Speaker 1: If you're gonna do a cognitive exercise, then probably what
Speaker 1: you want to do is something like acceptance. Some of
Speaker 1: these woods they kind of made you with a puke.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the one you feed Throughout time, great thinkers
Speaker 1: have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have, quotes
Speaker 1: like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you
Speaker 1: think ring true, and yet for many of us, our
Speaker 1: thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity,
Speaker 1: self pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't
Speaker 1: have instead of what we do. We think things that
Speaker 1: hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not
Speaker 1: just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent,
Speaker 1: and creative effort to make a life worth living. This
Speaker 1: podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in
Speaker 1: the right direction, how they feed their good wolf m
Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us. Our guest today is Dr Shriney Play,
Speaker 1: Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and
Speaker 1: invited faculty at Harvard Business School. He graduated with the
Speaker 1: highest number of awards during his residency training at Harvard,
Speaker 1: and his latest book is Life Unlocked. Seven Revolutionary lessons
Speaker 1: to overcome fear. Here's the interview. Hi Shriny, Welcome to
Speaker 1: the show. Thanks so much for having me. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: a it's a pleasure to have you on. I'm I'm
Speaker 1: fascinated by a lot of the work that you're doing
Speaker 1: in the neuroscience field and tying that to both how
Speaker 1: we function in our lives and in the business world. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's a it's a huge passion of mine, um
Speaker 1: the neuroscience itself, but really also because I think it's
Speaker 1: a it's important for me from a human behavioral perspective.
Speaker 1: I think it's the thing I'm most I'm most enjoying
Speaker 1: about neuroscience right now is that everybody has a brain,
Speaker 1: and so it doesn't really matter what you're doing, you know,
Speaker 1: whether it relates to corporations or your own life, for
Speaker 1: food or fashion of the arts, the brain is relevant.
Speaker 1: And so I think for me, because I myself have
Speaker 1: had such a diverse range of interests, it is particularly
Speaker 1: exciting for me to be able to apply the brain
Speaker 1: science to a number of different fields. Yet it is
Speaker 1: a fascinating, very fascinating topic. I might debate that everybody
Speaker 1: has a brain. If you look to your right to
Speaker 1: my co host here, but UM got it, got it
Speaker 1: insulted from time to time. So so our podcast is
Speaker 1: called The One You Feed, and it's based on the
Speaker 1: parable of two wolves, where there's a grandfather who's talking
Speaker 1: with his grandson. He says, in life, there are two
Speaker 1: wolves inside of us. One is a good wolf, which
Speaker 1: represents things like kindness and bravery, love, and the other
Speaker 1: is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and
Speaker 1: hatred and fear. And the grandson stops and he thinks,
Speaker 1: and he says, grandfather, which one wins? And the grandfather says,
Speaker 1: the one you feed. So I'd like to start off
Speaker 1: and ask you what that parable means to you in
Speaker 1: your life and in the work that you're doing. I
Speaker 1: think I think a lot, So I think from a
Speaker 1: from a number of different perspectives. I think I can
Speaker 1: relate this to my own life and related to the
Speaker 1: people I work with. Maybe I'll tell you a little
Speaker 1: bit about the work that I'm doing, because I think
Speaker 1: we're just about to let the world know what we're
Speaker 1: actually doing, because the website doesn't really tell people what
Speaker 1: we're doing. Uh So, my my background is in brain science,
Speaker 1: UM and in psychiatry, and what I've done is started
Speaker 1: a company called Neuro Business Group that's really dedicated to
Speaker 1: helping people overcome the psychological obstacles using targeted methods and
Speaker 1: brain science so that they can live happier and more
Speaker 1: productive lives. And we're using these methods in corporation. So
Speaker 1: we have Energy Corporate, but we also have a self
Speaker 1: help division. We have an education division where we're working
Speaker 1: with kids and with teachers. We have a lifestyle and
Speaker 1: Culinary division where we're working with food and fashion, and
Speaker 1: we have an arts division as well. And we have
Speaker 1: products and services in these different divisions that relate very
Speaker 1: much to this parable in terms of what you're feeding people,
Speaker 1: you know, and what we're feeding ourselves over time. So
Speaker 1: I'll give you a brief answer first and see which
Speaker 1: direction you'd like to move the conversation. I think, okay,
Speaker 1: you know, in my own life, I think that probably
Speaker 1: the thing that I've most been inspired by is a
Speaker 1: sense of possibility. And you know, for a number of
Speaker 1: different reasons. I think a large part of it was
Speaker 1: just the lovingness of the family that I grew up with.
Speaker 1: I really believed in a in a very expensive sense
Speaker 1: of possibility, and so I fed that wealth a lot um.
Speaker 1: And what that means is, when you decide to feed
Speaker 1: the wolf of possibility, you're also deciding that it's okay
Speaker 1: if you fail, it's okay if you're wrong, it's okay
Speaker 1: if you were just being delusional about something. Because I
Speaker 1: think as soon as you get information along your course,
Speaker 1: along the path, you can redirect yourself to the destination
Speaker 1: that you want to get to. So from from the
Speaker 1: highest level, I think it's really feeding the world possibility
Speaker 1: that I think was a very positive thing for me.
Speaker 1: I think in my work with people, um, you know what,
Speaker 1: what I've noticed is that my own limitations have also
Speaker 1: informed some of the work that I've had with people.
