Speaker 1: Okay about this episode. One of the things that I
Speaker 1: heard from many of you is that being cooped up
Speaker 1: at home with family members was challenging. Whether it was
Speaker 1: the kids driving you crazy or arguments with your partners,
Speaker 1: this was proving to be a difficult experience for many
Speaker 1: of you. So this episode is intended to offer some
Speaker 1: tips for dealing with this. We brought back some wonderful
Speaker 1: guests who are very generous with their time on very
Speaker 1: short notice. This episode features Susan Piver, Lodro Wrinsler, Rosalind Wiseman,
Speaker 1: Ralph de LaRosa, and yet another visit from the always
Speaker 1: great Rick Hanson. I hope this provides you with some
Speaker 1: useful tools for navigating close quarters with your loved ones.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the one you feed throughout time. Great tinkers
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. First
Speaker 1: up on this episode, we have Susan Piver, a meditation teacher, speaker,
Speaker 1: and New York Times bestselling author of nine books. It's Susan.
Speaker 1: I appreciate you coming back on and spending a little
Speaker 1: bit of time with us. As I mentioned you earlier,
Speaker 1: the subject of this episode is really you know, a
Speaker 1: lot of people are in very close quarters with people.
Speaker 1: They're not getting any break from them, whether it be
Speaker 1: their kids or their partner, and they're finding their irritation
Speaker 1: is growing, their finding that they feel bad, like they
Speaker 1: should be doing better. I shouldn't feel this way, And
Speaker 1: so we're just offering listeners some different ideas on how
Speaker 1: to work with this situation. Yeah, I can completely appreciate
Speaker 1: the difficulty that so many are facing in close quarters,
Speaker 1: and routines are disturbed, and time is no longer manageable
Speaker 1: in the same ways. And so the first thing I
Speaker 1: would say is, please don't get upset with yourself for
Speaker 1: becoming irritated, and please don't expect yourself to be able
Speaker 1: to handle anything, you know, the way you normally would,
Speaker 1: because everything is upside down, and no matter how well
Speaker 1: intentioned we are and how much we love our families,
Speaker 1: which I'm sure people do, we are all subject right
Speaker 1: now to unbidden moods and mood swings. So to have
Speaker 1: patience with ourselves easier said than done, I realize, and
Speaker 1: patients with others also easier said than done, is required
Speaker 1: right now, and it's expected that people would be uncomfortable, right. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think that's so important. I mean, I think there's
Speaker 1: a couple of things in what you just said that
Speaker 1: came to mind for me. One was, ay, you're not alone,
Speaker 1: So you're not the only person out there who's doing
Speaker 1: the fact I'm doing an episode about it means you're
Speaker 1: not alone because enough people I've heard it from that
Speaker 1: I've gone, oh, I need to do an episode about that.
Speaker 1: And and then secondly, like you said, I think we
Speaker 1: are in very difficult times and none of us knows
Speaker 1: how to cope with what we're doing. I've I've you know,
Speaker 1: I've I've often said it. You know it seems like
Speaker 1: a lot of people are working at about capacity right now,
Speaker 1: so it's just a hard time. It is a hard time.
Speaker 1: And I at first, I'm sure like many people were like, oh,
Speaker 1: I'll write that book, and I'll redesign my website and
Speaker 1: I'll learn to speak another language. And I quickly realize
Speaker 1: that those were terrible ideas and that this is actually
Speaker 1: more of a chance to experience at least a little
Speaker 1: bit of liberation from the tyranny of productivity. I mean,
Speaker 1: when you're a parent, it's different. There are things you
Speaker 1: must do and responsibilities that you have that you cannot
Speaker 1: experiment with ignoring. But instead of trying to get things
Speaker 1: done and make sure your kids homeschooling is perfect, to
Speaker 1: work with the people you love as someone who's on
Speaker 1: their side, someone who can maybe help experience this together.
Speaker 1: Because we can't help people solve this the problem of pandemic,
Speaker 1: but we can, I believe, grow closer through experiencing the
Speaker 1: ups and downs together, um as opposed to trying to
Speaker 1: perfect it and ward it off. To feel what your
Speaker 1: loved ones are feeling with them is I think the
Speaker 1: most beneficial thing you can do, certainly more beneficial than
Speaker 1: trying to get them to feel something else or solve
Speaker 1: the problem of difficult feelings, which I know we want
Speaker 1: to do for people we love. But it's really a
Speaker 1: chance to practice being with each other. I love that.
Speaker 1: That's great. Again, easier said than done, because to be
Speaker 1: with each other we have to have some willingness to
Speaker 1: be with ourselves, and the discomfort that you may be feeling,
Speaker 1: or I may be feeling. That's hard to do. We
Speaker 1: want some certainty, but of course there is none. And
Speaker 1: in wisdom traditions, as far as I understand, no wisdom
Speaker 1: tradition says pandemics are awesome, or you know, it's great
Speaker 1: when everything is upset. No, no, No wisdom tradition says that. However,
Speaker 1: many do say that when you enter an experience where
Speaker 1: you have no more game, where your strategy is no
Speaker 1: longer apply, no one says that's great, what that feels good?
Speaker 1: But there is some sense that there's an opportunity for
Speaker 1: something fresh to enter, something more deeply wise, to arise
Speaker 1: in our minds because they're not bound by convention right now. Yep.
