Speaker 1: If you think you're enlightened, go spend a week with
Speaker 1: your family. That's what the spiritual teacher ram Das said,
Speaker 1: and it strikes a chord with so many of us.
Speaker 1: Combine that with the inherently stressful holiday season, and it's
Speaker 1: no wonder that the last few months of the year
Speaker 1: are some of the most difficult for so many people.
Speaker 1: That's why we're opening the doors to the Spiritual Habits
Speaker 1: Group program once again, and I'm inviting you to join me.
Speaker 1: Whether you're looking to develop a consistent daily meditation practice,
Speaker 1: or implement mindfulness practices into your life, or connect more
Speaker 1: deeply to what really matters, the Spiritual Habits Group program
Speaker 1: will give you the tools you need to turn this
Speaker 1: wisdom into daily, sustainable, transformational practice, and you'll do so
Speaker 1: in a community where you belong and feel connected. Finish
Speaker 1: strong with the satisfaction of knowing you showed up as
Speaker 1: your best self with less stress able to actually enjoy
Speaker 1: this time of year. Just go to one you feed
Speaker 1: dot net slash Spiritual Habits to join the program. Enrollment
Speaker 1: is open now through October twelfth. That's when you feed
Speaker 1: dot net slash Spiritual Habits. It's like the brain is
Speaker 1: this expectation machine. It's an expectation engine. It's continually forecasting
Speaker 1: what's it gonna be like if I have Chinese food
Speaker 1: or Italian food tonight, or if I say this or
Speaker 1: say that in that interaction, and very often what it's
Speaker 1: doing is it's forecasting pain. Welcome to the one you
Speaker 1: feed throughout time. Great thinkers have recognized the importance of
Speaker 1: the thoughts we have, quotes like garbage in, garbage out,
Speaker 1: or you are what you think, ring true. And yet
Speaker 1: for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us.
Speaker 1: We tend toward negativity, self pity, jealousy, or fear. We
Speaker 1: see what we don't have instead of what we do.
Speaker 1: We think things that hold us back and dampen our
Speaker 1: spo But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter.
Speaker 1: It takes conscious, consistent and creative effort to make a
Speaker 1: life worth living. This podcast is about how other people
Speaker 1: keep themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed
Speaker 1: their good wolf. Thanks for joining us. This episode is
Speaker 1: unique in a few ways. It's actually a reoccurring guest,
Speaker 1: which is psychologist Rick Hanson, but also it's a multiperson podcast.
Speaker 1: We have Eric we have our own Jenny Gay joining
Speaker 1: in as the co host, and then Rick and his
Speaker 1: son Forrest, who hosts the popular Being Well podcast, are
Speaker 1: both on this episode as well. Rick is a psychologist
Speaker 1: and rights and teaches about the essential inner schools of
Speaker 1: personal well being. Psycholog tegical growth and contemplate a practice,
Speaker 1: and together their podcast addresses many of those same issues. Hi, Rick,
Speaker 1: Hi Forest, Welcome to the show. Eric, thanks for having us. Hey,
Speaker 1: I'm really happy to be here, and welcome Jinny to
Speaker 1: the show. Hi Well, thank you. Listeners have heard you
Speaker 1: on some spots before, but this is the first full
Speaker 1: episode we've had you involved, and so we're really excited.
Speaker 1: This is a four person conversation, which we have never
Speaker 1: done here on the show, and we thought Rick and
Speaker 1: Forrest would be a great couple of people to kick
Speaker 1: this off with. So why don't we start like we
Speaker 1: always do with the parable? But why don't we let
Speaker 1: you take it? All right? All right, let me see
Speaker 1: what I can do here. I've heard it a bunch.
Speaker 1: Let me see how I can speak it. Alright, Forest,
Speaker 1: it's you and me, alright. So the parable goes like this.
Speaker 1: There was a grandparent that was talking to their grandchild,
Speaker 1: and they said, in life, there are two wolves at
Speaker 1: battle inside of us. One is a good wolf, which
Speaker 1: represents things like kindness and bravery and love of and
Speaker 1: the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like
Speaker 1: greed and hatred and fear. And the grandchild stopped and
Speaker 1: thought for a second and said, well, which one wins?
Speaker 1: And the grandparents said, the one you feed. So I'd
Speaker 1: love to know what that parable means to you in
Speaker 1: your life and in the work that you do. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well for starters, Thank you Jenny for asking it. I
Speaker 1: think it's a great question, and I love that the
Speaker 1: podcast is in some ways centered around that question. For me,
Speaker 1: the first place that I go when I think about
Speaker 1: it is too a lot of my dad's work makes sense, right,
Speaker 1: which is about cultivating positive strengths inside of yourself. When
Speaker 1: I kind of take a little bit of a right
Speaker 1: turn from that is around the relationship that the two
Speaker 1: wolves have to us. So for me, I think that
Speaker 1: for a lot of people there are two wolves in
Speaker 1: the heart. One of them's a good wolf, one of
Speaker 1: them is a bad wolf, if you want to use
Speaker 1: that language. And for many people, the wolf kind of
Speaker 1: has its leg stuck in a trap, and the bad
Speaker 1: wolf is actually a very friendly wolf seevingly to them.
Speaker 1: Because for many, many people, it's a lot easier to
Speaker 1: kind of feed the aspects of their self that are
Speaker 1: actually not serving them in long term ways. And a
Speaker 1: lot of the time, when we're making positive change in
Speaker 1: our life, when we're cultivating those positive tendencies that we have,
Speaker 1: that can be a long and painful road. So the
Speaker 1: good wolf kind of snaps at you as you come
Speaker 1: ever closer to it, attempting to free it from the trap,
Speaker 1: whereas the bad wolf can be very seductive, very friendly,
Speaker 1: very engaging, and a lot of the hard work that
Speaker 1: we do in this life is about trying to free
Speaker 1: that good wolf, if you will, from the prison that
Speaker 1: it finds itself in. And so that's kind of where
Speaker 1: I take maybe the slightly modified version of the teaching story.
Speaker 1: It would mean to alter the parable there, But I
Speaker 1: just think that for many it's so much easier to
Speaker 1: lean into their negative tendencies in different kinds of ways.
Speaker 1: And we see this all over the place with addictions
Speaker 1: of various kinds, with leanings in the mind, and it's
Speaker 1: so much harder to lean into the person that they
Speaker 1: actually are deep and side maybe the person that they
Speaker 1: were before the world kind of got in the way
Speaker 1: a little bit. So that's what I think of when
Speaker 1: I think of the question, you know, that makes me
Speaker 1: actually think of something that you have written about Forest
Speaker 1: the dreaded experience. Oh yeah, this is a vampire my
Speaker 1: dad's material to give attribution here, but yeah, I love it. Okay, Well,
Speaker 1: I first saw it as an Instagram post that you did,
Speaker 1: and I say that, and I have gone back to
Speaker 1: it over and over again because I just so connected
Speaker 1: with it deeply, This idea that we have a core
Speaker 1: fear or maybe core fears, right, it typically can be
Speaker 1: an emotional experience that we organize our lives around avoiding.