Speaker 1: So for example, I worked in a brain imaging lab
Speaker 1: at Harvard UM and still affiliated with Harvard, and you know,
Speaker 1: I learned a lot working there for seventeen years. But
Speaker 1: I think one of the worlds that I've fed that
Speaker 1: was negative for me is that I questioned and over
Speaker 1: questioned my desire to be an entrepreneur. And as a result,
Speaker 1: I stayed in that lab for seventeen years rather than
Speaker 1: leaving earlier. And while I fully appreciate and I've leveraged
Speaker 1: that disadvantage because I, you know, I aren't a lot
Speaker 1: in the time and the extra time I spent there,
Speaker 1: I don't necessarily think that that was necessary. And so
Speaker 1: the way that I like to use both of those
Speaker 1: examples is when I work with people, I really like
Speaker 1: to help them connect with the ability to feed a
Speaker 1: sense of possibility and also to not feed the wolf
Speaker 1: of fear. Um. And so because I used to direct
Speaker 1: the anxiety to sort of service, um. You know, a
Speaker 1: lot of my background experience is really in helping people
Speaker 1: figure out what to do about this wolf of fear
Speaker 1: because it's such an intimidating wolf, in part because that
Speaker 1: wolf is problematic when you see it, meaning when it's conscious,
Speaker 1: but it's also problematic when it's unconscious. Yeah, let me
Speaker 1: let me let's explore that a little bit more, because
Speaker 1: I that's one of the things I picked up in
Speaker 1: your work that I thought was really interesting was you
Speaker 1: talk about obviously, you know, if I see a snake,
Speaker 1: I feel afraid, and I know I'm afraid, But you
Speaker 1: talk a lot about and and you can go into
Speaker 1: the science of it out how we are are amigila,
Speaker 1: which is a part of our brain that registers fear
Speaker 1: is registering fear often that we're not even aware of,
Speaker 1: and that that takes a toll on us in a
Speaker 1: lot of ways that we don't know about. So could
Speaker 1: you could you expand on that should so you know
Speaker 1: there are a number of different The way we study
Speaker 1: the phenomenon is we ask people to lie in a
Speaker 1: brain imaging scanner and then we show while they're lying down,
Speaker 1: we show them images of fear or threat, and then
Speaker 1: we look at what happens to the brain when they're
Speaker 1: looking at that image and what happens when they're not
Speaker 1: looking at it. Now, if you show someone an image
Speaker 1: for thirty to fifty milliseconds, they're going to know that
Speaker 1: they saw that. And so when they look at that,
Speaker 1: what we see is that the amygdala, the anxiety center
Speaker 1: of the brain, lights up. So that teaches us that
Speaker 1: conscious fear, you know, anything you're afraid of, whether you're
Speaker 1: afraid that you may not make the mortgage, whether you're
Speaker 1: afraid that you're not going to be able to live
Speaker 1: long enough to see your grant, or whether you're a
Speaker 1: raid that life's just going to be meaningless and purposelessly. Whatever,
Speaker 1: these conscious fears are actually activate the avngela. However, if
Speaker 1: you show someone a picture for ten to thirty milliseconds,
Speaker 1: that's really not long enough for the brain to register it,
Speaker 1: so that you know that consciously, and so when you
Speaker 1: actually think about that, you know when when when you
Speaker 1: actually show someone a face for ten to thirty milliseconds,
Speaker 1: they have no idea that they've seen that face. And
Speaker 1: usually we quickly follow that with a neutral expression and
Speaker 1: four hundred and fifty milliseconds and we'll ask people what
Speaker 1: did you see, and they'll say, I saw a neutral face,
Speaker 1: so they have no awareness that they've seen the fearful
Speaker 1: face of the threatening face. However, when we look in
Speaker 1: the brain, this actually activates the amantella as well. In fact,
Speaker 1: the amantella is so sensitive that even in people who
Speaker 1: are blind, people in whom the seeing center is actually
Speaker 1: knocked out in the brain these people, if you show
Speaker 1: them a fearful and threatening face, the amygdala lights up
Speaker 1: as well. And the reason that happens is that that
Speaker 1: fear enters the eye, it activates the anxiety center, but
Speaker 1: it doesn't get interpreted by the seeing brain. So what
Speaker 1: these experiments tell us is that even when we're not
Speaker 1: aware of fear, it still activates the amigdala. And so
Speaker 1: what a lot of studies have shown is that a
Speaker 1: lot of us have had early life experiences that we
Speaker 1: associate with fear. You know, maybe a certain kind of person,
Speaker 1: a certain kind of location, spiders, I mean, the whole
Speaker 1: They all kinds of associations that we make. And these
Speaker 1: associations are like lifelong relationships for a lot of people
Speaker 1: because they form really tightly. And as soon as you
Speaker 1: get anything, any exposure to anything that reminds you of it,
Speaker 1: you actually activate the amygdala as well. So people obviously
Speaker 1: the fear is unconscious, so it's not like your to yourself,
Speaker 1: You're saying, hey, I thing, I've got unconscious fear. You know,
Speaker 1: that's a problem. What we can do is infer that
Speaker 1: we have unconscious fear because the amygdala, or the anxiety
Speaker 1: center of the brain connects to the thinking center of
Speaker 1: the brain. So in that center that's where we think,
Speaker 1: where we make decisions, where we innovate, you know, in
Speaker 1: that center is that there are connections directly with the amygdala.
Speaker 1: So when you have unconscious fear, it it activates the
Speaker 1: amygdala and it starts to disrupt the earthquakes, there sends
Speaker 1: after shocks to the frontal lobe where you're thinking, and
Speaker 1: so as a result, you're not able to decide, assess,
Speaker 1: to risk, innovate. And so what you generally find is
Speaker 1: you hit a wall, or you find that you're making
Speaker 1: the same mistake over and over again, or you find
Speaker 1: that you just can't figure out you know, what's happening
Speaker 1: and so, or you find that that you just feel
Speaker 1: like you're stuck somewhere along the way. So when you
Speaker 1: when you have these sense nations, one of the things
Speaker 1: that this research teaches us is rather than trying to
Speaker 1: think yourself through it, reflect on the possibility that unconscious
Speaker 1: fear exists and then try to reverse that. And there
Speaker 1: a whole lot of ways that we have that we
Speaker 1: that we help people institute in order to reverse that
Speaker 1: by directly accessing the amygdala, the frontal lobe through a
Speaker 1: series of exercises, which I'm happy to tell you about
Speaker 1: if you're interested. Sure, So let me see if I
Speaker 1: if I if I can summarize that you're saying that
Speaker 1: we in our lives, we bump up against situations that
Speaker 1: are frightening for us. They trigger something in us we're
Speaker 1: not consciously aware of it. It triggers the amygdala, and
Speaker 1: that then is interfering with our overall effectiveness. It's making
Speaker 1: our our inability to think clearly and make decisions. Uh,
Speaker 1: is being hindered by that, even though we're not aware
Speaker 1: of it, and it's triggered in in these situations you
Speaker 1: describe where we sort of run into the same barriers,
Speaker 1: there's something in those situations that's triggering that fear. Is
Speaker 1: that a pretty good summary of what we just talked about. Absolutely, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's exactly it. So I guess let's let's talk a
Speaker 1: little bit about how do you what's a good way
Speaker 1: to recognize that you you alluded to it a little
Speaker 1: bit about when we find ourselves stuck in the same situations.
