Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the Psychology Podcast with doctor Scott
Speaker 1: Barry Kaufman, where we give you insights into the mind, brain, behavior,
Speaker 1: and creativity. Each episode will feature a new guest who
Speaker 1: will stimulate your mind and give you a greater understanding
Speaker 1: of yourself, others, and the world we live in. Hopefully
Speaker 1: we'll also provide a glimpse into human possibility. Thanks for
Speaker 1: listening and enjoy the podcast. Now I'm really excited to
Speaker 1: introduce Sharon Salzburg on the show today. Sharon is a
Speaker 1: New York Times bestselling author and teacher of Buddhist meditation
Speaker 1: practices in the West. In nineteen seventy four, she co
Speaker 1: founded the Insight Meditation Society at Barry, Massachusetts with Jack
Speaker 1: Cornfield and Joseph Goldstein. She's the author of nine books,
Speaker 1: including her latest book, Real Love, The Art of Mindful Connection.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for chatting with me today, Sharon,
Speaker 1: and well, thank you for having me. What a real
Speaker 1: treat to be able to talk to you, and so
Speaker 1: a little surreal, I had to admit, considering I listened
Speaker 1: to you when I meditate every day on Insight Timer.
Speaker 1: So to actually have like a to interact with the
Speaker 1: whole person behind that. It's pretty exciting. I thought we
Speaker 1: could talk a little bit bit why you have been
Speaker 1: devoting your life to this, and from what I can
Speaker 1: read and what you've writ about this is that you've
Speaker 1: experienced some considerable turmoil as a child that made you
Speaker 1: realize early on the power of meditation to overcome personal suffering.
Speaker 1: Is that right? Yes? I mean it wasn't so much
Speaker 1: that maybe that I realized the power of meditation, but
Speaker 1: I had some kind of blazing intuition that if I
Speaker 1: could learn how to meditate, I would be happier. And
Speaker 1: so I went to India when I was a junior
Speaker 1: in college. It was through university program, kind of like
Speaker 1: your junior year abroad. I created an independent study project.
Speaker 1: I said, I want to go to India and learn
Speaker 1: how to meditate. To that, So, so off I went.
Speaker 1: That was in nineteen seventy. That was in nineteen seventy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you were, I have a court here. You're driven
Speaker 1: by an intuition that the methods of meditation would bring
Speaker 1: some quarity and peace, and so you had a hunch
Speaker 1: that that would be the case. Yeah, well I did.
Speaker 1: I had no way of you know, verifying that until
Speaker 1: I actually did it. Well, it's a good thing that
Speaker 1: that worked out. It could have been not worked out, right,
Speaker 1: So that not worked out. And it was a long
Speaker 1: time ago, you know, it was I was going to
Speaker 1: school in Buffalo, New York State, University of New York
Speaker 1: and Buffalo, and you know, I first kind of heard
Speaker 1: about meditation was in the air a little bit because
Speaker 1: of you know, the Beatles and music and things like that.
Speaker 1: But I first really heard about it in an Asian
Speaker 1: philosophy course, and you know, I looked around Buffalo and
Speaker 1: I just didn't see where to find it, you know,
Speaker 1: to actually learn how to do it. And it was
Speaker 1: a different world then, it really, well, I wasn't even existing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was really a different world for you. Oh yeah, yeah, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's funny. I was like, I almost like instinctly wanted
Speaker 1: to respond, Yeah, it was such a different world back then,
Speaker 1: me tell you. And then I realized, I don't know
Speaker 1: what the world was like for me then, So this
Speaker 1: is interesting, before you really discovered what meditation could do
Speaker 1: for the mind and body, and could you describe it
Speaker 1: all what you sort of felt like, like, what your
Speaker 1: consciousness was like before? Yeah, I mean I was eighteen,
Speaker 1: when I was a junior in college. I'd gone to
Speaker 1: college when I was sixteen, and I think if I
Speaker 1: was going to try to do it in one word,
Speaker 1: it would probably be fragmented. Yeah. You know, I was
Speaker 1: in a lot of turmoil. My life had been chaotic,
Speaker 1: my mind was chaotic, but I didn't really understand, you know,
Speaker 1: I didn't understand the layers of the anger and the
Speaker 1: grief and you know, everything that I was feeling, and
Speaker 1: so it was just kind of fragmented. And it was
Speaker 1: only when I began meditating that I began going through
Speaker 1: those layers and experiencing all those things directly. You know,
Speaker 1: that's so interesting you use that word. I'm a positive
Speaker 1: psychologist and I do research, and we're actually just creating
Speaker 1: a skin called the Whole Person Scale, and one of
Speaker 1: the items is I feel fragmented. That's very interesting because
Speaker 1: people don't often use that word. I know, I know,
Speaker 1: And I felt like it was like a construct that
Speaker 1: was worthy of capturing scientifically, different from life satisfaction or
Speaker 1: positive emotions. It seems like something different that so far
Speaker 1: we're finding some really important correlations with the scale. Oh,
Speaker 1: I'm so excited. Yeah, cool, Yeah, I bet you score
Speaker 1: pretty highly on the scale. Now, I hope. Yeah, you'd
Speaker 1: hope so right, there'd be five years, there'd be so
Speaker 1: you'd hope there'd be some development there. Yeah, no, I'm
Speaker 1: sure there is. So tell me about this other turning
Speaker 1: point you had in nineteen eighty five at a meditation
Speaker 1: retreat in Burma. I started practice in January of nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy one, and that was really like a mindfulness practice,
Speaker 1: and I heard about this other kind of parallel practice
Speaker 1: you could do cold loving kindness. And I heard about
Speaker 1: it at the end of my first intensive ten day retreat,
Speaker 1: and it was offered almost just like a ceremonial way
Speaker 1: to say goodbye to end the retreat, you know, may
Speaker 1: I be happy, May you be happy, and just kind
Speaker 1: of silent recitation and charging your body in that particular school,
Speaker 1: charging your body with these sensations, you know, of loving kindness.
Speaker 1: And I got really intrigued by the practice, and I
Speaker 1: heard that there was a way of doing it intensively
Speaker 1: and a systematic structure. So it was only in nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty five that I got the chance to do that
Speaker 1: with the guidance of a teacher. So I went to
Speaker 1: Burma for a three month period of intensive practice and
Speaker 1: doing loving kindness practice. So it's not it's not like,
Speaker 1: you know, divorced from mindfulness practice, but it is its
Speaker 1: own methodology. So somewhere in the course of that three
Speaker 1: months that I was there, I had this turning point.
