Speaker 1: When the problem isn't happening to us, we can be
Speaker 1: really shrewd. But when it's happening to us, we can
Speaker 1: often make bad decisions, and that's where the power of
Speaker 1: distance resides. Welcome to the one you feed Throughout time,
Speaker 1: great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have.
Speaker 1: Quotes like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what
Speaker 1: you think ring true, and yet for many of us,
Speaker 1: our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity,
Speaker 1: self pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't
Speaker 1: have instead of what we do. We think things that
Speaker 1: hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not
Speaker 1: just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent,
Speaker 1: and creative effort to make a life worth living. This
Speaker 1: podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in
Speaker 1: the right direction, how they feed their good wolf. Thanks
Speaker 1: for joining us. Our guest on this episode is Ethan Cross,
Speaker 1: one of the world's leading experts on controlling the conscious mind.
Speaker 1: He's an award winning professor at the University of Michigan
Speaker 1: and the Raw School of Business, and also the director
Speaker 1: of the Emotion and Self Control laboratory. In addition to
Speaker 1: countless television appearances, Ethan's research has been featured in The
Speaker 1: New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and
Speaker 1: many others. Today, Ethan and Eric discuss his book, Chatter,
Speaker 1: The Voice in Our Head, Why it Matters and How
Speaker 1: to Harness It. Hi, Ethan, Welcome to the show. Thanks
Speaker 1: for having me. Eric, I've been looking forward to this conversation. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm really excited. Your book is called Chatter, the Voice
Speaker 1: in Our Head, Why it Matters and how to harness it,
Speaker 1: which is right in the basic ideas that we talked
Speaker 1: about on this show. But before we get into the book,
Speaker 1: let's start like we always do with the parable. There
Speaker 1: is a grandfather is talking with his granddaughter and he says,
Speaker 1: in life, there are two wolves inside of us that
Speaker 1: are always at battle. One is a good wolf, which
Speaker 1: represents things like kindness and bravery and love, and the
Speaker 1: other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed
Speaker 1: and hatred and fear. And the granddaughter stops and she
Speaker 1: thinks about it for a second. She looks up at
Speaker 1: her grandfather, said, well, grandfather, which one wins? And the
Speaker 1: grandfather says, the one you feed, So I'd like to
Speaker 1: start off by asking you what that parable means to
Speaker 1: you in your life and in the work that you do. Well.
Speaker 1: There are two thoughts that immediately come to mind. One
Speaker 1: is just how wonderful that parable scaffolds onto the content
Speaker 1: of my research and my book. You know, there's the
Speaker 1: good wolf and the bad wolf, or you could think
Speaker 1: of the good side or the dark side to our
Speaker 1: inner voice, the coach, the critic, And so I think
Speaker 1: we often do feel like in life we are battling
Speaker 1: between these two forces. And the big question we face
Speaker 1: is how do we tilt the balance in the direction
Speaker 1: we want to spend most of our life living. And
Speaker 1: I think for most of us that is in the
Speaker 1: direction of the more positive wolf. So I think that
Speaker 1: really connects that parable to what we know is a
Speaker 1: struggle that many of us, almost maybe even all of
Speaker 1: us face at times. But the other point that it
Speaker 1: raises is a more nuanced one about emotion that I
Speaker 1: think a lot about lately, which is, I think many
Speaker 1: of us reflexively want to rid our lives of negative emotions,
Speaker 1: the negative wolf, and and only really dance with that
Speaker 1: positive wolf, the happy joy, and so forth. And I
Speaker 1: think our emotional life. I don't think, I know is
Speaker 1: more complicated than that, in the sense that negative emotions
Speaker 1: and small doses can actually be amazingly used full to us.
Speaker 1: So we don't want to rid our life entirely of
Speaker 1: that bad wolf. If you want to stick with that metaphor, right, Like,
Speaker 1: if I don't experience a small ping of anxiety before
Speaker 1: a big presentation, the presentation often doesn't go as well
Speaker 1: if I do have a small ping of anxiety, right,
Speaker 1: because that negative emotion is information that's motivating me to
Speaker 1: attend to the situation and practice and prepare. So I
Speaker 1: don't think we should try to rid ourselves of that
Speaker 1: dark side of us, that that negative wolf, however we
Speaker 1: want to describe it. But I think we want to
Speaker 1: figure out how to coexist with that negative wolf or
Speaker 1: or minimize their impact on us, but but recognize that
Speaker 1: there's still value that comes from it. If that makes sense,
Speaker 1: It totally makes sense, and it kind of leads me
Speaker 1: into where I want to start this conversation, which is
Speaker 1: around the way that thoughts and emotions work, and you know,
Speaker 1: they co arise together in essence. You know, we talked
Speaker 1: about thought and emotion, but they tend to sort of
Speaker 1: show up together. You know, one may proceed the other.
Speaker 1: But the question I have for you is, there are
Speaker 1: two sort of schools out there I've seen of working
Speaker 1: with emotions and working with thoughts. And I'm vastly oversimplifying here,
Speaker 1: but one school is sort of saying, look, you just
Speaker 1: be with what is. You allow it, you give it space,
Speaker 1: but you be with it what is You don't resist,
Speaker 1: you just you kind of let it be there. The
Speaker 1: other school is more get in there and you know,
Speaker 1: work with your thoughts. Try and you know, turn your
Speaker 1: thoughts down or turn them up, or change them this
Speaker 1: way or that way. And that's the approach. And I'm
Speaker 1: kind of curious how you think about that. I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna say it's a split, because I don't think it's
Speaker 1: that obvious, but there does seem to be sort of
Speaker 1: do I start with emotions, do I start with thoughts?
Speaker 1: Does it depend? You know, how do you think about that?
Speaker 1: I think you're capturing an important tension that exists not
Speaker 1: only in the field scientifically, but I think also more
Speaker 1: broadly in our culture, where you have certain approaches that
Speaker 1: really emphasize let's call it the mindfulness approach be in
Speaker 1: the moment, except don't try to engage with the thought,
Speaker 1: let it go and move on. And then there's another
Speaker 1: camp that is much more coming out of the cognitive
Speaker 1: tradition cognitive therapy, which is, hey, you can change how
Speaker 1: you think to change how you feel. I think it
Speaker 1: is unfortunate that we have splintered into these camps. Those
Speaker 1: two approaches that you describe, which I just summarize back
Speaker 1: to you, these represent two different tools that we possess
Speaker 1: for managing our emotional lives. And I don't privilege one
Speaker 1: tool over another. Different tools are useful for different people
Speaker 1: in different situations. And so when I hear people say, hey,
Speaker 1: the only thing you well, first let me say, if
Speaker 1: I hear some anyone say the only thing you need
Speaker 1: to do, I stop at the only because although we
Speaker 1: often want single magic bullet solutions, none exists as far
Speaker 1: as I've been able to deduce. Right, what we know
Speaker 1: is that we have evolved this capacity to use the
Speaker 1: very technical term, drive ourselves nuts. At times, they get
Speaker 1: stuck ruminating and worrying and catastrophizing. So we have that
Speaker 1: tendency that exists. But what we have also evolved is
Speaker 1: a boatload of tools that we can use to manage
Speaker 1: these negative conversations we have with ourselves in aversive states.
