Speaker 1: Hey everyone, it's Eric from the one you feed. Happy
Speaker 1: Holidays to you. Whether you enjoy them or you hate them,
Speaker 1: I hope you're making the best of them. As a
Speaker 1: holiday gift and as preparation for the new year, we
Speaker 1: are rereleasing seven of the older episodes. If you're new
Speaker 1: to the show, all these episodes are over a year old,
Speaker 1: so you may not have heard these yet if you've
Speaker 1: only been listening for a year. I picked the episodes
Speaker 1: because either a I think it's a really great episode
Speaker 1: or B I think it talks about behavior change, which
Speaker 1: we're heading into the new year, and that's on a
Speaker 1: lot of people's mind. Speaking of which, we are going
Speaker 1: to try something this new year. We're going to try
Speaker 1: the first one You Feed Group Transformation program. It will
Speaker 1: be a hundred dollars for a month. We're going to
Speaker 1: limit it to ten people. We will meet online four
Speaker 1: times that month, will discuss tips and tricks and different
Speaker 1: ways to ensure that you stay on track behavior wise.
Speaker 1: You'll be able to ask questions of me, and we'll
Speaker 1: do some things where you're paired up as a group
Speaker 1: so that you can get some support outside of the
Speaker 1: calls as well to make sure you get the new
Speaker 1: year off to a great start. So if you're interested,
Speaker 1: just send an email to me Eric at one you
Speaker 1: feed dot net. I hope you enjoy these episodes. I
Speaker 1: listened back to a couple of them, and um, let's
Speaker 1: just leave it at we are getting better at what
Speaker 1: we do. In the very first one, I sound very
Speaker 1: nervous and I was so Anyway, it's still a great interview.
Speaker 1: Enjoy these, have a happy new year. Thank you for listening,
Speaker 1: and we will talk to you soon. Bye. You know,
Speaker 1: as I put it, we've got a brain that's like
Speaker 1: velcrow for the bad, the teflon for the good. Welcome
Speaker 1: to the one you feed throughout time. Great tinkers have
Speaker 1: recognized the importance of the thoughts we have, quotes like
Speaker 1: garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think
Speaker 1: ring true. And yet for many of us, our thoughts
Speaker 1: don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self pity, jealousy,
Speaker 1: or fear. We see what we don't have instead of
Speaker 1: what we do. We think things that hold us back
Speaker 1: and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking.
Speaker 1: Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent and creative effort
Speaker 1: to make a life worth living. This podcast is about
Speaker 1: how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction,
Speaker 1: how they feed their good wolf. Thanks for joining us.
Speaker 1: Our guests this week is Rick Hanson, PhD, neuropsychologist and
Speaker 1: author of Hardwiring Happiness, The New Brain Science of Contentment,
Speaker 1: Calm and Confidence. His other books include Buddha's Brain and
Speaker 1: Just One Thing. Rick is the founder of the well
Speaker 1: Spring Institute of Neuroscience and Contemplative Wisdom and an affiliate
Speaker 1: of the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley. He
Speaker 1: has been an invited speaker at Oxford, Stanford, and Harvard
Speaker 1: and teaches meditation worldwide. And before we start the interview,
Speaker 1: a lot of you might have noticed that Eric has
Speaker 1: been doing some one on one coaching, which we've mentioned
Speaker 1: on various episodes. And up next, real quick, I just
Speaker 1: wanted you to hear one of Eric's coaching clients, Anthony,
Speaker 1: described what was going on in his life that prompted
Speaker 1: him to sign up for the one You Feed coaching program.
Speaker 1: Some of you might be able to identify with him
Speaker 1: as you listen to this story. Here's Anthony, followed by
Speaker 1: the interview. Basically, I've been listening to the podcast for
Speaker 1: a while, and I had a bunch of goals set
Speaker 1: for myself that I wanted to accomplish, but it was
Speaker 1: just sort of falling short, I guess, in in general.
Speaker 1: So I wanted to get a little bit of encouragement
Speaker 1: and accountability from an outside source. You know, maybe wouldn't
Speaker 1: be so easy on me. If you're interested in learning
Speaker 1: more about this program, send an email to Eric at
Speaker 1: one you feed dot net. Here's the interview. Hi, Rick,
Speaker 1: Welcome to the show. Eric. It's a pleasure to be here, truly.
Speaker 1: I'm I'm happy to have you on your combination of
Speaker 1: a couple of things I'm really interested in. One, you're
Speaker 1: an actual neuroscientist and be You've also got a lot
Speaker 1: of experience in and teachings in Buddhism. So I find
Speaker 1: the two of those to be very um compelling together.
Speaker 1: So I'm excited to get to talk through some of that. Right.
Speaker 1: I think of the intersection of that is neuro dharma.
