Speaker 1: It sort of redeemed CBT for me because I was
Speaker 1: at a point where I was becoming a bit disillusioned
Speaker 1: with it because it felt incomplete to me, at least
Speaker 1: the way I was practicing it. It felt like it
Speaker 1: wasn't quite fully human. But realizing that I could incorporate
Speaker 1: this part of this mindful part, which to me felt
Speaker 1: like bringing the heart to the head and body of CBT.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the Psychology Podcast. Today we welcome Seth Gilahan
Speaker 2: to the show. Seth is a licensed psychologist who specializes
Speaker 2: in mindful cognitive behavioral therapy or CBT for Sure. He
Speaker 2: received his doctorate in psychology from the University of Pennsylvania.
Speaker 2: Seth is also a therapy advisor with the self therapy
Speaker 2: app Bloom, a medical reviewer for Everyday Health, and host
Speaker 2: of the Think act B podcast. Over the years, he's
Speaker 2: authored multiple books on mindfulness and CBT. His lady's book
Speaker 2: is called Mindful Cognitive Behavioral Therapy A Simple Path to Healing,
Speaker 2: Hope and Peace. In this episode, I talked to Seth
Speaker 2: Gilahan about mindful CBT. Cognitive behavioral therapy is often used
Speaker 2: to address mental health issues. Although proven to be helpful
Speaker 2: Seth believes that adding the component of mindfulness will not
Speaker 2: only improve our well being, but can also help us
Speaker 2: find meaning, purpose and peace. He shares with us the
Speaker 2: think act be paradigm and ways we can be more
Speaker 2: in tune with ourselves. We also touch on the topics
Speaker 2: of alignment, spirituality, suffering, and openness to experience. This was
Speaker 2: a really really meaningful special chat for me, and I
Speaker 2: know it will be for you too. Seth is deeply sensitive,
Speaker 2: deeply thoughtful human being. It's been a pleasure to call
Speaker 2: him my friend for a couple of years now, and
Speaker 2: I just find his writings really nuanced. But also they
Speaker 2: combine typical CBT approaches with a whole other level of
Speaker 2: spirituality that you often won't find in CBT approaches. So
Speaker 2: I really think you'll find this episode really unique. I
Speaker 2: did so without further ado, I bring you, Seth Gillahan.
Speaker 1: Good to see you after having seen you in person.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was nice to finally meet you in person.
Speaker 1: I know, I know, I feel like I know you
Speaker 1: better now, probably because I know you better now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're even better in three dimensions.
Speaker 1: I've been told it's my best dimension.
Speaker 2: Yeah, if one of them has to be your best dimensions.
Speaker 2: I think that's the best one.
Speaker 1: It's that third one mm for sure.
Speaker 2: For sure. Look, you know you have this really revolutionary
Speaker 2: approach to in our piece to Calm, to reducing anxiety.
Speaker 2: Won't talk about that today? Do you apply it to
Speaker 2: your own life?
Speaker 1: A lot of it I think really originated with you know,
Speaker 1: kind of out of necessity, kind of discovering like, wow,
Speaker 1: I need something here, I need something more than more
Speaker 1: than what I had. And that's where a lot of
Speaker 1: it kind of was was tested and grew out of
Speaker 1: in these past few years. You know, I know I
Speaker 1: couldn't have written this book, you know, five or six,
Speaker 1: or I don't know, three years ago, because I just
Speaker 1: I hadn't had the experiences that it'd sort of forced
Speaker 1: me to the point of pushing some of these ideas.
Speaker 1: And also I think I was just too protective of myself,
Speaker 1: you know, too guarded. I wouldn't have been willing to
Speaker 1: admit that I was just you know, like felt like
Speaker 1: killing myself at times, or just felt you know, completely done,
Speaker 1: or I was you know, pissy with my family or
Speaker 1: that kind of thing. Like I thought I needed to
Speaker 1: present a certain image of myself. But it's you know,
Speaker 1: it's BS, and it's I think people know that.
Speaker 2: You really go all in on your your your your
Speaker 2: personal life. You let it all hang out. In your
Speaker 2: new book, which is called Mindful CBT Mindful Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.
Speaker 2: I just want to say that's name of the book. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, a couple of weeks before publication, I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: I kind of reveal a lot of myself in this book. Huh.
Speaker 1: All right, well, I'm not going to stop that train
Speaker 1: at this point, but sort of you know, when you're writing,
Speaker 1: it's just it's just you and the page, and then
Speaker 1: you know, maybe you and your editor. But then you realize,
Speaker 1: like I mean, hopefully be a lot of people who
Speaker 1: see this.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, then resonate. I feel like one out of
Speaker 2: every two people will deeply resonate with your story, like
Speaker 2: that high of a percentage. So talk a little bit
Speaker 2: about how you got into studying mindful cognitive behavioral therapy,
Speaker 2: that's the title of your new book. How did you
Speaker 2: get into studying it and what is what makes it
Speaker 2: different from regular cognitive behavioral therapy. Yeah, it's a.
Speaker 1: Great question, thank you. I mean, when I was when
Speaker 1: I was first doing therapy. I was doing cognitive therapy,
Speaker 1: just pretty much straight cognitive therapy, so trying to help
Speaker 1: people change their thought patterns to mostly to lift depression.
Speaker 1: That was mostly the group of people I was working
Speaker 1: with as people who are severely depressed. And then in
Speaker 1: kind of the next round of my training, I learned
Speaker 1: a lot about a behavioral approach, so you know, practicing
Speaker 1: ways of like facing fears and doing things that are
Speaker 1: rewarding and energizing to treat depression and anxiety. And those
Speaker 1: worked pretty well, I mean really well in a lot
Speaker 1: of cases. But then a lot of times there were
Speaker 1: things that weren't really didn't really seem to be affected
Speaker 1: or sometimes even really touched by those techniques. So, for example,
Speaker 1: if someone came in with a ton of worry, there's worrying, worrying,
Speaker 1: worrying all the time, and worrying if this bad thing
Speaker 1: is going to happen, and this bad thing is going
Speaker 1: to happen, I could try a cognitive technique with them
Speaker 1: where you say, like, all right, well let's write down
Speaker 1: you know what you're worry what's the likelhood that's going
Speaker 1: to happen, what's the evidence from the past, what's more
Speaker 1: realistic prediction and maybe they could see through that worry like, Okay,
Speaker 1: it's not that realistic. But then because of the way
Speaker 1: this goes in a condition like generalized anxiety, it just
Speaker 1: switches to the next thing. So it's not so much
Speaker 1: much about the content of the worries as it is
Speaker 1: the process. It's kind of like just this this beacon
Speaker 1: of worry and it just finds things to attach to.