Speaker 1: Maybe you could just spend another minute on ways to identify,
Speaker 1: and then let's go into some of the things people
Speaker 1: could do to once say, if they think that's what's happening,
Speaker 1: how do you work on something that you're not even
Speaker 1: conscious of is happening. So so, the overarching concept is
Speaker 1: what I've mentioned, which is that if you find that
Speaker 1: you're hitting a wall in your life with anything, you
Speaker 1: just can't make headway with your work. You can't make
Speaker 1: headway in relationships, you're finding that you're feeling stuck, or
Speaker 1: you're finding that you're making the same mistake over and
Speaker 1: over again. You it's really wise to suspect that there's
Speaker 1: unconscious fear and trying to change that. So in my
Speaker 1: own practice, I have a therapy practice and a coaching practice.
Speaker 1: What I'll find is, you know, if I'm working with CEOs,
Speaker 1: they'll be unable to hit their quarterly targets um you know,
Speaker 1: over and over again, even though at a logical level,
Speaker 1: they feel like they're trying to, they're doing everything they
Speaker 1: need to do to get there, and so they can
Speaker 1: really see where they're going wrong. And at that point
Speaker 1: we start to bring up this notion of you know,
Speaker 1: there's something going on under the radar that could be
Speaker 1: impacting you. You know, when it comes to a in
Speaker 1: my in my therapy practice, there are a lot of
Speaker 1: different things, like you know, for example, people will indulge
Speaker 1: in risky behavior, you know, sexual behavior, substances, things that
Speaker 1: they don't even necessarily want to do consciously, and they
Speaker 1: know the advantages and disadvantages. They can say it out loud,
Speaker 1: but then all of a sudden between sessions, they come
Speaker 1: in and they're like, I don't know what I was doing.
Speaker 1: I was just surfing the net. I was thinking, Hey,
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna chill out. And the next thing I
Speaker 1: knew I was involved in the situation. And I was like,
Speaker 1: oh man, how did I get involved? I hated doing it,
Speaker 1: I hated getting there. I hated everything about it, and
Speaker 1: I felt like I couldn't stop. And so we could
Speaker 1: just take the approach of well, let's go there and
Speaker 1: try to have the cognition like you think yourself through it.
Speaker 1: But if you just say that generically, it's not that helpful.
Speaker 1: So in terms of how you can help people through
Speaker 1: the situation, we've developed a paradigm and they're you know,
Speaker 1: it's a very big issue, but I'll just sort of
Speaker 1: mentioned one of the brief things we do. We developed
Speaker 1: a paradigm that we defined by the mnemonic circuit see I, R, C, A,
Speaker 1: and each of those letters stands for something, and each
Speaker 1: is based on a tremendous amount of research that shows
Speaker 1: that you can actually reinstate the balance in the anxiety
Speaker 1: center and in the thinking center to help you manage
Speaker 1: this differently. The first scene stands for chunking. So a
Speaker 1: lot of times people are overwhelmed by a task that
Speaker 1: they have at hand. You know, you know, oh, my god,
Speaker 1: how am I gonna get my personal life to together,
Speaker 1: get my work life together, and get all the stuff together.
Speaker 1: And so when you present your brain with so much information,
Speaker 1: your brain freaks out. And so part of what we
Speaker 1: teach people is how to break information up into smaller
Speaker 1: pieces so that they can actually chunk it and feed
Speaker 1: the brain in a way that that makes sense. So
Speaker 1: you don't in that case. You know, it's another metaphor
Speaker 1: for feeding in the world. You're not just taking a
Speaker 1: whole big chunk of something and saying, here, you eat it.
Speaker 1: You're basically saying, okay, let me cut this up indigestible
Speaker 1: so you can actually eat that. So the eye stands
Speaker 1: for ignore, which is ignore mine chatter. And you know
Speaker 1: all of us talk about feeding wolves. You know, we
Speaker 1: all have these mental constructs and ideas about who we
Speaker 1: are and my good and my bad and my guilty.
Speaker 1: Should have done that? Should I not have done that?
Speaker 1: What's the right thing, what's the wrong thing? I mean,
Speaker 1: at any one point in time, humans have all these
Speaker 1: ideas floating around in their heads. And so one of
Speaker 1: the things we've learned through mindfulness is that if you
Speaker 1: focus simply on the breath rather than listening to that story,
Speaker 1: the brain just makes up stories all the time, and
Speaker 1: we tend to believe those stories when those stories are
Speaker 1: not even real. So the eye basically helps you to
Speaker 1: bring your focus back to your breath, and as a practice,
Speaker 1: that can be really helpful. Yeah, we are. The episode
Speaker 1: we released just yesterday is a guest Dan Harris, who's
Speaker 1: ABC News correspondent, and he wrote a book called ten
Speaker 1: Percent Happier and it talks about meditation. But he originally
Speaker 1: wanted the title of the book to be the voice
Speaker 1: in my head as an asshole, which is uh, you know,
Speaker 1: which in the book is very much right, Like you've
Speaker 1: gotta disidentify from from those constant that chatter that doesn't
Speaker 1: doesn't that is so habitual and doesn't mean anything. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you know, it could be anything from sort of
Speaker 1: like just the worst things you because your brain just
Speaker 1: comes up with all kinds of things about you, So
Speaker 1: you know, it can be like really, it can be
Speaker 1: somebody trying to recover from a hangover and they get
Speaker 1: up on a Monday morning like, oh man, I'm a
Speaker 1: horrible person, Like what did I do? And said, well,
Speaker 1: I don't do anything, but just feel like a really
Speaker 1: bad person because your brain is sort of withdrawing. It
Speaker 1: doesn't like what's going on, and so it starts creating
Speaker 1: these narratives. So learning how to quiet down those narratives
Speaker 1: is a is a really important thing. The third is
Speaker 1: reality check, which is essentially this too shall pass, and
Speaker 1: it's about reminding people that when you're in the midst
Speaker 1: of a catastrophe, you often feel like, oh my God,
Speaker 1: like everything you know, the sky is going to fall down,
Speaker 1: so part of and it's obvious when you're not in
Speaker 1: the catastrophe, of course it's going to pass, but when
Speaker 1: you're caught up in that storm of fear, it often
Speaker 1: feels like it's gonna last forever. And so teaching people
Speaker 1: to remind themselves that this too shall pass the reality
Speaker 1: check can be really helpful. The fourth thing is a
Speaker 1: control check, and it's really about reminding yourself that that's
Speaker 1: like the serenity prayer, which is essentially that the stuff
Speaker 1: you can control the stuff you can't control, and rather
Speaker 1: than feeling like you've got to control the whole ocean,
Speaker 1: try to figure out how to serve the waves, because
Speaker 1: life really is too complex to try to control every
Speaker 1: single element of it. And so once you can try
Speaker 1: to figure out what you're going to be surfing and
Speaker 1: how you're going to be surfing, it it life actually
Speaker 1: takes on a very different kind of field to it.
