Speaker 1: Your brain and nervous system aren't stupid. You can't just
Speaker 1: go through the motions with these practices. They have to
Speaker 1: be authentic. And when I'm guiding people into gratitude practice,
Speaker 1: I never say pick three things or write a list
Speaker 1: of ten, because that feels kind of overwhelming. It's like,
Speaker 1: what's one thing that happened today that you can be
Speaker 1: specific about.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the one you feed throughout time. Great thinkers
Speaker 2: have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes
Speaker 2: like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you
Speaker 2: think ring true. And yet for many of us, our
Speaker 2: thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity,
Speaker 2: self pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't
Speaker 2: have instead of what we do. We think things that
Speaker 2: hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not
Speaker 2: just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent,
Speaker 2: and creative effort to make a life worth living. This
Speaker 2: podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in
Speaker 2: the right direction, how they feed their good wolf. Thanks
Speaker 2: for joining us. Our guest on this episode is SHAWNA. Shapiro,
Speaker 2: a clinical psychologist, author, and internationally recognized expert in mindfulness
Speaker 2: and self compassion. She's a professor at Santa Clara University
Speaker 2: and has published over one hundred and fifty papers and
Speaker 2: three critically acclaimed books, which have been translated into sixteen languages. Today,
Speaker 2: Shauna and Eric discuss her work and her new children's book,
Speaker 2: Good Morning, I Love You Violet.
Speaker 3: Hi Shawna, Welcome to the show.
Speaker 1: Hi Eric, Thank you.
Speaker 3: It's a real pleasure to have you back. And we
Speaker 3: are sitting in your home in Mill Valley, California, which
Speaker 3: is an absolute treat. I ended up being out here
Speaker 3: in the Bay Area unexpectedly and we had this interview scheduled,
Speaker 3: and Nicole, our producer, was wise enough to realize that
Speaker 3: you live very near where I was staying, and so
Speaker 3: we were able to get together and do this in person.
Speaker 1: That's such a treat.
Speaker 3: So we'll start, like we always do, with a parable.
Speaker 3: In the parable, there's a grandparent who's talking with their
Speaker 3: grandchild and they say, in life, there are two wolves
Speaker 3: inside of us that are always at battle. One is
Speaker 3: a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery
Speaker 3: and love, and the other is a bad wolf, which
Speaker 3: represents things like greed, and hatred and fear, and the
Speaker 3: grandchild stops and they think about it for a second.
Speaker 3: They look up at their grandparent and they say, well,
Speaker 3: which one wins, And the grandparent says, the one you feed.
Speaker 3: So I like to start off by asking you what
Speaker 3: that parable means to you in your life and in
Speaker 3: the work that you do.
Speaker 1: I love that parable. It was actually this story that
Speaker 1: my father told me when I was a little girl
Speaker 1: as we were going to sleep at night, and I
Speaker 1: remember being a little scared of the wolves at first,
Speaker 1: but it makes such sense, and as I've continued in
Speaker 1: my studies and studied neuroscience and clinical psychology, it actually
Speaker 1: is so relevant that whatever you practice grows stronger, whatever
Speaker 1: wolf you feed. Those are the neural pathways you're carving out,
Speaker 1: and you can choose kindness and gratitude and joy, or
Speaker 1: you can choose misery and anger and resentment, and it
Speaker 1: really puts the individual back in choice.
Speaker 3: I love that. Well. You mentioned your father in that,
Speaker 3: and one of the things I just learned about you
Speaker 3: is that both of your parents are published authors, as
Speaker 3: well as your grandparents. And you have a bookshelf in
Speaker 3: the other room and it's just filled with books from
Speaker 3: your family. What an amazing thing.
Speaker 1: Thank you. They've all been such inspirations to me and
Speaker 1: really heroes in my life.
Speaker 3: Yeah, what a great thing to have. Since we're on
Speaker 3: the topic of books, I can't help but ask you
Speaker 3: mentioned that you love books, they are your thing. You
Speaker 3: have them stuffed in your shoe rack and all kinds
Speaker 3: of things. I feel similar. What are a couple of
Speaker 3: books that either currently feel really important to you or
Speaker 3: of all time feel really important to you? And I
Speaker 3: know that's a difficult question. It's like asking to pick
Speaker 3: your favorite child. So yeah, I'm asking you to pick your favorite.
Speaker 3: Just a couple that come to mind.
Speaker 1: Yes, So it was actually a book that set me
Speaker 1: on this entire journey of healing and really of the
Speaker 1: work I do now. It's called Wherever You Go, There
Speaker 1: You Are, by doctor John Cabotsen. And when I was
Speaker 1: seventeen years old, I had spinal fusion surgery. So I
Speaker 1: had a metal rod put in my spine and went
Speaker 1: from this kind of healthy, active teenager. I was captain
Speaker 1: of my volleyball team. I just signed to play at
Speaker 1: Duke University. I had kind of my whole life mapped
Speaker 1: out to lying in a hospital bed, unable to walk.
Speaker 1: I was in the hospital bed for six months. It
Speaker 1: was an incredibly difficult time, full physically, of course, but
Speaker 1: also just emotionally. I felt like my entire life had
Speaker 1: been grabbed away from me, and my father gave me
Speaker 1: this book Wherever You Go, there you Are, and I
Speaker 1: had nothing else to do. Normally, a seventeen year old,
Speaker 1: I don't think would read a book from her father.
Speaker 1: But I'll never forget the first line. It said, whatever's
Speaker 1: happened to you, It's already happened. The only thing that
Speaker 1: matters is now what? And it was as if this
Speaker 1: kind of path opened up before me that I wasn't stuck,
Speaker 1: that there was hope. And so I started reading the
Speaker 1: book and reading everything I could on mindfulness, and it
Speaker 1: really opened up a healing journey from me that I
Speaker 1: could have never expected.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I've talked about this on the show. Listeners, I've
Speaker 3: probably heard this multiple times now, But I was introduced
Speaker 3: to Zen Buddhism in high school by a teacher, and
Speaker 3: I didn't understand a lot of what I was reading,
Speaker 3: and what I was introduced to is not nearly as
Speaker 3: clear and concise as John Cabot Zen is right, like,
Speaker 3: this's pretty straightforward. But the message I got that I
Speaker 3: intuited was similar, and it was that life is going
Speaker 3: to have all sorts of difficult things in it. And
Speaker 3: even at seventeen years old, I was pretty cognizant of that,
Speaker 3: you know, in my own life and watching people around me,
Speaker 3: and yet I got this sense that, like, even in
Speaker 3: the midst of that, there is a way to respond,
Speaker 3: there is a way to be wiser about what you do,
Speaker 3: and there's a way to find some measure of peace
Speaker 3: no matter what's happening. And that planted a seed in
Speaker 3: me that you know is still growing to this day. Now.
Speaker 3: It didn't stop me from going down into years of
Speaker 3: substance abuse and heroin addiction and all that, but that
Speaker 3: seed was always there, and I think that's such a
Speaker 3: beautiful thing when it can be planted in that way
Speaker 3: when we're so young.
Speaker 1: It's so important, and I think what a gift I
Speaker 1: think for both of us that it was planted so early.
Speaker 1: As I study neuroscience and really understand the way the
Speaker 1: brain works before age twenty five, the brain is so
Speaker 1: receptive and what you learn is really hardwired in that
Speaker 1: those seeds that are planted, and actually, especially age zero
Speaker 1: to seven, the brain is in a theta state, so
Speaker 1: you're in this kind of very almost like hypnotizable state.
Speaker 1: It's very trainable, it's very suggestible, and it's so important
Speaker 1: to plant these seeds of wisdom and compassion and kindness
Speaker 1: and even clarity like that you have choice that we
Speaker 1: help our kind of young ones really be resourced in
Speaker 1: that way.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I want to get to that young ones
Speaker 3: because you've written a new book called good Morning, I
Speaker 3: Love You, Violet. It's a children's book, and we'll get
Speaker 3: to that in a second. But I want to ask
Speaker 3: you a question a little bit about what you just said,
Speaker 3: because I think a lot of listeners we tend to
Speaker 3: have perhaps an older audience than Paris Hilton. All the
Speaker 3: Paris Hilton probably is an older audience too, now, doesn't she.