Speaker 1: That is one of the great things about a lot
Speaker 1: of wisdom traditions, as they do point us towards this
Speaker 1: idea that growth can come from difficulty, and actually modern
Speaker 1: neuroscience does too with with post traumatic growth, and so
Speaker 1: there's lots of indications that this can be a vital
Speaker 1: time for growth. And I think a lot of people, though,
Speaker 1: we don't want to turn that into, like you said,
Speaker 1: the tyranny of productivity, Like okay, I have to make
Speaker 1: this a time for growth. And the thing I think
Speaker 1: is so interesting is that a lot of the work
Speaker 1: on post traumatic growth seems to be the way we
Speaker 1: grow through difficult situations is not by learning another language
Speaker 1: or by homeschooling our children perfectly, it's by facing our
Speaker 1: own emotions and our thoughts directly. That's very interesting and
Speaker 1: that that makes a lot of sense to and at
Speaker 1: the same time interestingly, at least in my experience, it's
Speaker 1: much more likely that that will happen, that you'll be
Speaker 1: able to face what you feel and experience your the
Speaker 1: truth of your inner world if you don't make it
Speaker 1: a project like I must conquer this and the you
Speaker 1: know these are the three steps to do so it's
Speaker 1: it requires more bravery and more spaciousness than that two. Actually,
Speaker 1: just approach yourself and your experience with curiosity rather than
Speaker 1: a punch list, which is hard to do because that's,
Speaker 1: you know, a culturally not encouraged. When We're in a moment,
Speaker 1: you know, and I'm feeling really irritated, and I'm about
Speaker 1: to snap again at say my kids, what are some
Speaker 1: sort of on the spot things that we can do
Speaker 1: to work with our emotions right then, right in that
Speaker 1: moment that are a little bit more skillful, a little
Speaker 1: bit a little bit wiser ways to work with those
Speaker 1: emotions as they're as they're arising in the moment. I
Speaker 1: have too many suggestions, all three actually, now that I
Speaker 1: think of it. One is very, very very simple. It
Speaker 1: may sound very trite, but try it and see see
Speaker 1: what happens. And that is to literally feel your feet
Speaker 1: on the ground. If you're sitting up in your feet,
Speaker 1: aren't a gonna put them on the ground, and literally
Speaker 1: transfer your attention from your anger, from your thoughts, from
Speaker 1: your irritation to your feet and really just feel yourself
Speaker 1: planted on the earth. I can't really explain why that's helpful,
Speaker 1: but that's just one suggestion of something you could try.
Speaker 1: A second suggestion is, instead of trying to stop feeling irritated,
Speaker 1: which never ever ever works. That's like throwing gasoline on
Speaker 1: the fire, because that's an aggression. Aggression does not defeat
Speaker 1: aggression ever in the history of planet Earth as far
Speaker 1: as I can see. But what does seem to be
Speaker 1: useful is to turn towards what you feel and allow
Speaker 1: yourself to feel it in a particular way. It just
Speaker 1: might sound woo woo, but it isn't. So we usually
Speaker 1: when we say turn towards what you feel, what we
Speaker 1: do is turn towards the story behind what we feel. Well,
Speaker 1: it's because you said this and you did that. I
Speaker 1: told you never do it again, and you did it anyway,
Speaker 1: it's the ninth time today and raw. You may be
Speaker 1: completely right, but that's not the feeling. Those are the
Speaker 1: thoughts behind the feeling. The feeling usually lives in the body.
Speaker 1: It's you feel it in your chest, or in your stomach,
Speaker 1: or your head, or wherever it is you feel it.
Speaker 1: Some people feel it in the environment rather than in
Speaker 1: their personal body. But if you turn your attention to
Speaker 1: the feeling and just sort of go, oh, it doesn't
Speaker 1: feel good, But let me experience it separately from the
Speaker 1: story that gave rise to it. That introduces a little space,
Speaker 1: and that space is everything when it comes to expressing anger,
Speaker 1: that spaces everything, that it's not a mystery that people
Speaker 1: count to tend and so forth. It's the same principle,
Speaker 1: just introduced space with gentleness towards yourself, which means you
Speaker 1: feel what you feel. And then the third and final
Speaker 1: suggestion is you're just gonna get irritated and you're gonna
Speaker 1: feel bad, and you're going to apologize, and you're gonna
Speaker 1: be human, and you know, let yourself off the hook,
Speaker 1: give yourself a break and try your best to be
Speaker 1: kind of course, but when you lose your temper, come
Speaker 1: back to square one. And square one is always I'm here,
Speaker 1: I love you. I don't want it to be this way.
Speaker 1: I want to be connected. That's ground zero, so you
Speaker 1: can always just come back to that. Wonderful. Those are
Speaker 1: three great suggestions. Thank you so much. My pleasure. Really
Speaker 1: was nice to talk with you again, you too, I
Speaker 1: enjoyed it very much. Good luck with everything, please be well.
Speaker 1: Thank you. Next up we have loadro Rensler. He's an author,
Speaker 1: Buddhist meditation teacher and in addition to his books on
Speaker 1: Buddhist meditation, also has a weekly Huffington Post column heldro Welcome.
Speaker 1: Thank you for having me. It's always an honor to
Speaker 1: be here with you. Yeah, it's been a while since
Speaker 1: we had you on. I was saying to you when
Speaker 1: we were talking before when you came on the show. Uh,
Speaker 1: you came on very generously to a unknown podcast at
Speaker 1: the time that had just started, and I was I
Speaker 1: was touched by your generosity and doing that, So thank you.
Speaker 1: That's very sweet of you. I I just remember having
Speaker 1: a great time with you. I don't remember conversation, and
Speaker 1: I'm glad it's been um so well listen to and
Speaker 1: all of them that's still out there. That's great. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So the topic here is people are cooped up. They're
Speaker 1: staying at home. For some people, there's a lot of
Speaker 1: people in a really small space, and part of what
Speaker 1: they're wrestling with is irritation and frustration with whether it's
Speaker 1: their kids driving them crazy, their partner driving them crazy,
Speaker 1: and they're feeling irritated, and they're feeling bad about feeling irritated, like,
Speaker 1: oh jeez, you know, I really wish I wasn't so
Speaker 1: grumpy with my kids. So I'm just trying to offer
Speaker 1: people some strategies for dealing with all of that a
Speaker 1: little more skillfully. Yeah, I love that, And also it
Speaker 1: reminds me of two things. The first thing is, um,
Speaker 1: someone put out on Twitter the other day. You know
Speaker 1: that my wife and I have a fun game we
Speaker 1: played during quarantine. It's called why do you do it
Speaker 1: that way? And there are no winners. I sort of
Speaker 1: love that because the other day I was like taking
Speaker 1: I was cleaning the cat litter and my wife was like,
Speaker 1: will you dump it in here instead of over there?