Speaker 1: And the last is attentional shift. The ace for attentional shift,
Speaker 1: and what that is is about what you're feeling. Because
Speaker 1: a lot of people will tend to you know, when
Speaker 1: you when you were afraid, it actually biases your your
Speaker 1: frontal lobe or your thinking brain to look for threat.
Speaker 1: So you're always looking over your shoulder. You're always trying
Speaker 1: to figure out what's going to get me next. And
Speaker 1: the brain has like a flashlight, which is the intentional center,
Speaker 1: and it's always placing this flashlight on threat or essentially
Speaker 1: feeding any kind of threat stimulus. So you've got to
Speaker 1: really train your brain to spend a certain amount of
Speaker 1: time looking at other stuff. You know, Distraction, just as
Speaker 1: a pure technique, has been shown to reinstate the balance
Speaker 1: in the amygdala and in the front of you. So
Speaker 1: I think one of the things you teach people is
Speaker 1: you know, if you really want to be miserable, it's
Speaker 1: very easy to be miserable, and you just have to
Speaker 1: look at the news or look at how many people
Speaker 1: are suffering in the world. There are good logical reasons
Speaker 1: to be miserable for your entire life. So, you know,
Speaker 1: one of the things I like to say to people
Speaker 1: is you have to create some kind of balance that
Speaker 1: you feel. And my balance, I don't mean, you know,
Speaker 1: perfectly instated, but some kind of measure of time where
Speaker 1: you say, I'm gonna think of good stuff and I'm
Speaker 1: gonna think of good stuff, not because I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: force myself to say life's amazing and I'm a positive
Speaker 1: being and I've got what I sometimes refer to as
Speaker 1: yoga age, which is like, I'm so angry, but I'm
Speaker 1: gonna smile and I'm gonna be like that self possessed.
Speaker 1: It's sort of like, you know, I'm really self at Wow,
Speaker 1: it's really great to meet you. And then the undertone
Speaker 1: is like and I hate you and I hate my life.
Speaker 1: So you know, when you force yourself to do that
Speaker 1: kind of thing, it's not that helpful. So it's just
Speaker 1: about saying, listen, you know, I'm awake for x the
Speaker 1: number of hours. If I think only of problems, it's
Speaker 1: just it's just not going to be feeding my brain
Speaker 1: bad stuff. So why don't I actually think about stuff
Speaker 1: I like to think about or do that makes me
Speaker 1: feel good? And that's what the a's for. So those
Speaker 1: five things actually have a lot of research backing them
Speaker 1: up that show that that when you're having this unconscious
Speaker 1: fear or and you don't know it and what's happening
Speaker 1: is you're not able to make good decisions and you're
Speaker 1: stuck in your life, just trying that out can actually
Speaker 1: really help you. And so that's one of the ways
Speaker 1: in which we start to tell people to think about it.
Speaker 1: But there's a lot more about it that we can
Speaker 1: talk about. I think you might have just summarized thirty
Speaker 1: two episodes of our show in uh in a five
Speaker 1: letter acronym there, because those topics, those themes come up
Speaker 1: over and over and over as we talk to guests,
Speaker 1: you know, thinking about where am I, what am I
Speaker 1: thinking about? UM, what are the actions I'm taking? You know,
Speaker 1: breaking those actions down, taking action even we don't feel
Speaker 1: like if those things come up over and over, that's
Speaker 1: a Really that's a really great, great acronym. So what
Speaker 1: do you see? Are you able to see a lessoning
Speaker 1: and unconscious fear? Have you taken this back through the
Speaker 1: brain scans and see that these techniques what they're doing
Speaker 1: to to decrease that that unconscious fear. Yes, there's been
Speaker 1: a ton of research that's been done to look at this.
Speaker 1: And what happens is the amygdala basically gets quietened down
Speaker 1: and then the frontal lobe start having blood redirected towards
Speaker 1: it so that it can do what it's supposed to do.
Speaker 1: So that's sort of two of the major things that happen.
Speaker 1: The when the mindfulness stuff also turns on what we
Speaker 1: call the default mode network, which is really something I
Speaker 1: call the purring center of the brain. It's just usually
Speaker 1: a couple of different regions that are connected that are
Speaker 1: always of purring, and when you focus, it turns that
Speaker 1: stuff off. But when you have this mindfulness, it turns
Speaker 1: it back on. You become more creative, you find creative solutions.
Speaker 1: So I would say that among the different changes, uh,
Speaker 1: it's really sending blood back to the frontal lobe, decreasing
Speaker 1: the activation in the amygdala, and then you know, turning
Speaker 1: this this creativity center back on with the mound, with
Speaker 1: the mindfulness, so that you can start to find solutions
Speaker 1: that you want to find. One of the things that
Speaker 1: you said in your book that I really liked, and
Speaker 1: I think it's important to these things because we we're
Speaker 1: certainly a culture that wants five easy tips to never
Speaker 1: be a rate again. Right, And and you taught you've
Speaker 1: got a line that says making a positive effort one
Speaker 1: time will not suffice to overcome the evolutionary priority the
Speaker 1: brain gives to fear. So I think you're getting it.