Speaker 1: And so if you come to me and you ask me, like,
Speaker 1: what tools can I give you to give you the
Speaker 1: best chance of succeeding and succeeding in a sense of
Speaker 1: living a fulfilling, productive life, I'm going to give you
Speaker 1: access to the whole whole tool kid, Right, Why am
Speaker 1: I going to limit you to one tool? A carpenter
Speaker 1: doesn't try to build a house with just a hammer.
Speaker 1: They have multiple tool box is that they bring to
Speaker 1: the job site. And I think the same is true
Speaker 1: when it comes to our emotional lives. We try to
Speaker 1: oversimplify things sometimes and say, hey, this is the one
Speaker 1: thing you need to do, but in fact that's not true. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I agree A And you know, I keep wanting to
Speaker 1: try and simplify it. I do work with clients, and
Speaker 1: you know I want to. I want to make it like, well,
Speaker 1: here's your four step method, but it just never reduces
Speaker 1: that way. I did think though, that later in the book,
Speaker 1: you talked about conversations with other people, and you talked
Speaker 1: about that there's two needs in conversation with other people.
Speaker 1: And this really resonated with me, and it resonated with
Speaker 1: me about the topic that we're talking about here. And
Speaker 1: what you said was that people in a conversation, if
Speaker 1: they're going to talk to somebody else about a struggle
Speaker 1: they're having, they have an emotional need and they have
Speaker 1: a cognitive need. And I really love that because it's
Speaker 1: sort of said, look, it's not one or the other,
Speaker 1: that both those needs are there, and for it to
Speaker 1: be a really productive and satisfying conversation, you've got to
Speaker 1: have both those elements. So talk to me a little
Speaker 1: bit about what you mean by emotional need and cognitive
Speaker 1: need in that way. Well, we know from lots of
Speaker 1: research that when people experience chatter, which I use as
Speaker 1: a term to just capture getting stuck in a negative
Speaker 1: thought loop. So if it's a negative thought loop about
Speaker 1: the past, that's rumination. If it's the future or president,
Speaker 1: call that worry. But you're just spinning. You're trying to
Speaker 1: find a solution to a problem, but you're not succeeding.
Speaker 1: And we know that when that happens, people are intensely
Speaker 1: motivated to find someone else to share that chatter with,
Speaker 1: to talk to that other person about what's going through
Speaker 1: their head. There are a couple exceptions that rule. We
Speaker 1: tend not to want to talk about certain kinds of
Speaker 1: trauma or experiences involving shame, but all the other sources
Speaker 1: of chatter, the anxiety, the sadness, the anger. We want
Speaker 1: to find someone to chat with, and what we know
Speaker 1: is that our intuitions regarding what makes for a good
Speaker 1: deductive conversation are often off. So many people think that
Speaker 1: the key to having a productive, useful conversation about your
Speaker 1: chatter is to find someone to vent your emotions too.
Speaker 1: Just unload what is going through your head, get it
Speaker 1: off your chest. We know that when you vent to
Speaker 1: someone else about what you're feeling, this can be really
Speaker 1: good for satisfying those social needs that we have, those
Speaker 1: social and emotional needs. It feels good to know that
Speaker 1: there's someone out there in the world that is willing
Speaker 1: to take the time to hear what I've gone through
Speaker 1: to validate my experience. And indeed, research shows that when
Speaker 1: you vent to someone else that that often strengthens the
Speaker 1: friendship bonds between people. The problem is that if all
Speaker 1: you do is vent your emotions, of all you do
Speaker 1: is that's son off, you wouldn't believe what that guy
Speaker 1: asked me on the last podcast, you know, it was
Speaker 1: so rude and obnoxious, and they said they wouldn't do
Speaker 1: can you believe it? And then you're like, oh, that
Speaker 1: sounds of belief and I would hate to be And
Speaker 1: that's it. Yeah, you're damn right. You know. If that's
Speaker 1: all you do, you leave that conversation feeling close and
Speaker 1: connected to the person you talk to, but you're just
Speaker 1: as upset, if not more upset, by the time you're
Speaker 1: finished talking. Then when you started the best kinds of
Speaker 1: conversations when it comes to chatter, do two things. You
Speaker 1: spend a little time expressing your emotions, getting it out,
Speaker 1: let any other person learn about what you've gone through.
Speaker 1: But then at a certain point in the conversation, that
Speaker 1: person you're talking to starts working to help you broaden
Speaker 1: your perspective. They start helping you try to reframe your experience.
Speaker 1: So you might say to me, hey, Ethan, that wow,
Speaker 1: that sounds terrible. I've been in situations like that. You know.
Speaker 1: The good news is they're they're one out of a hundred.
Speaker 1: But and when that happens, here's how I think about it.
Speaker 1: So when we experience chatter, we get so stuck in
Speaker 1: a tunnel vision mindset. We're thinking about that problem. You
Speaker 1: can't break out of that to think differently about we're
Speaker 1: going through in ways that might make us feel better.
Speaker 1: And other people are in a prime position to help
Speaker 1: us do it because they've got the objectivity, they've got
Speaker 1: the distance from our problems to think more rationally about it. So,
Speaker 1: you know, oftentimes talking can go terribly wrong, but it
Speaker 1: also has the potential to go really right. And what
Speaker 1: I think knowing about these scientific principles do for people
Speaker 1: is it it does two things. I'll speak in the
Speaker 1: first person from my own experience. You know, I used
Speaker 1: to be someone before I knew the science, Like so
Speaker 1: many other people, I get upset, I'd instantly call this person,
Speaker 1: I call that person. I would just look for people
Speaker 1: to share it with, and it didn't always make me
Speaker 1: feel better. Now that I know this science, one thing
Speaker 1: it allows me to do is I am exceptionally deliberate
Speaker 1: about who I contact when I need chatter support. Many
Speaker 1: people that I love dearly, they love me, I don't
Speaker 1: talk to them about chatter at all. You know, it's
Speaker 1: it's about the kids and about work. I keep it
Speaker 1: at that level because I know if I go into
Speaker 1: the chatter with them, they're just going to make it worse.