Speaker 1: And I was like are you kidding? You know both
Speaker 1: about our meditation teachers, and we had to laugh at
Speaker 1: ourselves and be like, look at that. What a cliche.
Speaker 1: You know. It is that sense of we're on top
Speaker 1: of each other. There's not the same sort of level
Speaker 1: of interaction with other people that we would normally have.
Speaker 1: It feels like there's just there's like breathing stale air
Speaker 1: at times. Um So I understand why people would feel
Speaker 1: a wide range of emotions, which is the second thing
Speaker 1: I want to mention with what you just throw, It's like, Okay,
Speaker 1: we've got frustration, we've got and we've got guilt because
Speaker 1: we don't want to snapping at that person over the
Speaker 1: cat litter, and you know, it's like we've got it all,
Speaker 1: and it's very juicy and human about this moment where
Speaker 1: we're being face to face with our own mind to
Speaker 1: a large degree, you know, I don't think there's often
Speaker 1: many more distractions for us to be like, Oh, I
Speaker 1: don't wanna get annoyed with this person, or I don't
Speaker 1: want to feel this way, so I'm going to go
Speaker 1: dot insert your favorite habit, you know, have a drink, bench,
Speaker 1: watch Netflix, you know, go spend time with friends, go
Speaker 1: for a run, whatever. And here it's like, oh, I'm
Speaker 1: I'm still in the room with you, okay, right, So
Speaker 1: I guess you know, in terms of bringing on that
Speaker 1: meditation teacher guy, the thing that you would not be
Speaker 1: surprised to hear is the idea that the principle of
Speaker 1: mindfulness is being present to what's currently occurring without judgment.
Speaker 1: So if we feel anger, it's okay for us to
Speaker 1: feel anger. If we are feeling shame or guilt, we've
Speaker 1: it's okay for us to feel that. So I think
Speaker 1: there's some aspects here that maybe the difference in terms
Speaker 1: of like being in the space and having these strong
Speaker 1: emotions but not causing harm to ourselves or others. Might
Speaker 1: just come down to can we feel what we feel
Speaker 1: without judgment that we dropped the stories that we tell ourselves.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, they always leave things in the sync
Speaker 1: or whatever it is, drop the story, feel the feeling,
Speaker 1: and when we feel the feeling, and it could be
Speaker 1: those three things. It could be guilt, It could be
Speaker 1: a shamed It could be frustration. It could be sadness.
Speaker 1: There could be any number of things. But we all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, we're saying, oh, I'm actually getting to
Speaker 1: the heart of the matter instead of just reacting all
Speaker 1: too often when we have strong emotions. And don't get
Speaker 1: me wrong, right now, I mean, we could talk about
Speaker 1: family on top of each other. We could talk about
Speaker 1: NonStop new cycle. I know that you've got a great
Speaker 1: series going right now, but it seems like a lot
Speaker 1: of it is there's fear, anxiety, panic at the door.
Speaker 1: What are we gonna do? Are we're gonna hide? We're
Speaker 1: going to go in the other room and pretend like
Speaker 1: it's not happening. Are we going to open it up
Speaker 1: and say, come on in for a bid? Come on,
Speaker 1: sit down across the table from me. We're going to
Speaker 1: have a chat. When our chat's done, i'm gonna ask
Speaker 1: you go. And that's essentially what the meditation techniques that
Speaker 1: I offer are. It's not even a load rovint thing.
Speaker 1: It's like Buddhist meditation generally. Can we just be with
Speaker 1: the thing, you know, offer being mindful of the breath,
Speaker 1: and that allows us to acknowledge stories, come back to
Speaker 1: the breath. It's a great training ground to let go
Speaker 1: of stories. But here, what we're talking about today is
Speaker 1: that sense of sitting across the table from anger or
Speaker 1: fear and saying, okay, what's your deal? You know, can
Speaker 1: I just feel you without adding fuel to the fire? Right,
Speaker 1: instead of adding that fuel, pouring gas on top of
Speaker 1: the fire, with adding all of their stories about why
Speaker 1: someone's wrong or what we should do, we're just holding
Speaker 1: our hands up and feeling the warmth of the thing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: feeling the warmth of the fire long enough that we say, okay,
Speaker 1: if I don't add fuel. At some point, it goes away,
Speaker 1: it dies out. The motion moves through us, as opposed
Speaker 1: to getting stuck in the body in the mind. That's
Speaker 1: such a challenging practice to drop the story because it's like,
Speaker 1: all right, I'm gonna drop the story. Feel the emotion.
Speaker 1: And I dropped the story and I start to feel
Speaker 1: the emotion. Then boom, there's the story again. I I
Speaker 1: hang on a second, I'm dropping the story. Get go on.
Speaker 1: You know this is just practice, right, you nail that? Yeah,
Speaker 1: as usual. Um, it's just like training the mind in
Speaker 1: any other direction. I wanted to learn a new language,
Speaker 1: we would sit there and we'd go over the same
Speaker 1: language drills day and yeah, until we finally we're able
Speaker 1: to feel fluent enough to speak it. Same thing with this.