Speaker 1: A couple of things. They're one is maybe you could
Speaker 1: talk to us about why the brain prioritizes fear, what
Speaker 1: you mean by the evolutionary priority, and then then expand
Speaker 1: on that idea that this isn't a one time thing.
Speaker 1: So so essentially the fundamental wiring of the brain is
Speaker 1: constructed in a way to help us survive, so we
Speaker 1: have all these survival circuits and and part of the
Speaker 1: reason it's so hyper sensitive to threat is because from
Speaker 1: an evolutionary standpoint, when there were while animals rolling around
Speaker 1: and there was so much more that was unknown and
Speaker 1: so much more exposure our survival circuits is to help us.
Speaker 1: But keeping these survival circuits at that level of tension
Speaker 1: in today's environment is overkilled. And so a lot of
Speaker 1: times what happens is is people still have this this
Speaker 1: kind of wiring in place, but but they're not able
Speaker 1: to to to do anything about it. And sometimes someone
Speaker 1: will take something like circle and just do it once
Speaker 1: and say, yeah, I guess it was kind of helpful
Speaker 1: and that was that. But you know, the wiring in
Speaker 1: the brain is pretty sort of well cemented. The bad
Speaker 1: news is that it's really hard to change. The good
Speaker 1: news is that you can, and we're finding increasingly that
Speaker 1: you can actually rewire the brain. In fact, things like mindfulness,
Speaker 1: for example, actually change the gray matter and white matter
Speaker 1: in the brain. So we don't we actually know that
Speaker 1: that you can change this. But repetition of these positive habits,
Speaker 1: repetition of feeding the stuff you need to feed, is
Speaker 1: reelly what is so critical in trying to change behavior.
Speaker 1: Having said that, you know, there are there a number
Speaker 1: of caveats, and maybe I'll mention one at this point
Speaker 1: because sometimes but are frustrated by this approach because they
Speaker 1: feel like, you know, I don't even have time to think,
Speaker 1: you know, the fear just comes out of nowhere and
Speaker 1: I'm freaking out, and then I'm not going to be like, well,
Speaker 1: let me try to chunk this up, and then why
Speaker 1: don't I just try to do a reality check or
Speaker 1: control check. And we now know that cognitive regulation, which
Speaker 1: is basically controlling thought, fails the stress test. So if
Speaker 1: you have some kind of background, so if you had
Speaker 1: a fight with a partner or spouse, if you just
Speaker 1: open your email box and you're freaking out because you
Speaker 1: could tend like terrible messages, trying to then go into
Speaker 1: this five step procedure can be really difficult because your
Speaker 1: brains already you know, figuratively on fire. So in that case,
Speaker 1: probably the only taking the want to turn to is
Speaker 1: the eye, which is the mindfulness piece, because we call
Speaker 1: that bottom up anxiety, and bottom up anxiety can actually
Speaker 1: get worse when you try to control your thinking. So
Speaker 1: if the anxiety builds up as a result of something,
Speaker 1: you're not sure, I'm sure if you're gonna get fired
Speaker 1: if you have, you know, once this builds up, you
Speaker 1: can use these regulations strategies like circle, But if it
Speaker 1: comes out of nowhere, then then you want to actually
Speaker 1: start with something like mindfulness. Nevertheless, you're connected with your question.
Speaker 1: You really, regardless of what you do, you want to
Speaker 1: make it a repetitive practice so that you can rewire
Speaker 1: your brain through that repetition. So that's that's excellent. Let
Speaker 1: me go back to what you just said there right
Speaker 1: before that, which was around the term I've heard used
Speaker 1: is when you get flooded, when you're when you're flooded,
Speaker 1: you're no longer capable of good cognitive thought. Your brain
Speaker 1: is but you know, the logic center is is out
Speaker 1: of whack. And so what you're saying is when that happens,
Speaker 1: going to the mindfulness thing, going to some sort of
Speaker 1: breathing exercise is the way, because you're not going to
Speaker 1: be able to talk yourself out of rationally at once
Speaker 1: you're at that flooded point, right absolutely, And so mindfulness
Speaker 1: and other kinds of if you're gonna do a cognitive exercise,
Speaker 1: then probably what you want to do is something like acceptance,
Speaker 1: which again, you know, I mean some of these words
Speaker 1: they kind of make you when a put because they're like,
Speaker 1: you know, what are you gonna do? Like let's find
Speaker 1: ourselves like accepting ourselves and so it makes you feel
Speaker 1: so annoyed because you feel like you have to be
Speaker 1: some kind of asthetic or spiritual advisor walking around the mountain.
Speaker 1: And so it's actually that what I will say to
Speaker 1: it was a good first step is to actually say,
Speaker 1: you know what's going on and what are what are
Speaker 1: my expectations from my human self because a lot of
Speaker 1: times this ideal that we're constructing our heads really doesn't exist.
Speaker 1: And so, you know, I really believe in excellence in
Speaker 1: our life, but I think that perfection is a real problem.
Speaker 1: It makes you slam on the brakes all the time,
Speaker 1: and so your whole life becomes one jerky episode after another.
Speaker 1: And sometimes you just want to go through the bad
Speaker 1: traffic and you know you'll you'll figure a way out
Speaker 1: at the end of that. So part of what I
Speaker 1: say to people is, if you're not in the mood to,
Speaker 1: you know, take your attentional flashlight and place it in
Speaker 1: your breath. And frankly, some people find that just weird.