Speaker 1: They don't intend to, but by just getting me to vent,
Speaker 1: it's just gonna not be a good situation. So there
Speaker 1: are like four or five people that I know I
Speaker 1: can trust to really help listen to me and then
Speaker 1: broaden my perspective. And like, that's my chatter board, right
Speaker 1: And I avail myself of that resource quite a bit
Speaker 1: and it's incredibly useful. So that's one take home. The
Speaker 1: other take home is when people come to me for
Speaker 1: support and hey, you think I can get your you know,
Speaker 1: I get your take on this. I got to talk
Speaker 1: to you about this. I'm not helpless and just listening
Speaker 1: and trying to figure out what to do. I've got
Speaker 1: a game plan. I know. I'm gonna listen for a
Speaker 1: bit and I'm gonna start feeling out the person who's
Speaker 1: talking to me and to see when they're ready for
Speaker 1: me to give them advice. And there's an art to
Speaker 1: doing that. You know, if my wife comes to me
Speaker 1: with a problem and she's going on and on, and
Speaker 1: you know, at some point I might say totally I'm
Speaker 1: so sorry that happened. I have a thought, can I
Speaker 1: give it to you? And sometimes you'll say no, just listen,
Speaker 1: I just want to keep going, and then I'll let
Speaker 1: her go. But at other times she's like, please, yeah,
Speaker 1: tell me what should do? I want some advice. And
Speaker 1: so you've got to feel that out a little bit.
Speaker 1: But this is science giving us a blueprint for how
Speaker 1: to interact profitably with other people when it comes to chatter.
Speaker 1: And I think that is a really valuable commodity to have. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And what I love about that whole idea, there is
Speaker 1: there is a stereotype out there of women just one
Speaker 1: event and they get frustrated because they feel like they
Speaker 1: vent to their male partner, and their male partner immediately
Speaker 1: just wants to solve it. And what I love about
Speaker 1: what you're saying is, well, you're both kind of right.
Speaker 1: That's right. You know, that emotional need is real. That venting,
Speaker 1: that connecting, that's an important part of it. And and
Speaker 1: I've often found until that's established, the second part can't
Speaker 1: take off. But there is a point where it does
Speaker 1: make sense to say, Okay, good, now we've sort of
Speaker 1: gotten our feelings out about this is there anything we
Speaker 1: can do. Is there a way we can think about
Speaker 1: this differently? And I was recovering heroin addict or I
Speaker 1: guess I am. I found in a a that the
Speaker 1: people that I talk too, that we're the most helpful,
Speaker 1: did both those things right. They didn't immediately cut you
Speaker 1: off and me like, well, what you should do is this?
Speaker 1: But at a certain point they went, well, Eric, let's
Speaker 1: look at this slightly differently. And so I think that
Speaker 1: balance is so important, and I think it also for me,
Speaker 1: pointed to internally, for myself needing that same balance right,
Speaker 1: needing to say, Okay, I'm going to allow myself to
Speaker 1: feel what I feel. It's okay to feel what I feel,
Speaker 1: not try and squash the emotion by by changing my
Speaker 1: perspective immediately, but then not getting stuck there, then moving
Speaker 1: into okay, are there ways that I can cognitively think
Speaker 1: about this differently? Are there tools I can use? So
Speaker 1: I just love that part of the book. But I
Speaker 1: kind of started you near the end of your book.
Speaker 1: Let's hop back up a little bit and talk about,
Speaker 1: you know, how we work more skillfully with chatter. Your
Speaker 1: book has a ton of tools in it, and I
Speaker 1: love that at the end of the book, you sort
Speaker 1: of summarized all of the tools we can use. But
Speaker 1: let's talk about what sort of things cause chatter for
Speaker 1: us most commonly, and then maybe we'll move into some
Speaker 1: of the tools. Well, we all have different chatter triggers,
Speaker 1: and I think that's one thing to recognize. Just like
Speaker 1: we have different tastes and food and partners, we have
Speaker 1: different kinds of experiences that light us up. So you know,
Speaker 1: for me, it may be my kids well being and health.
Speaker 1: I don't worry at all about money stuff or work
Speaker 1: stuff when it comes to their health. Chatter chatter chatter, right,
Speaker 1: But for other people it's the exact opposite. Two common features, though,
Speaker 1: of chatter triggers are uncertainty and a lack of control,
Speaker 1: So not being certain about what is going to happen
Speaker 1: or how something you did might affect you, and not
Speaker 1: having much control over it. Those are like sparks that
Speaker 1: allow chatter to ignite. What's interesting about those two properties
Speaker 1: is that we're living through a time right now filled
Speaker 1: with a ton of uncertainty and a lack of control
Speaker 1: in the form of COVID and the pandemic. Right we
Speaker 1: don't know what's going to happen. We don't have much
Speaker 1: control either, and it's not surprising therefore that chatter in
Speaker 1: the form of anxiety and depression is spiking quite a
Speaker 1: bit over the past year and a half or however
Speaker 1: long we've been in this mess. I think it's a
Speaker 1: little longer than a year and a half. So those
Speaker 1: are some conditions that give rise to chatter. And you know,
Speaker 1: when we experience that chatter, we just get zoomed in
Speaker 1: very narrowly on whatever it is that's bothering us. But
Speaker 1: what we've learned that is so exciting, and to go
Speaker 1: back to where we started earlier on juxtaposing accepting emotions
Speaker 1: or trying to change it as these two different approaches
Speaker 1: that some people subscribe only to one or another. We
Speaker 1: know that there are so many different tools people can
Speaker 1: use to manage this chatter. Um so it really is
Speaker 1: handicapping us if we try to restrict ourselves, I think,
Speaker 1: to just one or two approaches. I'd like to organize
Speaker 1: these tools into three categories, just to give to try
Speaker 1: to simplify the space. There are things we could do
Speaker 1: on our own ways of shifting our thingking that can
Speaker 1: be useful. There are ways of interacting with other people
Speaker 1: skillfully like we just described right, like talking, but also
Speaker 1: getting advice. And then there are environmental tools which I
Speaker 1: find fascinating, which are ways of interacting with our physical
Speaker 1: spaces that affect how we talk to ourselves and think
Speaker 1: from the outside in, which can be quite powerful too.
Speaker 1: And I think knowing about what these tools are, what
Speaker 1: it does for us is it gives us the opportunity
Speaker 1: to be much more deliberate about how we control our chatter.
Speaker 1: So people often ask me, hey, do you ever experienced
Speaker 1: chatter ethan? You know, you're you're an expert in it
Speaker 1: and studying it and controlling it, and you know, I
Speaker 1: usually pause, Yeah, of course I experience it at times.