Speaker 1: I have a feeling. Like many turning points, it doesn't
Speaker 1: sound like much in words, but it was really very significant.
Speaker 1: And that is I realized that up until that point,
Speaker 1: I had somehow considered love almost like a kind of commodity.
Speaker 1: It was like a package in someone else's hands, and
Speaker 1: I would get this image almost like the delivery person
Speaker 1: was standing on my doorstep with the package of love
Speaker 1: and they glanced down at the address and say, nah,
Speaker 1: I'm going somewhere else, and then there would be no
Speaker 1: love in my life and I'd be completely bereft. And
Speaker 1: the turning point was realizing that's not the way it is.
Speaker 1: Actually love is a potential within me. It's a capacity
Speaker 1: and ability within me, and other people or great art
Speaker 1: or different scenes might enliven it and awaken it and
Speaker 1: enrich it or threaten it, but it's mine. It's actually
Speaker 1: within me. And that was a huge life transition, and
Speaker 1: it was matched seven years later when I saw this
Speaker 1: movie called Dan in Real Life, and there's a line
Speaker 1: in the movie that my most recent book is probably
Speaker 1: almost completely based on, which is love is not a feeling,
Speaker 1: it's an ability. Yeah, you know, we probably share a
Speaker 1: mutual affinity towards the humanistic psychologists, and like Eric from
Speaker 1: Art of Loving, sort of conceptualization of love was very
Speaker 1: much along those lines as well. Right. Yeah. I keep
Speaker 1: meeting very young people who say to me, I just
Speaker 1: read the most incredible book on love by Eric Somebody.
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, yeah, I know, you mean Eric Somebody.
Speaker 1: It's funny. Well, you know, your concept of real love
Speaker 1: really incorporates that idea of love comes from within, you know.
Speaker 1: And again tying it back to the humanistics first just
Speaker 1: a moment. You know, you used a phrase being love
Speaker 1: in your book, and Abraham Maslow used the phrase be love,
Speaker 1: you know, being love. He called it unneeding love. And
Speaker 1: it seems to just be such dovetails so nicely with
Speaker 1: the ideas you captured in your book. Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 1: I think there's something about the generosity of the spirit
Speaker 1: that is love, but it warrants a lot of examination,
Speaker 1: you know. I tell the story book about somebody I know,
Speaker 1: a man who told me he felt his move toward
Speaker 1: a more liberated kind of love, a more real kind
Speaker 1: of love, was in a way moving off the seat
Speaker 1: of privilege, you know, and not sort of listening to
Speaker 1: his wife primarily in terms of how his needs might
Speaker 1: be satisfied. But you know, sometimes giving up things weren't
Speaker 1: that convenient for him, but it meant a lot to her,
Speaker 1: and so he would kind of give her the power.
Speaker 1: And we're friends and we used to meet all the time.
Speaker 1: He needs to tell me these stories about his marriage,
Speaker 1: and I would say to him, you know, there's an
Speaker 1: awful lot of people in this world, notably women, but
Speaker 1: not only women, who never get to express their needs.
Speaker 1: You know, for them, a move towards more liberated or
Speaker 1: real kind of love is not giving over to the
Speaker 1: wishes of the other, you know, and ceasing to be
Speaker 1: attached to its own. It's giving voice to begin with,
Speaker 1: to what they want. So I also tell the story
Speaker 1: in the book about a friend of mine named Gina
Speaker 1: who literally outlived her cancer prognosis, maybe by forty years
Speaker 1: or something like that. And she told me that when
Speaker 1: she was first diagnosed, and she was looking at absolutely
Speaker 1: everything in her life. She said, I realized that I
Speaker 1: was the kind of person who'd be sitting in the
Speaker 1: car with my husband and I'd be boiling hot, and
Speaker 1: the most I could ever bring myself to say was
Speaker 1: are you warm, deer? And she said that changed, you know,
Speaker 1: so that fascinated me. That balance for each of us,
Speaker 1: or each of us at different times might look different,
Speaker 1: and the core value is authenticity. Yeah, no, for sure.
Speaker 1: And you know this striking, this balance of getting outside
Speaker 1: yourself while not sacrificing yourself is such an interesting I'm
Speaker 1: just very fascinated with that trade with that it doesn't
Speaker 1: have to be a trade off, right right, Well, it
Speaker 1: shouldn't be a trade off, really right right, real love,
Speaker 1: it's not a trade off. Yeah, yeah, so interesting. You
Speaker 1: know this idea that a paradox. You discuss multiple paradoxes,
Speaker 1: you know, one sort of the more that we can
Speaker 1: give love and kind of get outside of our needs
Speaker 1: of it, the more actually will be like to receive
Speaker 1: love in return, is one fastening paradox. Another one I
Speaker 1: really enjoyed reading about was what you called the attachment paradox.
Speaker 1: Can you talk a little bit more about what the
Speaker 1: attachment paradox is and relationships between modern day scientific notions
Speaker 1: of attachment and Buddhist notions of non attachment. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: that's very funny because in Buddhist teaching, in Buddhist psychology,
Speaker 1: the word attachment is really used as the root cause
Speaker 1: of suffering, and you don't you don't want it. I mean,
Speaker 1: you're not seeking to amplify it or cultivate it because
Speaker 1: it's bringing so much suffering. So, but attachment has a
Speaker 1: very specific meaning, which is more in the sense of control.
Speaker 1: You know, if you think of the generosity aspect of love,
Speaker 1: we know that there are lots of different ways of
Speaker 1: giving a gift. You can give someone a gift and
Speaker 1: it's really a freely given gift. And you can give
Speaker 1: someone a gift because you say they have something you
Speaker 1: want and you think, oh, maybe if I give you that,
Speaker 1: you'll give me that. And you can give a gift
Speaker 1: really with a timetable of how soon you'd like to
Speaker 1: be thanked and how loudly you'd like to be thanked.
Speaker 1: And you know, there's so many ways of giving a gift.