Speaker 1: I don't think it'll ever be a household word, but
Speaker 1: it does kind of sum up what we might be
Speaker 1: talking about here exactly. So our show is called The
Speaker 1: One You Feed and it's based on the parable of
Speaker 1: two wolves, where 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 at battle. One is a good wolf,
Speaker 1: which represents things like kindness and bravery and love, and
Speaker 1: the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like
Speaker 1: greed and hatred and fear. And the grandson stops and
Speaker 1: he thinks about it for a second, and he looks
Speaker 1: up at his grandfather and he says, well, 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. Yeah. Um, well, if I've
Speaker 1: I've heard that story in different formulations, including the one
Speaker 1: that you offered there, and and it touches me deeply
Speaker 1: every time. Um I literally sometimes in talks, I'll tell
Speaker 1: that story and I get the shivers every time I
Speaker 1: tell it, because to me it it speaks to two
Speaker 1: really important things. One the presence of the wolf of
Speaker 1: hate or the wolf of bad or the bad wolf
Speaker 1: as you put it. You know that capacity or inclination,
Speaker 1: and almost everyone, certainly me for as you say hate, violence, aggression, jealousy, envy,
Speaker 1: ill well, etcetera. And um. The second thing, though, really
Speaker 1: more to our point, is that everything depends on who
Speaker 1: you feed, what you feed, and especially what you feed
Speaker 1: each day. And that gets to something that I think
Speaker 1: is extremely hopeful, that we truly can cultivate wholesome qualities
Speaker 1: of mind and heart based on our daily efforts. And
Speaker 1: no matter what's happened in the past, and no matter
Speaker 1: how tough our circumstances are, no one can stop us
Speaker 1: from feeding the good wolf inside our own mind. And
Speaker 1: in addition to that being very hopeful, it also takes responsibility.
Speaker 1: It's on us because no one but us really can
Speaker 1: actively feed that good wolf every day, and then that's
Speaker 1: our job to do. UM. And as a neuroscience guy,
Speaker 1: I'm a very practical neuroscience guy. I produced a little research,
Speaker 1: I consume a lot of research, and I especially apply it.
Speaker 1: And in that context, it's amazing to appreciate how much
Speaker 1: your brain is continually changing. Right, We're always feeding one
Speaker 1: wolf or another inside our brain because our brain is
Speaker 1: designed to be changed by our experiences. But what we
Speaker 1: pay attention to and how we relate to what we're
Speaker 1: paying attention to so to me, the kind of bottom
Speaker 1: line takeaway using the fancy phrase these days experience dependent neuroplasticity,
Speaker 1: it's the idea that your brain is continually taking its
Speaker 1: shape in a very real, concrete, material sense, from whatever
Speaker 1: you rest your mind upon routinely, particularly given the bias
Speaker 1: of the brain towards taking its shape from negative experiences,
Speaker 1: the negativity bias of the brain. That's why I think
Speaker 1: it's so important to do what you can to rest
Speaker 1: your mind and therefore change your brain by resting your
Speaker 1: mind upon the authentically real, beneficial experiences of everyday life
Speaker 1: that are usually enjoyable, little moments of feeling connected or
Speaker 1: grateful or peaceful or mindful or happy, or accomplished, or
Speaker 1: loving and caring towards other people, and through repeatedly resting
Speaker 1: your mind on those things, you will gradually wire those
Speaker 1: strengths into your brain, thus fundamentally feeding a good wolf.
Speaker 1: I've got a bunch of questions for you based on
Speaker 1: what you just said there, and I'm going to start
Speaker 1: with one that I've been pondering out loud a couple
Speaker 1: of times lately. And you talk a little bit about
Speaker 1: the negativity bias, you talk about how we talked about
Speaker 1: on the show a lot. We're kind of wired that way, right.
Speaker 1: It's it's better to be safe than sorry, so to speak.
Speaker 1: As far as what you pay attention to from a
Speaker 1: survival basis, is there any sense of does anybody know
Speaker 1: or is there any way to think about when do
Speaker 1: our brains start to actually catch up evolutionarily? Now? I
Speaker 1: know it's been an enormously large amount of time. Um,
Speaker 1: but we've seen in things like, uh, you know, studies
Speaker 1: with people breeding foxes and trying to turn them closer
Speaker 1: to dogs that in a relatively short time period they
Speaker 1: were able to make pretty substantial changes. There our brains
Speaker 1: ever gonna catch up? Well, let's see. First, you're talking
Speaker 1: about biological evolution, you know, in terms of breeding foxes
Speaker 1: into um, let's say wolves or something like that. And
Speaker 1: you know, biological evolutions pretty slow, uh, you know, resets
Speaker 1: on the clock of the generations, maybe you get four
Speaker 1: or five generations per century. Uh. So I think that, uh,
Speaker 1: it's gonna be a long time before we no longer
Speaker 1: have this hardwired negativity bias in the brain. You know,
Speaker 1: as I put it, we've got a brain that's like
Speaker 1: velcrow for the bad, bit teflon for the good, because
Speaker 1: that's what kept our ancestors alive to live to see
Speaker 1: the sunrise, you know, and pass on genes that passed
Speaker 1: on genes. So I think in terms of pure biological evolution,
Speaker 1: it'll be quite a while before, if ever, we somehow,
Speaker 1: as it were, breed that bias out of the brain
Speaker 1: got the three bees. There, you know, a little alliteration.
Speaker 1: But meanwhile, we have cultural evolution and we have opportunities
Speaker 1: for psychological evolution. Um, The real question is not, um,
Speaker 1: you know, what kind of wolves do you have in
Speaker 1: your inner kennel? The real question is is you put
Speaker 1: it from the very beginning here? What do you cultivate
Speaker 1: and what do you restraint? And even if we do
Speaker 1: have a hardwired tendency to over learn from our bad
Speaker 1: experiences and under learned from our good experiences, which is
Speaker 1: unfortunate because learning from our good experiences are beneficial experiences
Speaker 1: which are usually enjoyable, is the primary way to hardwire
Speaker 1: those psychological mental resources into ourselves for coping with difficulties
Speaker 1: and feeling happier and also having more to offer other people.