Speaker 1: I'm a human. But what I think I've gotten really
Speaker 1: good at over the years is the moment I start
Speaker 1: to detect that the chatter is brewing, I shut it
Speaker 1: down by using these different tools. And it's often different combinations,
Speaker 1: but having them at my disposal allows me to just
Speaker 1: recruit them right away to muffle this chatter response rather
Speaker 1: than let it really take over in ways that can
Speaker 1: be truly debilitating. Let me get a little concrete though,
Speaker 1: because I'm talking in a very abstract way about all this. So,
Speaker 1: what are some things you can do to regulate chatter
Speaker 1: on your own? I'll tell you about a few of
Speaker 1: my favorite tools. One category of them we call distancing tools.
Speaker 1: So when you're experiencing chatter, you're super zoomed in on
Speaker 1: the problem. What we've learned is that if you could
Speaker 1: zoom out and get a broader perspective, that can be
Speaker 1: really useful. One of my favorites tools is something called
Speaker 1: distant self talk. And what this tool involves is trying
Speaker 1: to give yourself advice about how to work on a problem,
Speaker 1: like you would give your best friend advice, and using language,
Speaker 1: harnessing the structure of language to help you do that effortlessly.
Speaker 1: And what it involves do is using your own name
Speaker 1: and the second person pronoun you to coach yourselfier problem.
Speaker 1: Doing this silently. I should give that capate not not
Speaker 1: out loud while you're walking down a city street. All right, Ethan,
Speaker 1: how are you going to manage the situation? What are
Speaker 1: you gonna do? Here's what you should do. What we
Speaker 1: find in our studies is that it's often much easier
Speaker 1: for us to give advice to other people than to
Speaker 1: take our own advice. You know, do as I say,
Speaker 1: not as I do. This is a very strong response
Speaker 1: that we see playing out across lots and lots of studies.
Speaker 1: What distant self talk does is it leverages the structure
Speaker 1: of language to automatically shift your perspective and get you
Speaker 1: to start relating to yourself, talking to yourself like you
Speaker 1: would talk to another person. If you think about when
Speaker 1: we use names and second person pronouns, where it's like you,
Speaker 1: we use names and second person pronouns virtually exclusively when
Speaker 1: we think about and refer to other people. So the
Speaker 1: link in our mind between a name and se one
Speaker 1: else super duper strong. And the idea is that when
Speaker 1: you use your own name to reflect on your problems,
Speaker 1: that's switching you into this coaching mode where you're not
Speaker 1: getting stuck in all of those irrational thoughts that you
Speaker 1: are probably ashamed to even articulate to someone else, let
Speaker 1: alone tell your best friend and said, you're like, all right,
Speaker 1: here's how you're gonna manage the situation. You've done this
Speaker 1: a thousand times before, you're gonna do it. And then
Speaker 1: even we'll have dinner and you're gonna get a good
Speaker 1: night's sleep, and that's in fact what we see playing
Speaker 1: out in our studies. So so that's usually my first
Speaker 1: go to strategy. Actually, if I find myself getting a
Speaker 1: little bit of chatter alright, Ethan, what are you gonna
Speaker 1: do it? And it snaps me out of the thought loop.
Speaker 1: I found that really interesting, that idea of distant self
Speaker 1: talk and using you, and it took me back to
Speaker 1: early in recovery, and when we were in recovery groups,
Speaker 1: we used to say all the time, use eye statements,
Speaker 1: I feel this, And when I heard you saying like,
Speaker 1: use the you and you know, distant self talk, And
Speaker 1: what I realized was that what we were after in
Speaker 1: early recovery was connection back to ourselves, not distancing from ourselves,
Speaker 1: because we've been doing that with addictions so effectively, and
Speaker 1: we had distanced ourselves from all the consequences from all
Speaker 1: of our emotions. So in that case, we wanted the
Speaker 1: opposite of distance self talk, at least in the beginning,
Speaker 1: to bring us closer to But your point is how
Speaker 1: effective this is when we're dealing with the problem. Are
Speaker 1: you the person who came up with the term Solomon's paradox? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was a paper with one of my students. We
Speaker 1: coined that phrase. You've got to share what that is,
Speaker 1: because I must have read about that six or seven
Speaker 1: years ago, and I have used it countless times because
Speaker 1: it's so brilliant. So tell us about Solomon's paradox. Well, So,
Speaker 1: Solomon's paradox is named after the Bible's king Solomon, who
Speaker 1: was famously adept at giving really great advice to other people,
Speaker 1: and leaders from all over the world would travel to
Speaker 1: his kingdom to get his wisdom. But if you look
Speaker 1: carefully at Solomon's own life, he was a terrible decision maker.
Speaker 1: He made a rash of really bad decisions. He got
Speaker 1: stuck in these like love triangles would be generous, It
Speaker 1: was more like love octagons with different women, and um
Speaker 1: you know, built them temples and it ultimately led to
Speaker 1: his kingdoms to mind. And I talked about this in
Speaker 1: my book. You see this playing out with so many
Speaker 1: people who we think are wise. Abraham Lincoln struggled endlessly
Speaker 1: when it came to his own problems with depression, but
Speaker 1: was able to give his his buddy who is struggling
Speaker 1: with depression, great advice. Bill Clinton, Monica, you know, we
Speaker 1: can go to contemporary culture too. With Monica Lewinsky can
Speaker 1: find all sorts of illustrations of people who can be
Speaker 1: very wise in one context but very unwise in another.
Speaker 1: And so it really speaks to something I think fundamental
Speaker 1: about us, which is when the problem isn't happening to us,
Speaker 1: we can be really shrewd. But when it's happening to
Speaker 1: us and we get overly zoomed in and side dim,
Speaker 1: we can often make bad decisions. And that's where the
Speaker 1: power of distance resides, because we have evolved the ability
Speaker 1: to use tools to counteract Solomon's paradox to fight against it,
Speaker 1: and distance self talk is is one example of such
Speaker 1: a tool. I want to go back, Eric to the
Speaker 1: point you made though about recovery and taking ownership of
Speaker 1: your experience. I think it's such an important point to emphasize.
Speaker 1: Because all the tools that we talk about are useful
Speaker 1: in particular contexts, that doesn't mean they're useful across the board.