Speaker 1: And so because extra things, the strings, the expectation, the
Speaker 1: need for reciprocity. I mean things like that. They're human
Speaker 1: and they're understandable, but they cause a lot of suffering
Speaker 1: because those things are not in our control. We're trying
Speaker 1: to control something we can't control, like someone else's behavior,
Speaker 1: someone else's reaction to us. And I think it's also
Speaker 1: a mistake to think of attachment, even within the Buddhist context,
Speaker 1: it's bad or wrong or terrible. It's suffering. It's a
Speaker 1: state of suffering good. I like that. I really do
Speaker 1: like that, because this, even though it's framed as secure attachment,
Speaker 1: it's not really attachment in the sense of like a
Speaker 1: clinging all right, that's right, very different than that. And
Speaker 1: so yeah, so even though there are these semantic differences,
Speaker 1: I think there's more similarities. Philip Shaver and his colleagues
Speaker 1: I have written about that there's more similarities than differences. Ye,
Speaker 1: the Buddhist notions and contemporary science of ess that's great.
Speaker 1: I say this because we just had Chris Freley on
Speaker 1: the podcast actually the episode just before Years, and he
Speaker 1: talked about the latest science of attachment, and so it
Speaker 1: was so refreshing and cool to read your book and
Speaker 1: then see it link to that literature. So let's talk
Speaker 1: a little bit about the practice of loving kindness. What
Speaker 1: is loving kindness? Well, loving kindness is a term. It's
Speaker 1: a translation of a word, the word and Polly, the
Speaker 1: language of the original Buddhist text is metam etta. Loving
Speaker 1: kindness is the usual translation. It's something of an awkward
Speaker 1: term because, I mean, whoever talks about loving kindness in
Speaker 1: a casual way? And my concern is that it might
Speaker 1: make the quality itself seems somewhat arcane or separate. I've
Speaker 1: had translators scholars say to me, you should just say love,
Speaker 1: and of course now I seem to be. The literal
Speaker 1: translation of the word is friendship. But there too, I
Speaker 1: have some problems because for me, friendship and implies going
Speaker 1: out to dinner together or going to the movies together,
Speaker 1: hang out together. And the quality of meta does not
Speaker 1: actually dictate any sort of action. It's an interstate of connection.
Speaker 1: It's recognizing our lives are connected, so it's like including
Speaker 1: rather than excluding. It's looking at the sometimes really rigid
Speaker 1: sense of self and other and us and them that
Speaker 1: we can carry around and realize that's just a construct,
Speaker 1: you know. In a more real sense, we live in
Speaker 1: an interconnected universe and our lives, that you have something
Speaker 1: to do with one another. That doesn't mean you like somebody,
Speaker 1: doesn't mean you're going to say yes to their entreaty.
Speaker 1: It doesn't mean any money or spend any time with them,
Speaker 1: But within yourself there's that sense of connection. This is
Speaker 1: such an interesting that you can love someone and not
Speaker 1: even like them. Yeah, well, I mean in reality, don't
Speaker 1: we find that? You know? Yeah, no, for sure. And
Speaker 1: when I do your meditations, you say, you know, now
Speaker 1: that's brought in the circle to someone that maybe you
Speaker 1: don't like very much. And I mean, I'm not this
Speaker 1: is I'm not directly quoting you, you know, but you say,
Speaker 1: that's the general idea. You know that's brought into soll
Speaker 1: we don't. And then you say, like, if you don't
Speaker 1: feel comfortable doing that, then show some capassion to yourself
Speaker 1: because you're not showing you're actually suffering by not extending
Speaker 1: love to this person. Could you umpact that a little more?
Speaker 1: Because I feel that's so fascinating. The first time I
Speaker 1: heard that in the meditation, it just really got me thinking,
Speaker 1: you know, well, it's funny. When I was writing this
Speaker 1: last book, Real Love, I spent a lot of time
Speaker 1: trying to hear people's stories and insights about love. So
Speaker 1: I was meeting with groups or I was, you know,
Speaker 1: soliciting that stuff online. And the last group that I
Speaker 1: did was in Barry, Massachusetts, and this guy, I said
Speaker 1: to me, you know, my whole life, I've been taught
Speaker 1: and I've thought of liking somebody as kind of the ordinary, expected, obvious,
Speaker 1: you know, way of connecting. And of course you like everybody,
Speaker 1: but loving somebody that is rare, like you know, hard, hard,
Speaker 1: hard to attain, and you know, kind of the supreme accomplishment.
Speaker 1: And he looked at me and he said, you're reversing it.
Speaker 1: You're saying we can love everybody and hardly like anybody
Speaker 1: at all. Maybe, And I said, oh god, you're right,
Speaker 1: you know, because he was right, you know, but that
Speaker 1: doesn't mean love in the sense of a door or
Speaker 1: like or want to spend time with, or the proof
Speaker 1: of you know, it's this fundamental sense our lives are connected,
Speaker 1: and it's like moving from self and other more to
Speaker 1: a sense of we. And it's maybe not be hard
Speaker 1: an emotional at all, but it's like a shift in worldview. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that's right, And you know, I like the
Speaker 1: idea that no matter how sort of I don't know,
Speaker 1: lack of a better word, how horrible a person seems
Speaker 1: to be, they're suffering, and then if you reduce their suffering,
Speaker 1: you're actually making the world a better place as well
Speaker 1: as themselves. Yeah, let me ask you about this though,
Speaker 1: what about Like, you know, there's a concept we study
Speaker 1: in our research sometimes called grandiose narcissism, and those who
Speaker 1: score very high and grandiose narcism would never say that
Speaker 1: they're suffering. They think, you know, everyone else air suckers
Speaker 1: for suffering. So what I'm trying to wrap my head
Speaker 1: around is like, for certain particular portions of the population,
Speaker 1: like those individuals, like if I said to them, like
Speaker 1: I just so you know, I added my attention last
Speaker 1: night that I want to reduce your suffering, they'd be like,
Speaker 1: you know, don't do that. I'm fine, I'm great, I'm
Speaker 1: the best. You know, what do you do with that
Speaker 1: kind of logic? It seems like, well, I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't address them, you know, because the point isn't
Speaker 1: trying to change them. But somebody just brought that up
Speaker 1: to me the other day. How incredibly frustrating. It is like,
Speaker 1: because this person doesn't seem to be suffering, not only
Speaker 1: do they feel that they're suffering, look like their stuff, right,
Speaker 1: you know, it's just like so frustrating, Like come on,
Speaker 1: all I can do is agree, like, yeah, it's really frustrating,
Speaker 1: you know. But I think part of that is is
Speaker 1: also a worldview. It's a sense of what a human
Speaker 1: being is capable of, and which is a lot. You know,
Speaker 1: it's like not just getting by, not just squashing other people,
Speaker 1: and not just living in a dog eat dog world
Speaker 1: and not just making money, you know, but you know,
Speaker 1: a human being is really capable of kind of greatness
Speaker 1: of heart and real presence and real contribution. And you
Speaker 1: don't have to be famous, you know, just an ordinary
Speaker 1: person like really contributing to the well being of others.