Speaker 1: It's like we might make mistakes along the way. Mistakes
Speaker 1: are learned so incredibly human. Don't know, it's made more
Speaker 1: than me. But there is something about like, Okay, I've
Speaker 1: got to learn from the thing, and I'm not going
Speaker 1: to act that way again. It's it's actually, you know,
Speaker 1: one way that we learned is saying, okay, I don't
Speaker 1: want to snap at the person about the catlet or again, yeah,
Speaker 1: good at all. And we learned that way too, and
Speaker 1: it sort of gives us the impetus to say, I've
Speaker 1: gotta trust something else and I've got to double down
Speaker 1: in the practice of it all. Maybe two quick ways
Speaker 1: to interrupt. That would be one one of my favorite things,
Speaker 1: particularly if you feel highly triggered by an emotion and
Speaker 1: they are doing the catlet or wrong or whatever it is,
Speaker 1: is to just take three deep breaths in through the
Speaker 1: nose out through the mouth. You need to do seven
Speaker 1: to seven. But you understand, when we focus for this
Speaker 1: this short period time on something like that, it de
Speaker 1: excites the body but also drops the storyline for that
Speaker 1: thirty to sixty seconds, which is long enough of a
Speaker 1: gap for us to say, Okay, what do I want
Speaker 1: to do here? How do I want to right? And
Speaker 1: the other thing. If we are also says like playing
Speaker 1: out the same story over and over and over again
Speaker 1: about the cat letter, at some point we might want
Speaker 1: to just ask ourselves a simple question, is this helpful?
Speaker 1: Which I love? And just getting inquisite? We're like, oh,
Speaker 1: maybe the first time on how I want to talk
Speaker 1: to them about it, that's helpful. The second time I
Speaker 1: would find it the fiftieth time this is no longer helpful. Right.
Speaker 1: By becoming gently inquisitive with the stories we tell ourselves,
Speaker 1: we might be able to drop them that much quicker. Excellent, well, wonderful,
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for those short bits of insight.
Speaker 1: This is a big topic, but we've got, you know,
Speaker 1: several very short conversations. So thank you so much. And
Speaker 1: get the Catlett all right, man, Yeah no, it really
Speaker 1: only goes on the toilet from now on. I promise you,
Speaker 1: Eric cat litter in the toilet, You're gonna get emails
Speaker 1: from listeners. Somebody's gonna have a problem with this. I
Speaker 1: inte them. I'll have his email in the show notes. Folks,
Speaker 1: thank you so much, my pleasure, thanks for having me back.
Speaker 1: Our next guest is Rosalind Wiseman. She's an educator, writer,
Speaker 1: and founder of Cultures of Dignity. Two of Rosalind's books
Speaker 1: are on the New York Time Times best seller list. Hi, Rosalind,
Speaker 1: welcome to the show. Hey, thanks for having me. I'm
Speaker 1: excited to have you back on. And what we're going
Speaker 1: to talk about today is we've got a lot of
Speaker 1: people who are living in close quarters and spending a
Speaker 1: lot of time together and uh, it's getting challenging for
Speaker 1: some people. Kids are driving them crazy, partners irritating them, um,
Speaker 1: and so I just wanted to get some tips from
Speaker 1: you on how to cope with this, or how can
Speaker 1: we deal with these emotions? Well, first of all, I
Speaker 1: think acknowledging that we're all in a hard situation is
Speaker 1: really important. And um, it's inevitable that people are going
Speaker 1: to get on each other's nerves and you can still
Speaker 1: love people and they can still irritate you to no end.
Speaker 1: So both things are true. You love people and you
Speaker 1: can't see on them at the same time. So I
Speaker 1: think that's really important to remember. Um. Second, as I
Speaker 1: think that when we have um where things are going
Speaker 1: to get heated, I mean, this happened to me yesterday
Speaker 1: where with one of my kids, where things are going
Speaker 1: to get heated and nothing is really gonna go well
Speaker 1: in that moment. So in that moment to be able
Speaker 1: to say, Okay, we've gotten to a place where things
Speaker 1: are not going to get better in this moment, so
Speaker 1: we need to like we need to do something later
Speaker 1: when we've calmed down. But beyond that, you also have
Speaker 1: to prepare. So what I do, especially with my children,
Speaker 1: UM is in my big children, they're seventeen and nineteen,
Speaker 1: but I really didn't matter how old they are. I
Speaker 1: try and remember and keep in my head before I'm
Speaker 1: going to go talk to them a time or a
Speaker 1: place or an age or something where I can just
Speaker 1: feel so fondly of them before I go and talk
Speaker 1: to them. So I think this would work well even
Speaker 1: you know, it doesn't have to be your kid, but
Speaker 1: like a partner, that you think of something that they
Speaker 1: did that really made you feel great, or that they
Speaker 1: really did something for you, something positive, so that when
Speaker 1: you walk into the meaning, you're not bringing with you
Speaker 1: all of this hatred and resentment that people can see
Speaker 1: on you the minute you walk in the door. And
Speaker 1: I also just want to make a caveat that this
Speaker 1: is really I'm talking about basically functioning relationships because many
Speaker 1: of us are, unfortunately too many of us are in
Speaker 1: relationships that are abusive, or people are in our families
Speaker 1: or closest to us, related or not are truly undermining
Speaker 1: our dignity. And so that's not that's not what I'm
Speaker 1: talking about. That's a different situation. But I'm talking about
Speaker 1: in general, relationships that are basically functional um but still
Speaker 1: can have moments that are really hard or you feel
Speaker 1: disrespected or undermined. Lots of great points in there. I
Speaker 1: think the first one is that to expect, like, yes,
Speaker 1: we're going to feel this way and that it's okay.
Speaker 1: And I was talking with somebody yesterday who was just
Speaker 1: sort of she was basically saying like, I shouldn't be
Speaker 1: irritated with my children, I feel, And I'm like, wait
Speaker 1: a second. Everybody gets everybody gets irritated with their children, right,
Speaker 1: If you're not going to get irritated at your children,
Speaker 1: who in the world are you going to get irritated?