Speaker 3: She's not a young one. Who are the kids listening
Speaker 3: to these days? None of us in this room now,
Speaker 3: So a lot of older listeners, people who are past
Speaker 3: that stage of intense neuroplasticity that you talked about, and
Speaker 3: so change is harder than it would have been when
Speaker 3: we were seven, and.
Speaker 1: Yet it's still possible. And I think that for me
Speaker 1: is the most exciting and hopeful message of really brain
Speaker 1: science in the last four hundred years is really the
Speaker 1: discovery that neuroplasticity extends beyond these first twenty five years,
Speaker 1: and that all of us, no matter what mistakes we've made,
Speaker 1: no matter how old we are, right neurogenesis. We see
Speaker 1: it even into the nineties, that the growth of new
Speaker 1: neurons in response to repeated practice. And so I think
Speaker 1: what is so hopeful is that all of us can
Speaker 1: learn resources and really all of us can begin again,
Speaker 1: no matter what has happened.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I want to ask you a question about what
Speaker 3: we feed. Right. We alluded to you feed a good
Speaker 3: wolf kindness and love and care, and you feed a
Speaker 3: bad wolf anger and greed and used bunch of other
Speaker 3: terms along those lines. I'm in the middle of a
Speaker 3: pretty difficult situation emotionally, and so I want to get
Speaker 3: your input on what does it mean to allow the
Speaker 3: emotions that you're having to be there, even if they
Speaker 3: are really difficult ones?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Right, And I think we all know like you want
Speaker 3: to allow your feelings, you need to feel them. I
Speaker 3: think it's pretty common wisdom these days, right, It's also
Speaker 3: pretty common wisdom that like, there's something about feeding the
Speaker 3: positive sides of our self. How do we find the
Speaker 3: right balance there where we're able to feel what we feel,
Speaker 3: but we don't get stuck there, we don't live there
Speaker 3: all the time.
Speaker 1: It is such an important question. I think it is
Speaker 1: the question when it comes to emotional health, mental health,
Speaker 1: emotion regulation. So often when I tell people what you
Speaker 1: practice grows stronger or right or the one you feed,
Speaker 1: they're like, oh, dang, I don't want to feel sadness then,
Speaker 1: or I don't want to feel you know, pain or
Speaker 1: feel because I don't want to grow those right. So
Speaker 1: I want to make a very clear distinction between being
Speaker 1: lost in your fear versus paying attention to your fear
Speaker 1: with mindfulness and compassion. They're different neural pathways in the brain,
Speaker 1: they are different biochemically, So when you're lost in anxiety
Speaker 1: or fear or depression, it actually looks different physiologically than
Speaker 1: when you are able to be present with your fear.
Speaker 1: So noticing I'm scared right now and bringing compassion to it,
Speaker 1: or I'm sad right now, then what you're practicing is mindfulness.
Speaker 1: Then what you're practicing is compassion. You're not practicing sadness, right,
Speaker 1: there's an awareness of the sadness, and that awareness isn't sad, right.
Speaker 1: The awareness is like this larger container that's able to
Speaker 1: hold all of it. And that's really for me. That
Speaker 1: was the liberating piece of mindfulness because I remember I
Speaker 1: was studying and reading all this stuff in positive psychology
Speaker 1: and it was kind of like, think good thoughts because
Speaker 1: negative thoughts lead to cancer. Right. It was when they
Speaker 1: were discovering the type see personality. And I was like,
Speaker 1: oh crap, you know, I'm lonely and depressed and in
Speaker 1: college and I'm gonna get cancer because what I'd do
Speaker 1: with all these thoughts and these emotions. So then I
Speaker 1: start like think happy thoughts, Think happy thoughts. But that
Speaker 1: was an authentic and mindfulness was this incredible resource that said, hey,
Speaker 1: it's okay to feel what you're feeling. It's human, it's natural,
Speaker 1: and here's a way to be with it. This kind
Speaker 1: of superpower of presence that allows you to go into
Speaker 1: the emotions without getting stuck in them, like you said,
Speaker 1: and without indulging them. And I want to talk about both.
Speaker 1: So getting stuck in the emotions when you look at
Speaker 1: an emotion from a scientific lens, it only lasts thirty
Speaker 1: to ninety seconds. It literally rises up as a sensation
Speaker 1: in the body, and then it passes, rises up, does
Speaker 1: its little dance, and passes away, just like a wave
Speaker 1: in the ocean. And now, the reason they feel like
Speaker 1: they stay forever and ever, and all of us have
Speaker 1: been in those moments, is because we're feeding them with
Speaker 1: our thoughts. We're feeding the emotion with our thoughts. So
Speaker 1: if the emotion of left alone, if not indulged, rises
Speaker 1: up and then passes just as a signature in the body.
Speaker 1: But when we start telling the story of she hurt
Speaker 1: me or he did this, then we kind of fuel it.
Speaker 1: It's like putting gasoline on a fire. And so one
Speaker 1: of the techniques that I teach my patients and my
Speaker 1: students is to learn how to be with the bare
Speaker 1: sensation of emotion, pain, fear, sadness. Watch it rise up
Speaker 1: and pass away, and all of a sudden, after a
Speaker 1: few times, when you notice it actually does pass there's
Speaker 1: a liberation. There is an empowerment of I can do this,
Speaker 1: I can ride the wave of my emotions. And so
Speaker 1: the key is twofold one is to learn how to
Speaker 1: name your emotion, just to name I'm feeling scared right
Speaker 1: now or sad right now. And when we name it.
Speaker 1: There's a wonderful study from UCLA John Creswell called name
Speaker 1: it to Tame it. So when you name an emotion,
Speaker 1: it actually takes some of the power out of it.
Speaker 1: It actually calms down your physiology because you're bringing your
Speaker 1: prefrontal cortex back on board. So just saying I'm sad
Speaker 1: actually starts to soothe you and calm you down. So
Speaker 1: the first step is to name it. The second step
Speaker 1: is to actually feel it in your body, so instead
Speaker 1: of thinking about it or telling a story about it,
Speaker 1: you actually notice like tingling or stinging in your eyes
Speaker 1: right with the tears, or tightening of the throat, or
Speaker 1: heat in the chest or the belly. And as you
Speaker 1: bring your awareness to it, you can watch the sensation
Speaker 1: rise and pass.
Speaker 3: So that sounds great, and I believe it and that insight,
Speaker 3: you know, I think I probably read it in a
Speaker 3: Pema children book a long time ago, like drop the storyline,
Speaker 3: feel the feeling, and it sounds like it makes all
Speaker 3: the sense in the world, and yet they seem so fused,
Speaker 3: like I sometimes even wonder. We talk about thoughts and
Speaker 3: emotions as if they are distinct things, and there probably
Speaker 3: are physiologically and different things, but they always co arise.
Speaker 3: I agree, you'd never get one without the other. And
Speaker 3: so my experience is feel the feeling, okay, the buzzing
Speaker 3: in my head, the tears behind the eyes, the tightness
Speaker 3: in the chest, and then right back after thought and
Speaker 3: then out back to the feeling and then back. It's
Speaker 3: this primordial soup.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, there are two sides of the same coin, absolutely,
Speaker 1: and just like everything right, it's all interdependent and interwoven.
Speaker 1: And so the practice is to as best you can
Speaker 1: stay with the sensation in the body, and then of
Speaker 1: course you're gonna get pulled into thought and then again
Speaker 1: it's a practice. It's a discipline. In fact, mindfulness and
Speaker 1: meditation are called consciousness disciplines. It's almost like a mental fitness,
Speaker 1: just like physical fitness. You're able to build these muscles
Speaker 1: of returning to this present moment body sensation instead of
Speaker 1: spinning out in the story, which isn't helpful.
Speaker 3: Yep, you talked about not indulging or repressing our emotions, right,
Speaker 3: there's a term that's used a lot spiritual bypass right,
Speaker 3: meaning that I use the awareness of like I'm not
Speaker 3: my emotion as a way sometimes not to feel my emotion.