Speaker 1: And then you look at the choices some make and
Speaker 1: for what they think happiness is. And and it's also
Speaker 1: so ironic that in the end we all die, you know,
Speaker 1: that we have to give up everything, and you think, wow,
Speaker 1: you spent a whole life being lonely because you were
Speaker 1: just taking potshots at everybody and you know, and trying
Speaker 1: to put them down. And it's an interesting way to
Speaker 1: have spent an entire life and die that way. You know,
Speaker 1: So there lots of ways of feeling compassionate even when
Speaker 1: this person seems incredibly self satisfied. I agree, I very
Speaker 1: much agree. But you know, sometimes, like I was joking
Speaker 1: with my with my research call the other day because
Speaker 1: I was like, you know, I'm making kind of making
Speaker 1: this argument in this paper that those who score high
Speaker 1: on dark triad characteristics. I don't know if you're familiar
Speaker 1: with that, narcissism, psychopathy, and machavelianism. It's kind of the
Speaker 1: common variance of all three. So it's like really dark
Speaker 1: dark triad that in some ways I was making the
Speaker 1: argument that they're not fully human. But then I said, wait,
Speaker 1: I'm dehumanizing the dehumanizer humanizers. That's rue. That's like they
Speaker 1: treat it with other people, so they're not human. Is
Speaker 1: that wrong of me to make an argument that what
Speaker 1: I mean by they're not full human is exactly what
Speaker 1: you said is that they're missing out in so many
Speaker 1: other aspects of humanity that could bring them joy and happiness.
Speaker 1: That's what I mean by that. But yeah, no, I
Speaker 1: think it's something very important what you said in that
Speaker 1: if you see people like that harm precisely because they
Speaker 1: objectify others and they don't recognize the humanity of others.
Speaker 1: And you know, if you kick a table, you just
Speaker 1: kick the table. If you kick a human being and
Speaker 1: think that they're like a table, that's a big problem.
Speaker 1: And that's the state of disconnection we face, you know,
Speaker 1: sometimes within ourselves or in others, and that is so dangerous,
Speaker 1: and you sort of don't want to perpetuate that, you know,
Speaker 1: by doing the same thing to someone else, even the
Speaker 1: people who are doing the very thing. You know, you
Speaker 1: don't want to be engaged in that kind of dehumanization
Speaker 1: or objectification, you know, as though they don't count as
Speaker 1: oh they're nothing. And so that's another reason too. Even
Speaker 1: though it's very difficult to offer loving kindness to people
Speaker 1: like that, well, I think it's a paradox when you're
Speaker 1: a researcher because even if I don't want to make
Speaker 1: those arguments, my data is showing that to be the case.
Speaker 1: So how do I describe in a way with loving kindness?
Speaker 1: Maybe we should take lessons in grad school and how
Speaker 1: reporter findings with great loving kindness? Oh I like that,
Speaker 1: no one's ever thought of a course on that, and
Speaker 1: I'm really going to think that through when I write
Speaker 1: these papers up, because we are showing that you know
Speaker 1: that these characteristics of extreme selfishness are negatively correlated with
Speaker 1: growth related measures. Yeah, and I think that's an important
Speaker 1: thingding of compassion, isn't it. Yeah? I think it's very
Speaker 1: worthy of compassion. No. Absolutely, I found a quote that
Speaker 1: relates to what you're saying, that a quote from you.
Speaker 1: Do you mind if I quote you for a second. Okay,
Speaker 1: We're capable of much more than mediocrity, much more than
Speaker 1: merely getting by in this world as human beings. We're
Speaker 1: actually capable of greatness of spirit and ability to go
Speaker 1: beyond the circumstances we find ourselves in, to experience a
Speaker 1: vast sense of connection to all of life. To settle
Speaker 1: for wallowing ourselves off through in difference, or the temporary
Speaker 1: high of getting what we want by whatever means, or
Speaker 1: the petty excitement of besting someone however we can, is
Speaker 1: actually quite sad. So I love that spirit. And then
Speaker 1: I wonder could someone who is in that, like in
Speaker 1: that state of that petty excitement, for instance, could they
Speaker 1: feel like it's be to hear someone say it just
Speaker 1: so you know. It's almost like someone say I prayed
Speaker 1: for your soul. You know what I mean. It's like,
Speaker 1: just so you know, I meditated about how I want
Speaker 1: you to have greater compassion. You could see how that
Speaker 1: person could take that right. Well, I would never say
Speaker 1: that to them either, you know what I mean. You
Speaker 1: seem to have a very outward expression of your loving
Speaker 1: kind of like you know, I don't ever go up
Speaker 1: to somebody. I mean, the classic joke is you were
Speaker 1: my neutral person. I felt absolutely indifferent to you when
Speaker 1: I met you. Then I set you loving kindness. No,
Speaker 1: I kind of care about you, you you know. But of
Speaker 1: course we don't do that. We don't say it out loud.
Speaker 1: You know. I tend to wear my heart in my sleep,
Speaker 1: so I guess you did. I think I get in
Speaker 1: trouble sometimes because of that. That's hilarious. So that is
Speaker 1: a common joke in the in your community. I love it.
Speaker 1: I absolutely love it. Okay. So I love this quote
Speaker 1: from psychotherapist and meditaran Linda Carroll, which you quote in
Speaker 1: your book, saying, loving yourself is holding yourself accountable to
Speaker 1: be the best you can in your life. Narcissistical off
Speaker 1: has nothing to do with the accountability. So tell me
Speaker 1: a little bit about the important role of responsibility and
Speaker 1: accountability in cultivating great law in your life. Well, some
Speaker 1: of this is it all ties to like a very
Speaker 1: deep question, which is what do we mean when we
Speaker 1: say love or we you know, loving kindness for ourselves
Speaker 1: or for someone else? Because for a lot of people
Speaker 1: that were that idea, you know, implies a weakness, a
Speaker 1: certain sentimentality, being conflict avoidant, overlooking faults, just trying to
Speaker 1: dwell in what's nice since we you know, and I
Speaker 1: can mean a lot of different things, and that's a problem.