Speaker 1: Even though all of that is true, we still have
Speaker 1: opportunities many times a day, using mindful attention to tilt
Speaker 1: towards beneficial experiences and make sure that we in particular
Speaker 1: install them, that we don't just have them, because merely
Speaker 1: having beneficial experiences is momentarily pleasant, but it but it
Speaker 1: produces no lasting value because those beneficial experiences are not installed,
Speaker 1: They're not encoded in some way as a lasting change
Speaker 1: of neural structure or function. But if we do the
Speaker 1: dozen seconds or so of really savoring, really kind of
Speaker 1: marinating in our ordinary, authentic beneficial experiences a handful of
Speaker 1: times every day, in effect, given that we have a
Speaker 1: brain that's tilted towards survival but against quality of life,
Speaker 1: when we tilt towards beneficial experiences and in particular really
Speaker 1: take a dozen or so seconds to internalize them but
Speaker 1: take them in. If we do that tilt, then we
Speaker 1: just level the playing field. But if we do that,
Speaker 1: and we can all do that, even though we've got
Speaker 1: a stone age brain, if we do that over the
Speaker 1: course of a day, we learn a lot more. From
Speaker 1: that day. We grow, We develop through this installation of
Speaker 1: beneficial experience as we hardwire happiness and as well as
Speaker 1: other inner strengths, into ourselves. And then if you add
Speaker 1: that up over time, a handful of times a day,
Speaker 1: day after day after day, the years of our lives,
Speaker 1: it makes an extraordinary difference for people over the lifespan.
Speaker 1: And you call this process taking in the good, And UM,
Speaker 1: I'd like to get a little bit further into how
Speaker 1: to do that, but let's start off by UM, you know,
Speaker 1: the people who listen to the show know that I
Speaker 1: am a notoriously skeptical of positive thinking, which I know
Speaker 1: this isn't so, but help me understand the difference between
Speaker 1: taking in the good, which you're saying is resting your
Speaker 1: brain on the good things that do happen, versus sort
Speaker 1: of delusional positive thinking. Yeah. Absolutely, UM, I don't believe
Speaker 1: in positive thinking like you. I believe in realistic thinking.
Speaker 1: So I want to see the whole musaic of reality.
Speaker 1: And you know, given our common interest, let's say in Buddhism,
Speaker 1: it's I think no accident that it's said in Buddhism
Speaker 1: that the fundamental deep route of suffering and evil is
Speaker 1: ignorance or delusion, not really recognizing what's actually true. So
Speaker 1: the fundamental framework for me here is to really recognize
Speaker 1: what's actually true, and as part of that recognition, it's
Speaker 1: true that we have a brain that is negatively biased,
Speaker 1: especially in terms of how we learn from our experiences.
Speaker 1: And second, it's also true that in terms of the
Speaker 1: mosaic a reality, there's a lot of crap out there.
Speaker 1: You know, every life has difficult, hard, painful things, and
Speaker 1: many lives are saturated in difficult, hard, painful things. So
Speaker 1: it's precisely out of that very clear eyed, noble take
Speaker 1: on both the negativity bias of the brain and the
Speaker 1: reality of the challenges that we will all face in
Speaker 1: this life. Based on that, uh, to me, it's really
Speaker 1: important to recognize in that mosaic of reality in your
Speaker 1: life the good facts as well as the bad facts.
Speaker 1: And we have a brain is biased, as a kind
Speaker 1: of well intended universal learning learning disability to overlook the
Speaker 1: good facts generally speaking, while we continuely scan for the
Speaker 1: bad wounds. And then if you do recognize a so
Speaker 1: called good fact, you know, you finished the dishes, you
Speaker 1: finally got the kids in bed, the thing you worried
Speaker 1: about did not happen. Someone has smiled at you, You
Speaker 1: see a flower blooming, You're still alive today. You recognize
Speaker 1: something inside yourself like grit or resilience or toughness, or
Speaker 1: some kind of character virtue like patience or generosity, whatever
Speaker 1: it might be. You see the good fact, and you
Speaker 1: let yourself feel something as a result, because most people
Speaker 1: number one, don't see all the good facts or even
Speaker 1: a fraction of the many good facts in daily life,
Speaker 1: including in a tough, hard life. And then second, whatever
Speaker 1: they tend to see, they usually don't really feel it
Speaker 1: very much. And then if they even see it and
Speaker 1: feel it, they usually don't help their brain internalize it
Speaker 1: encoded by resting attention on the beneficial experience that they're
Speaker 1: having for more than a few seconds in a row.
Speaker 1: But if they don't stay with it for more than
Speaker 1: a few seconds in a row, that experience minimally, if
Speaker 1: at all, encodes from short term memory buffers to long
Speaker 1: term storage. The fundamental process of conceptual learning, but more
Speaker 1: to our purposes here, the process of feeding the wolf
Speaker 1: inside wolf the wolf back inside that we care about,
Speaker 1: feeding um resilience and determination inside, feeding gratitude and happiness, contentment,
Speaker 1: feeding a sense of um uh, you know, relaxation inside,
Speaker 1: a sense of closeness with other people, a commitment to sobriety,
Speaker 1: commitment to exercise, what have you. If that's what we
Speaker 1: care to feed inside. That's a two stage process of
Speaker 1: learning that moves from short term memory buffer is to
Speaker 1: long term storage, from state to trade, from activation to installation.