Speaker 1: You know. Part of what I would say to them is, well,
Speaker 1: let's just think about what you think you should be doing. Like,
Speaker 1: you just got twenty emails that were bad. They're freaking
Speaker 1: you out. You know, you're a sensible human being. Like
Speaker 1: if you looked at that and you were like, wow,
Speaker 1: I feel so happy that I got like twenty horrible emails,
Speaker 1: you might even be concerned about a person like that. So,
Speaker 1: you know, I think that if we can learn a
Speaker 1: greater degree of self acceptance and we can learn that this,
Speaker 1: that that the most we can do is to really
Speaker 1: proceed through life in an active way, know the things
Speaker 1: we know, and do the best we can. I think
Speaker 1: that's a huge first step rather than saying, listen, I
Speaker 1: gotta be in control of this, and why am I
Speaker 1: not in control of this? And I think part of
Speaker 1: the problem is that a lot of public appearances are
Speaker 1: all about people saying how I conquered this and how
Speaker 1: I got through that, and and you know, you look
Speaker 1: at Facebook, not to depress anybody's sort of like, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, this is me at the party. I was
Speaker 1: looking so happy. I mean, people like, what's wrong with
Speaker 1: my life? But nobody actually has a life like that.
Speaker 1: And so you know what I say to people is
Speaker 1: just you know, reframe that, gentle. I think the big
Speaker 1: thing here is really you know, when when you when
Speaker 1: I saw the parable and I was thinking about the wealth.
Speaker 1: You know, part of my own insanity of the brain
Speaker 1: is that I just like love the brain. And when
Speaker 1: I look at people, one of the big issues is
Speaker 1: that they're not kind to the wolf that is the brain.
Speaker 1: They're just hard. They're like, listen, I should have done that.
Speaker 1: Nobody's saying don't be disciplined. Nobody's saying don't want the best.
Speaker 1: Nobody saying don't try use effort. But you can do
Speaker 1: that in a kinder way towards yourself. And I find
Speaker 1: that in my own practice, even a lot of people
Speaker 1: who have stopped destructive behaviors still hate themselves, and that
Speaker 1: hatred shows up in the form of something else in
Speaker 1: some other way. And so I think the kindness piece
Speaker 1: being kind to what to yourself and your brain really
Speaker 1: doesn't matter in the long hole. I agree. I think
Speaker 1: a lot of times, if if I would never talk
Speaker 1: to other people sometimes the way that I talked to myself. Um.
Speaker 1: And I think that there's this idea that if we
Speaker 1: are hard on ourselves that that will drive better behavior,
Speaker 1: although almost all the studies seem to show that doesn't
Speaker 1: really work, that that you know, hammering yourself all the
Speaker 1: time does not not produce the needed change. Um. One
Speaker 1: of the things that you um you talked about that
Speaker 1: I wanted to go back to there is you mentioned
Speaker 1: the idea of stop and start and worried about being wrong.
Speaker 1: And I've heard you say before that we'll do an
Speaker 1: edit here because I can't find it for a second,
Speaker 1: but I'll make it sound like you know what you're doing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that would be. That's why you're here. Oh here, it
Speaker 1: is all right, you um. One of the things that
Speaker 1: you say that is important in a line, I like
Speaker 1: you say move before you know it's okay, which I
Speaker 1: think ties very much to that idea of perfectionism or
Speaker 1: expecting to always get it right. You've also talked about
Speaker 1: how much more creative you're able to be and how
Speaker 1: much more likely you can hit your goals if you're
Speaker 1: willing to admit or if you're willing to be wrong,
Speaker 1: and I think those things tie together. You want to
Speaker 1: lead us through some more of that. Sure. In fact,
Speaker 1: the next book that I'm writing this show is all
Speaker 1: about that. So it's cool that you picked up in
Speaker 1: that particular sort of subject um. A couple of different things.
Speaker 1: So one is that we often assume that we get
Speaker 1: to where we want to get to because we know
Speaker 1: how to get there, partly because we conveniently forget all
Speaker 1: the times that we were lost. So a lot of
Speaker 1: successful people will say, oh, the way you do this
Speaker 1: is you go to A through A B, C, D
Speaker 1: O E and you get to the end. But you know,
Speaker 1: I'll often say to business people, if I gave you
Speaker 1: Steve Jobs this entire business plan, like every single concrete
Speaker 1: step that he took, do you think you could build Apple?
Speaker 1: And most people would say no, of course not, because
Speaker 1: there are ineffable things that have not been reported. So
Speaker 1: a lot of times simple action can be the highest
Speaker 1: form of intelligence you can give yourself. Sometimes thought is
Speaker 1: not enough. So the first thing I would say is,
Speaker 1: when you're stuck thinking, remember that you can try out something.
Speaker 1: Start with the low risk, move see what's going on,
Speaker 1: and then move on. Now, the basis of this is
Speaker 1: really from something that there's a concept it's called tinkering,
Speaker 1: which is essentially, you know some of the theories around evolution,
Speaker 1: So teach us that the body has always you know,
Speaker 1: the body existed and then the environment had certain signals
Speaker 1: and then the body had to adapt to that. So
Speaker 1: you know, if you're in a high altitude place, your
Speaker 1: your body has to adapt to figure out how to
Speaker 1: breathe in that environment. And so the body takes in
Speaker 1: information and it keeps on changing some it tinkers with
Speaker 1: it until you can get to the next stage. Now,
Speaker 1: if you have no action and you're waiting for some
Speaker 1: nirvana to sort of land on you, then it can
Speaker 1: lead to nowhere. But if you take one step forward
Speaker 1: towards your destination, you are one step forward or you're
Speaker 1: going towards something where you're gonna learn that you're wrong.
Speaker 1: Standing still doesn't really get you anywhere. So I think
Speaker 1: that particular line is really about when you make a
Speaker 1: move before you know. There are a couple of things
Speaker 1: that could be helpful. One is what we call preemptive perception,
Speaker 1: just sort of everyday intuition, which is that the aim
Speaker 1: often registers what you need to do before you know
Speaker 1: what to do consciously. So if you have some kind
Speaker 1: of hunch that you need to go somewhere and it's
Speaker 1: not some majorly dangerous thing, you can actually move towards that,
Speaker 1: and you can move towards that and and say, well,
Speaker 1: you know, I wonder where this takes me also a
Speaker 1: lot of times when we first start moving towards something,
Speaker 1: we learned something along the way, Like you know, a
Speaker 1: lot of times I'll come across college students will say
Speaker 1: I have no idea what to do, Like I just
Speaker 1: have no idea. And they're expecting that all along from
Speaker 1: their first year. They're expecting that when they get to
Speaker 1: their major and the major in biology, that they're actually
Speaker 1: gonna want to be a biologist. But they graduate and
Speaker 1: they're like, you know, I don't really like biology, and
Speaker 1: I don't really want to be in a lab, and
Speaker 1: I don't know what to do with this. I kind
Speaker 1: of want to play guitar. And so it's like, well,
Speaker 1: you know, what's my biology degree going to do for me?