Speaker 1: You know. It was kind of clarifying that, and so,
Speaker 1: you know, and people. Somebody brought this up to me
Speaker 1: the other day. I was doing a talk with a
Speaker 1: musician and songwriter and teacher of those things, and she
Speaker 1: described some of her students who I don't really feel
Speaker 1: like studying, you know, I'm going to be good to myself,
Speaker 1: you know, I feel like I don't want to learn
Speaker 1: the tradition of the history of like lineage of this
Speaker 1: song writing thing, you know, I just want to I
Speaker 1: want to be spontaneous, you know. And she was very funny,
Speaker 1: and of course we can confuse it with that kind
Speaker 1: of indulgence, and it usually it is confused or being
Speaker 1: a doormat, not fighting against anyone else, or just being
Speaker 1: complacent and passive. And you know, so I think it
Speaker 1: merits a lot of consideration, like what do we mean
Speaker 1: by love? What do you mean by love for ourselves?
Speaker 1: And I really, like Linda Carroll said, in that sense
Speaker 1: of responsibility or accountability, it's like, if you really loved yourself,
Speaker 1: maybe you would what you love yourself more you were
Speaker 1: cultivating that, maybe you would try in whatever domain you know,
Speaker 1: you felt was out of your reach unreasonably. So yeah,
Speaker 1: it is a very good point. You know, we've been
Speaker 1: trying to measure a loving orientation, you know, on a scale,
Speaker 1: and we create a new scale to measure a loving orientation.
Speaker 1: You would love this stuff, you know, Like I want
Speaker 1: to tell you, I'll share papers and stuff with you
Speaker 1: when they're published. But one interesting correlation we found, and
Speaker 1: I'm basically this is like not even published yet, I'm
Speaker 1: telling you, like top secret stuff in front of a
Speaker 1: large audience that's listening to We found an interesting correlation
Speaker 1: between those the most loving people show the highest level
Speaker 1: of what's called survivor guilt. But what that actually means
Speaker 1: is that you feel guilty if you achieve or success
Speaker 1: great success, and others are not achieving your success. You
Speaker 1: almost you do feel guilty for your successes, as well
Speaker 1: as a form of guilt called omnipotent responsibility guilt, which
Speaker 1: is the most loving people feel responsibility for the suffering
Speaker 1: of anyone that's around them. And it's been arguing literature
Speaker 1: these are actually adaptive forms of guilt, but in their
Speaker 1: extreme manifestations, of course, you don't want to constantly feel
Speaker 1: guilty for being your full expression of yourself. So it's
Speaker 1: a potential. It seems like having a loving orientation can
Speaker 1: come with great joys and a full existence. But there
Speaker 1: are some things to be aware of well that I
Speaker 1: find really fascinating because right away, of course, my mind
Speaker 1: to go to psychology and meditation practice, and the first
Speaker 1: thing that came to my mind was this quality called equanimity,
Speaker 1: which is actually usually taught in conjunction with loving kindness,
Speaker 1: and equanimity is a balance, and in that context it's
Speaker 1: the balance born of wisdom. So it's like perspective. So
Speaker 1: that means that every action, every moment of loving kindness
Speaker 1: or compassion you want supported by wisdom, right, you don't
Speaker 1: want it, you know, you don't want those ever separated.
Speaker 1: And so that's really how we practice. Otherwise, loving kindness
Speaker 1: becomes attachment, like may you be happy by Tuesday night.
Speaker 1: You know, I've got a big list of people to
Speaker 1: make happy, or it's up to me to ease your suffering,
Speaker 1: you know, which is a kind of funny construct but
Speaker 1: very prevalent. Or I mean maybe that's part of survivor's guilt,
Speaker 1: you know, like I if I delight in the you
Speaker 1: don't even have to be a loving person to have that,
Speaker 1: you know, Like you know people who have a very
Speaker 1: hard time absorbing pleasure or savoring yeah, now the delights
Speaker 1: that come their way because there's too much suffering in
Speaker 1: the world. So they're not actually doing anything about the suffering,
Speaker 1: you know, but it's just feeling bad. And so what's
Speaker 1: that about. It's very interesting to look at, you know.
Speaker 1: So my mind went right away to equanimity and bringing
Speaker 1: in that kind of balance, like I will care for you,
Speaker 1: and I care about your pain, and I will do
Speaker 1: what I can to ease you, and it's not in
Speaker 1: my hands in the end, this is not my universe
Speaker 1: to control. What about the balance between loving kindness for
Speaker 1: oneself and for others, you know, so that it's multi dimensional,
Speaker 1: it's not just in one direction. Or what's really interesting
Speaker 1: you know these days, is what about having compassion for
Speaker 1: someone and feeling so completely divergent from their views and
Speaker 1: their actions that you just resolve I'm going to fight them,
Speaker 1: but maybe not with hatred in one's heart, you know,
Speaker 1: but from a different place. I like that. But yeah,
Speaker 1: you do tend to find a correlation between having a
Speaker 1: loving orientation towards others and having a loving orientation towards yourself.
Speaker 1: And the flip side, those that have an sert of
Speaker 1: an antagonistic orientation towards others tend to have an antagonistic
Speaker 1: orientation in terms of stuff. You know, they turn it inward.
Speaker 1: We turn inward what we put outward as well, you know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so there is a correlation there. So it does seem
Speaker 1: like cultivating real love in any form will have benefits
Speaker 1: in like a larger system so to speak. Right, Well,
Speaker 1: I mean I think about that a lot, actually, And
Speaker 1: that's interesting that you say that, because I seem to
Speaker 1: work a lot with caregivers, people who either in their
Speaker 1: personal lives or their professional lives or serving the needs
Speaker 1: of others, and there is such massive burnout that said
Speaker 1: about it. Yeah, and so exactly, And so you know,
Speaker 1: these are people who have tremendous empathy and they have
Speaker 1: great love for others. Often, but what's not happening, you know? Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I mean the research shows a loving highness. Compassion
Speaker 1: is the antidote tempathy burnout. Yeah, you know, with tour
Speaker 1: ur card and when says he feels when soone's suffering,
Speaker 1: or you see someone in pain, he doesn't feel pain.