Speaker 1: And when I read that, I thought, oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: do I ever I can rattle off a f you
Speaker 1: just right off the top of my head. But then
Speaker 1: the plosser I looked, you know, the more I sort
Speaker 1: of held that thought and looked around, the deeper it
Speaker 1: went for me, And I wondered if you would mind
Speaker 1: maybe sharing a little bit more elaborating on that a
Speaker 1: little for listeners to know about what this idea is
Speaker 1: and how it might show up in our lives. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm super happy to also at the end of whatever
Speaker 1: I say here, Dad, of course you're more than welcome
Speaker 1: to give your take. But the basic idea is exactly
Speaker 1: how you outlined it. I think you outlined it really well, Jenny.
Speaker 1: Where for most of us there is some fear, some
Speaker 1: emotional experience. Maybe it's oriented around vulnerability for a lot
Speaker 1: of people. For a lot of people, it's oriented around shame.
Speaker 1: For me, my personal one, just to share, is feeling
Speaker 1: like a bad person quote unquote. There's this kind of
Speaker 1: apocryphal story inside of our family of me being a
Speaker 1: very young kid and kind of going into my parents
Speaker 1: bedroom and saying, you know, I feel like a bad
Speaker 1: soldier or I feel like the bad night. And that
Speaker 1: was just such a centrally painful experience to me. And
Speaker 1: I see many ways in which I've kind of oriented
Speaker 1: my life around avoiding feeling like that bad person, and
Speaker 1: a lot of ways that I've accommodated my behavior in
Speaker 1: order to do that, in some ways that are totally normal,
Speaker 1: totally like prose, social typical stuff, and in some ways
Speaker 1: that I don't think served me long term. And one
Speaker 1: of the more challenging things I've had to do my
Speaker 1: life is like lean into those moments where I have
Speaker 1: a cringe factor, you know, as my dad likes to say,
Speaker 1: where my cringe ometer is turned up to ten, you know.
Speaker 1: And those are some good indicators for a lot of
Speaker 1: people that you're trafficking and the territory of your dreaded experience,
Speaker 1: this pain that you feel inside oriented around a certain
Speaker 1: kind of emotional sensation that you're having, that makes so
Speaker 1: much sense. I think for me it shows up as
Speaker 1: you know, this basic fear of being like not enough,
Speaker 1: not good enough, not whatever enough, you know, or in
Speaker 1: some way unworthy. And when I say it out loud,
Speaker 1: you know, my head says, that's ridiculous. You know, of
Speaker 1: course you are. But there's something deeper in me that
Speaker 1: clearly has some real aversion to having that be validated
Speaker 1: in some way, you know, by an experience. And Rick,
Speaker 1: maybe if you want to chime in here too, um
Speaker 1: with forests, like, how do you encourage people to lean
Speaker 1: into that and actually begin to step outside these invisible
Speaker 1: walls that we've built for ourselves so that we don't
Speaker 1: stay so small. It's a fundamental question because I think
Speaker 1: that the experiences that we habitually of void form. The
Speaker 1: cages form the bars of our invisible cage. They bound
Speaker 1: our life and a lot of what growth is about
Speaker 1: and healing is becoming more and more willing to risk
Speaker 1: those experiences. Very often, they actually don't happen. They used
Speaker 1: to happen. Maybe the odds of them were maybe high
Speaker 1: when we were little, because of the circumstances we were
Speaker 1: in one in our last job or last marriage. But
Speaker 1: today the actual odds are pretty low. But even if
Speaker 1: they did happen, we'd also be a lot more able
Speaker 1: to handle them. So recognizing that the odds of the
Speaker 1: dreaded experience are a lot lower today than they used
Speaker 1: to be, in second, it wouldn't feel so bad, And
Speaker 1: even third, recognizing that you could so cope with it,
Speaker 1: you wouldn't destroy you. It'd be a drag, it'd be
Speaker 1: a bummer. You'd be upset for a few hours or
Speaker 1: minutes or days, but then it would really pass. Knowing
Speaker 1: those things helps us take those chances. So I wondered, Jenny,
Speaker 1: if I could ask you a question so when you
Speaker 1: talk about, let's say, for you and I can really
Speaker 1: do it very much, the dreaded ex varience of not
Speaker 1: being enough for me, I would I would add a
Speaker 1: kind of social element to it, of being seen by
Speaker 1: others is not enough fault found right, public humiliation or
Speaker 1: falling short criticism. I grew up in a fault finding home.
Speaker 1: So what would happen in your life? Can you imagine it?
Speaker 1: If you are just willing to risk that experience, if
Speaker 1: you are willing to risk flopping, if you are willing
Speaker 1: to risk the booze, what kind of life might you
Speaker 1: have them? Right? You know, it's something that I'm trying
Speaker 1: to do actively more and more in my life. In fact,
Speaker 1: showing up today with you all is one way that
Speaker 1: I'm really trying to lean into the anxiety around what
Speaker 1: if I screw it up? What if I'm awful? What
Speaker 1: if they think we're you know, just total losers? And
Speaker 1: well obviously Eric's not, He's like four episodes into establishing that,
Speaker 1: but being my first one, you know, it's like what
Speaker 1: if Jinny has just left the first um so realizing that,
Speaker 1: you know, I really do want to take the step
Speaker 1: to show up even here today with you guys. But
Speaker 1: I find myself having a lot of social anxiety because
Speaker 1: of part of really having authentic connection is that vulnerability
Speaker 1: and to be able to have connection, to be seen.
Speaker 1: So even showing up to lunch with a friend can
Speaker 1: cause me some anxiety. But every single time, every single
Speaker 1: time in recent memory, that I have shown up, it
Speaker 1: has been life giving and it has filled me with
Speaker 1: energy and love and connection confidence. So it is it's
Speaker 1: like once I see past that fear through the experience
Speaker 1: of doing it, it helps me next time to take
Speaker 1: that step and to push beyond it. But it still
Speaker 1: feels hard, you know, maybe in smaller ways or larger ways,
Speaker 1: depending but it's still that element of heart is still
Speaker 1: there for me. A little bit makes me think of
Speaker 1: something I heard you guys say recently. You were talking
Speaker 1: about limiting beliefs, and think it was you Rick that
Speaker 1: said something along the lines of our self conception is
Speaker 1: always six months out of date, and and I actually
Speaker 1: think that's a very generous estimate. And a lot of
Speaker 1: times I think our self conception is years out of date.
Speaker 1: I felt the same way I would answer personality tests
Speaker 1: up until a few years ago, anything around impulsivity, I
Speaker 1: would always mark myself as impulsive. I was a heroin
Speaker 1: addict at one point, so yes, I was pretty impulsive,
Speaker 1: but more of my adult life. That is not a
Speaker 1: trait that really shows up in me at all, and
Speaker 1: yet I identified that way year after year after year,
Speaker 1: you know. So I think this idea of you know,
Speaker 1: the dreaded experience ties into our self conception of ourselves.