Speaker 1: As soon as one thing passes in, it disconnects and
Speaker 1: then reconnects to that next thing. So for that, my
Speaker 1: supervisor at the time, doctor Lissa Kushner, introduced me to
Speaker 1: a mindful approach where instead of trying to combat the
Speaker 1: thoughts directly, you shift your relationship with them by noticing them,
Speaker 1: being aware of when you're worrying, and then instead of
Speaker 1: really kind of engaging with that worry and getting wrapped
Speaker 1: up in it, you just allow those thoughts to pass
Speaker 1: like we would any kind of experience of conscious awareness
Speaker 1: when we're doing meditation. This isn't necessarily happening in meditation,
Speaker 1: but it's that type of meditative, mindful response to things.
Speaker 1: And then another part of the mindfulness approach was just
Speaker 1: living your life even with these worries and fears and
Speaker 1: not waiting for the worries to go away before doing
Speaker 1: things that were important to you. So that was really
Speaker 1: how I came to it, But it took me that
Speaker 1: was probably twenty ten or so. It took me close
Speaker 1: to another ten years to realize that mindfulness wasn't just
Speaker 1: kind of another like another silo within CBT, cognitive approaches,
Speaker 1: behavioral approaches, mindful approaches. You can add them kind of
Speaker 1: as needed, but to really see that these three ingredients
Speaker 1: are completely commingled, that within a cognitive technique we can
Speaker 1: do it in a more or less mindful way that
Speaker 1: in a behavioral approach, you know, I could do an
Speaker 1: activity with more or less awareness, more or less focus
Speaker 1: or attention in the present, more or less acceptance. So
Speaker 1: you know, with that CBT triangle, think about the thoughts,
Speaker 1: feelings and actions in those you know, those those three vertices.
Speaker 1: And so with mindfulness, what it seems I think it
Speaker 1: did for me is is it introduced a dimension of depth.
Speaker 1: You and I may have spoken about this, but instead
Speaker 1: of a triangle, it's more like a wedge of cheese.
Speaker 1: So we can locate ourselves not just in terms of
Speaker 1: what we're thinking, feeling and doing, but but what's our
Speaker 1: relationship to those experiences? How present and where are we
Speaker 1: and how how open are we to receiving those experiences
Speaker 1: instead of resisting or rejecting them. Wow, that's a lot.
Speaker 2: Huh No, No, it's revolutionary. Are you the founder of
Speaker 2: mindful CBT?
Speaker 1: You know, I don't think anyone else has called it
Speaker 1: mindful CBT, but I'm definitely not the first one to
Speaker 1: combine ideas from mindfulness and from CBT so that you know,
Speaker 1: act accept into commitment therapy. As an obvious example of this,
Speaker 1: I've spoken with Steve Hayes on my podcast, and we
Speaker 1: find huge areas of overlap. I think some of the
Speaker 1: differences I tend to keep more the elements of traditional CBT,
Speaker 1: at least in my reading of it, so you may
Speaker 1: be directing more more explicit attention to dealing with thoughts
Speaker 1: rather than focusing kind of waiting the mindfulness and acceptance
Speaker 1: part of things more strongly. There's also, you know, mindfulness
Speaker 1: based cognitive therapy so mb CT, similar to mindfulness based
Speaker 1: stress reduction. It's based really closely on mindfulness based stress reduction.
Speaker 1: Tends to be an eight week program group format and
Speaker 1: that really emphasizes more of the cognitive side of things
Speaker 1: along with this mindfulness approach. So I think there are
Speaker 1: different flavors of this. I mean, then there are other
Speaker 1: ones too. Liz Romer and Susan Orcillo have their approach,
Speaker 1: which is what I learned from from doctor Kushner as
Speaker 1: a as an early as a new psychologist. But I think,
Speaker 1: I mean the approach that I that I've developed myself,
Speaker 1: I feel like has its own kind of flavor, like
Speaker 1: each of these does. And yeah, so it's interesting. It's
Speaker 1: like like everything else, I guess to some extent, it's
Speaker 1: a It's like if something is a good idea, it's
Speaker 1: probably a recombination or reformulation of someone else's idea, and
Speaker 1: it includes our own stamp, in our own voice. I
Speaker 1: think that's a lot of what makes things unique is
Speaker 1: just the voice we lend them.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, there's a very clear voice in your book.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's just it's it's very, very very clearly yours.
Speaker 2: There is something there is a very calm, a loving
Speaker 2: voice of Seth that that is the front the front
Speaker 2: man behind mindful cognitive hero therapy. But the thing is
Speaker 2: about that's interesting about mindful cognitive heal therapy is that
Speaker 2: you claim that it can address questions such as meaning, purpose,
Speaker 2: and even spiritual peace. So it goes quite deeper than
Speaker 2: the claims of regular CBT. I don't think I've never
Speaker 2: heard Aaron Beck, the founder of CBT, say that CBT
Speaker 2: helps with spiritual peace. Maybe he has maybe has said that,
Speaker 2: But can you talk about a bit what? What? Why? How?
Speaker 2: How's this? How does this thing so revolutionary? What? What
Speaker 2: are the best components of it you think that are
Speaker 2: contributing to such deep inner peace?
Speaker 1: Mm hmm, Yeah, it's interesting about Aaron Beck. My guess is,
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously you knew him much better than I did.
Speaker 1: I only met person twice, right, and you're just getting
Speaker 1: his autograph on his But my guess is he would
Speaker 1: he wouldn't disagree that that CBT and with or without mindfulness,
Speaker 1: you know, could could facilitate your spiritual spiritual connection and
Speaker 1: issues of meaning and purpose. My guess is, I mean
Speaker 1: it's these are things that are really difficult to test,
Speaker 1: and CBT is so connected to a real research tradition
Speaker 1: and also within psychiatry and that world of evidence based research,
Speaker 1: I can imagine there may be a lot to lose
Speaker 1: by making these kinds of what could be considered grandiose
Speaker 1: claims within a kind of straightforward, maybe dry, academic setting.