Speaker 1: He feels a sense of warmth. And I guess that's
Speaker 1: more motivates you to actually do something right, to actually
Speaker 1: approach it, approach the person as opposed to hide statement
Speaker 1: because you feel so upset. Yeah, yeah, that's right, that's right.
Speaker 1: So tell us a little bit about it. I really
Speaker 1: love the part in your book about the stories that
Speaker 1: we tell ourselves, well, stories others tell about us. What's
Speaker 1: the role of stories here in connection to love? Well,
Speaker 1: I really like that part too. It's at one point
Speaker 1: I had an editor who after I'd written stories we
Speaker 1: tell about ourselves? So that's enough. But I was really
Speaker 1: determined to go on, You're funny stories. I'm glad you did.
Speaker 1: I'm glad you did go on. Thank you well. It
Speaker 1: has a lot to do with the role of assumption
Speaker 1: in our minds. And I also tell the story Worry
Speaker 1: in the book somewhere about a friend of mine who
Speaker 1: was a writer and a speaker, and he gave a
Speaker 1: talk somewhere, and in the course of the talk he
Speaker 1: mentioned how when he'd been younger, reading prist had been
Speaker 1: very important for him, and reading remembrances of things passed.
Speaker 1: And so after the lecture, he'd gone out to dinner
Speaker 1: and he was sitting in this restaurant and the small
Speaker 1: group approached him. This woman kind of emerged from the
Speaker 1: group to talk to him, and he took a look
Speaker 1: at her and he thought, oh, she looks really kind
Speaker 1: of uneducated, and you know, maybe not that smart or
Speaker 1: something like that. And the first thing she said was
Speaker 1: I was at your lecture. So his heart sank. You know,
Speaker 1: what's she going to say? And she said, I really
Speaker 1: liked your lecture. It's just that I find I get
Speaker 1: a lot more out of reading Christ in the original French,
Speaker 1: you know. So that was a moment I was like, oh, okay,
Speaker 1: you know, and it's fascinating those assumptions that come up
Speaker 1: about that person, about that type of person, about ourselves,
Speaker 1: you know, gender, raise anything, you know, and so one
Speaker 1: of the great gifts of mindfulness, of course, is to
Speaker 1: be able to see these things so they're not unconscious
Speaker 1: or half conscious, and then we can just look true
Speaker 1: or not so true or based on what or you know,
Speaker 1: maybe I'll just listen for a while and see if
Speaker 1: it's true or whatever choice we make. It's actually very empowering.
Speaker 1: And so one of the biggest feeders, of course, of
Speaker 1: those assumptions is those stories, you know, and we tell
Speaker 1: stories about ourselves. You know, we need to be perfect,
Speaker 1: we need to be better than perfect. You know, that
Speaker 1: wasn't good enough, or it might have been great, but
Speaker 1: it wasn't good enough, you know. And so those stories
Speaker 1: really so deeply affect our every moment. And then the
Speaker 1: stories others tell about us, even if the stories others
Speaker 1: tell about life, you know, like I don't know if
Speaker 1: this is in my book or nove but it's a
Speaker 1: story I often tell them teaching about going to Washington,
Speaker 1: d C. Often to teach for a while and one
Speaker 1: year a friend brought me to the area the basin world.
Speaker 1: This is big concentration of cherry trees, and well, we
Speaker 1: only got there at night because they were so busy
Speaker 1: and they all kind of bloom at once. That's cherry
Speaker 1: blossom season. And a friend of mine, having heard that
Speaker 1: the previous year I'd only got there at night, was
Speaker 1: determined to get me there during the day, and we
Speaker 1: did it. We managed to get there during the day,
Speaker 1: and I just thought, this is so beautiful, so many
Speaker 1: trees and these delicate pink blossoms, and it's so gorgeous.
Speaker 1: And then my friend said, oh, no, it's past the peak.
Speaker 1: And I thought, oh no, I'm having a bad experience.
Speaker 1: This isn't good enough. It's not the peak. Right as
Speaker 1: soon as they said that, it changed the whole flavor
Speaker 1: of things, the whole thing. Yeah, you know. So there's
Speaker 1: so many stories about us, about life, about someone else
Speaker 1: that we carry and our goal and we're not going
Speaker 1: to dismantle the narrative making capacity, nor would we want to,
Speaker 1: but we want to be able to see those stories
Speaker 1: so they're not these kind of hidden assumptions. I love that.
Speaker 1: I love that. Yeah, I tend to be very influenced
Speaker 1: by the energy of someone I'm with and sort of
Speaker 1: what I think they think of me, And so in
Speaker 1: a lot of but again I don't I'm not a
Speaker 1: mind reader, so I don't know exactly what they think
Speaker 1: of me. So in a lot of ways, I'm doing
Speaker 1: like I'm trying to guess the story. I'm doing a
Speaker 1: lot of work, a lot of acrobatics there. That is
Speaker 1: just only going to increase my own suffering, aren't I
Speaker 1: I just realized that I'm talking to you. There's like
Speaker 1: second level like suffering, intentional suffering, like not only do
Speaker 1: I not really know what they're thinking, but because I
Speaker 1: then think something negative that what they're thinking and then
Speaker 1: influences what I think about myself, my own narrative I
Speaker 1: would tell myself, and I'm sure I'm sure not alone
Speaker 1: and the only one who does that, you know, of course, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's so interesting. Yeah, we would reduce a lot of
Speaker 1: our suffering, like right away if we if we just
Speaker 1: dropped a lot of this great. Okay, So you talk
Speaker 1: also about welcoming emotions, welcoming our sort of full breath
Speaker 1: of emotions. Do you think that, and again, in this
Speaker 1: whole person's scale that we're creating. We have this idea
Speaker 1: if I don't feel real or I feel split off
Speaker 1: for myself, and you talk about that as an important
Speaker 1: thing in your book in terms of having real love.
Speaker 1: So what is the connection there between sort of imposter
Speaker 1: syndrome and real love? Well, I mean, I think if
Speaker 1: you you know, if you don't think of love as
Speaker 1: a state, you know, with all its implied you know,
Speaker 1: characteristics or qualities euphoria, delight, rapture, whatever, we associate with
Speaker 1: love as a state, but you think of it more
Speaker 1: as the way we approach things, you know, so it's
Speaker 1: more relational. You know. How am I with my toothache?