Speaker 1: Who is more irritating and who knows how to get
Speaker 1: under your skin better than your kids? I just think
Speaker 1: that's so funny, And I think what you just did,
Speaker 1: there's a great thing, like, yes, it's you know, a
Speaker 1: sense of humor about a lot of this can can
Speaker 1: really help us. Um, So it's okay that we feel
Speaker 1: this way. It's normal. And then I like that bringing
Speaker 1: better memories to mind sort of before we go into
Speaker 1: a situation, trying to cultivate a little bit of a
Speaker 1: warmer heart. Yeah. I try and remember it when I'm
Speaker 1: going into conversations, and it can be hard. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Any other ideas. I think that if you want to
Speaker 1: have a conversation with somebody, you can call it like
Speaker 1: a family meeting. Like so, say, for example, your kids
Speaker 1: aren't cleaning up. Maybe somebody who's listening to this can
Speaker 1: relate to this. You come downstairs in the morning and
Speaker 1: the kitchen is racked like every day, and and you
Speaker 1: just can't you just you just lose it, and um,
Speaker 1: that's not a good time to have a family meeting.
Speaker 1: But later you can say to people like, I'd like
Speaker 1: to be able to have a meeting about this, And
Speaker 1: people are gonna roll their eyes and they're gonna try
Speaker 1: and blow you off. And that's sort of what in
Speaker 1: some ways, what being a family is, but meaning that
Speaker 1: you know, you can sort of take liberties sometimes that
Speaker 1: you don't take with other people. And I want people
Speaker 1: to think of, well, what's my goal and what is
Speaker 1: the thing that I want to accomplish during this meeting,
Speaker 1: Like what's the one thing I want to do about
Speaker 1: how I show up during this meeting? So I can
Speaker 1: be taken seriously, but also I can possibly listen to
Speaker 1: other people. And again, like I had this experience yesterday
Speaker 1: where I really am in a very large disagreement with
Speaker 1: my seventeen year old son about the way he sees
Speaker 1: things and the way I see something about And we
Speaker 1: had a pretty big conflict yesterday, and it gave me
Speaker 1: the opportunity to practice what I preach. And I'm sitting
Speaker 1: there and I'm thinking to myself, how in the world
Speaker 1: is this person not understanding what I'm saying or doesn't
Speaker 1: give it any credit. And I really do believe that
Speaker 1: listening is being prepared to be changed by what you hear.
Speaker 1: It doesn't mean that your opinion and your experience doesn't matter,
Speaker 1: but if you do really need to or I try
Speaker 1: really hard, and I would ask people to think about
Speaker 1: that listening is being prepared to be changed by what
Speaker 1: you hear. And so, like last, the concrete thing I
Speaker 1: could say is an extension of that is that I
Speaker 1: think people should go around and take turns, like one
Speaker 1: person speaking for a minute or ninety seconds, and the
Speaker 1: rule is that no one's going to interrupt them, and
Speaker 1: everybody goes around and then and says there one minute,
Speaker 1: and then people can ask clarifying questions. But you need
Speaker 1: to be clear about what a curious clarifying question is
Speaker 1: versus like an obnoxious question that questions you're intelligence so right,
Speaker 1: and so I think that also needs to be a
Speaker 1: level set in the very beginning of the questions we
Speaker 1: will be asking are curious questions like well, I don't like,
Speaker 1: for example, I don't understand when you said this, or
Speaker 1: I really not getting it? Can you give me more
Speaker 1: information about that is different than the tone of voice
Speaker 1: of like why would you ever think that you know
Speaker 1: you not emptying the dishwasher? I mean that those kinds
Speaker 1: of tones of voice, you're just making it worse and
Speaker 1: I can't listen to it all. Yep, I love that
Speaker 1: idea that listening is preparing to be changed is so good.
Speaker 1: It really points to even a deeper witness. It's hard
Speaker 1: to practice. It is hard to practice because we think
Speaker 1: we're right right to substantively answer that. It's that we
Speaker 1: think that our truth. We are so focused on getting
Speaker 1: the other person to understand what we are saying and
Speaker 1: to agree with us. Then in the process of that
Speaker 1: that we stopped listening to the other person. And again,
Speaker 1: like yesterday, I so vehemently was disagreeing with the person
Speaker 1: in my family that I was having this conversation with,
Speaker 1: and yet there was a moment in the conversation where
Speaker 1: he said something that I actually got his emotional truth.
Speaker 1: I got. I got it like I I saw it.
Speaker 1: And as soon as I saw it. I think what
Speaker 1: happened is he saw that I saw it, and then
Speaker 1: the conflict level went down. Yes, yes, that's so. It's
Speaker 1: amazing what happens within us when we finally feel heard.
Speaker 1: Yes exactly, you know, we can stop making at your
Speaker 1: racket because we're like, oh, okay, I've been hurt, you know.
Speaker 1: So yeah, well, thank you so much for taking the
Speaker 1: time to come on and are a couple of ideas
Speaker 1: with this. I appreciate it, and I appreciate your your
Speaker 1: honesty and openness about you know the fact that even
Speaker 1: people who write about this stuff for a living have
Speaker 1: these challenges, oh my gosh all the time. And actually,
Speaker 1: just let me say that we I have these things
Speaker 1: for parents now that um I'd love for people to
Speaker 1: check out, and some of them are free, some of
Speaker 1: them are for purchase that some are free, and it's
Speaker 1: all about how do we treat each other with dignity
Speaker 1: in these times in very concrete ways. And so they're
Speaker 1: called tiny guides and therefore parents to be able to
Speaker 1: look at and to be able to help them, not
Speaker 1: some enormous resource that's exhausting, and you know, just like,
Speaker 1: oh god, I can't do one more things, but on
Speaker 1: tiny little things that can help you through throughout your day. Great.
Speaker 1: And where are those Cultures of Dignity dot com website
Speaker 1: on my website? Perfect? All right, thank you so much,
Speaker 1: thank you. Pleasure to talk to you again. Absolutely. Hi, Ralph,
Speaker 1: welcome back. Thank you so much. It's great to be back.