Speaker 1: So that's my guess. That's pure conjecture. But from the little,
Speaker 1: that little contact that I had with doctor Beck, I mean,
Speaker 1: as you know, he was such a deeply human person
Speaker 1: and it seemed like he really understood the you know
Speaker 1: that that were not just a collection of thoughts and
Speaker 1: feelings and actions. But there's something now completely projecting this
Speaker 1: onto him. But my sense is he he I mean,
Speaker 1: like I think, like most of us, we recognize that
Speaker 1: there's a part of us it's neither mind nor body,
Speaker 1: something that feels maybe a little closer to the heart
Speaker 1: of who we are. So with all that as as backdrop,
Speaker 1: I mean, I I wasn't really looking. I wasn't looking
Speaker 1: for a spiritual approach, not consciously. I wasn't setting out
Speaker 1: to I'm going to develop a spiritual form of of CBT.
Speaker 1: But I was, you know, I was in a lot
Speaker 1: of pain, emotion, mostly emotional pain, and just uh mental
Speaker 1: and mental confusion and bewilderment. And following this this prolonged
Speaker 1: physical illness that that you know about we've talked about
Speaker 1: and that I wrote about HM. And after you know, months,
Speaker 1: maybe maybe a couple close to a couple of years
Speaker 1: of that, I'd reached the end of my own what
Speaker 1: what I what I knew within myself to do. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'd seen every doctor that I had been referred to.
Speaker 1: Nobody could find any any real answers. All the answers
Speaker 1: were like, your brain looks fine, good news. Your your
Speaker 1: heart is healthy, you know, oh you're you don't have
Speaker 1: to sleep apnea, Like, okay, all right, And my wife
Speaker 1: would say, well that's good, but why are you having
Speaker 1: these symptoms still? I was like, oh yeah, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: there's still that. So it kind of culminated in this
Speaker 1: one this one night, and I was, I was lying
Speaker 1: on the couch after dinner. This was kind of typical
Speaker 1: for me at this time, and I was and I
Speaker 1: reached this point in the day where I was just like,
Speaker 1: my mind wasn't really functioning that well anymore. I had
Speaker 1: no energy, my nervous system was was totally raw. I'd
Speaker 1: been you know, doing therapy all day. It wasn't like
Speaker 1: I'd been you know doing I mean, it was deeply
Speaker 1: emotional work, but it wasn't like the work was leaving
Speaker 1: me completely raw, like there was just something going on
Speaker 1: physiologically that was not there wasn't well. And so I
Speaker 1: was lying on the on the couch just you know,
Speaker 1: this refrain in my head like I've reached the end
Speaker 1: of myself. I've reached the end of myself, and this
Speaker 1: awareness just came to me that that, like this this
Speaker 1: great relief that the end of myself was not the end,
Speaker 1: that there was a part of me that began where
Speaker 1: the small me ended, and it was it was a
Speaker 1: larger self. It was a self that wasn't diminished or
Speaker 1: even really touched by the things I was experiencing, by
Speaker 1: the struggles I was having, but it was also a
Speaker 1: witness to all that experience. It was it was a
Speaker 1: part of me, but it was also a witness to
Speaker 1: my to everything about me. It's like I knew me right,
Speaker 1: like I met myself in that moment, and that deeper
Speaker 1: part of myself was connected to the divine. That's how
Speaker 1: I experienced it. So it I mean, I think in
Speaker 1: a way it really departed from what we might think
Speaker 1: of as academic CBT, but in a way that to
Speaker 1: me felt like It sort of redeemed CBT for me
Speaker 1: because I was at a point where I was becoming
Speaker 1: a bit disillusioned with it because it felt incomplete to me,
Speaker 1: at least the way I was practicing it. It felt
Speaker 1: like it wasn't quite fully human. But realizing that I
Speaker 1: could incorporate this part of this mindful part, which to
Speaker 1: me felt like bringing the heart, you know, to the
Speaker 1: head and body of CBT, felt like it's like I was.
Speaker 1: I was really excited and energized about CBT again. And
Speaker 1: that's where really kind of developing these ideas began, after
Speaker 1: I had kind of worked them through in my own life.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, So when did you develop the think act
Speaker 2: be paradigm?
Speaker 1: You know, it's funny that one actually started back into
Speaker 1: twenty fifteen. I was invited to us to blog on
Speaker 1: psychology today. I think you I have also blogged there
Speaker 1: and need a title for your blog. And I was
Speaker 1: tossing things around, and then I was like, oh, what
Speaker 1: about You know, I wanted to keep things simple, so
Speaker 1: I was like, what about think act be as a
Speaker 1: way to you know, summarize cognitive behavioral and mindfulness. So
Speaker 1: that was the original. That was the That was the
Speaker 1: origin of it, But I didn't realize at the time
Speaker 1: how integrated they could be. I was just thinking of
Speaker 1: it at that point as these these three sort of
Speaker 1: you know, connected but but somewhat separate approaches. You could
Speaker 1: sort of, you know, choose one or the other or
Speaker 1: a couple of them. But it was a bit a
Speaker 1: bit fortuitous, I guess, because I feel like my thinking
Speaker 1: around that has evolved. The label still still works.
Speaker 2: Can you explain it what it means to our listeners?
