actual uh you know, qualities
Speaker 1: and and and and good stuff is because it has
Speaker 1: to be specific. And on the flip side, UM, not
Speaker 1: demolishing your self esteem with an internal self denitive UM.
Speaker 1: You know, internal voice. The self talk that we do
Speaker 1: tends to be so negative on the balance, you know,
Speaker 1: in other words, you know, there's there's so few audibleis
Speaker 1: going on in our heads. It's more like the whip
Speaker 1: and the stick and very little carrot um. And so
Speaker 1: to improve self esteem, you have to a cut out
Speaker 1: the whips and the sticks and and and and and
Speaker 1: increase the carrots um. And so you have to cut
Speaker 1: out the you know, the negative stuff that you have
Speaker 1: to build. And what I talked about in the book
Speaker 1: is self compassion. In other words, a very easy guideline
Speaker 1: for people, but it's an exercise you actually have to do.
Speaker 1: Is what would you say to your friend in that scenario?
Speaker 1: And if a friend was upset about something, you would
Speaker 1: try and say things, and they were a friend and
Speaker 1: you were a decent person, you would try and be kind,
Speaker 1: encouraging and supportive. Now you wouldn't say to your unattractive friend, no,
Speaker 1: but you're beautiful, because your checktive friend would look at
Speaker 1: you like, I don't think I'm beautiful, and you wouldn't.
Speaker 1: It wouldn't fly. But what you would say to that
Speaker 1: unattractive friend is you have a lot to offer. It's
Speaker 1: about finding the right person. It's like you know, or whatever.
Speaker 1: The encouraging, supportive thing is. Now, what you would say
Speaker 1: to a friend is really what you should say to yourself.
Speaker 1: There's absolutely no reason you shouldn't be as supportive of
Speaker 1: nothing and caring and understanding to yourself as you would
Speaker 1: be to a friend. But we have a horrific double
Speaker 1: standard um in which we think, well, I can dish
Speaker 1: it out to myself and and really, you know, beat
Speaker 1: myself into a pub for some obscure reason. And by
Speaker 1: the way, I ask people all the time. You know,
Speaker 1: in my private practice, Well, why do you think it's
Speaker 1: useful to be so self critical? And they'll say, well,
Speaker 1: because you know it'll it'll give me the right expectation.
Speaker 1: And like, no, it'll demolish any expectation you had. It
Speaker 1: will make you feel hopeless, and it'll sap. It will
Speaker 1: set your self esteem so you're much more nervous next time.
Speaker 1: But but you know, why not just have real expectations,
Speaker 1: you know, realistic. You don't need to sabotage, you know,
Speaker 1: to to be self critical to be realistic. Um. So
Speaker 1: the idea is if you're you know, if you have
Speaker 1: this negative self talk, this negative pun self you know
Speaker 1: of internal voice, um, that really needs to be abolished
Speaker 1: and I mean literally abolished. Um. None of it is
Speaker 1: like a zero tolerance for it because it's not useful.
Speaker 1: Now you want to look over what mistakes you might
Speaker 1: have made, what were your wrong moves? You know, where
Speaker 1: did you screw up? By all means? But the mindset
Speaker 1: for that is detective mindset just affects. Yeah, I love
Speaker 1: that idea of talking to yourself like you would a
Speaker 1: good friend because I think it it touches on two things.
Speaker 1: One is like you said, there's the kindness. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: a friend would be would be kind, and yet a
Speaker 1: good friend who is trying to support you would also
Speaker 1: tell you the truth. They might, you know, hold you
Speaker 1: to be accountable to certain things. It's it's the right balance.
Speaker 1: It's it's it's the right balance of being too hard
Speaker 1: on yourself and on the other end, some of us
Speaker 1: are often too indulgent with ourselves. And I feel like
Speaker 1: if you think of it through that that lens, it
Speaker 1: gives the proper, proper balance of those things. You know.
Speaker 1: I agree that people who are like, oh, it's never me,
Speaker 1: it's not it's not good either. I mean, you want
Speaker 1: to give it a couple of passes to make sure
Speaker 1: what part you had in it and what you need
Speaker 1: to do to address those parts. Again with the mindset
Speaker 1: of not I'm such an idiot for doing this or
Speaker 1: what kind of you know, terrible person night for doing that,
Speaker 1: but like, Okay, that was not cool or not good,
Speaker 1: and that's something I should address and be thought mindful
Speaker 1: about next time, or do whatever you need to do
Speaker 1: for the due diligence. But the mindset, I say, the
Speaker 1: detective mindset because detectives are theoretically at least emotionally uninvolved.