Speaker 3: So talk about how you think about that term and
Speaker 3: where it fits in here.
Speaker 1: Yes, so one of the pitfalls, one of the perils
Speaker 1: of meditative practice. Spiritual practice can be spiritual bypassing because
Speaker 1: you can use this awareness as a way to distance
Speaker 1: yourself from the emotion and to distance yourself to such
Speaker 1: a degree that you're actually numbing yourself and instead of
Speaker 1: having the courage to go in and feel it and
Speaker 1: heal it, that we start to disconnect. And I'm not
Speaker 1: saying it's wrong to disconnect, because we need to. Sometimes
Speaker 1: it's two overwhelm. So it's a great skill to have,
Speaker 1: but you can kind of get stuck in it. And
Speaker 1: so the importance is to have this flexibility where you're
Speaker 1: able to kind of zoom into the emotion and really
Speaker 1: feel it and then take a deep breath and kind
Speaker 1: of zoom out. So it's kind of like a camera
Speaker 1: you have, like the zoom len in the wide angle lens.
Speaker 1: And you want to become adept at going back and
Speaker 1: forth with your emotions, and so spiritual bypassing is really
Speaker 1: when it's almost like we reject our humanity and we
Speaker 1: get to this thirty thousand foot witness like state of consciousness,
Speaker 1: or sometimes people call it a non dual state, where
Speaker 1: we are actually in a nondual state of intimacy with life,
Speaker 1: which is really non duality. We're in a nondual state
Speaker 1: which is actually not a nondual state, because there's this
Speaker 1: witness observer of everything, and I think that's why we
Speaker 1: have to be careful with it.
Speaker 3: There's still separation. There's still separation, right, whereas in the
Speaker 3: true non dual experience, at least the ones I've had
Speaker 3: have been unitive, absolutely right. There's no separation between me and.
Speaker 1: Anything, which is incredibly comforting. Right, I'm part of this
Speaker 1: web of life that I can never be separate from.
Speaker 3: Yep. Let's talk about mindfulness a little bit from a
Speaker 3: scientific perspective. You're a scientist, so this is kind of
Speaker 3: one of the key things you're bringing to it. And
Speaker 3: you posited a number of years ago that you see
Speaker 3: sort of three components or perhaps mechanisms of action, intention, attention,
Speaker 3: and attitude, and we talked about this on the last
Speaker 3: time we talked, and those make a lot of sense
Speaker 3: to me. There's another article you wrote though, where you
Speaker 3: said you examined many other mindfulness theories, right that the
Speaker 3: scientific research is starting to go from is mindfulness helpful,
Speaker 3: which the research seems pretty overwhelming and clear like, yes
Speaker 3: it is, and getting more into well why is it
Speaker 3: helpful and what parts of it are helpful? So you've
Speaker 3: got that model intention, attention, and attitude when you looked
Speaker 3: at some of the other models that are out there,
Speaker 3: where there are things that those models showed that made
Speaker 3: you think maybe there's something else to add to my model.
Speaker 3: They're just different ways of saying the same thing. I'm
Speaker 3: just kind of curious your thoughts as you've examined other
Speaker 3: people's theories.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think there's an underlying overarching Can you say
Speaker 1: both of those in one sentence? But I think there's
Speaker 1: this deep awareness that one of the key mechanisms of
Speaker 1: action of mindfulness is this ability to pause and choose
Speaker 1: your response, that in between kind of the trigger and
Speaker 1: your reaction, there's this gap space and what mindfulness does
Speaker 1: is gives us a moment to breathe, see clearly, and
Speaker 1: choose wisely our response, and that kind of metacognitive awareness
Speaker 1: or that witness like steak is incredibly beneficial. And so
Speaker 1: again that's kind of the wide angle lens, right, the
Speaker 1: sitting at the top of the mountain and looking down.
Speaker 1: And then the other thing that mindfulness does, and I'd
Speaker 1: say most of the models talk about this is this
Speaker 1: ability to go into sensation, this kind of precision, this
Speaker 1: ability to know the signature in your body of each
Speaker 1: emotion and to watch it rise up and pass away,
Speaker 1: so that there's this simultaneous witness like stake and intimacy.
Speaker 1: And one thing that a lot of the models talk
Speaker 1: about is the realization of interconnection, of interdependence. That there's
Speaker 1: something tremendously healing about recognizing that I'm not separate, I'm
Speaker 1: not alone, that I'm part of this exquisitely complex life.
Speaker 1: And I think one of the kind of greatest sufferings
Speaker 1: of our time is loneliness, right and isolation. And it
Speaker 1: addresses that from a spiritual perspective, which is something that's
Speaker 1: also been addressed from a scientific perspective. You know, quantum physics,
Speaker 1: you know systems theory, ecology, they all are pointing to
Speaker 1: this interconnected, interdependent world. And so I think that is
Speaker 1: definitely one of the underlying mechanisms of healing and transformation.
Speaker 1: I think the other thing that is really interesting that
Speaker 1: we've learned since I first published my model is the
Speaker 1: power of intention. So intention really sets the stage for
Speaker 1: what is possible. It sets your compass. Right says, this
Speaker 1: is what's important, and I've always thought of intention as
Speaker 1: kind of a spiritual psychological compass. Right, But intentions are
Speaker 1: neurochemical that when we set an intention, it sets in
Speaker 1: motion this whole cascade of neural chemistry that helps us
Speaker 1: move in the direction. That's important, and I want to
Speaker 1: be clear when you set an intention that you actually
Speaker 1: care about, so it has to be authentic. What happens
Speaker 1: is you release dopamine, and dopamine is the neural modulator
Speaker 1: of motivation, So dopamine turns on your learning centers, gives
Speaker 1: you this energy and motivation so you can move in
Speaker 1: the direction of your goals. This is incredibly important, and
Speaker 1: I think this understanding helps us really understand the deeper
Speaker 1: power of intention and how it plays such a significant
Speaker 1: role in spiritual practice.
Speaker 3: There's a few different things I'd like to touch in
Speaker 3: on there, and I'll start with the last one, which
Speaker 3: is intention. Say a little bit more about what you
Speaker 3: mean by intention? What makes a good intention if we
Speaker 3: want to use that word, or an effective intention? And
Speaker 3: how do we keep that intention alive? Not something I
Speaker 3: said over cereal this morning that I never think about again,
Speaker 3: but something that actually guides me.
Speaker 1: These are such great questions. You are such a wonderful interviewer.
Speaker 1: I'm so I'm excited to unpack each of them because
Speaker 1: they're all so important. So the first thing is what
Speaker 1: is an intention? So an intention is simply why am
Speaker 1: I paying attention? Like what's important? We have so many
Speaker 1: millions of choices of to put our precious resource of attention.
Speaker 1: Your intention helps you zero in on what's actually important.
Speaker 1: What do I care about? So your intention, as I
Speaker 1: said before, it sets the compass of your heart. It says,
Speaker 1: this is the direction I want a head, This is
Speaker 1: what I care about. Now to your second question, how
Speaker 1: do we distinguish between a healthy intention or an unhealthy one?
Speaker 1: Or I would say a skillful intention or an unskillful one.
Speaker 1: So the most important thing is for it to be authentic,
Speaker 1: that the brain and nervous system aren't stupid. So you
Speaker 1: can't lie to yourself, You can't say you know, may
Speaker 1: I be happy, but inside be like I'm a worthless,
Speaker 1: you know, piece of crap, and I don't deserve happiness.
Speaker 1: I don't really want happiness. You actually have to find
Speaker 1: an intention that feels true. So maybe may I learn
Speaker 1: to accept and love myself is more authentic. So your
Speaker 1: intention has to be meaningful to you, and it has
Speaker 1: to be authentic, and that's what sets in motion this
Speaker 1: cascade of neural chemistry. Okay, so that's the second part
Speaker 1: in Buddhism. What's important is the intention, not the outcome,
Speaker 1: And so you don't want to measure the success of
Speaker 1: the intention based on the outcome. It's really the intention
Speaker 1: in and of itself is what's important.