Speaker 2: Explain your approach.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So whenever we're having what I like about think
Speaker 1: ACTB is it's it's fairly easy to remember, I think,
Speaker 1: at least once we committed to memory. I mean, we
Speaker 1: can remember tab that helps think Act B all that
Speaker 1: that brings up for me images of a pink soft drink,
Speaker 1: diet soft drink from the eighties. But it's three ways
Speaker 1: that we can can remember to shift our experience if
Speaker 1: we're struggling in the moment. So if I'm you know,
Speaker 1: really suffering at some point, I can say, like wait
Speaker 1: a second, Okay, are there are there certain thoughts that
Speaker 1: aren't helping me here? That's the think part, Or I
Speaker 1: can think, you know, are there is there something I
Speaker 1: need to do in this moment that can help me
Speaker 1: to move through this experience. That's the act part, and
Speaker 1: the bee is am I closing down to this experience
Speaker 1: in a way that's not helpful? Like I was having
Speaker 1: an argument with my wife the other day and I
Speaker 1: realized that I was I was really like pushing away
Speaker 1: that experience, feeling like like, you know this, this should
Speaker 1: not be an issue. We shouldn't be having this argument
Speaker 1: like this. I don't want this to be happening. And
Speaker 1: then when I was like, oh, yeah, I don't have
Speaker 1: to resist that, it made things so much better because
Speaker 1: I wasn't fighting two fights. I wasn't dealing with the
Speaker 1: issue itself and also dealing with my issues with the issue.
Speaker 1: And then I was like, all right, yeah, this is
Speaker 1: this is a thing probably that a lot of couples
Speaker 1: deal with, and we can just deal with that instead
Speaker 1: of you know, this this idea I'm sure from Buddhism
Speaker 1: about the second arrow. You know, the first era that
Speaker 1: hits us is like some some issue, you know, some problem.
Speaker 1: But then we add that second arrow, that second layer
Speaker 1: of suffering, which is like, you know, why is this
Speaker 1: happening or this shouldn't be happening, or that that struggle
Speaker 1: that just makes the unavoidable difficulty much more difficult.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, did you go through all three? Thinking, acting,
Speaker 2: and being?
Speaker 1: Yeah? So being was the last one. That's the that
Speaker 1: acceptance part. The other important part is that they all
Speaker 1: affect each other, so that if I, let's say I start,
Speaker 1: I can start with any of them. They don't have
Speaker 1: to go, you know, something to act to being. I
Speaker 1: can start with being, which is where I usually encourage
Speaker 1: people to start. Come into the moment, connect to yourself.
Speaker 1: Start right, take a breath. All right, now I'm back
Speaker 1: gathered up all my all my horecruxes or whatever parts
Speaker 1: of myself that I had distributed widely, So I'm back together.
Speaker 1: And then from that place and I can ask, all right,
Speaker 1: what's going through my mind? So that that presence then
Speaker 1: helps us to identify our thoughts, helps us to be
Speaker 1: aware of what we're thinking, and our changes in our
Speaker 1: thinking and accepting things as they are can help us
Speaker 1: to shift our actions. Our actions then, in turn can
Speaker 1: affect our thoughts. What we do can affect our mindful awareness,
Speaker 1: so the whole thing is integrated and is self reinforcing
Speaker 1: in a similar way, but an opposite way. As our
Speaker 1: unhelpful thoughts, unhelpful actions, our lack of presence also tend
Speaker 1: to be reinforcing. In kind of a negative spiral, we
Speaker 1: can enact a positive spiral to move things in the
Speaker 1: other direction.
Speaker 2: Let's talk about one of your chapters called connect with
Speaker 2: Yourself your own personal Story. It seems like you go
Speaker 2: in and out of that feeling a connection with yourself.
Speaker 2: How could people by mindful? See, we keep practices to
Speaker 2: connect with yourself. Let's be super practical here.
Speaker 1: Well, I think it starts first thing in the morning.
Speaker 1: So usually we our tendency, I think is to wake
Speaker 1: up and we've already left ourselves. We've kind of abandoned
Speaker 1: ourselves from the moment that we start the day. But
Speaker 1: you know, we've our minds are somewhere else. We're you know,
Speaker 1: thinking about problems that are coming. We're not really in
Speaker 1: our bodies. So I found it's really helpful in the
Speaker 1: morning to wake up and just like connect with myself
Speaker 1: first thing, like connect with my body. Notice, like all right,
Speaker 1: what's what's going on with my body right now? Like
Speaker 1: how does it feel? Are there? You know, what's the
Speaker 1: sort of quality of energy of my body, Are there
Speaker 1: certain emotions that I'm aware of, and then we can
Speaker 1: take that connection with us throughout the day. But coming
Speaker 1: back to it as often as we need to, I
Speaker 1: find it's usually easier to or more effective, to set
Speaker 1: some specific times to check in with ourselves instead of
Speaker 1: just kind of having this global I'm just going to
Speaker 1: connect to myself all the time, because all the time
Speaker 1: can easily kind of become none of the time. So
Speaker 1: like meal times I think can be a good time
Speaker 1: to pause and to sort of check in, like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: still here, still got breath in my body. I don't
Speaker 1: know if other people have this experience, Scott, but but
Speaker 1: so often I have this realization and like, oh, like
Speaker 1: I was somewhere else, Like my body is always here,
Speaker 1: but it's like my mind was in another place, and
Speaker 1: you know, it's like we're not We're not a unit,
Speaker 1: unitary being in those moments. And I think that that
Speaker 1: kind of that kind of fracturing I experienced, that fracturing
Speaker 1: is very uh. There's there's a sort of quiet unease
Speaker 1: about it, like it's not a state of ease to
Speaker 1: be disconnected from ourselves. And conversely, coming back to ourselves,
Speaker 1: just even it's like taking breath and being like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm right here, I'm right here. There can be something
Speaker 1: so calming about that. Like just today I was moving
Speaker 1: from you know, doing laundry in the basement to coming
Speaker 1: back upstairs to move on to the next thing, and
Speaker 1: I realized that I was ahead of myself, like I
Speaker 1: was already projecting myself like to the top of the
Speaker 1: stairs when I was in the middle of the stairs
Speaker 1: with this this kind of this pervasive sense that I
Speaker 1: need to be doing the next thing. I shouldn't be
Speaker 1: here right now, I need to be on too, the
Speaker 1: next thing. But that creates a state of like a
Speaker 1: conflict between who we are and who we think we
Speaker 1: need to be. Like again, it's subtle, but I experience
Speaker 1: it in a as a very as a powerful thing
Speaker 1: that because I'm at odds with my body, like my
Speaker 1: body here is a problem. If I think my body
Speaker 1: needs to be there, and if I just come back
Speaker 1: and like, oh, I'm on this step, I'm on the
Speaker 1: sixth step or whatever of the stairs, that becomes like
Speaker 1: it had been a sort of nothing experience that I
Speaker 1: wasn't even conscious of, but suddenly it becomes like an
Speaker 1: everything experience. I'm just on this step and that's everything.