Speaker 1: And I think, you know, Jenny, like you thinking about
Speaker 1: going out to eat with a friend, we drag these
Speaker 1: old beliefs like that's hard, that's scary along with us.
Speaker 1: That doesn't match our recent experiences, as you were kind
Speaker 1: of saying, Rick, Yeah, a lot of what we do.
Speaker 1: It's like, the brain is this expectation machine. It's an
Speaker 1: expectation engine. It's continually forecasting what's it going to be,
Speaker 1: like if I have Chinese food or Italian food tonight,
Speaker 1: or if I say this or say that in that interaction,
Speaker 1: and very often what it's doing is it's forecasting pain, right,
Speaker 1: and then we withdraw because oh, we don't want to
Speaker 1: experience that pain. So, you know, the the engine is
Speaker 1: trying to help us, But on the other hand, it
Speaker 1: makes us like puppets or robots were continually getting pulled
Speaker 1: by the strings of our avoidances of one kind or another,
Speaker 1: and so on the other hand. The way to free
Speaker 1: ourselves and also to be more powerful and engaged in
Speaker 1: life is to be willing to tolerate the forecasted pain
Speaker 1: and then still go down that road. Now, don't be dumb,
Speaker 1: don't put your hand on the hot burner, don't run
Speaker 1: through the red light, don't shoot up the heroine, and
Speaker 1: all the rest of that. Don't do those things. Okay,
Speaker 1: But there's this key phrase in psychology called distress tolerance.
Speaker 1: It's fancy phrase, But if we could tolerate the anticipated
Speaker 1: distress we would experience from say, being open with a
Speaker 1: friend at lunch, or admitting fault, or asking for forgiveness
Speaker 1: or asking for friendliness, asking for love, whatever it might be,
Speaker 1: if we could tolerate the discomfort that we might experience.
Speaker 1: If we were to do that, then we could step
Speaker 1: forward much more boldly. Having a discovery that I could
Speaker 1: be with difficult emotions or feelings was a moment in
Speaker 1: my life I'll never forget. I was sitting on the
Speaker 1: couch watching Oprah's Super Soul Sunday. She was interviewing Penna Children,
Speaker 1: and Penna posed the question of when difficult emotions come up,
Speaker 1: asking yourself the question, can I be with this, and
Speaker 1: it's the first time I'd ever heard that question, and
Speaker 1: I realized there was a whole bucket of scary feelings
Speaker 1: inside of me that I was trying to avoid um
Speaker 1: and I knew it, but the thought of could I
Speaker 1: just could I be with them had never even occurred
Speaker 1: to me. I just assumed I couldn't, you know, And
Speaker 1: so I stopped and I was like, well, huh, I
Speaker 1: don't know, can I Maybe maybe I could try just
Speaker 1: a little bit. It that shifted really the trajectory of
Speaker 1: my adult life. I mean, it's so powerful to know
Speaker 1: that that you can be with what comes up. Might
Speaker 1: need and support more times than others, but you can
Speaker 1: and you can survive it, and that life can be
Speaker 1: bigger on the other side of that. I mean, that's
Speaker 1: life changing. I've gotten a lot of that from from
Speaker 1: the two of you guys in your conversations together on
Speaker 1: your podcast. I'll tell a story here that Forest doesn't know,
Speaker 1: and it's a bit of a risk for me to
Speaker 1: even tell the story, and you'll understand why when I
Speaker 1: tell the story, But for me, it really illustrated this.
Speaker 1: So the short version is that I grew up in
Speaker 1: a loving, decent home, and the i'd say culture in
Speaker 1: my home was very Midwestern and conservative in a lot
Speaker 1: of ways in terms of lifestyle. So there was no
Speaker 1: talk whatsoever about the body sensuality anything like that. It
Speaker 1: was just wasn't talked about. And then fast forward twentyso
Speaker 1: five years later, I'm about I'm in this kind of
Speaker 1: human potential environment. I'm still a young man, still frankly,
Speaker 1: very kind of embarrassed about my body. I felt skinny,
Speaker 1: it was scrawny. I was very young going through school,
Speaker 1: so take a shower, so with a bunch of kids,
Speaker 1: you know, a bunch of other boys and junior higher
Speaker 1: high school was often a kind of an uncomfortable experience.
Speaker 1: And there I was in this touchy feely workshop where
Speaker 1: we're gonna learn massage skills. And the start of the
Speaker 1: workshop with about a dozen people, half of whom were
Speaker 1: very attractive young women my age. The other half were
Speaker 1: dudes like me of various kinds. We were supposed to
Speaker 1: stand up in front of the group and introduce our
Speaker 1: body to the group. Just introduce your body now right there,
Speaker 1: you're standing up, You're exposed, you're completely see right there
Speaker 1: you are, and you're gonna say, well, these are my shoulders,
Speaker 1: is my hair, and trying not to comment about judging
Speaker 1: it or not. But you are introducing this is my belly,
Speaker 1: this is sagging flesh, whatever you exactly. I love your face, Jenny. Okay,
Speaker 1: So I'm like, oh, this is insane. So already on
Speaker 1: the cringeometer, the cringeometer, it's an eight at least, just
Speaker 1: standing there with my clothes on, just introducing my body.
Speaker 1: So I'm about number five or so in the sequence here.
Speaker 1: First person stands up, introduces their body, no big deal.
Speaker 1: Second person stands up, takes off their coat, takes off
Speaker 1: you know, and does her shoes. He introduces her body.
Speaker 1: Right number four, let's say, third person introduces their body
Speaker 1: to get down to kind of their underwear and a
Speaker 1: T shirt. Next person is a woman next to me up,
Speaker 1: she's down to brawn underwear. And then it's my turn.
Speaker 1: What am I gonna do? And at that point it
Speaker 1: was like a ten. Talk about the anticipatient. Oh well
Speaker 1: that's where is You're a cringeometer right now? Are you doing? Okay?
Speaker 1: We like because I'm toughing it out, I think I
Speaker 1: know where the story is going. So I'm waiting for
Speaker 1: the punch over here. I'm feeling it right now. I'm
Speaker 1: feeling right now. Okay, Like what am I gonna do?
Speaker 1: What am I gonna do? Am I gonna basically embrace
Speaker 1: the guam jabbar? Using the reference from Doom? You know,
Speaker 1: am I gonna go for it? Or am I gonna
Speaker 1: what's out? Either way? And I go, okay, So I
Speaker 1: just started taking you stand out those my body and
Speaker 1: I peel off my pants, I take off my shirt,
Speaker 1: and then I dropped my underwear. This is it, this
Speaker 1: is my body. And in that moment, in that moment,
Speaker 1: I swear to you, I felt like five volts shot
Speaker 1: through my body for about eight seconds, ground it out.
Speaker 1: It was like lightning strong. But then forever after whatever,
Speaker 1: it's a body. We all have a body, you know.