Speaker 1: And then they'll they'll stay in this intellectualized position where
Speaker 1: they'll be like thinking about the what's my why? What's
Speaker 1: the connection? Should I leave? Wasn't rather than figuring out
Speaker 1: the context in which to play guitar and then playing it.
Speaker 1: And then once you do that, you may actually find
Speaker 1: that something comes to you. And so what I will
Speaker 1: often say to people is that our stuck nous often
Speaker 1: lies in our intellect, but we are born with the
Speaker 1: motor cortex, and we are born with the capacity to act,
Speaker 1: and we have the capacity for intuition, and that life
Speaker 1: is sometimes most effectively run with constant course correction. And
Speaker 1: that requires a number of competencies. You know. It requires
Speaker 1: self forgiveness, It requires tolerance of mistakes, It requires failing
Speaker 1: more than you succeed, and it requires really reaching for
Speaker 1: the big winds so that even if you fail a
Speaker 1: hundred times, the big wind is where you will end up.
Speaker 1: I believe a lot in just getting started, in just
Speaker 1: doing something in an end. I've seen a lot of
Speaker 1: people who are waiting until circumstan stances a line in
Speaker 1: such a way that they maybe can go and do
Speaker 1: the thing that they want to do, versus finding a
Speaker 1: way to start doing the thing that they're doing where
Speaker 1: they are. I mean the classic example of somebody people
Speaker 1: who say, well, I want to be a writer, and
Speaker 1: it's well, right, right, then if you just start writing,
Speaker 1: then you're a writer. The rest, whether you can do
Speaker 1: that for your full career, those things tend to figure
Speaker 1: themselves out. But contemplating being a writer is not is
Speaker 1: not useful. Writing is useful in that case completely, and
Speaker 1: you really do come up with alternatives like, you know,
Speaker 1: a side still play the piano, it's still compose music.
Speaker 1: But I always feel a little bit sad about the
Speaker 1: fact that the level of expertise I had feel it's
Speaker 1: like it's waiting over time. But the Garage Band came
Speaker 1: and saved my life. We are well. We One of
Speaker 1: the fun things we love about this show is that
Speaker 1: we all the transition music and the intro and the
Speaker 1: outro music the two of us, Chris and I make,
Speaker 1: and a lot of it we do on on this
Speaker 1: iPad here on Garage Band. It's just a blasts. Well,
Speaker 1: that's that's really fun. I just created a series audio
Speaker 1: series and I made the intro and outroom music, and
Speaker 1: I was like, this is cool that I can actually
Speaker 1: do this and I have some sense to it, and
Speaker 1: and I feel connected with what I want to be
Speaker 1: connected with. And then you know, I have all kinds
Speaker 1: of other ideas about, well, if I'm not going to
Speaker 1: produce that level of music, I can do what I'm
Speaker 1: doing on Garage Band and then connect with musicians and see,
Speaker 1: you know, people who have continued that tradition, how I
Speaker 1: can interact with them because I really like those worlds,
Speaker 1: So you know, I think you find things that that
Speaker 1: may not be what you originally conceived of, but that
Speaker 1: which can be fulfilling if you dare to make that move. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it also points to the idea of it's
Speaker 1: not all or nothing. You don't have to either be
Speaker 1: a professional musician and that's all you do, or you
Speaker 1: never touch an instrument. Again, there are there are middle
Speaker 1: grounds and a lot of the things that we do
Speaker 1: in our lives, and I find a lot of times
Speaker 1: just engaging in those activities because I enjoy them is
Speaker 1: a is a helpful thing. And that I thought I
Speaker 1: was thinking earlier, and I wanted to I kind of
Speaker 1: wanted to circle back to when you were talking about
Speaker 1: the mindfulness piece and and the breath. The other thing
Speaker 1: I was thinking about is in those stressful situations, particularly
Speaker 1: if you're not very used to following the breath or
Speaker 1: doing that, sometimes just anchor in your mind on anything
Speaker 1: is a helpful thing. So in those situations, if I'm
Speaker 1: not really something you can follow my breath, maybe I
Speaker 1: can just really intensely follow a piece of music that
Speaker 1: gives my brain something to anchor on. That just came
Speaker 1: back up in my mind as we were talking about music.
Speaker 1: I think that's absolutely true. You know. I think that
Speaker 1: people often will just think they have to focus on
Speaker 1: what's in front of them, but but focus on unfocused
Speaker 1: often need to travel together, they need each other. And
Speaker 1: so if you take your mind off of something and
Speaker 1: then follow a piece of music, it's a pretty cool
Speaker 1: way to get your mind to start wondering, you know.
Speaker 1: I think one of the there were two things just
Speaker 1: ideas that I had when you were saying when you
Speaker 1: was saying, I was thinking in two things. One was,
Speaker 1: we often assume, you know, even the self that I'm
Speaker 1: coming to this interview with, like, you know, there's there's
Speaker 1: a certain level of authenticity and a certain level of
Speaker 1: connection that I feel to the questions and intentions that
Speaker 1: you have. That that's there. But I think for all
Speaker 1: human beings, the self is often in hiding, you know,
Speaker 1: It's often sort of hanging out, waiting for you to
Speaker 1: wait so that it can come out and check out
Speaker 1: what's going on. And so the other piece that I
Speaker 1: want to add to this is that in addition to
Speaker 1: just doing something, you know, partly because everything and it's
Speaker 1: opposite is kind of true in the world, that's also
Speaker 1: important to have a sense of patience with yourself and
Speaker 1: and recognize that who you are often wants to be met.
Speaker 1: But the world feels kind of threatening to most people,
Speaker 1: and so we we put our best face out there.