Speaker 2: That's really interesting. That's a really mindful, really mindful approach.
Speaker 1: Does it feel practical? Because I hear what you're saying,
Speaker 1: and I agree it's important to make these things kind
Speaker 1: of easy to take up in our lives in a
Speaker 1: real way.
Speaker 2: Do you think that exercise that can help you connect
Speaker 2: with yourself? Well? Okay, well what does it mean to
Speaker 2: connect with yourself? What are you saying? Are you saying
Speaker 2: connect with your body? Body mind? Mind connects with body,
Speaker 2: body connects with the mind. What does that even mean?
Speaker 1: Yeah? I think it does. I think it means. I
Speaker 1: mean most simply, body connects with mind, mind connects with body,
Speaker 1: and both love it. Like I think my body loves
Speaker 1: conscious attention from the mind. It's like hmm, thanks for that.
Speaker 1: And my mind loves to remember that it's connected to
Speaker 1: a body. It's like, oh yeah, there's this whole thing
Speaker 1: that's the rest of me. Yeah. I think it's it's
Speaker 1: good to ask these questions, Scott, because so much of
Speaker 1: this is intuitive and I just kind of take it
Speaker 1: for granted. And the same was too with my writing.
Speaker 1: Like my editor had similar reactions At times it's like,
Speaker 1: what are you talking about, Like be true to yourself
Speaker 1: or the truth of who you are? Like what the
Speaker 1: hell does that even mean?
Speaker 2: All Right?
Speaker 1: I try, I try to break it down and make
Speaker 1: it real. So, yeah, I think connection with ourselves is.
Speaker 1: I think we experience it as awareness of the different
Speaker 1: parts of ourselves and a sense of being whole, a
Speaker 1: sense of being a body and a mind. And then
Speaker 1: I would also include a spirit. We can call it
Speaker 1: different things and call it maybe just call it our
Speaker 1: consciousness or our soul or whatever. We don't have to
Speaker 1: we don't have to make up entities. It's just an experience.
Speaker 1: I think that we all can have this again, a
Speaker 1: relationship with our experience. And so when I'm connected to
Speaker 1: my body and my mind and my attention is really
Speaker 1: in the present, in that kind of that thin slice
Speaker 1: of what's actually happening right now, that tends to be really,
Speaker 1: I guess, a strong place to operate from, but also
Speaker 1: a very peaceful place.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know. Karl Rodgers talked a lot about the
Speaker 2: import of connecting with yourself, a real big idea of his,
Speaker 2: and arguing existential loneliness is when we are disconnected from ourselves.
Speaker 2: That's what he called existential loneliness. So that's cool. Okay,
Speaker 2: let's move on to saying yes. That's one of my
Speaker 2: favorite ones. As you know, I'm a big fan of
Speaker 2: improv I'm I'm a fan of like yes, and you know, like,
Speaker 2: so talk to me a little about that chapter and
Speaker 2: some of the ideas in there. And it doesn't mean
Speaker 2: to like say yes to life, which is also you know,
Speaker 2: a Victor Frankel book book title, say Yes to Life.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, it's interesting, Scott. You mentioned Carl Rodgers
Speaker 1: and existential approaches and Victor Frankel. Yeah, and it does
Speaker 1: seem like, I mean, the it feels like the more
Speaker 1: like the broader we make CBT, the more it just
Speaker 1: sounds like other types of approaches that that probably have
Speaker 1: actually that I know have have considered these ideas, you know,
Speaker 1: in in depth for a long time. You know, it's
Speaker 1: not like mindful CBT is the first time we've thought about, like, oh,
Speaker 1: maybe therapy can address issues of meaning and purpose. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's a lot of what I've loved about existential approaches.
Speaker 1: But saying yes is man, there's a there was a
Speaker 1: there's a a priest what did I forget what is what? Order?
Speaker 1: He's with Richard Rore. He's written a lot of great books.
Speaker 1: He's great, but he there's an interview where he described
Speaker 1: what happens for him in meditation, and it basically it
Speaker 1: sounded like it was for him it was an experience
Speaker 1: of getting to yes and getting past that. What I
Speaker 1: often experience as as just this automatic kind of no
Speaker 1: resistance to what's happening. I don't like this, I don't
Speaker 1: want that. I reject that, and the only things that
Speaker 1: are really sort of allowed in are things that feel
Speaker 1: like pleasure or gain or comfort. But it's just not
Speaker 1: a very lively way to live. I mean, it's it's
Speaker 1: probably how I've lived most of my life, you know,
Speaker 1: kind of rejecting a lot of experience and only wanted
Speaker 1: to pursue certain types of states. But so much more
Speaker 1: is open to us when we when we're willing to
Speaker 1: say yes to what's happening. So I think that's these
Speaker 1: ideas I do find there. They can be abstract and
Speaker 1: something it's hard to articulate. I think, in the end,
Speaker 1: you know, somewhat impossible to fully describe. And yet I
Speaker 1: think we I think most of us have this experience
Speaker 1: of the kind of there's an energy, an energy of no,
Speaker 1: or an energy of okay, an energy of resistance, and
Speaker 1: an energy of acceptance. So that's that, to me is
Speaker 1: kind of the basic the basic premise, and it I
Speaker 1: mean I had to I had to practice a lot
Speaker 1: of a lot of saying yes because I've been saying
Speaker 1: no for a long time to the struggles I was having. No,
Speaker 1: I don't want this, This doesn't belong to me, This
Speaker 1: shouldn't be happening to me. Surely this is not mine.
Speaker 1: This is you got the wrong address, buddy. But no,
Speaker 1: there it was so working working with that. What a
Speaker 1: different starting point that is, to work with what is
Speaker 1: instead of to say no, no, this is this is wrong,
Speaker 1: and I'm not going to deal with this until I,
Speaker 1: you know, sort of waiter comes and takes back this
Speaker 1: wrong order and brings me the right one. Then we
Speaker 1: can have a conversation.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's a big you know, that's one of
Speaker 2: your your cognitive distortions that you talk about, is outsourcing
Speaker 2: happiness to when Yeah, yeah, you talk about in your
Speaker 2: prior book as well. Yeah that's right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, I think it hit me harder this time.