Speaker 1: You know Virginia Satire, the great family therapist. We do
Speaker 1: workshops where she'd have people bump their belly buttons into
Speaker 1: each other as kind of an icebreaker in the very beginning,
Speaker 1: like we all have belly buttons, we're all human, all
Speaker 1: the body. But that would be an example of a
Speaker 1: dreading experience at least a ten. But you step into it,
Speaker 1: you do these wise experiments. It was a safe setting
Speaker 1: for me to go for it. It was like whatever,
Speaker 1: we very often it's not so horrible. I am proud
Speaker 1: for you. I am proud for you that you did that,
Speaker 1: and I think that is a break and you're right though,
Speaker 1: we can kind of go there. And then all of
Speaker 1: a sudden we realized we didn't have to be so afraid.
Speaker 1: I'm liberating. Have you've been going to before? It's to
Speaker 1: keep your clothes on. Don't get any ideas about like,
Speaker 1: just settle down over there. I'm well regulated. I got
Speaker 1: it together. Oh man, oh yeah. But to go back
Speaker 1: to what you said Jenny earlier, you know, when we
Speaker 1: risk the dreaded experience when we push back the bars
Speaker 1: of our invisible cage by just a notch, and we
Speaker 1: do it in such a way that we set ourselves
Speaker 1: up to succeed. I knew that I had twenties eight
Speaker 1: years of issues around body shame at that point, and
Speaker 1: I just thought, you know, I'm tired of it. That's
Speaker 1: another thing that can kind of happen. We just feel
Speaker 1: tired of doing laps inside the track, inside our invisible cage,
Speaker 1: and then we hopefully choose, well, do an experiment, see
Speaker 1: how it goes was it that bad? Was it horrible?
Speaker 1: And then when as usual it goes pretty well, take
Speaker 1: it in help that learning land so you really get
Speaker 1: it and it really sinks into you. And to me,
Speaker 1: that fundamental process risk the dreaded experience in a very
Speaker 1: careful way, designed to succeed at it. And then when
Speaker 1: you do succeed at it, oh learned a good lesson which,
Speaker 1: step by step by step keeps pushing the bars further
Speaker 1: and further back and expands the space of the life
Speaker 1: that you can have. That is something that I have
Speaker 1: learned from your teachings specifically, which is as we look
Speaker 1: to make the move from a state to become a
Speaker 1: trait to really be with and savor and take in
Speaker 1: and no this and appreciate what it's like when we
Speaker 1: get to the other side, so to speak. And you know,
Speaker 1: Tara Brock, I think after the rain idea, I don't
Speaker 1: know the origin of that, but you all must have
Speaker 1: a connection over that somehow is pausing to take in
Speaker 1: once we have ridden the emotional wave whatever that is,
Speaker 1: and we've come to a place of being able to
Speaker 1: have some peace, to take in that piece. To take
Speaker 1: in that piece because from a neurological perspective. Right, we're
Speaker 1: doing something there, We're actually growing the ability to make
Speaker 1: those connections and extend that that place. Is that right totally?
Speaker 1: It's like you're kind of growing into you're inhabiting who
Speaker 1: you want to be. It's still you, but it's to
Speaker 1: you that's less burdened, that feels happier, calmer, more open hearted, braver,
Speaker 1: more spacious. For other people, you're growing into who you
Speaker 1: want to be and you're helping that become established in you.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that's it, right, And I think we can
Speaker 1: do this in big things like you know, a big
Speaker 1: moment like that, but there's thousands of small moments to
Speaker 1: you know, where just like today I meditated, or today
Speaker 1: I exercised and I did what I said I was
Speaker 1: going to do, and there's just it's a it's subtle,
Speaker 1: but there's an internal feeling of congruence and we sort
Speaker 1: of do what we say to ourselves we're going to do,
Speaker 1: and we meet our commitments to ourselves. There's just a
Speaker 1: very subtle internal congruents. But if we can learn to
Speaker 1: notice that and savor it a little bit, it makes
Speaker 1: it easier and easier to continue those behaviors. You know,
Speaker 1: can I go back to something Forest said back when
Speaker 1: we were talking about this dreaded experience to begin with
Speaker 1: help me with your words. You said something about how
Speaker 1: it was to be like you were afraid of being
Speaker 1: a bad person or a bad soldier. Yea, yeah, so
Speaker 1: one of mine. I think many people have multiple. I
Speaker 1: certainly have multiple um and it gets to various kinds
Speaker 1: of social exposure and particularly feeling like I've done wrong,
Speaker 1: like I am wrong, like I did the wrong thing.
Speaker 1: I I can recall in vivid details so many different
Speaker 1: moments in my life. Often I'm kind of worker school
Speaker 1: environments where I messed up something. I submitted a homework
Speaker 1: assignment the wrong way. I was called into my boss's
Speaker 1: office because I messed up something I was supposed to do.
Speaker 1: And those moments are just like cast in such stark
Speaker 1: relief for me, with so much painful emotion attached to them.
Speaker 1: And so that's another kind of indicator that might be
Speaker 1: helpful for people, like what really stands out in your
Speaker 1: memory negatively, And that's generally a pretty good indication of
Speaker 1: like where some of those dreaded experiences are found for you. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's mine like feeling like a bad person as generally
Speaker 1: how I phrase it, feeling like a bad person. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I can relate to that when you said that.
Speaker 1: The other thing that I was struck by is Eric
Speaker 1: has talked about this on the show before, but that
Speaker 1: my mom has been suffering from Alzheimer's for a number
Speaker 1: of years now, and the last few have been the
Speaker 1: most difficult, and we've been very involved in her care,
Speaker 1: and so as she has been sort of disappearing little
Speaker 1: by little, slowly by slowly, that has brought up a
Speaker 1: bunch of stuff with me with her, and I realized
Speaker 1: the tendon, see that I have to go to blaming
Speaker 1: her for either doing or not doing something as I
Speaker 1: was a child, which has caused me to now I
Speaker 1: have to suffer with this thing this, you know, as
Speaker 1: an adult. So when you said that, man, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's amazing. So you can grow up with
Speaker 1: Rick Hanson as your dad and still talking about let's
Speaker 1: still have a core issue, like it's not necessarily anyone's
Speaker 1: quote fault, right, Like I even heard was it Kristin Enough,
Speaker 1: who's like the mother of self compassion in my mind,
Speaker 1: and she said that she heard her son remark, and
Speaker 1: like the only thing she's really ever wanted to instill
Speaker 1: in her child is the sense of self compassion towards
Speaker 1: you know, to really cultivate that. So like that is
Speaker 1: like I mean, if you are set up to like
Speaker 1: be armed with self compassion for life, it's to be
Speaker 1: Kristin style. But even then, at some point she heard
Speaker 1: some self loathing and self like really just some words
Speaker 1: coming out of her child's mouth, and she thought like,
Speaker 1: wait a minute, maybe this is not all about the
Speaker 1: faults of our parents and the faults of art. Maybe
Speaker 1: it's just how we're wired, right, Like, maybe it's just
Speaker 1: how our brains are, you know. Again back to some
Speaker 1: of your work, Rick, you know, like velcro for the
Speaker 1: negative and teflon for the good. You know, you can
Speaker 1: hold it looser when it's not so much our fault
Speaker 1: or our parents fault. Yeah. Well, I love that we're
Speaker 1: talking about this because I think that it's such a
Speaker 1: cool thing, just devoted kind of simply. I think it's
Speaker 1: so cool, and I think it's so important that we
Speaker 1: talk with people about this on a regular basis, where
Speaker 1: particularly come up to me and they're like, wow, you
Speaker 1: know your ricks kid, you must just be like perfectly
Speaker 1: well adjusted and psychologically healthy and all of these things.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, are you kidding me? Yeah, But and
Speaker 1: that's a very very natural thing for people to think,
Speaker 1: right that if you're the kid of a psychologist, you're
Speaker 1: gonna end up just being like perfectly well adjusted. And
Speaker 1: for starters, I would say that I know lots of
Speaker 1: kids of psychologists, and none of them are perfectly well adjusted.