Speaker 1: And what I'm talking about is recognizing the ordinary good
Speaker 1: facts of daily life that are real that you tend
Speaker 1: to overlook. And then on the basis of that recognition
Speaker 1: or on the basis of any beneficial experience you're already having,
Speaker 1: like a sense of completion when you get a tough
Speaker 1: email out the door, or a sense of fun or
Speaker 1: fellowship with friends, or a sense of spiritual development of
Speaker 1: any kind. When you're having those beneficial experiences at least
Speaker 1: a few times a day, don't waste them. Don't let
Speaker 1: them pass to your brain like water through a sieve. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: with negative experiences getting caught every time routinely, and instead
Speaker 1: of that, actually take charge of the structure building processes
Speaker 1: of your own brain from the inside out. The essence
Speaker 1: really of a tough minded self reliance at least a
Speaker 1: handful of times every day, you know, staying with those
Speaker 1: beneficial experiences to really register them so you gradually internalize them.
Speaker 1: Um increasingly as resources you could draw upon when the
Speaker 1: going gets tough, and also draw upon just for ordinary happiness.
Speaker 1: You call this process taking in the good, and you
Speaker 1: have an acronym for it for the steps which is
Speaker 1: heal UM. Have a good experience UM, enrich it and
Speaker 1: then absorb it. And then the last is to link
Speaker 1: the positive and negative material. I want to talk a
Speaker 1: little bit about steps two and three. So have a
Speaker 1: good experience. I think you're talked in the book a
Speaker 1: lot about A big part of that is actually be
Speaker 1: aware of and paying attention to things that are positive
Speaker 1: and and I agree with your point there are there
Speaker 1: are good things in nearly every life. UM. I am
Speaker 1: not good at those next two steps about enriching and absorbing.
Speaker 1: An example I would give is like I will do
Speaker 1: gratitude UM, but it it tends to be more of
Speaker 1: a mental exercise sometimes, which is not I still think
Speaker 1: it's better than not having the mental exercise. But how
Speaker 1: do I take a UM, you know, somebody says something
Speaker 1: nice to me during the day, How do I enrich
Speaker 1: and absorb that? What are Because I've played with that
Speaker 1: since I've been reading your book, and and uh, I'm
Speaker 1: seeing benefits from the whole process, but I feel like
Speaker 1: I'm not getting those steps two and three. Very well,
Speaker 1: well thanks for saying all that, er can you've made
Speaker 1: me think about using your metaphor of the wolf you feed,
Speaker 1: I mean, when you have it. So let's kind of
Speaker 1: make it real. Let's opposed that. Um, maybe in your
Speaker 1: family you have a nice sense of connection or closeness
Speaker 1: with a child, or let's say that just in an
Speaker 1: ordinary day, it's been a stressful, rushing about day. Finally
Speaker 1: you get a chance to sort of relax. Maybe you
Speaker 1: take a shower, or maybe a work out a little bit,
Speaker 1: maybe just sit and watch some TV with your family
Speaker 1: or by yourself, whatever's it relaxing. Okay, you're having some
Speaker 1: kind of a beneficial experience. So to use the metaphor
Speaker 1: of the wolf, you're holding a food, you know, against
Speaker 1: the wolf's mouth, and maybe even the wolf is tasting it.
Speaker 1: The wolf is now chewing on this experience of closeness
Speaker 1: with family members or relaxation or accomplishment. But then the
Speaker 1: question becomes, if you really want to feed that wolf,
Speaker 1: the wolf has to swallow the food. The wolf, yeah,
Speaker 1: has to actually take it in and then metabolize it
Speaker 1: from the inside out and to a larger point. You know, um,
Speaker 1: we continually learn things, and we continually often go about
Speaker 1: teaching people things, but how often do we learn how
Speaker 1: to learn? Or how often do we teach how to learn?
Speaker 1: And in the words, we say, it all depends on
Speaker 1: the wolf you feed. How do you get that wolf
Speaker 1: to swallow and metabolize whatever it is we're feeding him
Speaker 1: or one site. So that's what we're getting in here
Speaker 1: in the second and third steps exactly right. So the
Speaker 1: neuropsychology of learning UM has been widely studied in terms
Speaker 1: of more conceptual material. Unfortunately, it's not been very studied
Speaker 1: in terms of emotional, motivational, attitudinal, social, somatic, even spiritual
Speaker 1: kinds of learnings that we really care about. Right, So
Speaker 1: what I've done is applied to those sorts of learnings
Speaker 1: very standard findings that come mainly from the realm of
Speaker 1: cognitive psychology, but are really well established and they make
Speaker 1: common sense. Basically. It says that look, if you want
Speaker 1: to see in the learning curve, including from an experience
Speaker 1: let's say, of gratitude, there are five well known factors
Speaker 1: that will steep in your learning curve from that experience
Speaker 1: over the course of five, ten, or twenty seconds one duration.
Speaker 1: You know, as you know, there's a saying in neuroscience
Speaker 1: um neurons that fired together wired together. So the longer
Speaker 1: those neurons are firing, the more they're going to be
Speaker 1: wiring five ten, twenty seconds in a row. Second intensity,
Speaker 1: the more intensely you experience, let's say, gratitude, Um, you know,
Speaker 1: you really feel it, or you really think about it, like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, I am so grateful, you know, for
Speaker 1: that particular thing. The more intensely those neurons are firing,
Speaker 1: the more intensely they're going to be wiring. A third
Speaker 1: factor I sum it up with the word multimodality. All
Speaker 1: I mean by that is the richer the experience, the better.