Speaker 1: I would never tell someone that, hey, what you need
Speaker 1: to do moving forward is always talk to yourself in
Speaker 1: the third person, right. That would not be productive. There's
Speaker 1: a time and place to do it, and the time
Speaker 1: and place is when you are overly zoomed in on
Speaker 1: a problem. In some contexts, though, being immersed can be
Speaker 1: amazingly helpful, like when you're experiencing joy and other kinds
Speaker 1: of positive states, you don't want to distance there. You
Speaker 1: want to immerse yourself for there, or in your example,
Speaker 1: if you are already distanced too much, then you want
Speaker 1: to reel a person back in and and heat them
Speaker 1: up a little bit. And so I think it's just
Speaker 1: useful to have that perspective on how all of these
Speaker 1: tools work. There's a time and place for them, and
Speaker 1: I think that idea of distance is so helpful. You
Speaker 1: talked about one way of doing it, but you share
Speaker 1: other ways. You know, one of my favorite questions of
Speaker 1: all time is like will this matter in five hours,
Speaker 1: five days, five weeks, five months? Like which is a
Speaker 1: time distancing tool? Right? Yeah? And that that's actually my
Speaker 1: second personal go to tool. We call that temporal distancing,
Speaker 1: or more colloquially mental time travel. And I find this
Speaker 1: really useful. So first I'll do alre anything, how are
Speaker 1: you going to manage this? And then I'll usually while
Speaker 1: still using my own name, I'll think, Ethan, how are
Speaker 1: you going to feel about this next week? Or next
Speaker 1: month or next year or ten years from now. And
Speaker 1: what that does is it breaks as out of this
Speaker 1: tunnel vision that is so debilitating, and it makes it
Speaker 1: clear to us that oftentimes what we're going through is temporary.
Speaker 1: It will eventually fade. We recognize that because we've experienced
Speaker 1: life before and we've learned that usually there's some exceptions,
Speaker 1: but in most cases, even the worst emotions fade with time.
Speaker 1: And when we have that recognition, that does something really
Speaker 1: powerful for the human mind. It gives us hope, and
Speaker 1: hope is a powerful antidote for chatter. Now, that's going
Speaker 1: forward in time, and that's probably the most commonly discussed
Speaker 1: form of mental time travel as a tool. But you
Speaker 1: can't also go back in time in ways that are productive.
Speaker 1: I actually do this a lot with COVID. So I'll
Speaker 1: think when I was admired and despair, washing fruit with
Speaker 1: Clorox whites and doing all that kind of stuff some
Speaker 1: of us did early on in the pandemic, I would
Speaker 1: think to myself, is not so good. But what about
Speaker 1: like the last pandemic in nineteen seventeen or eighteen. Now,
Speaker 1: you know, things were arguably much worse back then. No
Speaker 1: uber no zoom, what about the bubonic play? Like my god,
Speaker 1: that was way, way worse than what we're going through
Speaker 1: right now. And so that's another way of broadening my
Speaker 1: perspective to put in perspective the actual magnitude of what
Speaker 1: we're experiencing, which you know, if you look in the
Speaker 1: big grand scheme of things vaccines and record time technology,
Speaker 1: it could be much much worse. You alluded to another
Speaker 1: type of backwards time travel when you were just sort
Speaker 1: of off the cuff talking to yourself, which was you've
Speaker 1: handled this a thousand times before. And that's a big
Speaker 1: one for me, is I just look back. It's almost
Speaker 1: inevitable that at least once per week I will start
Speaker 1: to feel my stress level about getting everything I have
Speaker 1: to get done done goes up and I starts rising,
Speaker 1: and then I just remind myself, Eric, this has happened
Speaker 1: every week for twenty years, and every single time it
Speaker 1: has worked out, and that sort of backwards time travel
Speaker 1: is really helpful to me. It's funny because I use
Speaker 1: the same exact reframe Eric, and I likewise find it
Speaker 1: to be incredibly helpful. I've literally given hundreds of presentations
Speaker 1: over the course of my career, and inevitably, if it's
Speaker 1: a high stakes event, you know, very very big audience
Speaker 1: or a kind of audience that I know is going
Speaker 1: to be gunning for me. In the academic world, you know,
Speaker 1: a pretty competitive environment. I'll still begin to hear those
Speaker 1: whispers of doubt perk up in my head, and then
Speaker 1: I remind myself, Ethan, you've given hundreds of talks, You've
Speaker 1: never you've never lost it, it's never gone. And having
Speaker 1: that broader perspective and and actual evidence, it's amazingly anxiolytic.
Speaker 1: I mean, it really takes the edge off. And that's
Speaker 1: what I love about these tools. Right we've talked about two.
Speaker 1: They're like twenty seven that I cover in the book.
Speaker 1: Many of these tools are very easy to implement right now.
Speaker 1: There are some tools I talked about that are more
Speaker 1: effortful and they require more time and engagement. But a
Speaker 1: lot of these these are just very subtle shifts that
Speaker 1: can often make the difference between getting caught in that
Speaker 1: negative thoughts spiral in a way that allows it to
Speaker 1: take over, and regaining control of our mind in ways
Speaker 1: that can be really helpful to us. And so that's
Speaker 1: what I love about so many of these tools. Yeah,
Speaker 1: let's hit a few more of them in the tools
Speaker 1: you can implement on your own category, and then we
Speaker 1: can move to some of the others we've hit distant
Speaker 1: self talk, we've sort of talked about imagine advice in
Speaker 1: a friend. Let's talk about writing expressively. Let's talk about
Speaker 1: why that's a useful tool. So expressive writing, the way
Speaker 1: it's been studied, this is a form of journaling about
Speaker 1: negative experiences. And they've been lots of research on this
Speaker 1: which shows that writing about your deepest thoughts and feelings
Speaker 1: about something negative you've experienced can be helpful for allowing
Speaker 1: you to essentially create a story that helps you understand
Speaker 1: what you've gone through and then leave that experience behind
Speaker 1: and move on with your life. And one of the
Speaker 1: reasons why we think expressive writing is helpful is because
Speaker 1: it is a type of distancing tool. When you stop
Speaker 1: for a moment and try to put pen to the
Speaker 1: page or I guess fingers to the keyboard nowadays, and
Speaker 1: pen of story, you yourself. You are the character of
Speaker 1: that story, so you are now writing about yourself, and
Speaker 1: there's there's distance that that creates when you're thinking about
Speaker 1: yourself as a character in a story, so that gives
Speaker 1: you some mental space. But another thing that writing does
Speaker 1: is it helps give us structure to our experience because
Speaker 1: when you when you write about an experience, there's a
Speaker 1: form that that takes. Like we often think in a
Speaker 1: very fragmented way, very emotional, what what you know, just
Speaker 1: pinging negative thoughts and images all over the place. But
Speaker 1: that's not how we write. We we learn to write
Speaker 1: with you know, there's a subject of verbs, oftentimes of
Speaker 1: punctuation mark and and when we write about things, there's
Speaker 1: often like a beginning, middle, and end. So writing helps
Speaker 1: us create a narrative that helps us do something that
Speaker 1: we're highly motivated to do, which is make meaning out
Speaker 1: of our lives. And that ability to make meaning this
Speaker 1: is something that sometimes we really struggle with and writing
Speaker 1: can help bring that process back on track in ways
Speaker 1: that are really helpful. Yeah, I think to your point,
Speaker 1: I often think of thoughts as being really slippery. On
Speaker 1: one hand, they sort of take over, and yet when
Speaker 1: you try and grab all into a lot of them,
Speaker 1: they tend to be kind of, like I said, slippery,
Speaker 1: which is why I think that writing idea sort of
Speaker 1: slows the whole process down a little bit and allows
Speaker 1: a little bit more clarity. Completely agree, slowing it down
Speaker 1: is I think a great way of describing it, because
Speaker 1: we can often think quite fast and in a very disorganized,
Speaker 1: incoherent way, and that's just not how you write about things.