Speaker 3: Right. Well, I think this is really an interesting thing
Speaker 3: because we've had a societal conversation recently about intention and impact, which,
Speaker 3: you know, I might say something that offends someone else,
Speaker 3: and what we've said a lot is and I would say,
Speaker 3: but I didn't intend that. I didn't mean that, And
Speaker 3: what many people would say is, well, but that's how
Speaker 3: it impacted me. And so I think this is an
Speaker 3: interesting conversation because you're right to me, it's not either
Speaker 3: or right. Impact matters outcome, matters, but so does intention
Speaker 3: in different situations, in different ways, one may be more
Speaker 3: important or less important. You kind of wandered into something
Speaker 3: I think is a really it is a fruitful place
Speaker 3: to explore.
Speaker 1: It's fruitful and I think complex, and I think what
Speaker 1: I would say is setting an intention is a practice.
Speaker 1: It's not something you just kind of really nearly go into.
Speaker 1: This is my intention. You have to really look at
Speaker 1: your motives and what's important. And what I often do
Speaker 1: when I'm teaching a retreat is I have people listen
Speaker 1: for their intention. So I don't have them just immediately
Speaker 1: cognitively think about it. I have them listen with their
Speaker 1: whole being what's important. And we do this repeatedly, and
Speaker 1: then I point out to them I want you to
Speaker 1: notice the wholesomeness of your intention. No one's here to
Speaker 1: learn how to cheat or lie or steal right. You're
Speaker 1: here because you're wanting to cultivate greater peace or compassion,
Speaker 1: or clarity or wisdom. And there's something really healing about
Speaker 1: trusting your good heart, trusting the purity of your intentions,
Speaker 1: that you're not here to hurt someone or steal or lie,
Speaker 1: that you're really here for healing. And so I think
Speaker 1: that learning to listen for our intentions is a very
Speaker 1: important practice. And that's really getting to your third question,
Speaker 1: which is how do you keep them alive? How do
Speaker 1: you not just set an intention in the morning over
Speaker 1: cereal and forget about it the rest of the day.
Speaker 1: And that's really important and for me, that comes back
Speaker 1: to practice. What you practice grows stronger. It comes back
Speaker 1: to having a daily practice of setting an intention and
Speaker 1: then returning to it throughout the day. So if my
Speaker 1: intention in the morning is to for example, what I'm
Speaker 1: working on right now is patience, right, my intention is
Speaker 1: to move in the direction of greater patients. I have
Speaker 1: practiced my super highway of habit of inpatience for many decades.
Speaker 1: And so I'll set the intention in the morning, and
Speaker 1: then when I'm driving to take a breath and really
Speaker 1: recommit to this intention of patience, or when I'm waiting
Speaker 1: for my son instead of snapping, to just take a breath.
Speaker 1: And so I'm weaving that intention in throughout my day.
Speaker 1: The other pieces that are intentions change. They evolve that
Speaker 1: as we continue to deepen on our journey, we realize, oh, well,
Speaker 1: patience is important, but also compassion, Like the reason I'm
Speaker 1: getting impatient is because I'm afraid that there won't be
Speaker 1: enough time, and so can I first have compassion for myself?
Speaker 1: So they deepen, they change.
Speaker 3: So when I think about intention, I tend to be
Speaker 3: thinking of it as how or who do I want
Speaker 3: to be? Is that kind of the way you're thinking
Speaker 3: of it, like who's the person I want to be?
Speaker 3: Or how do I want to react in this situation?
Speaker 3: Or what's important about this situation? But it tends to
Speaker 3: reflect back on not what I'm hoping to get from it.
Speaker 3: It's more about who I'm going to be or who.
Speaker 1: I'm becoming, Because I think intention is really about a direction,
Speaker 1: not a destination, and I think sometimes we have to
Speaker 1: be careful with who do I want to be? We
Speaker 1: kind of hold ourselves up to this perfectionistic ideal, and
Speaker 1: really perfection is the antithesis of evolution. Right If you
Speaker 1: make you're done growing, And you know this game is
Speaker 1: really about evolving and growing. So it's in what direction
Speaker 1: do I want to head as a person.
Speaker 3: Yep. So you mentioned you know I might set an
Speaker 3: intention in the morning to be patient, and you said
Speaker 3: that intention may evolve one of the things that I
Speaker 3: think many of us do and I know I'm guilty of.
Speaker 3: Is I end up with like twelve intentions, you know,
Speaker 3: So for you, you know in your life, you're like, I
Speaker 3: want to be more patient. Is that like you kind
Speaker 3: of just narrow down to that is the core idea
Speaker 3: that you want to be working on for a certain
Speaker 3: period of time, you know, Because if I'm suddenly like
Speaker 3: I'm going to develop all seven cardinal virtues today, I'm
Speaker 3: all over the place.
Speaker 1: It's a little overwhelming too. And that actually tends to
Speaker 1: paralyze us because we don't even take the first step
Speaker 1: when we set goals that are too lofty. So I
Speaker 1: always recommend that you set very small, achievable goals, and
Speaker 1: that each time that you set one, to know that
Speaker 1: you're again putting in play this whole cascade of neural
Speaker 1: chemistry that's going to support you. So every morning, as
Speaker 1: I wake up, as I set my intention, as I
Speaker 1: listen for my intention to be curious, I wonder today
Speaker 1: what is going to feel important to me? Right? Some
Speaker 1: days it's about can I just be present with my
Speaker 1: body as I move through this day? And so I
Speaker 1: think it's okay to just let your intentions come to
Speaker 1: you in the morning, and choose one that you're going
Speaker 1: to stay with and know that the next day it
Speaker 1: can shift. The other thing that I think is very important,
Speaker 1: and I keep talking about morning practice because when you
Speaker 1: first wake up, it's this precious time. Your brain is
Speaker 1: in an alpha theta state, and much like a young child,
Speaker 1: it's very suggestible, and so it's a wonderful time to
Speaker 1: kind of set the trajectory of your day. So setting
Speaker 1: an intention is wonderful. Another thing that I do is
Speaker 1: I ask, I wonder what surprising thing will happen today,
Speaker 1: And what that does is it sets my reticular activating
Speaker 1: system brains filter. It's called the RaaS in the direction
Speaker 1: of looking for what's good or what's surprising or kind
Speaker 1: of the small miracles. Instead of constantly scanning my environment
Speaker 1: for the negative or the dangerous, which is our negativity
Speaker 1: bias at play, it kind of reorients me to look
Speaker 1: for the good. And so again that's similar to intention
Speaker 1: in some ways, I'm kind of gently orienting in that direction.
Speaker 3: Yep. I think that's why a practice like I've had
Speaker 3: on and off throughout the years of like I'm going
Speaker 3: to take a beautiful photo today. Right, it's not about
Speaker 3: the photo, it's about as you said, it primes my
Speaker 3: brain to be looking for beauty. Or One of the
Speaker 3: ways I think gratitude is really helpful, like actually expressing
Speaker 3: and writing it down, is your brain starts to look
Speaker 3: for it because it's like, well, I'm going to you
Speaker 3: know exactly, I'm going to report on this later, what's
Speaker 3: good out here?
Speaker 1: And that's what The research shows that gratitude is actually
Speaker 1: like building a muscle, and that people who practice gratitude,
Speaker 1: who practice writing in their journals things they're grateful for,
Speaker 1: they grow that muscle so that they are more able
Speaker 1: to find thing that they're grateful for. And gratitude is
Speaker 1: actually really interesting because first of all, it's one of
Speaker 1: the fastest ways of shifting our neurochemistry. So I love
Speaker 1: practicing gratitude. I encourage it in all my students and
Speaker 1: all my patients. But what's interesting is recently they discovered
Speaker 1: that receiving gratitude is even more powerful. That when you
Speaker 1: practice gratitude, it's really healthy. It shifts your immune system
Speaker 1: in a positive way, it helps you sleep better, it
Speaker 1: changes your mood. But actually receiving authentic gratitude is like
Speaker 1: ten x the benefits. Now, we can't all go around
Speaker 1: trying to get gratitude you compliment me. But what it
Speaker 1: does is it gives you the power to give gratitude,
Speaker 1: to appreciate people, To know that as a mother, as
Speaker 1: a professor, as a friend, as a wife, that I
Speaker 1: can take time, take my precious attention and focus on
Speaker 1: what I appreciate in someone and give them that gift,
Speaker 1: which is actually going to shift their neurochemistry in this
Speaker 1: power flee healing way.