Speaker 1: So if you're still holding on to that belief, that's
Speaker 1: just demonstrably not true. It's like it's say, from my
Speaker 1: personal experience, But I think that it takes it to
Speaker 1: an even more important point, which is the one that
Speaker 1: you've raised, which is this idea of whose fault it
Speaker 1: is and what does it mean to become a healthy, happy,
Speaker 1: functional person as an adult. And my personal view on this,
Speaker 1: for starters, it takes me a little bit into like
Speaker 1: nature nurture, whereas near as we can tell, about half
Speaker 1: of the stuff that makes us who we are is
Speaker 1: nurture is based largely and like what our parents due
Speaker 1: to us, what happens when we're young, interactions with other kids,
Speaker 1: all of that good stuff, and about half of it,
Speaker 1: roughly depending on who you ask comes down to nature,
Speaker 1: where this our genetic constitution are leaning towards being a
Speaker 1: little bit sadder, a little bit happier, whatever it is.
Speaker 1: And your parents do a lot. And I'm a big
Speaker 1: believer in developmental psychology and like the huge impact that
Speaker 1: the first three years has on a person's life. But
Speaker 1: what's really really funny is the more that I've learned
Speaker 1: about psychology, the more that I've started to get an
Speaker 1: appreciation for the impact of nature, and like, how much
Speaker 1: of this is just about like the path and life
Speaker 1: we all treat, where everyone comes into the world with
Speaker 1: a wounding of some kind, something they hold in their heart.
Speaker 1: Nobody comes in fully formed, nobody comes in perfect, and
Speaker 1: in the first ten years most people get out of
Speaker 1: it alive. But nobody gets out of it unwounded. That's
Speaker 1: my firm personal belief. Nobody gets out of it unwounded.
Speaker 1: And then the job of the next thirty forty fifty
Speaker 1: years of your life is figuring all that stuff out,
Speaker 1: creating a coherent narrative around it, doing the work internally,
Speaker 1: figuring out how to reconcile those experiences. And I think
Speaker 1: that that's a common human experience, and for me, it
Speaker 1: just really pulls me into like a deep appreciation for
Speaker 1: other people and all the work that they're doing that
Speaker 1: we don't see, and also a way to be kinder
Speaker 1: to ourselves, Like nobody's perfect. I'm not perfect. Rick's not perfect.
Speaker 1: None of us here are perfect. Nobody came in perfectly clean,
Speaker 1: and yet we're all just kind of doing the best
Speaker 1: that we can. And it certainly helps me hold a
Speaker 1: lot of my early experience as a little bit more lightly,
Speaker 1: including you know, the normal stuff of of a parent
Speaker 1: bumping into a kid and misunderstandings and all that good stuff,
Speaker 1: and just having an appreciation for how this stuff is hard.
Speaker 1: And even if you get born into a very privileged situation,
Speaker 1: as obviously I was extremely psycho educated parents, white male,
Speaker 1: growing up into like a middle class stopper middle class
Speaker 1: environment and a very safe area, all of this stuff,
Speaker 1: like deck very stacked in my favor. Still, I've got
Speaker 1: my own pathology, you know, And so if if that's
Speaker 1: true for me, that's probably true for most everyone. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think that's a really good point. And I think
Speaker 1: we love narratives that we can make sense out of.
Speaker 1: So if we can be like, well, I'm this way
Speaker 1: because my parents did A, B and C. Well, then
Speaker 1: we understand it and we think maybe there's something we
Speaker 1: can do. The idea that some amount of it is
Speaker 1: nature is genetic is a sort of it's first glance
Speaker 1: at profoundly sort of not enjoyable realization, Oh my god,
Speaker 1: I can kind of do about that. What we can
Speaker 1: reflect on, though, is how much of it is still
Speaker 1: available for us to change and improve. And you know,
Speaker 1: what I think is an interesting question, and I know
Speaker 1: you guys have explored this on your show, is sort
Speaker 1: of what are the upper reaches of potential? And also
Speaker 1: what are the upper reaches of potential for a person?
Speaker 1: I get into this in the addiction space a lot,
Speaker 1: because some people will achieve permanent full sobriety. A lot
Speaker 1: of other people may not achieve that, but that doesn't
Speaker 1: mean that they're not having significant victories in what they're doing.
Speaker 1: And so I think this question of, you know, sort
Speaker 1: of what are the upper reaches and how do we
Speaker 1: sort of not limit ourselves by saying, well, I can
Speaker 1: only get so far, but also not have expectations on
Speaker 1: ourselves that constantly make us feel like we're falling short.
Speaker 1: I feel like this is such a new ons point
Speaker 1: that we could probably spend ten episodes on, but I'd
Speaker 1: love to hear you guys reflect a little. This is
Speaker 1: squarely in Rick's wheelhouse, so I'm gonna I'll toss it
Speaker 1: over to him indentially at that maybe time. Ed. Wow, well,
Speaker 1: I love this topic. It relates to the book I
Speaker 1: just wrote, neuro Dharma, which is really about the upper
Speaker 1: Reaches and kind of dusting off the vision of what
Speaker 1: is actually possible for us as regular human beings that
Speaker 1: was prevalent in the culture in the fifties and sixties,
Speaker 1: especially the sixties and seventies, and then it's been kind
Speaker 1: of pushed aside as we've been grinding it out, you know,
Speaker 1: as a culture and certainly in America over the last
Speaker 1: thirty four years. So I really was interested in, okay,
Speaker 1: what is actually possible in the upper reaches, just like
Speaker 1: you said there, Eric, So I want to kind of
Speaker 1: get it this way that speaks to what you and
Speaker 1: Forest have been talking about, which is, first of all,
Speaker 1: I want to fully acknowledge right here publicly for the recording.