Speaker 1: There's a place for internalizing thoughts represented by language were
Speaker 1: more sort of dual or imagery based, like a sense
Speaker 1: of perspective or a framework for how we look at things,
Speaker 1: all right, So there's a place for internalizing the thought
Speaker 1: of gratitude like Wow, I'm very fortunate that my parents,
Speaker 1: you know, made efforts to bring me up in this world.
Speaker 1: Are Oh, I'm grateful for living in a time in
Speaker 1: which you and I can communicate with each other through
Speaker 1: a technology like Skype. That's great, but it's just a thought.
Speaker 1: It doesn't have that much impact. The more that we
Speaker 1: allow the experience to be um sensed in the body,
Speaker 1: and the more that we have it has an emotional component,
Speaker 1: and even the more that we link a sense of
Speaker 1: desire to the experience, the more modalities in other words,
Speaker 1: of experience that we're engaging, the richer than neural traces.
Speaker 1: As you know, any fourth grade school teacher knows. And
Speaker 1: then really fast the fifth and the fourth and fifth
Speaker 1: factors of enriching our novelty. The more that we can
Speaker 1: relate to our experiences kind of through the eyes of
Speaker 1: a child. As you know, there's probably as you probably know,
Speaker 1: there's a saying, zen mind beginner's mind. Um yeah, the
Speaker 1: more we're gonna you know, encode the experience. And then last,
Speaker 1: the more we have a sense of salience, personal relevance.
Speaker 1: Why should I care? You know, why would it matter
Speaker 1: to me? Let's say, to deepen the experience of gratitude.
Speaker 1: That's those and you don't need to do all of those.
Speaker 1: Where it mostly shows up for people is around duration,
Speaker 1: intensity and feeling it in the body. The more the better. Okay,
Speaker 1: then what also can steep in the learning curve from
Speaker 1: different from episodes of learning opportunities? And when I say learning,
Speaker 1: I don't mean memorizing the multiplication table. I mean internalizing
Speaker 1: a growing sense of grit or resilience, or loving kindness
Speaker 1: or compassion for others. That kind of learning. You know,
Speaker 1: if you sense and intend that this experience is really
Speaker 1: sinking into you, in other words, you're absorbing it. That's
Speaker 1: the A step in the h E A L he'll acronym.
Speaker 1: You're absorbing it. As said, the more you sense and
Speaker 1: intended the experience is going into you like water coming
Speaker 1: into a sponge or um kind of giving yourself over
Speaker 1: to the experience or warrant spreading out into your body.
Speaker 1: The more that you do that, the more that you
Speaker 1: will be um priming and sensitizing memory making systems. So
Speaker 1: that's the essence really, if you think of it, the
Speaker 1: fundamental neuropsychology of learning. I didn't invent it. I've only
Speaker 1: tried to kind of uh summarize and apply this really
Speaker 1: well established understanding about learning, and to do so in
Speaker 1: a context in which I think people in psychology, human
Speaker 1: resources training, character, development of children, self help, you know,
Speaker 1: practical wisdom coaching, mindfulence training, etcetera, etcetera. Me include have
Speaker 1: overvalued the activation phase of learning, the initial step around
Speaker 1: having some kind of beneficial experience. That's important. You know,
Speaker 1: the brain is not like an iPod. It's like an
Speaker 1: old school cassette recorder. You record the song by playing it.
Speaker 1: We need to have the experience in the first place.
Speaker 1: That's activation, all right, But most people be included, certainly
Speaker 1: in the past in the general territory of psychology or
Speaker 1: self help or human development, um have not paid enough
Speaker 1: attention to the installation phase of learning, the two second
Speaker 1: and third steps that you've properly highlighted here. And because
Speaker 1: we haven't paid enough attention to the installation phase of learning,
Speaker 1: we've lost many, many opportunities to turn passing beneficial states
Speaker 1: into lasting beneficial traits. And that's why if a person
Speaker 1: wants to really steep in their learning curve as they
Speaker 1: go through daily life, don't just notice the beneficial experiences
Speaker 1: you're already having, or look for natural opportunities to deliberately
Speaker 1: create them. Don't just do that. That's good, that's just
Speaker 1: the beginning. Take the time a dozen or so seconds
Speaker 1: at a time to enjoy the experience, stay with it
Speaker 1: so you don't waste it on your own brain. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I think that is so true, that idea that,
Speaker 1: particularly in our culture, I think we learn so much,
Speaker 1: we consume so much information, and so little of it
Speaker 1: translates into anything that sticks with it or is actually
Speaker 1: becomes part of our life. Uh, something that we do.
Speaker 1: I often say, it's not what you know, it's what
Speaker 1: you do, um or I think I'm I doubt I'm
Speaker 1: the first person that said that, but and I agree
Speaker 1: with what you're saying. So let's think about this installing process.