Speaker 1: I'm happy to have you back on the show. We
Speaker 1: are talking today, as I mentioned to you earlier, about
Speaker 1: you know, people who are spending a lot of time
Speaker 1: together with their family members or cooped up with other
Speaker 1: people and they're noticing some irritation rising. Um, and you know,
Speaker 1: just trying to give people some skills for dealing with
Speaker 1: that irritation as well as dealing in some cases with
Speaker 1: the bad feelings they have about being irritated. So just
Speaker 1: any ideas you have around that topic in general. Yes, absolutely,
Speaker 1: you know. I actually listened to a podcast recently that
Speaker 1: was an interview with an entire family who did a
Speaker 1: through hike of uh not the Appalachian Trail, I believe
Speaker 1: the Pacific Coast Trail, and um, they had a seven
Speaker 1: year old kid with them as they went on a
Speaker 1: six month hike together, and every day this kid would
Speaker 1: have a complete meltdown um that would last about ninety minutes,
Speaker 1: and they came to call it uh cry thirty. The
Speaker 1: family came to call this moment cry thirty where they
Speaker 1: just knew that that this kid was going to have
Speaker 1: a meltdown and they were going to have to endure it.
Speaker 1: They were going to have to stop, let go of
Speaker 1: their plans and just like ride it out with her.
Speaker 1: And they came to anticipate it, and they even gave
Speaker 1: it this name right uh, And that helped them to
Speaker 1: frame the experience and to help them really to befriend
Speaker 1: the experience and to accept it. And it was really
Speaker 1: interesting because then the kid got on and she talked
Speaker 1: about her experience of like having these daily meltdowns but
Speaker 1: being supported by her family and how over the course
Speaker 1: of these hikes the freakouts got less and last she
Speaker 1: got it down to where it was like maybe fifteen
Speaker 1: twenty minutes and they started out like a full hour
Speaker 1: and a half. And so what I was thinking about
Speaker 1: when you invited me onto the show is, you know,
Speaker 1: if we can anticipate that we're going to be irritated,
Speaker 1: if we can anticipate that we are going to be
Speaker 1: frustrated or that we're going to be twiggered or set off.
Speaker 1: That is actually, in a way good news because we
Speaker 1: can prepare for it. Certainly, giving you know, situations a
Speaker 1: name like that helps it to become more concrete and
Speaker 1: less of war fills. Certainly, any time that we name
Speaker 1: an emotion, it changes which side of our prefrontal cortex
Speaker 1: is engaging with that emotional experience. We actually moved from
Speaker 1: what's called the avoidance systems to the approaching systems, meaning
Speaker 1: that we're more likely to get curious about this situation.
Speaker 1: If we can just name it sad or frustration or anger,
Speaker 1: we're more likely to go into problem solving mode. But
Speaker 1: if we know if we're living with a roommate or
Speaker 1: a family member that has been routinely getting on our nerves,
Speaker 1: you know, we can frontload our day. I mean, this
Speaker 1: is really where meditation comes, uh in so handy, right,
Speaker 1: we can frontload our day in anticipation for such situations.
Speaker 1: You know, maybe do a little extra meditation or a
Speaker 1: little extra calming breath work in your meditation practice to
Speaker 1: frontload your day and really set yourself up. I love
Speaker 1: that idea. I've made me think back to a previous
Speaker 1: relationship of mine, which I will not name, but one
Speaker 1: in which the other person had a certain behavior pattern,
Speaker 1: and this is slightly different. But I started to ask myself, like,
Speaker 1: why am I getting upset that this keeps happening, Because
Speaker 1: of course it keeps happening, Like it's like getting mad
Speaker 1: that the sun is coming up every day. Like at
Speaker 1: a certain point, if I can just expect that this
Speaker 1: is what's going to happen, I'm not going to react
Speaker 1: so strongly to it. I'm just going to go, well, yes,
Speaker 1: of course it's happening again, exactly. And in that way,
Speaker 1: you were taking ownership of your own emotions, right, because
Speaker 1: there's a person's behavior and that's theirs, and that's their stuff.
Speaker 1: But you know, why are we taking their behavior so
Speaker 1: personally unless it's coming directly at us in some way,
Speaker 1: and even then that's their stuff. You know, there's there's
Speaker 1: that famous story of the Buddha who gets accosted by
Speaker 1: somebody while just walking down the street for no reason,
Speaker 1: and he tells them, hey, listen, you know you're somebody
Speaker 1: that I've allowed into my house, but you have a
Speaker 1: gift for me that I don't accept. You you hang
Speaker 1: onto your hostility and anger. I'm not going to accept
Speaker 1: that today, And that's that mental framing of it helped
Speaker 1: him to let it go and not be perturbed by
Speaker 1: somebody else's bush story. What we're really in the realm
Speaker 1: of here is talking about how we relate to our emotions, right,
Speaker 1: that it's never just irritation, you know, it's it's for example,
Speaker 1: you know, but it's irritation usually plus my wanting the
Speaker 1: irritation to go away, right, And that's a certain type
Speaker 1: of relationships. Like if I was in the presence of
Speaker 1: a friend and wanted them to go away, it's a
Speaker 1: very similar thing. You know. We could also not care
Speaker 1: that we're irritated. We could also be totally intoxicated and
Speaker 1: taken over by the irritation, and in that way, the
Speaker 1: irritation dictates everything that we think, say and do next.
Speaker 1: But we could also befriend the irritation, feel it in
Speaker 1: our bodies again, name it, and hopefully that opens the
Speaker 1: doorway to getting curious about it. One of the things
Speaker 1: I love to do with clients is ask them, you know,
Speaker 1: what are you feeling right now? Where is it in
Speaker 1: your body? You know? Is it tightness? Is it heaviness,
Speaker 1: is it tingles something else and maybe displacing a compassionate
Speaker 1: hand there and letting that part of you know that
Speaker 1: I'm right here with you. That's sort of inner attunement
Speaker 1: has actually been shown by neuroscience. Dan Seagle actually talks
Speaker 1: about this a lot. We have almost the exact same
Speaker 1: neurological response as if somebody else was holding that space
Speaker 1: for us when we just turned inside and let our
Speaker 1: emotions know like I'm here with you, I hear you,
Speaker 1: I feel you. This is really hard right now, but
Speaker 1: before we even get to that moment, I think just
Speaker 1: knowing that that moment it's going to come and preparing
Speaker 1: for it is is huge. If I made this offer.