Speaker 1: How am I with myself when I, you know, meet
Speaker 1: a stranger? How am I with a stranger? And again,
Speaker 1: if you don't think of love as like gouey, you know,
Speaker 1: but as powerfully connected, Yeah, you know, then you can
Speaker 1: see that to think of you know, I have anger.
Speaker 1: It's bad, I'm wrong, I'm horrible. It's not really like that,
Speaker 1: you know, the process, the path isn't really like that,
Speaker 1: you know. But more, how am I with this anger?
Speaker 1: How am I approaching it? How am I with myself
Speaker 1: in the face of the anger. That's really the point.
Speaker 1: It's the point of my fulness is the point of
Speaker 1: loving kindness. And so you know, just sort of feel
Speaker 1: I shouldn't feel what I'm feeling it's all wrong. Is
Speaker 1: not that helpful? Because we are feeling what we're feeling,
Speaker 1: you know. That's authentic and much more empowering is the question,
Speaker 1: how am I with what I'm feeling? Right? Am I
Speaker 1: sort of just being with it or trying to control it? Yeah?
Speaker 1: And you have this phrase. This is so cool emo,
Speaker 1: diversity the whole spectrum of human emotions. I love it.
Speaker 1: Did you coin that phrase? I don't think so. I
Speaker 1: don't know where I heard it. I must have heard
Speaker 1: it somewhere, maybe not. There's another one I used in
Speaker 1: a previous book, Unit Tasking. I'm not sure if I
Speaker 1: made that up either. That's great. So I think that
Speaker 1: we'd be remiss if we didn't run through your reign
Speaker 1: model a little bit. Yeah, just quickly, because this can
Speaker 1: be this I can be applied to a multitude of
Speaker 1: someone's life. So it's a really valuable tool. Yeah. I mean,
Speaker 1: so we say mindfulness, like when something comes up and
Speaker 1: we're working to be mindful of it, we want to
Speaker 1: avoid two extremes. One extreme is hating it and fearing
Speaker 1: it and being as shaved of it. Let's say it's anger.
Speaker 1: It this wave of anger comes up, you know, we
Speaker 1: don't want to just get lost, and being afraid of
Speaker 1: it and trying to repress it and you know, make
Speaker 1: it go away. So that's one extreme. The other extreme
Speaker 1: is diving into it and letting it tick over and
Speaker 1: being completely defined by it, like such an angry person
Speaker 1: that I always will be right. So we say mindfulness
Speaker 1: is the place in the middle where we're neither like
Speaker 1: getting lost in what's happening, nor are we trying to
Speaker 1: push it away. And that sweet spot in the middle
Speaker 1: is sometimes described by this acronym rain RAI N, and
Speaker 1: different teachers actually have different rs, different words for the
Speaker 1: R and different words for the end. So it's kind
Speaker 1: of evolving model. But what I used in the book
Speaker 1: was R is recognized, seem like, oh there's anger. The
Speaker 1: A is acknowledging. Some people would say accepting. You know,
Speaker 1: some depends on how you use the word except but like, yeah,
Speaker 1: this is what's happening right now. You don't have to
Speaker 1: fight it. I don't have to get lost in it.
Speaker 1: It's like this is the truth of their present moment.
Speaker 1: I is investigating, and in this sense it would not mean,
Speaker 1: you know, trying to figure out why in the world
Speaker 1: I'm still angry after forty five years of meditating or something.
Speaker 1: But looking into the anger, like first feeling it in
Speaker 1: your body, what do I feel? And looking in sort
Speaker 1: of like looking into the anger moving. And when we
Speaker 1: see that, when we look without holding on, without pushing away,
Speaker 1: we see, oh, there's a lot in there, there's sadness
Speaker 1: in there, there's fear in there, there's a sense of
Speaker 1: helplessness in there. Usually, so we see it's a composite
Speaker 1: and it's really a compound, and we see that it's
Speaker 1: constantly changing. You know, this quality that came up that
Speaker 1: seems so impermanent, I mean, so permanent and so impervious
Speaker 1: to change and so rigid and so solid. Look at that.
Speaker 1: It's moving, it's changing, it's shifting. And then the end
Speaker 1: is non identification, you know, like you don't have to
Speaker 1: say I am such an angry person. You see that
Speaker 1: this was a passing state, right, It came and went
Speaker 1: due to conditions, and so that's rained some I've heard
Speaker 1: some teachers lately describe the end as nurturing, like nurturing
Speaker 1: yourself anyway, you know, even though this is not the
Speaker 1: emotion you were asked for. Anyone gave you a menu.
Speaker 1: So there are lots of ways of kind of doing it,
Speaker 1: but I find it's a really kind of good way
Speaker 1: of sensing what mindfulness is. Absolutely And are you familiar
Speaker 1: with the act and commitment therapy? Acceptance and commitment therapy
Speaker 1: A little bit, yeah, a little bit. Some of those
Speaker 1: ideas are being applied, you know, in therapy for a
Speaker 1: really good effect and tied to that notion of psychological flexibility,
Speaker 1: which of course they drew so much on the Buddhist philosophy.
Speaker 1: So a lot of this stuff is drawing on Buddhist
Speaker 1: philosophy and to very good effect. Mm hm. So I
Speaker 1: have another quote from you don't just love When I
Speaker 1: quote you, sure we can surprise, I said that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's so funny. I yeah. So we cannot will what
Speaker 1: thoughts and feelings arise in us, but we can recognize
Speaker 1: them as they are, sometimes recurring, sometimes frustrating, sometimes filled
Speaker 1: with fantasy, many times painful, always changing. By allowing ourselves
Speaker 1: the simple recognition, we begin to accept that we will
Speaker 1: never be able to control our experiences, but that we
Speaker 1: can transform our relationship to them. This changes everything. So
Speaker 1: I feel like I'm the pull quote editor here, you know.
Speaker 1: Thank you very much, So you want to be very
Speaker 1: mindful your time. In the last couple of minutes, I'd
Speaker 1: like to just jump into the demean of romantic relationships,
Speaker 1: like what happens when we take love and we kind
Speaker 1: of and we actually like the person as well, So
Speaker 1: we like, we like and love, but that comes together
Speaker 1: we have great admiration for a single person that we
Speaker 1: want to have deepened in a romantic passionate way. Let
Speaker 1: me just talk bring up another paradox here, because it's
Speaker 1: talked about lot, but I kind of personally think it's
Speaker 1: kind of a false paradox and I'm curious to get
Speaker 1: your thoughts on it, you know. Like one of my
Speaker 1: favorit writers, Estra Parrell, the psychotherapist Erotic Intelligence, talks about
Speaker 1: this fundamental tension between the need for excitement and mystery
Speaker 1: and then security and familiarity, and how there are two
Speaker 1: naturally opposed forces, you know, and so that's why we
Speaker 1: tend to lose passion in relationship over the long haul
Speaker 1: because we have too much intimacy. That's sort of that model.