Speaker 1: And so so that's another kind of distancing tool that
Speaker 1: I talk about that tends to be a more effortful
Speaker 1: tool because you've actually you do have to stop and
Speaker 1: sit down, find the time to actually, you know, write
Speaker 1: about that experience. But it could be a really useful one.
Speaker 1: So what about changing the view? This is another slightly
Speaker 1: more effortful one than saying maybe just switching that the
Speaker 1: tense you're using from I to you? But what is
Speaker 1: changing the view? When we think about negative experiences past
Speaker 1: or future, we often have a mental snapshot of that
Speaker 1: event in our mind. So if I asked you to
Speaker 1: think back to the last time put your foot in
Speaker 1: your mouth in a conversation, I don't know if you've
Speaker 1: ever done that before. I have. I can think about
Speaker 1: last time I did that. It was just a couple
Speaker 1: hours ago, and I actually, right now I'm seeing I
Speaker 1: have a snapshot of that experience, and I could see
Speaker 1: the person's face who I didn't mean to insult but did.
Speaker 1: And what we know is that that image that we
Speaker 1: have in our mind is malleable the more emotionally experiences,
Speaker 1: the more you replay that event from a first person
Speaker 1: point of view, you're right back there in the moment,
Speaker 1: re experiencing it as though it's happening all over again.
Speaker 1: But what we also know people can do is they
Speaker 1: can essentially take a step back in their own imagination
Speaker 1: and see themselves in the experience. They can adopt a
Speaker 1: fly on the wall perspective where they see the bigger picture,
Speaker 1: they see the whole scene. They're looking at themselves in
Speaker 1: that event doing the thing they did, almost like a
Speaker 1: director in a movie, like watching the actors interact. And
Speaker 1: that's another way of getting distance, right, That's another way
Speaker 1: of of breaking yourself out of that very immersed state
Speaker 1: and thinking about your experience from a more objective standpoint.
Speaker 1: And it actually often goes hand in hand with linguistic
Speaker 1: distancing or the distance self talk. So in some studies
Speaker 1: where we we've told people to talk about a negative
Speaker 1: experience using their name, try to work through it. When
Speaker 1: they're done, we have them think about the event and
Speaker 1: tell us, Hey, to what extent where you actually right
Speaker 1: back there reliving the event through your own eyes versus
Speaker 1: seeing yourself in it. The more you use your own name,
Speaker 1: the more you actually see yourself from far. So these
Speaker 1: different kinds of distance are related. I'm going to change
Speaker 1: directions for a second because I want to hit a
Speaker 1: word that's in the title of your book before we
Speaker 1: forget it, or before I forget it, which is you
Speaker 1: use the word harness and I really like that word
Speaker 1: a lot. I'd love to hear why that's the term
Speaker 1: you chose for dealing with chatter, is harnessing it? And
Speaker 1: I suppose we could say the same thing for negative
Speaker 1: and otions. You you probably assume you might use a
Speaker 1: similar word, which would be that we want to harness them.
Speaker 1: That's right, So why is that the word? You know?
Speaker 1: I can't tell you how many people when they learn
Speaker 1: about the negative implications that chatter can have for their life,
Speaker 1: how it can undermine their ability to think and perform,
Speaker 1: create fiction, in their relationships, negatively impact their physical health.
Speaker 1: The immediate question they ask me is how do I
Speaker 1: silence this inner voice? And what I respond to them is, hey,
Speaker 1: that's not something you would want to do given all
Speaker 1: of the amazing things that our inner voice actually does
Speaker 1: for us. We haven't talked much about this, but right,
Speaker 1: but your inner voice is it's a tool, a tool
Speaker 1: of the mind that is really really helpful. Helps you
Speaker 1: keep information active in your heads, simulating, plan control yourself,
Speaker 1: create narratives. And so the challenge here is not to
Speaker 1: get rid of this vital human capacity. Instead, the challenges
Speaker 1: to figure out how do you wield that tool of
Speaker 1: the mind more effectively. And harness is a word that
Speaker 1: I think captures that. It's have got this tool, this
Speaker 1: ability to silently use language to reflect in my life,
Speaker 1: and it's not being properly deployed. For whatever reason, the
Speaker 1: program is not working properly. I'm getting the equivalent of
Speaker 1: error messages and it's making me really upset. How can
Speaker 1: I regain control of that tool? Harness it But you
Speaker 1: don't want to throw the tool out altogether. So that
Speaker 1: was the reason for choosing the word harness. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: love it because I think it speaks to what you're saying, Like,
Speaker 1: the brain isn't going to turn off, the inner voice
Speaker 1: is not going to turn off. It's just it's not
Speaker 1: the way the brain works, and to your point, we
Speaker 1: wouldn't want it to and emotions aren't going to go away,
Speaker 1: but there is a tremendous energy available there. I know
Speaker 1: you're often thought of as an emotional regulation expert, and
Speaker 1: the way if somebody asked me defined emotional regulation, I
Speaker 1: would just say working with my thoughts and emotions skillfully
Speaker 1: enough that I could act acording to my values. Right.
Speaker 1: And so I love that idea of harness because it
Speaker 1: means I can sort of point this entire apparatus at
Speaker 1: my values and I can use that energy that's coming
Speaker 1: from all this to sort of move me in that direction.
Speaker 1: And when I thought about that word harness in your title,
Speaker 1: I went, that's kind of the word I've been looking for. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: we're thinking about things exactly the same way. This comes
Speaker 1: to me. And I don't quite recall if it was
Speaker 1: in your book or not, but it makes me think
Speaker 1: of a question. I think I got it from acceptance
Speaker 1: and commitment therapy, maybe interviewing Steven ce Hayes or someone,
Speaker 1: but it was this question of is this thought useful
Speaker 1: or not? And I love that idea. To your point,
Speaker 1: like we may define chatter as becoming maladaptive, but the
Speaker 1: internal voice, the thoughts, sometimes they are very useful, and
Speaker 1: so I do think it's helpful to ask that question,
Speaker 1: is this useful or not? If it is good, let's
Speaker 1: stay with it. And if it's not, then let's start
Speaker 1: talking about deploying some of the tools you're talking about.