Speaker 1: One more little anecdote here has actually come up with
Speaker 1: a couple of clients who are at home with kids
Speaker 1: right now and who have told me that, you know,
Speaker 1: at this time every day, that is just when I
Speaker 1: hit my breaking point, and I just I you know,
Speaker 1: no parent really wants to be irritated with their kids,
Speaker 1: but I think that it's natural to be irritated with
Speaker 1: your kids there they're a lot and that's okay, you know, um,
Speaker 1: not at mint that you're irritating with your kids. That's
Speaker 1: more of a problem, right, And I'm a huge advocate.
Speaker 1: This is what I told this is what I'm constantly
Speaker 1: actually telling clients is just go to the bathroom. Mom
Speaker 1: needs to go to the bathroom right now. Dad needs
Speaker 1: to go to the bathroom right now. It's got the
Speaker 1: bathroom for you know, twenty minutes, do a breathing exercise
Speaker 1: in the bathroom, or you know, just know that this
Speaker 1: is you know, it's your cry thirty moment, right even
Speaker 1: if it's that at whatever time of the day it is,
Speaker 1: you know, you know that it's going to come, and
Speaker 1: so you can prepare well for it. You can breathe,
Speaker 1: you can name the emotion, you can relate to the emotion.
Speaker 1: You can prepare yourself well with a solid self care
Speaker 1: ritual in the morning. We have so much agency to
Speaker 1: impact our mental emotional world, much more than than we
Speaker 1: think that we do. Yep, well, thank you. Those are
Speaker 1: two wonderful ideas and very helpful. And I love that
Speaker 1: for story. I think that's great. And yeah, thank you
Speaker 1: so much for taking the time to come on. It's
Speaker 1: such a pleasure to talk with you. Yeah, thank you
Speaker 1: again for having me A short and sweet yes, these
Speaker 1: are short and sweet. It's a we're trying something different,
Speaker 1: but it seems to be going well. So thank you.
Speaker 1: I love it. Thank you as well, Eric, I hope
Speaker 1: to speak with you against doing matt Okay. Last, and
Speaker 1: most certainly not least, is Rick Hanson. He's the founder
Speaker 1: of the well Spring Institute for Neuroscience and Contemplative Wisdom
Speaker 1: and an affiliate of the Greater Good Science Center at
Speaker 1: UC Berkeley. Rick has also been an invited speaker at Oxford, Stanford,
Speaker 1: and Harvard and taught at meditation centers worldwide. Rick, Welcome back. Eric.
Speaker 1: It's a pleasure to be here. Uh, just the shared
Speaker 1: interest in the fundamental theme of your work, you know,
Speaker 1: the one you feed. So I'm really glad to be
Speaker 1: having a chance to talk with you again. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: lovely to have you. We've I think this is like
Speaker 1: twice in twice in two weeks or something for us,
Speaker 1: So that's good. I like it. I'm always happy to
Speaker 1: see you. So this little special episode is about dealing
Speaker 1: with our families, mainly our loved ones, and being cooped
Speaker 1: up and getting irritated with the kids, are frustrated with
Speaker 1: the spouse and and just how to deal with those
Speaker 1: emotions more skillfully. I just love to get a couple
Speaker 1: of ideas from you. Okay, that's cool. Well, first, I'm
Speaker 1: living the dream nightmare. Uh. My wife and I were
Speaker 1: sheltering in place with our thirty two year old son
Speaker 1: for about a month, and that kind of kind of
Speaker 1: old for him, including not being able to see his girlfriend.
Speaker 1: And then meanwhile, as he moved to an apartment nearby,
Speaker 1: so now we practice social distancing, which broke my heart.
Speaker 1: I mean it's kind of months probably before I give
Speaker 1: my son a hug again. I'm I'm an older person,
Speaker 1: so I'm a little more thoughtful. My wife's also older,
Speaker 1: so you know, we're attentive there. Yeah. Meanwhile, our daughter
Speaker 1: moved back home from Greenwich Village, Manhattan, right in the
Speaker 1: middle of the Petro Petri dish, and probably he had
Speaker 1: the illness so far, so we're all living together. I
Speaker 1: moved out of a bedroom. I'm sleeping in the ring room. Now,
Speaker 1: you know, it's happening, and I think of it a
Speaker 1: little bit like we're separated from people that we really
Speaker 1: like spending time with and we're cooped up with people
Speaker 1: who we love. But after a while, it can kind
Speaker 1: of start to great, right, so what to do about her?
Speaker 1: I'm in a similar boat. My son has been quarantined
Speaker 1: at home with his mother. So um, he's back from school,
Speaker 1: but quarantined at home with her. So I see him
Speaker 1: when we go take like six ft apart walks. But
Speaker 1: but I miss him, you know, I wish I was
Speaker 1: I wish I was seeing more of him. Yeah, So
Speaker 1: lately I've been really reflecting, i'd say, and probably a
Speaker 1: couple of really practical things. The first is to remember
Speaker 1: that they're scared too. They're stressed to their wolf of
Speaker 1: hate is poking its head up, looking around, maybe for
Speaker 1: something to bite. Also, they're wolf of love inside is
Speaker 1: longing for connection. In other words, they're in this boat too,
Speaker 1: and just that recognition maybe expressed in the mind with
Speaker 1: soft thoughts like like me, you fill in the blank,
Speaker 1: like me. You two are stressed, like me. You two
Speaker 1: misdoing a lot of things you used to do. Like me,
Speaker 1: You two are finding other people annoying potentially myself. Yes,
Speaker 1: that's always a useful, useful thought. Yeah, common humanity in
Speaker 1: other words, that's that really is great, And neurologically in
Speaker 1: the brain, that sense of compassion and common humanity and
Speaker 1: and shared kinship, you know that we're in this storm together.