Speaker 3: Yep. There's been some research out there that you can
Speaker 3: get into a point where you just are kind of
Speaker 3: going through the motions with gratitude and it's not remaining
Speaker 3: authentic yeah, or it just doesn't have the juice it
Speaker 3: had in the beginning, And there are ways to get
Speaker 3: around it that, you know. The main one that is
Speaker 3: being specific. You know, the specificity of your gratitude tends
Speaker 3: to bring it alive. Instead of like, oh, I'm grateful
Speaker 3: for my job, it's what about my job today made
Speaker 3: me feel really grateful and getting into that detail.
Speaker 1: One of the best ways to really get the benefit
Speaker 1: of all of these practices is to make them authentic
Speaker 1: and alive and specific. So the more vivid we can
Speaker 1: make something we're grateful for, the more we can bring
Speaker 1: alive our senses, the way it tasted, smelled, felt in
Speaker 1: our body as we experienced it. Each of those act
Speaker 1: as tiny hooks into our long term memory which help
Speaker 1: us encode the experience and really of hardwire in something positive.
Speaker 1: So I think it's really important with all of this
Speaker 1: that it be authentic. As I said before, your brain
Speaker 1: and nervous system aren't stupid. You can't just go through
Speaker 1: the motions with these practices. They have to be authentic.
Speaker 1: And when I'm guiding people into gratitude practice, I never
Speaker 1: say pick three things or write a list of ten,
Speaker 1: because that feels kind of overwhelming. It's like, what's one
Speaker 1: thing that happened today that you can be specific about.
Speaker 1: It can be the smallest thing. It could be noticing
Speaker 1: the dew drop on the blade of grass, noticing the
Speaker 1: rainbow in it, and just being kind of in awe.
Speaker 1: It's that small.
Speaker 3: What about when we can't feel gratitude? So, for example,
Speaker 3: I may be walking down the street and I see
Speaker 3: the dew drop on the blade of grass, I see
Speaker 3: the rainbow. I'm like, oh, generally that makes me feel grateful.
Speaker 3: But for whatever reason, there's no feeling tone with what's happening.
Speaker 3: Do you think it's still useful to kind of reflect
Speaker 3: on it and think about it because you know you
Speaker 3: used a word, They're all right, I mean awe to
Speaker 3: me often means sort of a big experience where some
Speaker 3: of this stuff is extraordinarily subtle.
Speaker 1: I'm so glad you're asking this. I never think it
Speaker 1: is healthy or skillful to force things. Okay, So if
Speaker 1: it's starting to feel like a burden or a chore,
Speaker 1: I would shift to a different kind of practice, okay.
Speaker 1: And that's why these practices are so nuanced. They're not
Speaker 1: meant to be kind of mass produced that originally they
Speaker 1: were developed with your teacher, and you would tell your
Speaker 1: teacher how you're feeling or what's happening, and they would say, oh,
Speaker 1: if gratitude's feeling numb, don't keep pushing hard against it
Speaker 1: and then judging yourself when you're not feeling the way
Speaker 1: you think you should be feeling. Let's practice something else.
Speaker 1: And it could be you practice self compassion in that moment, Oh,
Speaker 1: I'm feeling a little numb or a little bit disconnected.
Speaker 1: And so you name it like we learned about before.
Speaker 1: Right often for me, I'll put my hand on my
Speaker 1: heart and be like, sweetheart, this is hard or this
Speaker 1: is scary. And then the third step of self compassion,
Speaker 1: which I just love, is you think of all the
Speaker 1: other people in this moment who maybe are struggling with
Speaker 1: feeling numb, and you send out your care and your
Speaker 1: compassion to them, and then you breathe it back in
Speaker 1: for yourself. So you're feeling this sense of connection and
Speaker 1: I'm not alone in this that there's probably thousands of
Speaker 1: people right here in this moment that are feeling a
Speaker 1: little numb.
Speaker 3: Yep, yep. Okay, now you get to tell your gratitude story.
Speaker 1: Well, the reason I want to share this story is honestly,
Speaker 1: it has impacted me more than almost any other. There
Speaker 1: was an eighth grade math teacher and she was trying
Speaker 1: to teach a math lesson and eighth grade can be
Speaker 1: a tough middle school time, and they were just not
Speaker 1: having any of it, and so she finally said, forget it,
Speaker 1: put your books away, we're done. Take out a piece
Speaker 1: of paper and write down your first name on that paper.
Speaker 1: And then she had the students pass the paper around
Speaker 1: and each student had to write down one thing that
Speaker 1: they were grateful for appreciated about their classmate. So at
Speaker 1: the end of the class she collected all the papers,
Speaker 1: and at the end end of the year, when they
Speaker 1: were graduating off to high school, she gave each student
Speaker 1: their paper that had all the things that their classmates
Speaker 1: appreciated about them. I love your sense of humor, I
Speaker 1: think your laugh is great, I think you're so smart.
Speaker 1: Whatever it is, they had everything done. So fast forward
Speaker 1: nine years and one of the eighth grade students had died.
Speaker 1: He had died at war, and they were having a memorial.
Speaker 1: So the eighth grade teacher and all the classmates came
Speaker 1: to the memorial and at the memorial they said the
Speaker 1: only thing that they found with him was his identification
Speaker 1: tags and this folded up piece of paper with all
Speaker 1: the things that his classmates loved about him. And as
Speaker 1: they were sharing this, another eighth grade raised her hand
Speaker 1: and she said, I still have mine. It's framed on
Speaker 1: my desk so I can remember who I am. And
Speaker 1: then all of a sudden, different students started raising their hands.
Speaker 1: And it just shows you the impact we have on
Speaker 1: each other of our words. And our appreciations and our
Speaker 1: ability to remind each other of our good hearts.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a beautiful story. It's a really touching story.
Speaker 3: I want to talk about loneliness for a second. Right,
Speaker 3: Loneliness seems to be having its moment right now. Right.
Speaker 3: It's worse for you than nearly any other thing. It
Speaker 3: causes all sorts of health conditions. Right, And you talked
Speaker 3: about that spiritual practice can allow us to feel connected
Speaker 3: to the broader whole. But is there also an element
Speaker 3: of you actually need to be connected to other people
Speaker 3: or do we think that just like, well, if I
Speaker 3: could just get myself into a non dual state twice
Speaker 3: a week where I feel connected to everything, I won't
Speaker 3: be lonely anymore. Right, it seems like that's part of
Speaker 3: a solution, but not certainly the whole solution. That loneliness
Speaker 3: is still a human connection thing.
Speaker 1: Absolutely absolutely, and that is one of the beautiful things
Speaker 1: of this practice. So as you begin to practice, so
Speaker 1: let's say you begin a loving kindness or compassion practice.
Speaker 1: The way that you practice is you choose real people
Speaker 1: in your life who have supported you, who have loved you,
Speaker 1: have cared about you, and you offer your loving kindness
Speaker 1: back to them and you begin to feel that sense
Speaker 1: of connection. So, for example, during COVID, I didn't see
Speaker 1: my parents for three years, almost two and a half years,
Speaker 1: and I'm used to seeing them all the time. They're
Speaker 1: in very much isolation, and I really missed them a lot,
Speaker 1: and I remember practicing loving kindness, may you be peaceful,
Speaker 1: may you be happy, and feeling a connection to them,
Speaker 1: even though I wasn't physically with them. So that's one
Speaker 1: piece of it. The other piece that I find so
Speaker 1: fascinating is that when you practice loving kindness, when you
Speaker 1: practice compassion practice, the insula grows bigger and stronger. Remember
Speaker 1: what you practice grows stronger. Now the insula is responsible
Speaker 1: for our empathy and compassion for others. And so what's
Speaker 1: interesting is that when you see someone similar to you
Speaker 1: hurt themselves, let's say, stub their toe, your insula activates
Speaker 1: and you feel empathy. You're like, ooh, ouch, are you okay?