Speaker 1: So I have a good experience and I'm looking for
Speaker 1: duration and intensity, and what I find happens is that
Speaker 1: similar to like what I'm trying to be mindful, like meditating,
Speaker 1: I feel the good experience. I think, okay, I should
Speaker 1: should feel more of this good experience, or I should
Speaker 1: dive deeper into it than my mind wanders or my
Speaker 1: mind goes into action. You know, it's it stays and
Speaker 1: is it? Is it just a matter of continuing to
Speaker 1: try it and getting better at it, like anything else. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that the short version is that we all
Speaker 1: know how to take in the good. If I was
Speaker 1: to really summarize all the neuropsychological complexity here, it would
Speaker 1: be in four words, have it enjoy it. In other words,
Speaker 1: have the beneficial experience, usually because you're already having it
Speaker 1: in the words, you're already are you know, feeling close
Speaker 1: with your partner, or you're already relaxing, or you're already
Speaker 1: um feeling determined and capable you know, to face the challenge,
Speaker 1: or you're already having a sense of accomplishment or completion
Speaker 1: around some tax task. It's already happening, right. And another
Speaker 1: key point here is that these experiences, and also opportunities
Speaker 1: for experience are typically mild. These are not million dollar moments,
Speaker 1: most of them, you know, in the zero ten intensity scale.
Speaker 1: They're the ones and twos of everyday life. But when
Speaker 1: you're having them, draw upon the natural um inclination of
Speaker 1: the mind to lean toward what's enjoyable. I will say,
Speaker 1: you're just what you're saying, um for. One of the
Speaker 1: interesting things is that when people start getting interested in
Speaker 1: this practice of actually internalizing uh, you know, half a
Speaker 1: dozen times a day or so, if not more, the
Speaker 1: ordinary beneficial experiences of their day, they start discovering amazing things.
Speaker 1: One they're not having experiences, they're completely in their head.
Speaker 1: That was me, you know, throughout most of my childhood
Speaker 1: into young adulthood. I was numb from the neck down.
Speaker 1: And or they are having fleeting beneficial experiences that have
Speaker 1: more of an emotional and embodied quality and therefore have
Speaker 1: more of the raw material for truly producing, you know,
Speaker 1: for truly feeding those those the good wolves, you know
Speaker 1: that that we want to develop. I noticed that the
Speaker 1: good wolf is not about memorizing the multiplication table or
Speaker 1: you know, locating the I don't know what the capital
Speaker 1: of the wolf of wolfs. Yeah, yeah, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: These are about character. Terrible joke, right, these are experiential
Speaker 1: character qualities. Anyway. My point is that, um, you know
Speaker 1: what people often bump into as well, is they feel
Speaker 1: a kind of I don't know what, shame or fear
Speaker 1: or inhibition about just staying with a beneficial experience for
Speaker 1: ten seconds in a row, you know. And what happens, though,
Speaker 1: is you start this pride. You initially start, like a
Speaker 1: lot of things, with deliberate top down attention and intention.
Speaker 1: You know, you say to yourself, okay, I'll listen to Rick.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna try this. No one needs to know I'm
Speaker 1: doing it half a dozen times a day. When I'm
Speaker 1: having this nice feeling, I'm going to give an extra
Speaker 1: dozen or two dozen seconds to really sense that it's
Speaker 1: sinking in, to sink into it and let it sink
Speaker 1: into me. All right. Uh. In the beginning, it takes
Speaker 1: a little deliberate attention, But what starts to happen is
Speaker 1: your body knows. Your body naturally knows how to stabilize
Speaker 1: in and rest in a beneficial experience, and so you,
Speaker 1: you know, you start shifting from a kind of white knuckle,
Speaker 1: top down effort into more of a kind of intimacy
Speaker 1: with your own body, a kind of inside out receptivity
Speaker 1: where you just it's like sitting down next to a
Speaker 1: warm fire. I think we all know how to come
Speaker 1: in from the cold and sit down next to a
Speaker 1: warm fire and just kind of receive it and be
Speaker 1: humble enough to open to it and let it come
Speaker 1: into ourselves. You have a part in the book where
Speaker 1: you you say, I'm just going to read it because
Speaker 1: I think it said so well. And we talked about
Speaker 1: this stuff on the show a lot. You say, when
Speaker 1: something difficult or uncomfortable happens, when a storm comes to
Speaker 1: your garden. The three ways to engage your mind give
Speaker 1: you a very useful step by step sequence. First, be
Speaker 1: with your experience, observe it, and accept it for what
Speaker 1: it is, even if it's painful. Second, when it feels right,
Speaker 1: which could be a matter of seconds with a familiar
Speaker 1: worried mind, or months or years with the loss of
Speaker 1: a loved one, begin letting go of whatever is negative. Third, again,
Speaker 1: when it feels right after you, after you've released some
Speaker 1: or all of what was negative, place it with something positive.
Speaker 1: You got it. That was a tricky paragraph to write.
Speaker 1: It's in, as you know, chapter one because it creates
Speaker 1: a framework and it speaks to I think. What I
Speaker 1: just think of is the three great ways to engage
Speaker 1: the mind to practice, the first being just be with
Speaker 1: what's there. The second, reduce what's negative. Third, grow what's positive.