Speaker 1: Absolutely I agree with that. You know, another distinction along
Speaker 1: those lines that I personally find very useful is to
Speaker 1: also think about what aspects of your thoughts and beliefs
Speaker 1: you can control and what you can't. So I don't
Speaker 1: think you have control or human beings can control the
Speaker 1: thoughts that pop into our head. Right I don't know
Speaker 1: if any evidence suggesting how to control or how to
Speaker 1: determine why it is. And I'm walking down the street
Speaker 1: to work at a very dark, inappropriate thought runs through
Speaker 1: my head. I don't know where that comes from, and
Speaker 1: I don't think we've figured out. Maybe one day we will,
Speaker 1: I'm sure we will, but we don't right now. So
Speaker 1: I can't control the thoughts that pop into my head.
Speaker 1: But what I do have enormous control over is how
Speaker 1: I engage with those thoughts once they arise. And I've
Speaker 1: got a fantastic toolbox of skills that I could draw
Speaker 1: on to to push those thoughts in different directions. I
Speaker 1: can accept it, I can reframe it, I can go
Speaker 1: deeper into it. You know, lots of things that I
Speaker 1: can do, and that's my playground. And so I think
Speaker 1: just being aware of that framework for how to think
Speaker 1: about thinking can be really useful because some people get
Speaker 1: down on themselves. They start experiencing chatter like because a
Speaker 1: particular thought popped into their head. I remember teaching a
Speaker 1: class a few years ago. There's a class on self
Speaker 1: control and emotion regulation, and I posed a question to
Speaker 1: the students, what if you have the temptation to do
Speaker 1: something that you don't want to do. And in this case,
Speaker 1: it was like eating after ten pm. Right, But let's
Speaker 1: say you're on a diet. You want to be regulated there.
Speaker 1: So what if you have the temptation, but you are
Speaker 1: actually effective at not giving into that thought? About half
Speaker 1: the class thought that just because you had the temptation
Speaker 1: meant that you hadn't truly exercised self control. And my
Speaker 1: response to them is, you are setting a really high
Speaker 1: bar for being controlled in your life. You know, if
Speaker 1: that were the case for me, I'm a complete self
Speaker 1: control failure every hour of my existence because I'm constantly
Speaker 1: experiencing temptations and thoughts that maybe I don't want to
Speaker 1: be having. I don't always give into them. In fact,
Speaker 1: I usually don't, and I think that's that's where self
Speaker 1: control resides totally. I mean, sit down to meditate for
Speaker 1: five minutes, and you learn very quickly, Like I think
Speaker 1: it's actually one of the benefits of meditation that is
Speaker 1: often undersold is that you sit there and you go, Okay,
Speaker 1: I am not going to think, and then it just happens.
Speaker 1: It just goes and goes. And then again you're like,
Speaker 1: I'm going to pay attention to my breath and they
Speaker 1: just go and you realize very quickly, like at least
Speaker 1: the eye is I think of myself is not running
Speaker 1: that show that factory is is producing on its own.
Speaker 1: And so yeah, since I can't control that part of it,
Speaker 1: I can just relax around that. That's right, and it
Speaker 1: is so liberating. It's incredibly liberating through all. Right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I just had that temptation or I had a thought. Okay,
Speaker 1: if I didn't act on it or I didn't let
Speaker 1: it take over. I mean, it really I think lowers
Speaker 1: the bar for being satisfied with one's self in ways
Speaker 1: I think are truly healthy and adaptive. I think one
Speaker 1: of the things that is most difficult for people, and
Speaker 1: I hear this a lot from people that I do
Speaker 1: work with, is yeah, I remembered all those tools two
Speaker 1: hours after it was over. Do you have any ideas
Speaker 1: or has any of your research led us to any
Speaker 1: insight into how we can more quickly recognize Okay, I'm
Speaker 1: in the middle of a chatter storm and I've got
Speaker 1: tools I can use, because that seems to be a
Speaker 1: very sort of common stumbling block. Two responses to that
Speaker 1: excellent question that taps into I think that I agree
Speaker 1: is a real issue that a lot of people struggle with. First,
Speaker 1: one of the reasons why I find so many of
Speaker 1: the tools in that little skill box I talk about
Speaker 1: that toolbox so exciting is because they are easy to use. Now,
Speaker 1: just because they're easy should not in any way diminish
Speaker 1: their potential benefits. There's a lot of complexity and science
Speaker 1: that went to the identification of these different tools, but
Speaker 1: some of them are just simple to use. And one
Speaker 1: of the things we know about people is the easier
Speaker 1: it is to do it, the more likely they will
Speaker 1: be to do it. And so I think just being
Speaker 1: aware of what some of those easy to use tools
Speaker 1: are can be really empowering and and potentially really you ful.
Speaker 1: You know, temporal distancing, that mental time travel that you
Speaker 1: skillfully proactively use when you detect chatter, and then I
Speaker 1: do as well. If I wasn't aware of that tool,
Speaker 1: I would just have to kind of wait to stumble
Speaker 1: on it. But I know how that works. I can
Speaker 1: implement that in a matter of seconds. That's not an
Speaker 1: exaggeration how quickly that tool is to use. Same thing
Speaker 1: with distance self talk. We've done neuroscience work on that,
Speaker 1: looking at how quickly in the brain you see a
Speaker 1: reduction and emotional reactivity. It's within milliseconds because it's so
Speaker 1: quick to use these tools. So that's one thought. The
Speaker 1: other thing to keep in mind is this, there are
Speaker 1: things you can do to enhance the likelihood that you
Speaker 1: will use different tools when you're struggling with chatter. And
Speaker 1: so there's work on something called implementation intentions or creating
Speaker 1: IF then plans. I think it's really fabulous scientific work,
Speaker 1: and what it involves doing is you come up with
Speaker 1: an if then plan that you rehearse ahead of time.
Speaker 1: If I find myself experience and saying chatter about work,
Speaker 1: then I'm going to use distance, self talk, mental time
Speaker 1: travel and talk to a chatter body and you rehearse
Speaker 1: that plan a little bit and what ends up happening
Speaker 1: then when you come up with this simple plan. It's
Speaker 1: a commitment device that essentially links specific tools with a
Speaker 1: specific situation, enhancing the likelihood that you use those tools
Speaker 1: in that situation. And so if listeners are struggling to
Speaker 1: use the tools in the moment, I would encourage them
Speaker 1: to try creating some of those if then plans and
Speaker 1: then see if that makes a difference. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: for some of those chatter ones. For me, it's not
Speaker 1: an if then, it's a when then. Yeah, when I
Speaker 1: experienced chatter about work then and there's no if about it,
Speaker 1: it's coming sooner or later. Yeah, I agree. I think
Speaker 1: there's a really really helpful tools and I think there's
Speaker 1: something about doing that and repeating that. As a professor.