Speaker 1: When you see someone different than you stub their toe,
Speaker 1: your insula remains quiet, and so your empathy isn't as active.
Speaker 1: This explains a lot. When you begin these practices of
Speaker 1: mindfulness and loving kindness and compassion, your insula becomes active
Speaker 1: no matter what, it grows bigger and stronger, and so
Speaker 1: you feel a greater sense of connection, empathy and compassion
Speaker 1: for people, even people who are strangers, even people who
Speaker 1: are different than you.
Speaker 3: So what you're saying there is that when we see
Speaker 3: someone we care about hurt, we respond with empathy. When
Speaker 3: we see somebody that we don't care about, generally we
Speaker 3: don't respond. It's a little hard.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a little hard.
Speaker 3: And that loving kindness and compassion practice, in essence increases
Speaker 3: the circle of people that fall under that umbrella of
Speaker 3: I'm going to respond to you with empathy.
Speaker 1: I love how you said that. Yes, it increases our
Speaker 1: circle of compassionate why itdens the circle of compassion?
Speaker 3: I mean, I think that is one of the biggest
Speaker 3: things I got out of the core Buddhist insight. And
Speaker 3: it's not a Buddhist insight, but that's where I was
Speaker 3: exposed to it of like me, you want X like
Speaker 3: you know, just like me, you want to be loved
Speaker 3: just like me, you don't want to be hurt. And
Speaker 3: that practice of applying it to everyone I see has
Speaker 3: done so much for me. And I love being on
Speaker 3: public transportation, which I don't get to do a whole
Speaker 3: lot from Columbus, Ohio. We're just in our cars. But
Speaker 3: I love just looking around when I'm at the airport
Speaker 3: and just sort of going through that practice, either that
Speaker 3: or the loving kindness practice with everyone I see, because
Speaker 3: it does make me feel more at home in the
Speaker 3: whole human community exactly.
Speaker 1: And so bringing it back to this sense of loneliness
Speaker 1: and isolation. Even right now as you're listening, if you
Speaker 1: think of someone you love and you start to wish
Speaker 1: them well, may you be peaceful and happy and healthy,
Speaker 1: you can begin to feel a sense of warmth and
Speaker 1: a sense of connection and almost a sense of empowerment,
Speaker 1: Like who are you When you're practicing compassion and loving kindness?
Speaker 1: You're not someone who's feeling alone and isolated. You're someone
Speaker 1: who's actually giving your care And I think that's an
Speaker 1: incredibly powerful state to be in.
Speaker 3: We've given our Instagram account a new look, and we're
Speaker 3: sharing content there that we don't share anywhere else, encouraging
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Speaker 3: of the show and some of Ginianized day to day life,
Speaker 3: which I'm kind of still amazed that anybody would be
Speaker 3: interested in. It's also a great place for you to
Speaker 3: give us feedback on the episodes that you like, or
Speaker 3: con that you've learned that you think are helpful, or
Speaker 3: any other feedback you'd like to give us. If you're
Speaker 3: on Instagram, follow us it at one underscore you underscore
Speaker 3: feed and those words are all spelled out one underscore
Speaker 3: you underscore feed to add some nourishing content to your
Speaker 3: daily scrolling. See you there. The other place I wanted
Speaker 3: to go back to was this idea of what we
Speaker 3: practice grows, which is sort of a statement we'll all
Speaker 3: recognize and understand. And you talked about if I'm working
Speaker 3: on patients that day, you know, I will reflect multiple
Speaker 3: times a day on patients. And one of my big
Speaker 3: things that I am really interested in, and my spiritual
Speaker 3: habits program is kind of largely foundationed on, is that
Speaker 3: we don't remember right. We may set our intention in
Speaker 3: the morning and have a moment. Some of us may
Speaker 3: be at the point where we have a sitting practice
Speaker 3: in the morning, which is wonderful. Many people don't get
Speaker 3: that far. And then we get up and we go
Speaker 3: from thing to thing to thing, to thing to thing
Speaker 3: to thing, and we may not think about that intention
Speaker 3: till the next morning when we're reflecting on our intention.
Speaker 3: I would love to know what sort of tips or
Speaker 3: tricks you found or ways that you found, either with
Speaker 3: yourself or with people you work with, of actually remembering,
Speaker 3: because we can't practice if we don't remember to practice.
Speaker 1: Exactly well, one of my teachers said that all of
Speaker 1: spiritual practice is forgetting and remembering. That's the whole game.
Speaker 1: And so I think the first thing is to know
Speaker 1: you are going to forget and to not beat yourself up,
Speaker 1: and in fact, when you do remember, to celebrate the
Speaker 1: remembering as opposed to beat yourself up over the forgetting.
Speaker 1: So that's the first step. The second thing is I
Speaker 1: really believe in using science to help us create positive habits.
Speaker 1: So we know that stacking habit. Stacking is how we
Speaker 1: remember to do things. And so for me, I will
Speaker 1: set my intention and that I know that when I
Speaker 1: brush my teeth that night, that that's another opportun need
Speaker 1: to reflect on my intention. And so you can have
Speaker 1: different kind of steps along the way that you know
Speaker 1: are going to support you. And the more you can
Speaker 1: build habits that are healthy into your life, the more
Speaker 1: likely you know, habits are human nature, that's how we operate.
Speaker 1: And so it's really about finding the most powerful, effective
Speaker 1: habits that are going to support you and remembering right.
Speaker 3: And I think that's kind of what you referred to
Speaker 3: there as the whole game. I mean, part of what
Speaker 3: makes habit creation challenging is more and more behavior change
Speaker 3: researchers or realizing that habits require a stable context. Meaning
Speaker 3: you can't build a habit to work out every day
Speaker 3: at nine am if every day at nine am your
Speaker 3: life looks different, right. And so, but there are these
Speaker 3: things that do happen reliably in our lives, right, We
Speaker 3: go to the bathroom, we open the refrigerator, we get
Speaker 3: in our car. Right, And so we can start to
Speaker 3: use those moments that do happen reliably, yes, as these
Speaker 3: places I like to call still points where we can
Speaker 3: drop whatever we want in. So, for example, if I've
Speaker 3: got a still point every time I go to the bathroom,
Speaker 3: I've created this little mini moment of reflection, I can
Speaker 3: drop whatever I want into that moment. Maybe it's patience
Speaker 3: that I'm working on today. I can drop a thought
Speaker 3: on patience or a reflection on patients in there, and
Speaker 3: if we do that, we've created this architecture or scaffolding
Speaker 3: through our whole lives that helps us.
Speaker 1: To remember absolutely habits are human nature, So you want
Speaker 1: to create habits that really lead towards greater health. And
Speaker 1: I love that you brought up the bathroom one because
Speaker 1: everyone does that multiple times a day, and most people
Speaker 1: have their phones with them, and so it's a wonderful
Speaker 1: opportunity where it doesn't cost you any more time you
Speaker 1: already have the time. It's really about where do I
Speaker 1: put my intention and attention.
Speaker 3: Yep, one percent. And I think that point there is
Speaker 3: really important, which is for most of us, if we're
Speaker 3: going to advance down a spiritual path, it's going to
Speaker 3: happen largely in the context of what we're already doing,
Speaker 3: what our life already is, because we don't most of
Speaker 3: us have enough time to devote to add something else
Speaker 3: to our to do list. Some people will say I'm
Speaker 3: going to make radical changes, but my experience is most
Speaker 3: people don't know their jobs are important, their families are important,
Speaker 3: the things they do are important, and they may be
Speaker 3: able to carve out a little period of intentional practice,
Speaker 3: but the real growth in my experience is that moment
Speaker 3: to moment. It occurs as I go about my day.
Speaker 3: It's not something I have to do in addition to
Speaker 3: my normal life. It is part of my normal life.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, And then to celebrate those little wins. Yes, And
Speaker 1: the other thing that I think is really important is
Speaker 1: to reduce what's called limbic friction. And limpic friction is
Speaker 1: kind of the cost to create a new habit. And
Speaker 1: so a way of reducing limbic friction, I'll bring up
Speaker 1: my dad again, because I love this. So he goes
Speaker 1: bicycling every Tuesday, and he doesn't really like to bike ride,
Speaker 1: and it's hard, and he goes on hills, but he's
Speaker 1: seventy five and he's like, I'm committed to this. Every
Speaker 1: Monday night, he puts his bike on the bike rack
Speaker 1: and straps it in, goes through all the effort so
Speaker 1: that in the morning, again that reduces it by one step.