Speaker 1: Having messed up a lot as a father, and there
Speaker 1: are things that I look back on and I feel
Speaker 1: the winds of healthy remorse. Other things I look back on,
Speaker 1: I have what I call skillful correction, which is different
Speaker 1: from remorse, but it's a recognition that I wish I
Speaker 1: had done it better, or now at least I know
Speaker 1: how to do it a better way. So I look
Speaker 1: back on all that, and I think one of the
Speaker 1: dreaded experiences for people is being really confessed in their
Speaker 1: faults to engage what Eric knows well, a fearless and
Speaker 1: searching inventory of how you've harmed others, how you've harmed yourself,
Speaker 1: not as harmed others, but harmed yourself and lost your nerve,
Speaker 1: swerved away, dropped the ball, let yourself be hijacked by
Speaker 1: that wolf of hate inside, that aggressiveness, the anger. It's
Speaker 1: really important to be big enough and brave enough and
Speaker 1: humble enough to really acknowledge that. But for many people, understandably,
Speaker 1: it's a terribly dreadful experience because when they experience it
Speaker 1: in the past as little kids, they felt very much
Speaker 1: like a bad soldier, a bad person, a bad human,
Speaker 1: and maybe it even came with a lot of punishment
Speaker 1: and a lot of shame, even traumatic abuse. So part
Speaker 1: of freeing ourselves, which I think is necessary actually to
Speaker 1: move up the mountain of the upper reaches of human
Speaker 1: potential is to become more and more comfortable with the
Speaker 1: experience of admitting fault, of taking appropriate blame, not airing
Speaker 1: on the side that many people, especially women in the
Speaker 1: culture who are socialized to do this, not taking over
Speaker 1: responsibility for the upsets and experiences of others, not beating
Speaker 1: yourself up more than you really really should, but a
Speaker 1: willingness to just go, wow, I so messed up. I'm
Speaker 1: so sorry about that. I really want to acknowledge it fully.
Speaker 1: There's no defensiveness here at all. How can I make amends?
Speaker 1: What can we do? That's a necessary step, and actually
Speaker 1: freeing yourself of what deep in your heart you know
Speaker 1: you did wrong. And if you don't free yourself of that,
Speaker 1: it's like ballast, it's like weights holding down the balloon,
Speaker 1: you know, of the rising into those upper reaches. I
Speaker 1: just want to really put that one on the table.
Speaker 1: It's a very important part of personal growth and development,
Speaker 1: even at the higher reaches of awakening. I'm a huge
Speaker 1: fan of the middle way. You know, it's it's the
Speaker 1: teaching I come back to over and over. I feel
Speaker 1: like a cliche of myself, um with it, but really
Speaker 1: finding that appropriate level, the right level for us of
Speaker 1: recognizing our faults, recognizing our shortcomings, owning those, but not
Speaker 1: swinging too far over to the other side where we
Speaker 1: think we're awful people. In a a we used to
Speaker 1: say humility is the right understanding of your good and
Speaker 1: your bad traits. And I really liked that because humility
Speaker 1: was a word that was used a lot in twelve
Speaker 1: step programs, and you know, used correctly. It's not this
Speaker 1: like groveling, you know, humiliation, you know, to me, it's
Speaker 1: an accurate assessment, finding the middle ground of those things.
Speaker 1: I just finished reading Joseph Goldstein's book Mindfulness, and I'm
Speaker 1: not sure I'm gonna get the words right, but the
Speaker 1: idea was and I thought it was so wise that
Speaker 1: he made distinction between like guilt and shame. I think
Speaker 1: it was in the light of forgiveness. And he was
Speaker 1: talking about how that if we sort of unpack and
Speaker 1: live in this realm of shame where we are just constantly,
Speaker 1: you know, feeling awful about ourselves and flogging ourselves and
Speaker 1: how did we do this? And if we just unpack
Speaker 1: and live there, it's as the egoic, you know, as
Speaker 1: being obsessed with yourself in a grandiose way and thinking
Speaker 1: you're amazing, and that there can be this almost middle way.
Speaker 1: But why is equonimious? That's the word, that's the right
Speaker 1: version of that word. I might need to read the
Speaker 1: book again, but anyway, but if we can just sort
Speaker 1: of hold that with a little more wisdom, that we
Speaker 1: can forgive ourselves and move on right and then and
Speaker 1: not be so parked back in the past in that way,
Speaker 1: and that could be a healthier relationship with some of
Speaker 1: our mistakes, you know, thinking back on what you said earlier,
Speaker 1: Jenny about fear of being judged by others, which something
Speaker 1: I've really had a lot myself. In a way when
Speaker 1: we're talking about here, I'm just realizing it. It's like,
Speaker 1: where is moral authority in your life located? There's a
Speaker 1: term in psychology locusts of control. There are people who
Speaker 1: have sort of inner internal locus of control, where other
Speaker 1: people who look at life as external locusts of control.
Speaker 1: Where the forces. Do you see yourself as buffeted by
Speaker 1: all these external forces or do you feel like, hey,
Speaker 1: the location of how I'm moving in my life is
Speaker 1: this engine and rudder in my own personal motor boat,
Speaker 1: you know, as I go down the bumpy river of life, right,
Speaker 1: And in that's the same way, I think we can
Speaker 1: have either an externalized locusts of moral authority or we
Speaker 1: have an internalized locus of moral authority in which I
Speaker 1: get to decide in the inner temple of my being
Speaker 1: what is a fault, what is an error? You know,
Speaker 1: what deserves a WinCE of appropriate chain, and what is
Speaker 1: simply a matter of skillful correction or frankly, it's just
Speaker 1: a matter of personal preference. And they kind of like
Speaker 1: the dishes organized this way, I organize them that way,
Speaker 1: and it's not a blame where the event that I
Speaker 1: just organized the dishes in a different kind of preferential
Speaker 1: eye that is located in me, in the location of forgiveness,
Speaker 1: is most fundamentally located inside yourself as well. Isn't that
Speaker 1: cool if I could insert like that emoji with like
Speaker 1: the top of its head being blown off right now,
Speaker 1: Like I feel like I just had one of those
Speaker 1: experiences that is so powerful and that is so true,
Speaker 1: and I think you know what that is something actually
Speaker 1: that my mother used to struggle with, is having that
Speaker 1: inside of herself as opposed to outside, because she used
Speaker 1: to tell me over and over again to sort of
Speaker 1: or encourage me right to have that sense of moral
Speaker 1: authority within myself as opposed to outside. A lot of
Speaker 1: things are kind of connecting in my brain right now,
Speaker 1: and I realized that over time, I've really I've worked
Speaker 1: to do that, and it has been worthy of that work.
Speaker 1: I mean, this has been a powerfully liberating thing. How
Speaker 1: do you encourage people to take steps in that direction.
Speaker 1: I've never actually languaged it exactly like this, but I
Speaker 1: think we're getting at something really important. Part of it
Speaker 1: that comes up immediately for me is a certain amount
Speaker 1: of scruffy independence that basically says, I get to claim
Speaker 1: for myself the most fundamental judgment about whether I did
Speaker 1: good or bad. I'm open to inputs from others, you know,
Speaker 1: our friends. That's why I think it's really important to
Speaker 1: practice in community. It's important to teach with other teachers.