Speaker 1: Around because because it had to, you know, because because
Speaker 1: I realized how I really thought that that happiness was
Speaker 1: not an option until these symptoms went away. And if
Speaker 1: that were true, you I'd still be pretty unhappy. But thankfully,
Speaker 1: you know, that wasn't the case. There's more freedom available,
Speaker 1: which I think again, like Victor Frankel, you know, wrote
Speaker 1: about these things very very eloquently about the freedom we
Speaker 1: can find in our attitude. We you can't change ourself circumstances,
Speaker 1: and obviously he knew suffering like like few of us
Speaker 1: have experienced. So yeah, that's it's interesting, Scott, how I
Speaker 1: feel like so many traditions come to this like sort
Speaker 1: of the deepest expression or one of the one of
Speaker 1: the most profound expressions of their philosophy, whether it's Buddhism
Speaker 1: or Christianity or probably Judaism, which I don't know as well.
Speaker 1: But it's the idea that our well being does not
Speaker 1: have to depend on our circumstances, which is not to
Speaker 1: I don't think that's to deny that things affect us,
Speaker 1: or to imagine that we should just be completely indifferent
Speaker 1: to what happens, and you know, completely you know, quote
Speaker 1: unquote zen regardless of what's happening. It seems like a
Speaker 1: kind of non human way to live. But I can
Speaker 1: be upset and overwhelmed and you feel terrible and still
Speaker 1: have a part of me that that is not defined
Speaker 1: by or identified completely with those experiences, that can observe
Speaker 1: them and and still find some equanimity and offer compassion
Speaker 1: to myself in that moment that you're having a having
Speaker 1: a tough time, aren't you? I did that once and
Speaker 1: I was I lay down to take a nap, just
Speaker 1: exhausted and miserable and m hm and crying, and then
Speaker 1: I had that experience of like, well, you know, there's
Speaker 1: a there's a part of me that can can observe
Speaker 1: what's happening here and and offer connection and compassion in
Speaker 1: this moment. And so I sensed or or you know,
Speaker 1: had that part of myself say like, you're having a
Speaker 1: tough time, aren't you? Yes, I'm having a hard time.
Speaker 1: But it really felt comforting, which is I just find amazing.
Speaker 1: You know, it's because it's just me and me, but
Speaker 1: in that moment, it feels like something bigger.
Speaker 2: You're very good at showing that to others, so maybe
Speaker 2: you need to show it to yourself more.
Speaker 1: I appreciate that, Skufu. I find out about you that
Speaker 1: you have so much. You bring out the best in people.
Speaker 1: I think that that seems to me to be your
Speaker 1: mission in life, and I think you do. You do
Speaker 1: that very well, and I think you do that by
Speaker 1: living it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, thank you. I really appreciate you saying that. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I wasn't fishing for a compliment, though. Something I'm so
Speaker 2: interested in is the notion of alignment. Man, I'm so
Speaker 2: interested in that, so interesting in that I don't feel
Speaker 2: like I'm like totally aligned. I feel like I'm this
Speaker 2: hodgepodge of contradictory drives and motivations and impulses and I'm
Speaker 2: just with a creative life. Do you have to have alignment?
Speaker 2: Is that a requirement? Because all these Buddhists and all
Speaker 2: these self help people and all these like mindful people
Speaker 2: are like, oh, let's be an alignment. I'm just like,
Speaker 2: does that necessary?
Speaker 1: That's the thing, Scott, talk to me. That's the thing.
Speaker 1: It's such a shame that mindfulness has been stripped of
Speaker 1: its realness, of its fun, of its rawness, of its edge,
Speaker 1: of its personality, and we're left with these anodyne, stereotypical
Speaker 1: or cliched images that are not inspiring, that are intimidating
Speaker 1: and off putting, and it makes it feel like mindfulness.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's you know, as if it's this kind
Speaker 1: of rarefied experience that it's only available to certain people,
Speaker 1: or you have to be a certain type of person,
Speaker 1: you have to wear certain clothes and do certain practices.
Speaker 1: But so that's why I love your question and I
Speaker 1: love the spirit behind it. Yeah, which, No, we don't
Speaker 1: have to we don't have to be perfectly aligned good,
Speaker 1: we don't have to be perfectly accepting. We don't have
Speaker 1: to do any of this stuff and not like and
Speaker 1: I don't mean that like well to you. I mean,
Speaker 1: if you want well being, it's your choice, not at all.
Speaker 1: It's we can be mindful and open and accepting of everything,
Speaker 1: including I think times when we're not so. Right now,
Speaker 1: I'm having a really hard time accepting reality. That's what's happening,
Speaker 1: and that can be part of my awareness. All right,
Speaker 1: that's what's happening right now. I'm pissed off, I'm bitter,
Speaker 1: I don't feel grateful, and maybe that can be part
Speaker 1: of our awareness too. It's all part of our experience.
Speaker 1: So I think part of real openness to our experience
Speaker 1: isn't coordinating off certain things, is like, well this is
Speaker 1: appropriate and these kinds of things are okay, and you
Speaker 1: need to check these other things at the door or
Speaker 1: else you're not being mindful as if I maybe I'm
Speaker 1: sensitive to this kind of thing, Scott, but because I'm
Speaker 1: our religious background. But at times it feels like there's
Speaker 1: this sort of this sort of judgment about like, oh, nope,
Speaker 1: you need to be more mindful. You need to like
Speaker 1: you need to pray.
Speaker 2: Read your pos like a judgment.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, like a judgment. Yeah, which is just you've
Speaker 1: written about this. I think, didn't you write about spiritual materialism?
Speaker 2: I spoke no, I wrote about spiritual narcissism.
Speaker 1: But it has that, it has that feeling of yeah,
Speaker 1: of you know, we it's this is how it is.