Speaker 1: And if you use the metaphor of a garden, it
Speaker 1: means first witnessing the garden, second pulling weeds, and third
Speaker 1: planning flowers. So I'm focusing here with you mainly on
Speaker 1: planting flowers, but it's in the larger context and I
Speaker 1: would point out that to be able to simply be
Speaker 1: with the mind, even in a radical meditative sense of
Speaker 1: choiceless awareness bear witnessing, to be able to sustain that
Speaker 1: choiceless awareness, you need to grow a lot of flowers
Speaker 1: in your mind through training so that you can stabilize
Speaker 1: that kind of receptive, spacious awareness. And then also if
Speaker 1: you reduce the neg to if you, let's say, let
Speaker 1: go of some belief that you're worthless, or you'll never
Speaker 1: find love, if you cannot fit into your old pair
Speaker 1: of jeans, if you let that thought go, or maybe
Speaker 1: you release some negative desire like wanting to get hammered
Speaker 1: every night or what have you. Um, it's not enough
Speaker 1: to just pull the weed. You need to replace it
Speaker 1: with a flower. Otherwise, as any gardener knows, the weeds
Speaker 1: come back, right. So yeah, that's why I think that
Speaker 1: one of the most powerful um personal growth practices I know,
Speaker 1: and I've been exposed to a lot of them, both
Speaker 1: in the spiritual traditions as well as in Western psychology,
Speaker 1: one of the most powerful practices I know is to
Speaker 1: use positive experiences that are the natural antidote to the
Speaker 1: old pain or old deficits you carry. Around inside yourself
Speaker 1: and um by having an experience today that's the natural
Speaker 1: antidote to that old pain. Using myself as an example,
Speaker 1: if I were to feel truly cared about today and
Speaker 1: especially included in a group, because that's a lot of
Speaker 1: where my pain was as a very young, shy, um
Speaker 1: isolated kid growing through school, to feel today that I'm
Speaker 1: included and wanted in a group, UM is a very
Speaker 1: powerful antidote experience for me that addresses directly those early
Speaker 1: experiences I had, in the words, those old experiences of rejection, shame,
Speaker 1: feelings of inadequacy, and so forth. And so if I
Speaker 1: then use the linking step um of holding both of
Speaker 1: those in awareness at once, in effect, I'm using wheat apartment,
Speaker 1: I'm using flowers to pull weeds. I'm using the here
Speaker 1: and now current experience that's authentic and legitimate in my example,
Speaker 1: feeling wanted and included in let's say, in a group.
Speaker 1: I'm using that here and now experience today to gradually ease, soothe,
Speaker 1: bring wisdom too, and potentially replace those old feelings of pain.
Speaker 1: And you know, any single time you do this usually
Speaker 1: will not be a million dollar moment. You won't change
Speaker 1: your life. But the gradual accumulation again, just like you know,
Speaker 1: feeding of the wolves, the gradual accumulation of food and
Speaker 1: the gradual accumulation of which wolf we choose to feed
Speaker 1: makes an enormous difference, you know, Bye bye bye sent
Speaker 1: apps by sent apps over the course of a person's life. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there was a part in the book where you were
Speaker 1: explaining you were talking about exactly that you're when you
Speaker 1: were younger, feeling not connected and um, and you said
Speaker 1: something that really struck me, And you said, you spend
Speaker 1: a lot of years thinking that if you piled up
Speaker 1: enough achievements that would fix it. And and and I think
Speaker 1: it's obvious on one level, like, no, that doesn't work,
Speaker 1: But the way you put it, it it became really clear
Speaker 1: to me why it doesn't work. Right, that's not even
Speaker 1: the problem. The problem you're you're using the wrong tool
Speaker 1: for the job in that case, not that piling up
Speaker 1: achievements are doing positive things. Achieving can't help you feel
Speaker 1: better in other areas of your life, but it's not
Speaker 1: going to fix it that right. Um, You're exactly right,
Speaker 1: and thinking of a way into this. Um. One of
Speaker 1: the things that motivated me to write the book, which
Speaker 1: is far mass a general audience hard borrowing happiness. But
Speaker 1: but also I was motivated as someone who has a
Speaker 1: deep interest in that enormously psychological theory of human suffering
Speaker 1: and happiness that was created by the Buddha years ago.
Speaker 1: Those summary being the four noble truths, the idea, as
Speaker 1: you know, there is suffering suffering as a cause, the
Speaker 1: cause being craving. That's the second truth, the third being
Speaker 1: there can be an end to that cause and thus
Speaker 1: an end to that craving um. And then there's the
Speaker 1: fourth noble truth of what's the path leading to the
Speaker 1: end of craving in there for suffering? Well, I work backwards,
Speaker 1: you know, in terms of reverse engineer ring, and I
Speaker 1: try to operationalize what in the world is going on
Speaker 1: in the brain of a Buddha or you know, a
Speaker 1: sage or a saint, where any one of us when
Speaker 1: we're in a really good place, what's going on? And
Speaker 1: that had led me to developing a framework that um,
Speaker 1: you know, is very rested in frameworks that other people
Speaker 1: have developed that are very solid connected to the three
Speaker 1: stage evolution of the brain from its reptilian brain stamp
Speaker 1: through its mammalian subcortex with stuff in it like via
Speaker 1: magdala and hippocampus, and then the primate and especially human
Speaker 1: cortex that sits on top of that, and that three
Speaker 1: stage evolution of the brain gives us a framework, a
Speaker 1: kind of roadmap for identifying what are those experiences that
Speaker 1: will help us the most when internalized again and again
Speaker 1: and again, I say, ten thousand times, ten seconds at
Speaker 1: a time gradually reset our personal brain so that we
Speaker 1: move increasing from states of underlying, sometimes often subtle background
Speaker 1: senses of deficit or disturbance that are the underlying causes
Speaker 1: of the craving that causes suffering and harm in the
Speaker 1: second noble truth, And we gradually, over time, through repeated
Speaker 1: internalization of UH certain kinds of experiences UH, move out
Speaker 1: of that underlying sense of deficit not enoughness to a
Speaker 1: sense of fullness. And we move out of that underlying
Speaker 1: sounds of disturbance increasingly to a sense of balance. And
Speaker 1: those three stages of the brain's evolution give us the
Speaker 1: roadmap in terms of what I think of as our
Speaker 1: three basic needs for safety, satisfaction, and connection, which are
Speaker 1: very linked to that Reptilian and Melian and primate human
Speaker 1: layering as it were, of the brain. So long story short,
Speaker 1: if you realize, as I did, that my real needs
Speaker 1: were having to do with connection, not with satisfaction or
Speaker 1: with safety, then it means that to address your real
Speaker 1: need you need to take medicine as it were, or
Speaker 1: vitamins that address your need. And so in my own case,
Speaker 1: even though my issues were very much in terms of
Speaker 1: connection and feeling you know, rejected, excluded and whatnot, I
Speaker 1: tried to pile up experiences in which I felt tough
Speaker 1: and manly and defended to you know, take care of safety.