Speaker 1: It's important to go to meetings when you're working on
Speaker 1: your sobriety of some kind or other. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: really important. But at the end of the day, where
Speaker 1: is that ultimate moral authority located externally or internally and
Speaker 1: to motivate themselves. I think different things come to mind.
Speaker 1: One is to realize that the distinction exists, that you
Speaker 1: actually can decide for yourself whether you did right or wrong,
Speaker 1: right WHOA. And second, it's to be aware of all
Speaker 1: the vast external pressures that are trying to say to you.
Speaker 1: Now we get to judge you, we get to say
Speaker 1: whether you did good or bad, right or wrong, and
Speaker 1: like to recognize those forces on you and in some
Speaker 1: ways just disentangle yourself increasingly from them, sort of like
Speaker 1: turn down the noise, turned down the volume it's they're
Speaker 1: muttering away over there in the distance, and internally, turn
Speaker 1: up the volume on your own fundamental internot integrity about
Speaker 1: yourself and living true to that every day. Let's a start. Well,
Speaker 1: I was just gonna say, it makes me think of
Speaker 1: Forest what you said earlier about as we grow into adulthood,
Speaker 1: that the work of our lives. I love the way
Speaker 1: you said it was something about, you know, writing the
Speaker 1: narrative right of our kind of our story of how
Speaker 1: we got to be where we are. I mean, when
Speaker 1: we realize that that pen is in our hand and
Speaker 1: we get to write that, that's big I think another
Speaker 1: thing you said, Forest was that that Eric and I
Speaker 1: had reflected on actually before this conversation. Is wanting to
Speaker 1: bring it up for listeners to be able to hear
Speaker 1: and benefit from, is while our patterns aren't necessarily our fault,
Speaker 1: they are our responsibility. I'd love to hear you expand
Speaker 1: expand on that. Um. I mean, for me, I think
Speaker 1: that it's kind of the fundamental teaching of this territory,
Speaker 1: and that's like, that's a big statement to make, but
Speaker 1: it just brings together everything that I was talking about
Speaker 1: earlier around nature and nurture and the way that we
Speaker 1: pop out versus the person we become in this lifetime.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of unfair stuff that happens out in
Speaker 1: the world, and it sucks and it's deeply unfair, and
Speaker 1: then it's about, Okay, what are we doing about it?
Speaker 1: And some of those actions are taken very actively out
Speaker 1: in the world, pushing back against structures that are deeply
Speaker 1: problematic in society, but some of that work also occurs
Speaker 1: inside of ourselves. You had an abusive parent, and that
Speaker 1: parent was deeply unfair to you, and it left you
Speaker 1: with a lot of behaviors, a lot of tendencies that
Speaker 1: are maladaptive because of their actions through no fault of
Speaker 1: your your own forest is giving a hypothetical, hypothetical, hypothetical example. Yeah, sorry,
Speaker 1: I'm not saying, but okay, So anyways, let's say that
Speaker 1: somebody who came out with that as their theoretical parent. Right,
Speaker 1: that's not fair. It's not fair. It sucks, and it's
Speaker 1: really important to have a moment where everybody goes, this
Speaker 1: is deeply unfair, and then it's about, Okay, how do
Speaker 1: we want to be in this life? And that's where
Speaker 1: it starts to move into responsibility. And I think that
Speaker 1: that action of having that horrible cringe moment of this
Speaker 1: is deeply unfair. I have been burdened with these structures
Speaker 1: by another person, by other people, by the unfair ravages
Speaker 1: of society, however you want to put it. And yet, okay, like,
Speaker 1: I want to do what I can in this lifetime
Speaker 1: to be the person that I want to become, to
Speaker 1: be deeply happy to the extent that it's possible, deeply
Speaker 1: fulfilled to the extent that it's possible, and to be
Speaker 1: in integrity in my behavior with other people. And it's
Speaker 1: just true to have a moment where we kind of
Speaker 1: all go, that's a much tougher journey for some people
Speaker 1: than it is for others, and that's really unfair. And
Speaker 1: also I don't know what else to say, and I
Speaker 1: wish I had like a better thing to say other
Speaker 1: than it's deeply unfair and yeah, here we are, um.
Speaker 1: And I think that that moment of claiming that responsibility
Speaker 1: is like such a pinnacle moment, such an inflection point
Speaker 1: in everyone's personal journey in this territory. And until you
Speaker 1: kind of do that, it's it's really hard to make
Speaker 1: sustained process, particularly if you're not like me, and you
Speaker 1: don't come from a really privileged background, and you come
Speaker 1: from a background where there are structures that are aligned
Speaker 1: against you. Unfortunately, it's even more important to have that
Speaker 1: kind of moment of like, all of this is unfair,
Speaker 1: and yet here I'm going to do my best. I
Speaker 1: just think that it's it's in many ways kind of
Speaker 1: the whole game here. Absolutely. I love how you said that,
Speaker 1: and that you know, things can improve, perhaps incrementally and
Speaker 1: then perhaps sometimes logarhythmically, I mean, but they can always
Speaker 1: get better. I think that is something that you know,
Speaker 1: I think of Carol Dwex work in the fixed versus
Speaker 1: growth mindset. That framework really, I think helped me to realize, oh,
Speaker 1: you know, wait, things can actually be meaningfully different than
Speaker 1: they are today in this moment. And Rick, your work
Speaker 1: specifically has has done a lot of that for me too.
Speaker 1: You've really shown me some meaningful ways to cultivate a
Speaker 1: growth mindset. In fact, I was just this morning reading
Speaker 1: about workshop you have coming up called Change your Mind,
Speaker 1: which I'm super interested in. But talking about that, I
Speaker 1: think you're offering some tools to help people change the
Speaker 1: thoughts that make them suffer and create problems with with
Speaker 1: other people. But that we have the power to change
Speaker 1: our mind for the good and that it can really
Speaker 1: feel and be very different is sort of mind blowing
Speaker 1: for me over and over again. I don't know why
Speaker 1: you would think once you learn that, you could sort
Speaker 1: of generalize that and never be mind blown again. But
Speaker 1: I kind of continually am you really have a lot
Speaker 1: of tools in your toolbox to help people from a
Speaker 1: cognitive behavioral standpoint. I think specifically, well, I appreciate that,
Speaker 1: and it's interesting we're almost coming full circle back to
Speaker 1: the parable that opens your show. To realize that you
Speaker 1: have this power to choose the tendencies that you feed,
Speaker 1: and because you have that power, you have a moral responsibility.
Speaker 1: It's your responsibility to decide who you will feed, which
Speaker 1: you will feed, you know, inside yourselves and out there
Speaker 1: in the world as well, because those wolves, if you
Speaker 1: think of it, are of course manifest in relationships, families, companies, countries,
Speaker 1: whole species, humanity. And what wolves, Which tendencies will we
Speaker 1: feed in? Which tendencies? Which will we put on a
Speaker 1: juice diet, right whether it's in our country or inside
Speaker 1: or own heart. That's really really fundamental. And to realize
Speaker 1: we have that power, that's just so phenomenal, isn't it.