Speaker 1: You may know what this term is called. I know
Speaker 1: it has a name. I can't think what it is,
Speaker 1: but it's basically like if you think about buying a toyo,
Speaker 1: know you all of a sudden start seeing toyotas everywhere.
Speaker 1: It's not that there's any more of right, It's just
Speaker 1: that you're noticing them. And I think those implementation instructions
Speaker 1: can do a similar thing. We're priming ourselves to look
Speaker 1: for chatter storms. Absolutely, it is remarkable to me how
Speaker 1: much time we spend dealing with negative emotions and stumbling
Speaker 1: our way through those experiences, right, trying to find ways
Speaker 1: of managing it. I think that's that's the case for
Speaker 1: most people when they're experiencing negative emotions. And yeah, the
Speaker 1: more you know about these tools, the less stumbling you'll do,
Speaker 1: and the more deliberate and skillful you can be about
Speaker 1: managing those states. Let's shift into talking about a couple
Speaker 1: of tools that involve the environment, because, like you said,
Speaker 1: I think these are very interesting, and as I've done
Speaker 1: a lot of work on habit study with people, we
Speaker 1: recognize more and more environmental cues are so hugely important.
Speaker 1: I love this work and I find it so fascinating
Speaker 1: that there are ways of interacting with our physical spaces
Speaker 1: that affect our internal conversations, and there are a couple
Speaker 1: of different tools that exist here will deal with the
Speaker 1: elephant in the room first, which is nature and green spaces.
Speaker 1: Lots of people probably have had the experience of enjoying
Speaker 1: going for a walk in a park or tree filled setting.
Speaker 1: What we know now from lots and lots of researches
Speaker 1: that exposing yourself to green spaces doesn't it just kind
Speaker 1: of like feel good? The benefits are much deeper than that.
Speaker 1: When it comes to dealing with chatter. Going for a
Speaker 1: walk in a in a green setting can help you
Speaker 1: manage your chatter, and it can do so in two ways.
Speaker 1: One thing it does is it helps restore your attention,
Speaker 1: so when you're experiencing chatter, all of your attention is
Speaker 1: devoted to the problem you're worried or ruining about. That's
Speaker 1: why when you try to read a book or watch
Speaker 1: a movie when you're dealing with chatter, you often don't
Speaker 1: remember anything you've read or seen because your mind somewhere else.
Speaker 1: What nature does is it surrounds us with really interesting
Speaker 1: things that gently draw our attention away from our chatter
Speaker 1: onto So you're going for a walk and check it
Speaker 1: out the leaves and and the bushes, and you're not
Speaker 1: carefully scrutinizing the geometrical structure of the hedges, right, you're
Speaker 1: just kind of taking it in. And what that does
Speaker 1: for you is it gives you the opportunity for your
Speaker 1: attention to restore, so by the end of the walk
Speaker 1: you have more attention to work with your chatter. Now,
Speaker 1: that's one way I can help. The other way nature
Speaker 1: can help is by providing us with opportunities to experience
Speaker 1: the emotion of awe, which is an emotion we experience
Speaker 1: when we're the presence of something that is much bigger
Speaker 1: than us, that's vast and indescribable, and nature is filled
Speaker 1: with awe inspiring triggers, like a great view or a
Speaker 1: tree that's been there for hundreds of years. You can
Speaker 1: also experience awe from other other things in the world,
Speaker 1: like looking at a skyscraper, or if it's me, I'm
Speaker 1: if I'm contemplating how we can get in airplanes and
Speaker 1: fly safely, like that fills me with law. I still
Speaker 1: don't quite understand how that all works, and what we
Speaker 1: know happens when you experience it's awe is at least
Speaker 1: to what we call shrinking of the self, so you
Speaker 1: feel smaller when you're contemplating something vast and indescribable. And
Speaker 1: when you feel smaller, so does your chatter. So that's
Speaker 1: another way of broadening our perspective. So those are some
Speaker 1: environmental tools. The other one that I would slip in
Speaker 1: really quick because it's so easy to use and many
Speaker 1: people find it useful is organizing and cleaning. When we
Speaker 1: are experiencing chatter, we we often feel like we don't
Speaker 1: have control over our thoughts and feelings. Our mind is racing,
Speaker 1: we can't bring it all under our control. And what
Speaker 1: you can do in that instances you could compensate for
Speaker 1: that feeling by exerting control around you, by tiding up,
Speaker 1: by organizing, and many people find out to be a
Speaker 1: really helpful tool as well. Before I knew about this work,
Speaker 1: I would reflexively clean and put things away when I
Speaker 1: experienced chatter, which is interesting for me because I'm not
Speaker 1: an overly organized kind of guy. I am. I'm someone
Speaker 1: whose room was always messy. Same thing is true into
Speaker 1: my adult life. There's a trail of clothing usually from
Speaker 1: the shower to my office downstairs. But when I'm experiencing chatter,
Speaker 1: everything is always neat and tidy, and so that's another
Speaker 1: way of tuning your mind from the outside in that
Speaker 1: fundamental like recognizing what we can and can't control, and
Speaker 1: you sort of pointed to that earlier that things that
Speaker 1: are out of control fuel chatter. So if we can
Speaker 1: find something we can control and put some energy into,
Speaker 1: I do think it. It's just it's soothing totally and
Speaker 1: the science bears that out. Ethan. Thank you so much
Speaker 1: for coming on the show. I absolutely love the book.
Speaker 1: I've loved this conversation. You and I are going to
Speaker 1: talk a little bit more in the post show conversation
Speaker 1: about a couple other tools listeners. If you'd like to
Speaker 1: get access to that and other great benefits of being
Speaker 1: a member, go to one you Feed dot net slash joint.
Speaker 1: Thanks again, Ethan, really really been fun. Thanks so much
Speaker 1: for having me Eric, who was a truly fun and
Speaker 1: stimulating conversation. If what you just heard was helpful to you,
Speaker 1: please consider making a monthly donation to support the One
Speaker 1: You Feed podcast. When you join our membership community with
Speaker 1: this monthly pledge, you get lots of exclusive members only benefits.
Speaker 1: It's our way of saying thank you for your support. Now.
Speaker 1: We are so grateful for the members of our community.
Speaker 1: We wouldn't be able to do what we do without
Speaker 1: their support, and we don't take a single dollar for granted.
Speaker 1: To learn more, make a donation at any level and
Speaker 1: become a member of the one you Feed community. Go
Speaker 1: to when you feed dot net slash Join the One
Speaker 1: You Feed podcast would like to sincerely thank our sponsors
Speaker 1: for supporting the show.