Speaker 1: But can you maybe speak to that that a little bit. Well,
Speaker 1: that's interesting obviously, you know, romantic relationships are extremely complex. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's no one kind of romantity. Yeah, but you know,
Speaker 1: from a meditative point of view, it's also interesting just
Speaker 1: to look at this simple role of attention, like how
Speaker 1: often do we stop paying attention to our partner, you know,
Speaker 1: or our person or whatever people or whatever it is
Speaker 1: you know, yeah, you know, any amounts of wordom or
Speaker 1: complace since you're taking someone for granted or whatever. You know.
Speaker 1: So I think mystery doesn't necessarily only come from that
Speaker 1: sense of you know, excitement doesn't necessarily only come from
Speaker 1: the unknown. It comes from discovery sometimes, and we'll discover
Speaker 1: each other. Right. I just love that. Okay, I just
Speaker 1: love that. Yeah. And that's yes, And that's so much
Speaker 1: tied with a sort of every day all every day wonder.
Speaker 1: That's curiosity that is self sustaining. Oh that's beautiful. What
Speaker 1: a great way to reconcile that. Yeah, thank you, Sharon,
Speaker 1: thank you. Yeah, So you just gave hope to lots
Speaker 1: of people that want to have like fifty year relationships
Speaker 1: at the least. Okay, so let me quote you again here.
Speaker 1: Time is both the implacable thief who steals away the
Speaker 1: gifts of life and the sacred messenger who bestows them.
Speaker 1: Even as we live with the knowledge that each day
Speaker 1: might be our last, we don't want to believe it.
Speaker 1: Yet when we're able to open to the truth of
Speaker 1: even our most shattering losses, we find moments of unimagined grace.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, did you did say that, right? I did?
Speaker 1: I guess I said that. It's so poetic, so pletic.
Speaker 1: So I kind of wanted to end on that vibe,
Speaker 1: you know, like I wanted people to leave this episode
Speaker 1: today kind of feeling a vibe. But did you want
Speaker 1: to elaborate that at all in real time or riff
Speaker 1: on it or improvise? And that was very beautiful? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously, you know, getting older is a trip,
Speaker 1: you know, and it's the most surprising. It's like shocking,
Speaker 1: you know, especially since I went to Indue when I
Speaker 1: was eighteen, and so many of my really close friends
Speaker 1: I met when I was eighteen years old and that
Speaker 1: was a long time ago, you know, so you feel
Speaker 1: like it's all just racing by, and yet you know,
Speaker 1: when we are present, it's almost like this timeless realm,
Speaker 1: and it's a whole other way of being, and we
Speaker 1: have both, you know, both are true for us. Originally,
Speaker 1: my book ended in the story of tibetan teacher of
Speaker 1: mine whom I had gone to see in Taiwan, and
Speaker 1: he was very frail, and we had seen him, and
Speaker 1: you know, we're struck by. It was a small group
Speaker 1: of us, struck by how incredibly ill he seemed. And
Speaker 1: then he told us he was moving to from the
Speaker 1: heart of the city to some suburb or something, and
Speaker 1: we could come se him in another couple of days.
Speaker 1: So a couple of days went by, and we're all
Speaker 1: standing in front of this hotel with flowers and fruit
Speaker 1: and offerings for him. And I was so depressed and unhappy,
Speaker 1: and I kept thinking I might only see him one
Speaker 1: more time, and it might just be one more time.
Speaker 1: And then we walk into these little cabs and every
Speaker 1: cab got lost. I was just wandering around the streets,
Speaker 1: and then all of a sudden, I was thinking, all
Speaker 1: I want in life is to see him one more time,
Speaker 1: you know. And the one more time, which it seemed
Speaker 1: like the worst thing in the world, suddenly seemed like, wow,
Speaker 1: that would be the biggest blessing. And in fact, you know,
Speaker 1: we did find him. We saw many more times, you know,
Speaker 1: because he lived quite a number of years after that
Speaker 1: until he died. But it was so interesting. One more
Speaker 1: time seemed one way, then it seemed another way, totally different.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think it sucks that we can't he
Speaker 1: would say, you know, it's just surrender, you know, but
Speaker 1: that we can't control a moment in the way that
Speaker 1: we can't capture it forever, We can't bottle it. It
Speaker 1: it sucks, It sucks. It kills me something, you know,
Speaker 1: not thin you know. I it's hilarious because you know,
Speaker 1: I I just have these moments where I kind of
Speaker 1: know in some senses that will be the last time
Speaker 1: I'll see you. Like my I had a very dear
Speaker 1: mentor a very dear mentor who's old. And I was right,
Speaker 1: you know, I just I was like, what if this clapse,
Speaker 1: this glimpse of this person right now? This this is it?
Speaker 1: This is it? Like how can I just freeze frame this?
Speaker 1: You know? And and it was it was it. It It
Speaker 1: was the last time he died of complications of an operation,
Speaker 1: so so to kind of turn this into something maybe
Speaker 1: more uplifting, mindfulness may be our only tool to get
Speaker 1: as close to the freeze frame that I'm yearning for
Speaker 1: a possible Yeah, and I think it's also you know,
Speaker 1: that transition to you know, wow, I would be grateful
Speaker 1: for one more time was an important transition, you know,
Speaker 1: not to take things for granted and not to just
Speaker 1: be complacent. But this life is an incredible gift. And
Speaker 1: sure as well, it was a gift to chat with
Speaker 1: you today. Thank you so much, Aaron, I really appreciate it. Well,
Speaker 1: thank you so much. Thank you so much for listening
Speaker 1: to the Psychology Podcast with doctor Scott Barry Kaufman. I
Speaker 1: hope you found this episode just as thought provoking as
Speaker 1: I did. If something you heard today stimulated you in
Speaker 1: some way, I encourage you to join in the discussion
Speaker 1: at the Psychology Podcast dot com. That's the Psychology Podcast
Speaker 1: dot com.