Speaker 1: It's hard of everything, and it's so hopeful to realize
Speaker 1: that we're not totally screwed, We're not totally stuck. There's
Speaker 1: always something. Yeah, as far as no is it's such
Speaker 1: a troupe for me. But I reject I'm with Captain Kirk.
Speaker 1: I reject the Kobyashi Ramos marous scenario. I'm with Victor Frankel.
Speaker 1: There's always something you can do, if only inside yourself,
Speaker 1: if only all you do is deliberately right out the
Speaker 1: storm of the worst day or hour or minute of
Speaker 1: your entire life. Okay, but you are choosing to write
Speaker 1: out the storm to get to the other side because
Speaker 1: all storms pass eventually one way or another. All bleeding
Speaker 1: stops eventually, as they say in the are one way
Speaker 1: or another. But anyway, I think your whole approach is fantastic.
Speaker 1: That's why I've always had great harmony with Eric. You know,
Speaker 1: real simpatico. Yeah, you know, good guy, and um. It
Speaker 1: really does boil down to which one will we feed
Speaker 1: in the very precious minutes of our life. Right. The
Speaker 1: law of impermanence in Buddhism really allows us to have hope,
Speaker 1: right because we know that things will pass, we know
Speaker 1: that we know it will change. I just finished Joseph's
Speaker 1: book this morning, so that's a thick tom on mindfulness.
Speaker 1: Thank you for acknowledging that because it is in Eric
Speaker 1: has been my witness. It's taken me months to go
Speaker 1: through because I've really gone chapter by chapter each morning
Speaker 1: and try to kind of reflect on it. And it's
Speaker 1: a dense It's dense if you really read through it,
Speaker 1: and there's a lot of wisdom there. Man, he rivals you,
Speaker 1: I think for the He's my teacher. I respect Joseph
Speaker 1: one thing about him. He could care less about fame.
Speaker 1: I heard this advice wants to aspire an authors, pursue excellence,
Speaker 1: ignore fame, and I wish more people would heed that advice.
Speaker 1: Joseph absolutely could care less about fame. He's totally the
Speaker 1: real deal. You get that as you read the words
Speaker 1: on his page to this whole point he said, talking
Speaker 1: about mindfulness and the gifts of mindfulness, he said, even
Speaker 1: the first few moments of genuine mindfulness are a turning
Speaker 1: point in our lives because we realize, perhaps for the
Speaker 1: first time, that the mind can be trained, can be understood,
Speaker 1: can be liberated. We get glimpses of something beyond our ordinary,
Speaker 1: conventional reality, touching a space that transforms our vision of
Speaker 1: who we are and what the world is. And we
Speaker 1: understand that there is a direct and clearly articulated path
Speaker 1: to this end. And I thank you all for helping
Speaker 1: illuminate that path in your work. Thank you for bringing
Speaker 1: Jetty and that's incredibly kind. I really appreciate that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think your work is accessible in forest. It's been
Speaker 1: great to see sort of an addition to what Rick
Speaker 1: is doing. You know, there is really something special that
Speaker 1: happens with the two of you that is just different
Speaker 1: than just Rick. You know, um, there's there's definitely something
Speaker 1: that is created there that that is special. So you
Speaker 1: guys definitely are illuminating points along the path. So thank you, well,
Speaker 1: thank you so much, Eric, I really appreciate that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: in the past few years, there have been so many
Speaker 1: moments with my mother caring for her when um, I
Speaker 1: have wanted to. She's been very difficult because of her disease.
Speaker 1: It really changed her personality and caused her to be
Speaker 1: very agitated and difficult at times. And I really deeply
Speaker 1: wanted to show up with presence and love and some
Speaker 1: compassion for her. And I'm so glad that I did.
Speaker 1: In retrospect, now, that was the hard work, that the
Speaker 1: right work. But your podcast, the two of you guys
Speaker 1: were a touchstone for me in the moments when I
Speaker 1: needed to reconnect with that true nature with that that's
Speaker 1: that tone that I wanted to set, that presence, that love,
Speaker 1: that gentleness and forgiveness. I would get in my car
Speaker 1: and I would drive around and run my errands listening
Speaker 1: to the two of you talk to one another, and
Speaker 1: it brought such delight and gladness and edification and wisdom,
Speaker 1: and it brought me back to that center of presence
Speaker 1: and love and compassion every time, and I just am
Speaker 1: grateful for that that gift that you give. And also,
Speaker 1: like I'll echo what Eric said, the two of you
Speaker 1: together have the most delightful dynamic that just sparks so
Speaker 1: much joy. I wish that I could have like thanksgiving
Speaker 1: generate with you, guys. I want to be part of
Speaker 1: the Handsome family. I'm serious, You're really sweet. That is
Speaker 1: incredibly sweet, Jenny, No, I mean, like, thank you so
Speaker 1: much for the kind words. It really does truly mean
Speaker 1: a lot to us, and I mean a lot to
Speaker 1: me personally, And it's just been so lovely to do
Speaker 1: this with my dad and to increasingly have experience and
Speaker 1: says of being able to have that relationship with people,
Speaker 1: have that relationship with people like you and feel like
Speaker 1: you kind of make an impact in that way. And
Speaker 1: you know, my Dad's been at this for a while
Speaker 1: and made an impact on a lot of people, and
Speaker 1: it's just been very cool to begin to get a
Speaker 1: little bit of that experience myself and just thank you
Speaker 1: so much. It's such a kind thing. To say thank you.
Speaker 1: And this is the first for the two of you, right,
Speaker 1: this is your first obviously totally rock did Eric. He
Speaker 1: gave you a lot of run, gave a lot of
Speaker 1: airtime and great, really rocked it. I thank you would
Speaker 1: saying that it was really a joy. This just felt
Speaker 1: like such a joy. And yes, Eric, Eric's o g
Speaker 1: here at the table, so I mean he he is
Speaker 1: as always is the constant support that he is gracious
Speaker 1: and he is he's a pro. So thank you, Thank
Speaker 1: you guys. Thanks guys. If what you just heard was
Speaker 1: helpful to you, please consider making a monthly donation to
Speaker 1: support the One You Feed podcast. When you join our
Speaker 1: membership community. With this monthly pledge, you get lots of
Speaker 1: exclusive members only benefits. It's our way of saying thank
Speaker 1: you for your support. Now. We are so grateful for
Speaker 1: the members of our community. We wouldn't be able to
Speaker 1: do what we do without their support, and we don't
Speaker 1: take a single dollar for granted. To learn more, make
Speaker 1: a donation at any level and become a member of
Speaker 1: the one you Feed community. Go to when you feed
Speaker 1: dot net slash Join the One You Feed podcast. Would
Speaker 1: like to sincerely thank our sponsors for supporting the show,