Speaker 1: Well maybe that's good to a point, but it did
Speaker 1: not address my need for connection. It was as if
Speaker 1: I had scurvy in terms of my needs for connection.
Speaker 1: I needed vitamin C. So I'd go out and I
Speaker 1: would take all kinds of iron as if I had
Speaker 1: anemia in terms of safety needs, but it didn't help me.
Speaker 1: And also, as you said, I tried to pile up
Speaker 1: a lot of accomplishments, gets lots and lots of satisfaction,
Speaker 1: had a lot of fun, you know, enjoy my life
Speaker 1: in a lot of ways. Okay, maybe there's a place
Speaker 1: for that too, but that was like taking B vitamins
Speaker 1: for my It didn't work. It was only when I
Speaker 1: started really really looking for what would help that things
Speaker 1: changed for me. That makes a lot of sense. I
Speaker 1: wanted to ask you. You've you've written several books. You
Speaker 1: are a researcher, You're always reading other people's research. I'm
Speaker 1: curious what ideas are you being introduced to now or
Speaker 1: pursuing or reading about that have you really excited? Wow,
Speaker 1: that's a great interesting question, you know. I'll tell you
Speaker 1: a couple. One is the idea that and these are
Speaker 1: linked ideas that um at a macro scale, the human
Speaker 1: species today, actually planet wide, has the know how and
Speaker 1: the resources for the very first time in human history.
Speaker 1: Maybe roughly this has been the case for twenty forty
Speaker 1: years so years, but basically for the very first time
Speaker 1: in our entire duration on this planet as a species
Speaker 1: hundred fifty thousand years or so, let alone our ancestors
Speaker 1: going back another two million plus years, two ancestors that
Speaker 1: first began making stone tools. During the entire time, there
Speaker 1: were not the object of conditions that would enable us
Speaker 1: truly to take care of the safety, satisfaction and connection needs.
Speaker 1: You know, the inner lizard, mouse, and monkey inside us,
Speaker 1: all of every human being on the planet, and yet
Speaker 1: now we actually have the resources to be able to
Speaker 1: do that. We as a species, like the will, we're
Speaker 1: not making sure, for example, that a billion people don't
Speaker 1: go to sleep hungry every night, which is the case worldwide.
Speaker 1: We have not made sure in the richest country on
Speaker 1: the planet, America, that we don't have one in five
Speaker 1: children nationwide living below the poverty line. So obviously we
Speaker 1: have to bring will to bear. And it's not just
Speaker 1: enough even to have the physical resources available for people.
Speaker 1: We have to help people really register the felt sense
Speaker 1: of core needs, safety, satisfaction and connection being met. Otherwise
Speaker 1: we have lots and lots of people, uh who even
Speaker 1: though they have plenty of safety, they still feel afraid.
Speaker 1: Even though they have you know, plenty of resources, money
Speaker 1: in the bank, food and refridge, consumer goods hanging in
Speaker 1: their closet, they still feel an emptiness inside they're trying
Speaker 1: to fill with various pleasures. And even though they're you know,
Speaker 1: really well connected to other people and they're not actually
Speaker 1: being threatened, they still are very attached to us versus them,
Speaker 1: tribalisms of various kinds. But the net of it all
Speaker 1: is that new science is showing you really do have
Speaker 1: the wherewithal to make a fundamental change in the course
Speaker 1: of human history so that we have the actual material
Speaker 1: conditions that would enable every brain on the planet to
Speaker 1: actually rest in what I call the green zone, which
Speaker 1: is a kind of quick and dirty approximation to the
Speaker 1: noble truth in Buddhism mind in which there's not much basis,
Speaker 1: if at all, if any at all for craving. That's
Speaker 1: one thing that gets me jazz. Well, I think that
Speaker 1: is a great place to end. This has been really enjoyable, Rick,
Speaker 1: I thank you for taking the time. I know you're
Speaker 1: getting ready to go on some extensive travels, so thanks
Speaker 1: for freeing up some time. Eric. It was truly a
Speaker 1: privilege to be here. I mean, what you're doing is
Speaker 1: a big service, and um, I look at the quality
Speaker 1: of your other guests and I'm very honored to be
Speaker 1: in their company. Well, thank you so much. I appreciate it.
Speaker 1: Take care, take care of you too. You can learn
Speaker 1: more about Rick Hanson and this podcast that one you
Speaker 1: feed dot net slash Rick. Also, if you're interested in
Speaker 1: the one on one in program, don't forget to send
Speaker 1: an email to Eric at one new Feed dot net, thanks, bye,