Speaker 1: Does good things in the brain. It releases oxytocin, which
Speaker 1: tends to calm down activity and the alarm bell of
Speaker 1: the brain, the amygdala. It also, because it is emotionally rewarding,
Speaker 1: helps buffer uh negative emotions. Positive emotions buffer negative emotions.
Speaker 1: So you know it neurologically, it makes sense why it works,
Speaker 1: but fundamental it just feels good to realize you know,
Speaker 1: they're suffering. Also, that is a great point, great reflection.
Speaker 1: I have found that to be out of years of
Speaker 1: studying Buddhism. I found that basic idea that like everybody
Speaker 1: I see wants to be happy, like me to be
Speaker 1: have to been such a powerful over the years, just
Speaker 1: transforming the way I view the world. It's so powerful.
Speaker 1: That's totally true. And there's a second thing that I've
Speaker 1: I've been doing a lot myself, and it relates to
Speaker 1: my latest book, Neuroderma, because it's one of the methods
Speaker 1: that I explore in it based on this really good
Speaker 1: recent brain science. It's simply that when we get a
Speaker 1: sense of things as a whole, maybe a sense of
Speaker 1: our body as a whole or the room we're in
Speaker 1: as a whole, or the whole situation we're in all together, right,
Speaker 1: Or you move your eyes out towards the horizon, so
Speaker 1: you're kind of moving away from yourself. But that naturally
Speaker 1: does is it reduces taking things so personally and getting
Speaker 1: caught up in being attached to various parts of things
Speaker 1: and our attitudes about parts of reality, and draws us
Speaker 1: into a more impersonal, in a healthy way, sense of
Speaker 1: reality altogether, the big picture and including just looking out
Speaker 1: to the horizon. It's very effective. And when you do that,
Speaker 1: you just notice within a breath or two or three,
Speaker 1: you're getting calmer, you have more of a sense of
Speaker 1: the big picture, You're less caught up in your own opinion,
Speaker 1: you know, your own righteousness, my precious, you know all
Speaker 1: that stuff. It's a really effective method. It's great. I
Speaker 1: love that idea. I think that that speaks a lot
Speaker 1: to Zen practice or just Buddhist practice in general, which
Speaker 1: is yet tapping into this vastness that's here. You know this.
Speaker 1: I like the science there that's behind that, And I
Speaker 1: just always thought like any time we could take a
Speaker 1: bigger perspective, we don't there, right, You know, bird's eye view,
Speaker 1: big picture, you know, and you just watch what happens there.
Speaker 1: You are typing away in your computer irritated about something.
Speaker 1: Then you say okay, okay, and you just look out
Speaker 1: the window, right you, or you look up at the sky,
Speaker 1: you see clouds. Within ten seconds, you start feeling better.
Speaker 1: It works. Yeah, yep, yep, totally. That's a that's another
Speaker 1: great one. You want a third one out of my
Speaker 1: bag while we're here, Yes, we've got you. Let's get
Speaker 1: a third. And all of these are evidence based, right,
Speaker 1: both the evidence of direct practice, which you and I
Speaker 1: share an interest in, as well as scientific evidence. A
Speaker 1: third simple go to is when we're starting to feel
Speaker 1: stressed or irritable or pressured, you know, just not good.
Speaker 1: A very useful thing to do is for a breath,
Speaker 1: or more like three breasts in a row. Tune in
Speaker 1: to the internal sensations of your body, so you can
Speaker 1: feel the error coming in. You can feel your chest
Speaker 1: rising and falling, You could feel your diaphragm moving. These
Speaker 1: are internal sensations distinct from saying touching the back of
Speaker 1: your hand. And when we tune in to our internal sensations,
Speaker 1: we draw upon a part of the brain called the insula,
Speaker 1: which is very involved with that, and when that part
Speaker 1: of the brain gets active, it quiets verbal activity, partly
Speaker 1: in part because we're tuning into nonverbal sensations, so you
Speaker 1: get the benefit there, quieting the voice in the back
Speaker 1: of the head, the inner chatter, you know, the inner narrator.
Speaker 1: And also as we tune into our body, it pulls
Speaker 1: us out of the default mode network, which you know
Speaker 1: about more kind of in the back of the midline
Speaker 1: of the cortex, which is where we go when we're
Speaker 1: lost in thought, and it's really where we go when
Speaker 1: we're ruminating, right when we're caught up in negative rumination,
Speaker 1: worries about the future, worries about the we can't control,
Speaker 1: regretting decisions we've made, resenting other people that they're not
Speaker 1: being safe enough for they're being too paranoid, or whatever.
Speaker 1: Our deal is, right, the ruminator, you know, the default
Speaker 1: mode networks like a big simulator ruminator. The ruminator gets quiet,
Speaker 1: a circuit breaker of sorts flips when you tune into
Speaker 1: the internal sensations of your body. And here too, you
Speaker 1: can notice the benefits within half a minute. I love it.
Speaker 1: Those are three great tips and really helpful. So as always, Rick,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for for joining us and sharing
Speaker 1: your wisdom. Eric, is a pleasure. And when you give
Speaker 1: that nod to uh you know the ancient teachings, the
Speaker 1: heart of which is really a recognition of impermanence, right,
Speaker 1: the radical transience of experiences, the slower but still transience
Speaker 1: of things like a pandemic. You know, keeping in mind
Speaker 1: impermanence practice you and I share is a really useful
Speaker 1: thing these days, too, Amen to that. Sometimes just remembering
Speaker 1: this too, you shall pass is really good medicine. Yeah, yes,
Speaker 1: thank you. It's a pleasure to see you again. Good
Speaker 1: to see you too. Eric. If what you just heard
Speaker 1: was helpful to you, please consider making a monthly donation
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