Speaker 1: Like I said something recently. I think I tweeted something
Speaker 1: about you know, if you meet mindfulness in the road
Speaker 1: kill it kind of joking about this. If you meet
Speaker 1: the Buddha, if anyone tells you this is what it
Speaker 1: is and it's not this, then then that's not mindfulness.
Speaker 1: I part of me would just like to get rid
Speaker 1: of the label because it's it's so limiting.
Speaker 2: But you write it. You have a chapter called work
Speaker 2: in Alignment, So I mean, what what are some of
Speaker 2: the ideas in that chapter that you can tell our audience,
Speaker 2: Because if you do see alignment as an important thing,
Speaker 2: yes according to your words, yeah yeah, yeah, yes.
Speaker 1: So why as it well for it? I mean, I
Speaker 1: think to me, alignment starts with that connection we were
Speaker 1: talking about, so coming into that connection with our you know,
Speaker 1: our minds are with our bodies, and our minds and
Speaker 1: bodies are in the present, and our body is always
Speaker 1: in the present, but we're we have the awareness of
Speaker 1: ourselves in this moment. And then I mean, alignment can
Speaker 1: mean so many things. But like we can align with
Speaker 1: our what I think of as our care instructions, like
Speaker 1: aligning with our needs for you know, the company of
Speaker 1: other people at least in certain doses, with our needs
Speaker 1: for adequate sleep, aligning with our need for exercise, for
Speaker 1: good nutrition, and then on a maybe a broader level,
Speaker 1: you know, aligning with the types of actions that are
Speaker 1: called for. Like if I'm let's say, I have something
Speaker 1: I need to do and I'm putting it off, then
Speaker 1: I'm out of alignment. I think I'm no longer aligned
Speaker 1: with the needs of the moment or what's being asked
Speaker 1: of me, or if someone wants my you know, the
Speaker 1: need might like like my child needs my attention and
Speaker 1: I'm working on something else. Then there's a misalignment between
Speaker 1: the demands of that moment and where I'm placing my
Speaker 1: attention and I'm going to experience that is.
Speaker 2: I see, I see. Oh wow, that makes a lot
Speaker 2: of sense. So it's an attention issue.
Speaker 1: I think a lot of it's an attentional issue.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: I also think it's a behavioral one.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: So if I'm if I'm doing work, oh man, I've
Speaker 1: done this a lot. I'm doing work that's not really
Speaker 1: it's not right for me, Like it's I don't enjoy it,
Speaker 1: it doesn't bring out the best in me. Maybe I
Speaker 1: hate doing it. That is, that's a major type of misalignment.
Speaker 2: I see, I see, And mindful CBT can help with that.
Speaker 2: How does mindful CBT help with that?
Speaker 1: Do you have an extra here's a quick exercise. So
Speaker 1: when when when we're feeling some kind of uncomfortable emotion,
Speaker 1: start with start with being So just a simple breath
Speaker 1: can do it. Then without just feel that connection with ourselves,
Speaker 1: and then we can ask from that place of connection,
Speaker 1: what do I need right in this moment? What is
Speaker 1: the need that my body or my mind or a
Speaker 1: deeper part of myself is calling for. Just take a
Speaker 1: moment and listen for that, and then with that awareness
Speaker 1: we can choose to act and bring ourselves more into alignment.
Speaker 1: I think some of these ideas might sound big, like
Speaker 1: living in alignment with your true self, but that can
Speaker 1: be really simple of just like doing activities that you
Speaker 1: like doing like boom aligned alignment check.
Speaker 2: But I'm confused. So what if I can't get the
Speaker 2: thing I want right now or what I need? Well,
Speaker 2: how's how's it helping? Anything? Like I say, is what
Speaker 2: do I need? And then I think of something I need?
Speaker 2: You know what if ilt like, you know, something like
Speaker 2: I want to need like a three hundred thousand dollars
Speaker 2: you know to you know, like, and that that doesn't come?
Speaker 2: Doesn't that make me? So? What is I'm sorry? So
Speaker 2: how was just thinking about that helpful? Explain that? Well?
Speaker 1: Part of alignment, I think is aligning with the reality
Speaker 1: of our situation. So I found you know, I was
Speaker 1: out of alignment when I was insisting that I shouldn't
Speaker 1: be sick. Oh yeah, and you know that I had, Yes,
Speaker 1: I had a need to be well, but I thought
Speaker 1: that the only way I could come into alignment was
Speaker 1: to fix my health. That's it. And I was holding out.
Speaker 1: I wasn't going to be okay until that happened. But
Speaker 1: I found this powerful alignment that to me felt like healing.
Speaker 2: Scott.
Speaker 1: I wasn't expecting this. But rather than my health kind
Speaker 1: of coming down or you know, improving to my my expectations,
Speaker 1: my demands were shifted to match the reality of where
Speaker 1: I was and in a practical way. And I wasn't
Speaker 1: overextending myself beyond the limits of my energy my concentration
Speaker 1: like I had been, And that felt like real alignment.
Speaker 1: It's like, all right, this is this is who I
Speaker 1: am right now. Like if I had a broken leg,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't expect to play basketball. That would be a
Speaker 1: huge misalignment. I'd probably literally misalign my bones if I
Speaker 1: did that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I see. So it's not like your mind
Speaker 2: is conjuring up the thing that you want. What are
Speaker 2: you doing? You're getting in touch? What is that meditation practice.
Speaker 2: It's getting in touch with what was it doing. It's honoring,
Speaker 2: it's honoring something within you. Maybe that's the way to
Speaker 2: phrase it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it's I think it's a it's addressing,
Speaker 1: it's identifying an actual need. So there might be a
Speaker 1: need for I see, like I need like I had this,
Speaker 1: this mismatch with my health. You know, I'm struggling with this,
Speaker 1: with this issue. And then by being aware of it,
Speaker 1: by honoring, Okay, I have this need, I have this
Speaker 1: the sense of something is not working, something's not working here,
Speaker 1: and then from there I can figure out ways to
Speaker 1: address it. But it doesn't have to mean O I
Speaker 1: have to fix this thing or the first thing that
Speaker 1: I want. It has to be that way. Maybe I'm
Speaker 1: lonely and I want to be with people, but that's
Speaker 1: just not available to me in that moment. I can
Speaker 1: find alignment by accepting that that's the way things are,
Speaker 1: and then also maybe making plans for you know, when
Speaker 1: I can to develop more connections so I experienced less
Speaker 1: less loneliness. Cool.