Speaker 1: They're going through the crime scene just looking at evidence
Speaker 1: and collecting evidence and proof. They're not emotionally like could
Speaker 1: you imagine that broken piece of glass and the blood splatter,
Speaker 1: They're just they're just looking at it, you know. So
Speaker 1: it's that that same mindset. Yeah. Yeah, that's a really good,
Speaker 1: good way to think of it. We're nearing the end
Speaker 1: of time. I'd like to end with one question, which
Speaker 1: is that you know, you obviously do a lot of
Speaker 1: scientific research. You pull this stuff together. Um, I'm curious
Speaker 1: what research have you been learning about lately that sort
Speaker 1: of has you the most excited. Ah, well, I'm actually
Speaker 1: working on a new book, so that's that's absolutely top secret.
Speaker 1: I can't literally, um U talk about that yet, but
Speaker 1: I'll give you an example of one. Um There is
Speaker 1: this this field in psychology. It's a relatively new field.
Speaker 1: It's called embodied cognition. And what that refers to is
Speaker 1: the ways in which our minds are picking up on
Speaker 1: sensory cues without our being aware, and that there's this
Speaker 1: much bigger connection between mind and body in in a
Speaker 1: in certain ways than we expected in some ways, but
Speaker 1: but not in others. So for example, UM, the idea
Speaker 1: of you know, when people are lonely, for example, they
Speaker 1: feel rejected, right, so they feel excluded in the association,
Speaker 1: and the terminology we have for it is, oh, they
Speaker 1: left me out in the cold, right like as a
Speaker 1: as a as a holdover from our hunter gatherer days
Speaker 1: when we were the tribes around the heart from the
Speaker 1: excluded person was left out in the cold. So they
Speaker 1: did experiments in which they measured the temperature at the
Speaker 1: finger of people who were put through a rejection experience,
Speaker 1: and there was a significant as small but a significant
Speaker 1: statistically dropped in temperature that happens when people experience rejection,
Speaker 1: we actually get a little bit colder. Interesting, Yeah, that
Speaker 1: ties a lot with that idea of it registering the
Speaker 1: same parts of the brain as physical pain. Right. And
Speaker 1: they did you know, similar things. For example, I talk
Speaker 1: about guilt in one of the champters of the book.
Speaker 1: So they did a similar experiment, you know, with guilt
Speaker 1: that they had people, um recall uh the time in
Speaker 1: which they did something that made them feel guilty, and
Speaker 1: then they had them estimate the weight of certain things,
Speaker 1: and um, people who felt guilty tended to feel everything
Speaker 1: was heavier. So there's it's so so that's something that
Speaker 1: you know. I mean, that's research that's still going on
Speaker 1: day and in many different ways. But it's um or.
Speaker 1: There's just to give you one one the last one,
Speaker 1: and this is the study directly started the steel um
Speaker 1: They unrelated to my work, but but they gave they
Speaker 1: bought people from experimented. Experiment was waiting in an elevator
Speaker 1: and handed them a cup of coffee while they clicked
Speaker 1: off their name on a on a on a on
Speaker 1: their checklist, and half the people got a hot cup
Speaker 1: of coffee. Half the people got a cold cup of coffee.
Speaker 1: They held it for a moment. Then they went into
Speaker 1: an experiment and were given a paragraph about a person.
Speaker 1: Everyone got the same paragraph, and they were asked to
Speaker 1: describe that person. And people who held a hot cup
Speaker 1: of coffee describe that same person as being warmer, friendlier, kinder,
Speaker 1: and people who held a cold a cup of coffee
Speaker 1: described them as being called more distant, less emotional. Again
Speaker 1: completely unconscious. And so to me that that field of
Speaker 1: of how our small physical sensations are impacting our behavior
Speaker 1: and our decisions and are thinking in all kinds of
Speaker 1: very unconscious but interesting ways. If it is really a
Speaker 1: fascinating area, you know what all is happening, the processing
Speaker 1: that we're doing that we're just not aware of. Well, guy,
Speaker 1: thanks so much for being on the show. It's been
Speaker 1: a pleasure talking with you. I really enjoy the book
Speaker 1: and I recommend it to people often, so thanks so
Speaker 1: much for coming on. It's been a real pleasure. Thanks
Speaker 1: so much for having me. Okay, you too. Bye. If
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