Speaker 1: It reduces the limbic friction and makes it more likely
Speaker 1: for him to go on the bike ride. And so
Speaker 1: what we need to do with all of these practices
Speaker 1: is to really support ourselves. So, for example, one thing
Speaker 1: that my family does is every Friday, we write one
Speaker 1: good thing to each other. And this is my family
Speaker 1: across all the United States. You know, my brother, sister,
Speaker 1: all the husband's wives, kids, and so every Friday, you know,
Speaker 1: there's this established scaffolding, the structure that you're going to
Speaker 1: reflect on gratitude and you're also going to receive gratitude.
Speaker 1: You're going to know the one highlight of your family
Speaker 1: member's week. And I think we've normalized talking about what
Speaker 1: we're stressed about or what's difficult or painful in our
Speaker 1: life over what we're grateful for and what we appreciate.
Speaker 1: It's almost weird if you're going to lunch with someone
Speaker 1: and they tell you all the good things right, Usually
Speaker 1: they're like, I'm stressed, I'm busy. And if we think
Speaker 1: about empathy again, you know, our mirror neurons, we register,
Speaker 1: we feel what someone else is feeling at a subacute level,
Speaker 1: and so if someone's sharing their joy, it can be
Speaker 1: this really beautiful experience to receive their joy, to celebrate
Speaker 1: their joy. In fact, in poll it's called modita, which
Speaker 1: is taking joy in someone else's joy. And I think
Speaker 1: it's really interesting because when we empathize with someone in pain,
Speaker 1: our mere neurons. Right, our pain centers light up when
Speaker 1: we empathize with someone in joy, our joy centers light up.
Speaker 1: So we want to give that to people.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think it was the Dalai Lama who phrased
Speaker 3: it something like, if your only path to happiness is
Speaker 3: you take joy in your own good fortune, you have
Speaker 3: basically one chance. If you can do that for everybody,
Speaker 3: you have a billion chance. You know, seven billion chances, right,
Speaker 3: I mean it is really true that that is another
Speaker 3: way of increasing our joy instead of only reflecting on
Speaker 3: what happens to us. That's good is take joy and
Speaker 3: what other people are doing. Let's pivot to your or
Speaker 3: children's book Good morning, I Love you, Violet. Why did
Speaker 3: you write a children's book?
Speaker 1: So again, as a clinical psychologist who has focused exclusively
Speaker 1: on adults and been so encouraged by neuroplasticity and the
Speaker 1: fact that all of us are capable of change at
Speaker 1: any moment, I started looking at how brains develop, and
Speaker 1: when you see how plastic, how malleable children are, we
Speaker 1: have to work pretty hard as adults to learn a
Speaker 1: new language or to build muscle. You know, it's not
Speaker 1: just our mental health, it's all these we do and
Speaker 1: so to realize we can resource our children, right that
Speaker 1: not just by teaching them how to read and write
Speaker 1: in language, but these social emotional skills that they get
Speaker 1: hardwired in. When you learn how to ride a bike
Speaker 1: as a kid, you don't forget. And I started thinking,
Speaker 1: as a mother, what would I most want for my children?
Speaker 1: And it was really that they love themselves, that they're
Speaker 1: on their own team. That makes sense that that's their
Speaker 1: habit pattern. When I'm working with adults and I say,
Speaker 1: you know, practice self compassion, they kind of roll their
Speaker 1: eyes or they're like, what are you talking about? It
Speaker 1: feels so foreign. I can't imagine treating myself with kindness.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: We speak to ourselves in such an unkind, such a
Speaker 1: judgmental way, a way that we would never speak to
Speaker 1: someone else. And so I wrote the children's book because
Speaker 1: I want to establish this neural pathway and our children
Speaker 1: of self compassion, of planting seeds of kindness when they're young,
Speaker 1: so that these resources continue to grow and really ripple
Speaker 1: out into the world.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a beautiful book. I mean it is in
Speaker 3: many ways. The children's version of your book you wrote
Speaker 3: called good Morning, I Love You, Right, you see this
Speaker 3: young girl and she goes through the struggles that many
Speaker 3: of us do, which is she hears this idea of
Speaker 3: waking up and saying good morning, I love you, and
Speaker 3: she's like.
Speaker 1: Eh, you know, how's that going to help.
Speaker 3: She's sort of sour in general. Her mood, it is
Speaker 3: kind of grumpy. She's the Charlie Brown of the book, perhaps, right.
Speaker 3: But her friends start doing it, and you know, she
Speaker 3: starts to see the benefit and it's just a it's
Speaker 3: a lovely little book. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I really tried to take these twenty five years of
Speaker 1: science and practice and kind of weave it into a playful,
Speaker 1: colorful story that our kids can enjoy.
Speaker 3: And some of your key ideas are you know, each
Speaker 3: character sort of has one. I think we said it
Speaker 3: was Xavier, who says, you know, I don't know if
Speaker 3: it's exactly how he says it, but what you practice
Speaker 3: grows stronger. Yeah, so he may have a childish way
Speaker 3: of saying that. But in your research on mindfulness, you
Speaker 3: bring up another term, reperceiving. Talk to me about what
Speaker 3: reperceiving is and how it relates to mindfulness.
Speaker 1: Reperceiving is that ability to shift perspective to really kind
Speaker 1: of have this rotation of consciousness where instead of being
Speaker 1: completely merged and identified with our emotions or our thoughts
Speaker 1: or our stories, were able to rise above them and
Speaker 1: really witness them. And developmentally we naturally have this as children,
Speaker 1: where we instead of being completely egocentric, we start to
Speaker 1: see other people's perspective. It's really the dawning of empathy.
Speaker 1: And what mindfulness does is it kind of deepens and
Speaker 1: continues this ability to shift perspective. And now instead of
Speaker 1: shifting perspective about someone else, I'm able to do it
Speaker 1: within myself, with my own thoughts, my own emotions, so
Speaker 1: that instead of being caught in the story, I'm able
Speaker 1: to rise above it and witness it.
Speaker 3: And so is it about like a change in perspective? Often,
Speaker 3: if we were to think of it in a traditional sense,
Speaker 3: might be that a situation occurred. I tend to think
Speaker 3: of it as a certain way, this person wronged to me,
Speaker 3: they did this thing, and a change in perspective would
Speaker 3: be for me to go, oh, well, you know what,
Speaker 3: maybe I did say something that might have set them
Speaker 3: off a little bit, or you know what, maybe they
Speaker 3: were just tired, or maybe there are factors at work here.
Speaker 3: That I don't know right, it's a cognitive shifting of
Speaker 3: the story we tell ourselves about the events that occur.
Speaker 3: But I think you're talking about doing that internally. Is
Speaker 3: it more than just rising above and seeing that we
Speaker 3: aren't those stories? Is there a cognitive element of this,
Speaker 3: of actually changing the story we tell ourselves?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I would say it's broader than just cognitive that
Speaker 1: it's a cognitive emotional, body sensation experience where we're able
Speaker 1: to witness and see clearly and all of a sudden
Speaker 1: things start to shift. That Einstein says, the consciousness that
Speaker 1: created the problem is not the consciousness that can solve it.
Speaker 1: So all of a sudden, we're able to see all
Speaker 1: these different dimensions, and part of them are kind of
Speaker 1: a cognitive mental story. We're able to restory or create
Speaker 1: a new narrative that's healthier. Part of it is learning
Speaker 1: to witness our emotions and experience them in a different way,
Speaker 1: experience them through the lens of presence and compassion as
Speaker 1: opposed to kind of unconscious merging with them. And as
Speaker 1: we experience this, we do gain greater insight, and insight
Speaker 1: I would say, isn't just mental right, We have an
Speaker 1: insight into kind of the nature of reality that is liberating.