Speaker 1: But but you know, I've I've often found that people
Speaker 1: are always immensely surprised when they realize the comp lexity
Speaker 1: of who they are, because they've just hung out in
Speaker 1: rooms and watched the fireplace or looked out a window,
Speaker 1: and suddenly you get this feeling of yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: like some amazingly fulfilling moment. And what feels fulfilling is
Speaker 1: that the complexity of who you are is there, and
Speaker 1: that complexity is like all sorts of good stuff, all
Speaker 1: sorts of bad stuff, in all sorts of everything, but
Speaker 1: the fullness of it actually has this permission. And when
Speaker 1: you have this permission is I think when you can
Speaker 1: be most effective. You know, a lot of people ask, well,
Speaker 1: how come I can't be successful enough at at this?
Speaker 1: And part of it is that because you're leaving half
Speaker 1: of yourself out of the equation. Just because you have
Speaker 1: what you think is this weakness doesn't think you know,
Speaker 1: it doesn't mean it needs to be left out of
Speaker 1: here and now we need to invite that part of
Speaker 1: ourselves to the table and check it out and say,
Speaker 1: you know, hey, what's going on with this behavior? Like
Speaker 1: it's clearly not serving me, but I appear to want
Speaker 1: to be doing this over and over again, rather than
Speaker 1: banishing it away from your life, to invite it into
Speaker 1: your life, you know. I think the other thing that
Speaker 1: what you said reminded me of was a phenomenon that
Speaker 1: called repetition compulsion, which is, um, it's a really it's
Speaker 1: a disturbing phenomenon at a certain level. Because a group
Speaker 1: of psychologists were hanging around and um, we're actually sort
Speaker 1: of noticing what they thought was sort of strange behavior,
Speaker 1: which is that kids in cards would throw out their
Speaker 1: toys and then start crying. So they were like, already,
Speaker 1: that's a weird behavior. Why would you throw out your
Speaker 1: own toy and then start crying? And then they were
Speaker 1: like they look at their mothers for help, and their
Speaker 1: mothers would bring the toys back, and then they'd be like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm so happy, that's so awesome. And then when their
Speaker 1: mothers turned around, they would throw the toys out again,
Speaker 1: and so they'd be like, well, just it's a strange
Speaker 1: thing that we would be wired to throw our own
Speaker 1: things away, cry about it, have someone help us give
Speaker 1: it back to us, and then we throw it out again,
Speaker 1: like what is this? And so one of the leading
Speaker 1: theories around the psychologically is that we are wired to
Speaker 1: master disappointment rather than to seek fulfillment. And so when
Speaker 1: we're talking about what to feed in terms of the wolf,
Speaker 1: we're really talking about if you have the wolf that
Speaker 1: represents mastering disappointment, you're just gonna have You're gonna become
Speaker 1: the world's best person at handling things that suck. Whereas
Speaker 1: if you seek fulfillment, you're really going to try to
Speaker 1: do something that's actually going to fulfill you rather than
Speaker 1: make you feel like, Man, I'm so good at being disappointed,
Speaker 1: Like I just the master of being disappointed. In fact,
Speaker 1: I seek it out all the time so that I
Speaker 1: can experience how good I am at it. And it's
Speaker 1: amazing how many people get stuck in this, in this
Speaker 1: in this mindset of mastering disappointment. And so I just
Speaker 1: mentioned that because something that you said, and I think
Speaker 1: the way you said it also reminded me of the
Speaker 1: fact that so many of us get lost in this
Speaker 1: non distinction of mastering disappointment versus seeking fulfillment, And I
Speaker 1: would want to say that that to deliberately seek fulfillment
Speaker 1: is important and we shouldn't just assume that the brain
Speaker 1: is going to do that automatically. And that's back to
Speaker 1: the idea of embracing possibility. Yeah, absolutely, because because possibility.
Speaker 1: You know, I often say to people like I'll ask people, well,
Speaker 1: you know, how how many people want to live an
Speaker 1: exceptional life, and they'll say everybody will say, of course,
Speaker 1: I want to live an exceptional life. And you ask them, well,
Speaker 1: then why aren't you leading an exceptional life? And I'll say, well,
Speaker 1: you know, it's not that likely. There aren't that many
Speaker 1: people who live exceptional lives. And I'll say, well, that's probability,
Speaker 1: and exception, by definition is low probability. If something is
Speaker 1: an exception and you want to live an exceptional life,
Speaker 1: then you're telling me you want to live a life
Speaker 1: of low probability, which is what you're telling me, which
Speaker 1: is fine. So your life doesn't have to be highly likely.
Speaker 1: In fact, when it's not. When you want to mimic
Speaker 1: the exceptions rather than the rules is when you can
Speaker 1: begin to into a world of possibility, and so I
Speaker 1: think the way out of probability thinking is possibility thinking.
Speaker 1: And possibility thinking is where your belief forms a blueprint
Speaker 1: that informs the action center of your brain about where
Speaker 1: to go. Because it informs the GPS, which is the
Speaker 1: posterior parietal cortex. The GPS gets a map from your
Speaker 1: belief and it communicates that map to your actions center
Speaker 1: that takes you to your goal. So we often just
Speaker 1: wait for a conscious instruction like how do I get that?
Speaker 1: I don't know, And if you say, well, just believe
Speaker 1: or whole people are like that nonsense, and they're right.
Speaker 1: Hope alone will not get you somewhere. But belief and
Speaker 1: possibility does have the ability to generate a map or
Speaker 1: blueprint for your brain so that you can get to
Speaker 1: your goal and to enable you to take the action
Speaker 1: you need. That's right, Well, we're we're at the end
Speaker 1: of our time here stream, But this has been a
Speaker 1: really enjoy able conversation. And uh, definitely, you know, right
Speaker 1: right down the right down the heart of the plate
Speaker 1: on things we talked about this show and about feeding
Speaker 1: the Good Wolf. So thanks so much for your time.
Speaker 1: I really appreciate it, and I look forward to seeing
Speaker 1: your next book when it comes out. Thank you very much. Bye.
Speaker 1: You can learn more about this podcast and Dr Shriny
Speaker 1: pallet at one you feed dot net slash shriny. That's
Speaker 1: s r I n i