Speaker 2: Great, Well, let's let's let's move on to this idea
Speaker 2: of coming home. I mean, I think, I mean, that's
Speaker 2: a big theme of your whole book. It's just in
Speaker 2: a way, it seems like this reoccurring theme is we
Speaker 2: kind of was touch with ourselves, or we was touch
Speaker 2: with our values, we was touched with our purpose, losing
Speaker 2: touch with things and mindful CBT seems to be a
Speaker 2: constant coming home, a cycle, a cycle of coming home
Speaker 2: and leaving ourselves coming home. I don't know as what
Speaker 2: I'm saying, resonating in all with.
Speaker 1: You completely completely, Yeah, I didn't realize that until I
Speaker 1: got to the last chapter that that was kind of
Speaker 1: what the book was about.
Speaker 2: But I love when that happened.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, isn't that funny.
Speaker 2: Because that could have been the title of your book,
Speaker 2: coming Home.
Speaker 1: It could have been, and maybe it would have been
Speaker 1: more resonant than you know, these four very academic sounding words.
Speaker 2: I love your title. Well, you know, I love your
Speaker 2: title as it is, but it, you know, easily could
Speaker 2: have also been coming Home. Yeah, so okay, we'll talk
Speaker 2: a little bit about about that idea.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, it's once I started thinking about that theme
Speaker 1: in those terms, I realized that that theme is everywhere.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's you know, I talk about a Disney movie,
Speaker 1: you know where that's such a prominent theme probably a
Speaker 1: lot of Disney movies, because I think we all crave
Speaker 1: on a deep level, we crave real connection. That's our
Speaker 1: I think that's what we're built, that's what we're built for.
Speaker 1: In our our deepest realities, we are connected. That the
Speaker 1: separateness we imagine is not the ultimate truth of how
Speaker 1: things are anyway, that's a bit abstract. But I realized
Speaker 1: that that we were, that we can come home to
Speaker 1: ourselves in so many, so many different ways, Like just
Speaker 1: coming home to or connecting with ourselves in the moment
Speaker 1: is a kind of homecoming. Yeah, like oh yeah, I'm here,
Speaker 1: I'm right here, and that's right again. I Mean, I've
Speaker 1: talked about this already, but but there's a there's a
Speaker 1: sense of peace and calm that comes from that that
Speaker 1: that for me, I experience it as addressing this fairly
Speaker 1: constant drive I have to improve things or change things,
Speaker 1: change my experience, look for things that are better. But
Speaker 1: that's that tends to disconnect me from what's actually happening
Speaker 1: in a way that I don't really experience things as
Speaker 1: they are and definitely don't appreciate them. So if I'm
Speaker 1: sitting at my table, you know, at a meal, for example,
Speaker 1: I might be thinking about, you know, these these problems
Speaker 1: I'm dealing with, or these things I'd like to change,
Speaker 1: and I'm not really realizing, you know, like I've got
Speaker 1: this this table to eat out, I've got food, you know,
Speaker 1: as much food as I want. I have these people
Speaker 1: that I can share these meals with. But I'm looking
Speaker 1: for something better, something different. But when I just come back,
Speaker 1: I'm like, like, notice things as they are, Like even
Speaker 1: you know, the plates that I'm using, or the you know,
Speaker 1: the fork that I'm holding, the glass in my hand,
Speaker 1: the water that I'm drinking. It does it just it
Speaker 1: just feels like a homecoming, and it feels like it's
Speaker 1: satisfies that deep craving that we have to to be
Speaker 1: at home with ourselves to feel comfortable. I think if
Speaker 1: home is a place where we feel comfortable, we can
Speaker 1: put up our feet and maybe that's not the home
Speaker 1: we grew up in. Maybe home is not a place
Speaker 1: of comfort and ease, but but we can find a
Speaker 1: true home, that kind of that kind of mythic home
Speaker 1: that's that's always right here. I think it's always here
Speaker 1: when we come back. And because even for you know,
Speaker 1: for people who are listening right now. I think even
Speaker 1: just taking a moment that can be we can tap
Speaker 1: into that and I realize like, oh, like I don't
Speaker 1: have to search everywhere else for that, you know, the
Speaker 1: peace of mind that I'm looking for, you know. I
Speaker 1: compare it to having your glasses on top of your
Speaker 1: head and looking around everywhere, like where are they? Where
Speaker 1: are my glasses? And you're like, oh, they're right here,
Speaker 1: They're right here. Yeah. So that's what I what I
Speaker 1: come to in the book spoiler alert. But the home
Speaker 1: we're looking for is always right here. It's always available.
Speaker 2: It's a really powerful message, like like profoundly powerful message.
Speaker 2: You say, our mind, body, and spirit, and the answers
Speaker 2: we seek to life's persistent problems will inevitably include tending
Speaker 2: to our thoughts, acting in alignment with our goals, and
Speaker 2: being present to our experience. End quote. It seems like
Speaker 2: those that's a good summation of some of the mean
Speaker 2: components of mindful CBT and your approach. Thanks for the
Speaker 2: really pioneering work that you're doing in this field, in
Speaker 2: this approach, and for all the people you're helping. And
Speaker 2: I hope whenever you're feeling down. You can reconnect with
Speaker 2: your own self by remembering and reminding yourself just how
Speaker 2: many people, how many people's lives have changed thanks to
Speaker 2: your work. So hopefully you can remember that to help
Speaker 2: you reconnect with yourself and have your own homecoming. So
Speaker 2: thank you so much, Seth, thanks for being on my podcast.
Speaker 1: Thank you Scott, thank you for your kind words, Thanks
Speaker 1: for having me on.
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening to this episode of The Psychology Podcast.
Speaker 2: If you'd like to react in some way to something
Speaker 2: you heard, I encourage you to join in the discussion
Speaker 2: at thus Psychology podcast dot com or on our YouTube
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Speaker 2: you'll want to check that out. Thanks for being such
Speaker 2: a great supporter of the show, and tune in next
Speaker 2: time for more on the mind, brain, behavior, and creativity.