Speaker 3: You're a mindfulness researcher, and I'm curious in the mindfulness
Speaker 3: spiritual personal development space, are there either new ideas emerging
Speaker 3: or a focus on an older idea that hasn't been
Speaker 3: getting as much attention. Are there new things that are
Speaker 3: coming up that are surprising you, because a lot of
Speaker 3: these conversations that I have with people, they follow a
Speaker 3: pretty similar trajectory as to the things we know about
Speaker 3: emotional and mindfulness. And that's not bad, right. We all
Speaker 3: need to be back to your idea of like remembering
Speaker 3: and forgetting, and that's the reason we listen, right, I
Speaker 3: need to remember what I already know. But I'm curious,
Speaker 3: is there something coming over the horizon?
Speaker 1: I think for me, the most kind of interesting and
Speaker 1: very nuanced discovery has really fallen in the realm of
Speaker 1: differentiating empathy from compassion. New research out of Switzerland shows
Speaker 1: that when we feel empathy for someone in pain, the
Speaker 1: pain centers of the brain light up. When we feel
Speaker 1: compassion for someone in pain, the positive reward centers of
Speaker 1: the brain light up. This is very important, especially for
Speaker 1: people who are healthcare professionals or parents, or really all
Speaker 1: of us when we witness pain, how do we be
Speaker 1: with that pain without being taken down by it? How
Speaker 1: do we not burn out? Really? And so this new
Speaker 1: research is for me so wildly important because what it
Speaker 1: does is it gives us this resource of compassion. It says, yes,
Speaker 1: empathy is good, but don't get stuck there and just
Speaker 1: keep feeling their pain. Shift almost like an alchemical shift
Speaker 1: into compassion, where you folk on your love and care
Speaker 1: for that person instead of on the pain. And it's
Speaker 1: this incredibly nuanced but radical shift that changes everything in
Speaker 1: your experience.
Speaker 3: Let's explore that a little bit more. I'm interested in
Speaker 3: that shift, right because I think the distinction you're making
Speaker 3: there is an important and useful one. And if I
Speaker 3: resummarize it would say that when I'm feeling empathy, I'm
Speaker 3: feeling that person's pain to a certain degree. When I'm
Speaker 3: feeling compassion, I'm interested in how to alleviate that pain.
Speaker 3: But I may not be feeling the pain exactly.
Speaker 1: And it's not so much about alleviating the pain, because
Speaker 1: we can't save or fix everyone's life. It's about caring
Speaker 1: about their pain. I care about you. I am here,
Speaker 1: I am present for your pain. I wish this pain
Speaker 1: will pass quickly. So practicing compassion is not so much
Speaker 1: about saving the person, but it's about focusing on your
Speaker 1: love for that person instead of on your fear and
Speaker 1: instead of on the pain. So, for example, I was
Speaker 1: working with a mother whose daughter had cancer, very very
Speaker 1: difficult situation. She was in the hospital for treatment, and
Speaker 1: the mother, of course was feeling a lot of empathy
Speaker 1: right feeling her daughter's loneliness and fear and pain and
Speaker 1: all these things, and her pain centers were just on
Speaker 1: high alert. And so we practice shifting into compassion, which
Speaker 1: is I love my daughter so much, and may she
Speaker 1: get through this. May she feel my support, May she
Speaker 1: know how much I love her, May I feel this
Speaker 1: love for her, this ability to be present with her pain.
Speaker 1: And by focusing on her love instead of on the
Speaker 1: pain that the daughter was feeling, it shifts her entire
Speaker 1: bio chemistry.
Speaker 3: It makes me think of there are people I think
Speaker 3: we all know someone like this. I won't say who
Speaker 3: are the people in my life that are like this,
Speaker 3: but where when we bring up a pain we are in,
Speaker 3: it very quickly becomes about the pain that they are
Speaker 3: now in because I'm in pain. I guess that's a
Speaker 3: form of empathy, but there's something else going on there.
Speaker 1: Right, it's really empathic distress where they don't have the
Speaker 1: ability to regulate their emotions, and so when they feel
Speaker 1: your pain, they literally go into distress and pain themselves.
Speaker 1: And one of the most important practices is to teach
Speaker 1: people to regulate their emotions and then to feel they're
Speaker 1: caring for the person. The reason you're in pain is
Speaker 1: because you care about that person. If you didn't care,
Speaker 1: you wouldn't even feel.
Speaker 3: It, right, And so is empathy in the way we've
Speaker 3: just described it a prerequisite to get to compassion, right,
Speaker 3: Like if I don't feel someone else's pain at s
Speaker 3: And I'm not saying you have to do it every
Speaker 3: single time, but in general, a sense of empathy that like, oh,
Speaker 3: my goodness, that suffering feels bad and I can feel
Speaker 3: what that's like, and oh that's yucky. That's a place
Speaker 3: not to get stuck. But it's a launching pad to
Speaker 3: a wiser response of compassion.
Speaker 1: Exactly. Empathy is a gateway to compassion. And I love
Speaker 1: what you just said. You don't want to get stuck
Speaker 1: in empathy, right, then you just keep feeling the pain
Speaker 1: an ou out ouch. What you want to do is
Speaker 1: shift into I really care about your pain because I
Speaker 1: care about you, and all of a sudden, compassion is
Speaker 1: this protective suit that you put on, and for me,
Speaker 1: I train clinical psychologists, I train graduate students and how
Speaker 1: to go out into the world. They need to know this.
Speaker 3: So we use the term compassion fatigue. Are we really
Speaker 3: talking about empathy fat exactly?
Speaker 1: Exactly? And in fact, the literature hasn't caught up with
Speaker 1: the new research that it's going to have to be
Speaker 1: changed now to empathy fatigue. That compassion is this unlimited resource.
Speaker 1: You're feeling the love and it's supporting you, and it's
Speaker 1: resourcing you, and it's empowering you to help others. So
Speaker 1: it's really for me, it's kind of an essential for
Speaker 1: anyone going into the helping profession.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I assume, as I know you are, I
Speaker 3: am also a person who's like avoiding extremes. We're not
Speaker 3: saying like you got to shut down all your empathy.
Speaker 1: No.
Speaker 3: What we're saying though, is that if you're in a
Speaker 3: position where you are dealing with pain on a regular basis,
Speaker 3: empathy will drown you you will not be able to
Speaker 3: keep doing that work because the pain will become overwhelming
Speaker 3: to you and it will tap your resources and drain you.
Speaker 3: Whereas if you can move at least a significant portion
Speaker 3: of that energy over to and I love what you say,
Speaker 3: to focus on the love and the care for that
Speaker 3: person exactly.
Speaker 1: So the medical profession originally they kind of figured it
Speaker 1: out that empathy was going to just crush them. So
Speaker 1: what they did, though, is they dissociated, they distanced. They said,
Speaker 1: don't get too close to your patients. Well, that doesn't
Speaker 1: work either. So this new discovery out of Switzerland I
Speaker 1: think is just so empowering to know that you don't
Speaker 1: have to disconnect, you actually go in deeper and feel
Speaker 1: your love and that is going to save you.
Speaker 3: That is a really powerful idea. Are there more studies
Speaker 3: that are starting to back this up? Do you feel
Speaker 3: pretty confident in this?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Tanya Singer's lab in Switzerland is doing a lot
Speaker 1: of the research on it, and so far it's pretty compelling.
Speaker 1: The research.
Speaker 3: Well, I think we are at the end of our conversation.
Speaker 3: I'd love to end on that note of the inexhaustibility
Speaker 3: of compassion versus you know how empathy can drag us down.
Speaker 3: You and I are going to spend some time in
Speaker 3: a post show conversation where you're going to lead us
Speaker 3: on a little guided meditation that applies to something we've
Speaker 3: talked about today. Listeners, If you'd like access to that,
Speaker 3: as well as ad free episodes, a special episode I
Speaker 3: do each week called Teaching Song, and a poem, you
Speaker 3: can go to one feed dot net slash join Shana.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much. What a treat to sit down
Speaker 3: in person with you. You know I loved talking with you
Speaker 3: before and it's even better in person. So thank you
Speaker 3: so much.
Speaker 1: Thank you Eric.
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